《Psycher Chronicles》


 Chapter 1 Therapy

    Chapter 1


    Therapy


    ¡°Good morning, Misha, do you know why you are here?¡± The well-dressed therapist, Dr. Grier, asks the girl wearing self-modified black gloves that have bands of copper wiring strung throughout, and wearing what appears to be a black bike helmet with a pair of modified black shades.


    ¡°I do, you are here to test my competency and to ensure that I am not a threat to myself or others.¡± The girl, Misha says, looking around the room as if she is in a self-created virtual reality game, even though it is clear the equipment she is wearing offers no such connectivity.


    ¡°Yes, that and we are also here to ask you about what you found at your grandmother¡¯s house.¡± Dr. Grier states cautiously, clearly not wanting to delve too deep into a topic that might be too much for most kids to handle.


    ¡°Oh, you mean the ghosts?¡± Misha asks.


    ¡°Yes, well not the ghosts, but the various bodies that were there as well.¡± Dr. Grier begins, but then pauses as she wonders how to continue the conversation.


    The girl for her part seems completely unfazed by the situation, part of the therapist¡¯s thoughts is that this is what one would expect from a typical seven-year-old that such concepts like life and death would be beyond their typical understanding. Yet, Dr. Grier thinks there might be more to this little girl who most might dismiss as cooky, but to Dr. Grier¡¯s eyes, the girl is clearly quite intelligent, if a bit eccentric.


    ¡°Did you know about the bodies before you found them?¡± Dr. Grier asked, trying to seem casual but inwardly feeling that the question was more forced than expected.


    ¡°No, how could I. Grandpa forbid us from ever seeing him, especially after I tried to tell mother that he had fresh blood on his shoes that came from a girl.¡±


    Gasp.


    The mother who had been part of this session suddenly clasped her hands over her mouth in astonishment, as she just seemed to realize the truth of the words.


    Tears.


    The mother was instantly crying, covering her mouth with her hands. The whole event of finally being able to go over and visit grandmother, then their daughter going missing only to find her talking to the open air in their grandmother¡¯s backyard, then to finally find that no less than ten bodies, and counting were found.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s right. You did. I am so sorry pumpkin.¡± The mother said, as she ran over to hug her daughter who seemed completely unaffected by the sudden contact or the emotional reaction from her mother.


    After a moment, the therapist cut in, trying to save the moment and grab onto as many details as possible before the mother became an incoherent mess.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, when was this incident?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°This was, gods, I don¡¯t when. Three, maybe four years ago. The last time we were allowed to visit my grandparents, that is when she had that weird conversation with grandpa. She had snuck into his room and found his gardening boots. Oh, gods, did she? Could I have stopped?¡± At that point the mother, Andrea, began to break down into an inconsolable mess.


    The doctor saw all the signs of grief on her face. The family had gone through a lot, as they had recently gone through the death of their grandfather, the subsequent reacceptance back into the grandmother¡¯s life, then finally the finding of an apparent murder graveyard by the estranged grandfather. From what it sounded like, the grandmother was not having a good time of it either, though from all accounts she seemed to be the na?ve housewife.


    Finally, after a few minutes, Dr. Grier began asking the odd girl some more questions.


    ¡°What made you think that the dirt you saw on your grandfather¡¯s boots was blood?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    Misha just paused, whatever odd dance she was doing with her hands and turned her full helmet covered face toward the doctor before answering.


    ¡°Well, it was clearly blood, as blood has a certain energy to it. Then his overreaction and dismissal from his house and the barring of us ever returning should have also been an indication that things weren¡¯t exactly perfect there.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Right but I just thought that¡± Andrea, the mother, began but found the words getting caught in her throat, so she stopped her response.


    ¡°You thought that he, like father, thought I was a freak and thus decided to leave us the same way he did. I get it.¡± Misha said, again her voice showing no true sign of emotion, as most children, especially little girls would have at the thought of their father leaving.


    ¡°You seem awfully brave.¡± Dr. Grier stated.


    With that, the little girl just shrugged, before going back to her own world of moving her gloved hands and interacting with seemingly nothing.


    ¡°Can I ask what you are doing?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°Practicing.¡±


    ¡°Practicing what?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    At that the mother took a deep breath, as if in preparation for a subject that she knew would come, while also being somewhat embarrassed by the response.


    The girl, being somehow very perceptive of her surroundings despite her young age just looked to her mother, then answered innocuously, ¡°life.¡±


    With that the mother let out a deep sigh of relief. Almost imperceptibly, her daughter lowered her shoulders just slightly at that reaction. It was clear that Misha had altered her answer to make her mother feel more comfortable. Given that there was an active murder investigation, and that Dr. Grier had been tasked with trying to find out everything she could about what the little girl saw, and how she identified the Shenandoah Killer, as the police called him. That is when Dr. Grier came up with a plan.


    ¡°Would it be okay if I asked your daughter a few questions in private?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Andrea hearing this looked like she wanted to protest, but then she realized how it would look if she refused. Thus, she reluctantly paused.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I will have a separate session with you right afterwards as well.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    With that Andrea nodded her head, before shakily getting up to her feet. ¡°All right. Pumpkin, I will be just outside getting a soda. Would you like one?¡±


    Hearing that the girl just shook her head, ¡°water please.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Andrea said, mentally chastising herself for forgetting that her daughter was on a health kick. Or was it really a kick if it happened for a few years now?


    Click.


    The door closed behind the mother. All the while, Dr. Grier watched for any signs of a reaction from the little girl. Who for her part just kept moving her hands around in a rhythmic motion, that the doctor would almost swear was dancing, but there was no music being played.


    ¡°Can I ask what you are doing?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    With that the girl paused, then turned to Dr. Grier. Pausing she asked, ¡°do you want to know for yourself, or as a doctor?¡±


    Hearing that, Dr. Grier wanted to answer immediately, but something caused her to pause. There was a weight to her words. Even at seven this girl had a commanding presence, an almost aura to her that was nearly impossible to describe. Pausing, Dr. Grier weighed the response, then truthfully said. ¡°For myself honestly, you are a remarkable young girl who has been through a lot.¡±


    Nodding her head, the girl made a quick gesture with her hands.


    Click.


    There was the slight sound of something clicking in the distance, just when Dr. Grier was about to look, the girl answered. ¡°I haven¡¯t been through a lot, those that were killed have.¡±


    Dr. Grier momentarily caught off guard by the statement, looked from her stand that held a hidden camera, the source where she swore, she heard the clicking come from. Then she turned back to the girl and began asking the questions that came to her.


    ¡°How do you know?¡±


    ¡°They told me.¡±


    ¡°The ghosts?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s why they stay. They felt anger and betrayal. Then worse, they wanted others to know. And of course, to stop any future murders.¡± Misha said, once again going back to her semi-rhythmic dancing.


    ¡°Did your mother tell you about them?¡±


    ¡°How would she know, we were cut off from them for four years, until grandpa had a heart attack.¡±


    Hearing that Dr. Grier nodded her head.


    ¡°You are certain that there has been no contact between your grandparents and your mother until recently?¡±


    ¡°More so than you are certain about your husband not seeing his work colleague. He is by the way.¡±


    Dr. Grier paused, feeling like she had been punched in the face and the gut simultaneously. ¡°I¡¯m sorry what?¡±


    ¡°You are correct, your husband is cheating on you with his work colleague, but not the one you think. It is the other one from shipping.¡± Misha says.


    Hearing this, so many emotions swelled up within Dr. Grier that she didn¡¯t know where to begin. First, this kid was spooky. The way she knew things, like how could anyone expect her husband of an affair, let alone a seven-year-old kid. There were also details that no one should be privy too, as there were two girls that Dr. Grier had originally expected, but she quickly ruled out the girl from shipping as, well honestly Dr. Grier couldn¡¯t tell you why she ruled her out. Other than possibly the biased thinking that her husband would be going down for the hot receptionist in shipping, versus punching up for his co-worker.


    Shaking her head, Dr. Grier didn¡¯t want to get into that part of her life, not now, not ever. It had been something she had accepted, but now she had to wonder, but that would come later. Much later, after a long hot soak, and possibly a glass or two of wine. For now, she had this girl that clearly was coming up with odd coping mechanisms, but why would she need such advanced coping mechanisms at her age? What had she been subjected to, that made her this way?


    ¡°Thank you for that, though I think we should talk more about yourself. Can I ask what you are doing?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°I am practicing my technic-codas.¡±


    ¡°A techni-whata?¡±


    ¡°Technic-coda, movements to better integrate with technology.¡± The girl said.


    ¡°Right, and where did you learn this? Did you see it on television? A particular show?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°No, that stuff will rot your brain.¡± The girl said, adamantly believing her statement.


    ¡°You know that isn¡¯t true, right? That Television will rot your brain? That is just a myth.¡± Dr. Grier said, trying to help the child at least get over this misconception that she had undoubtedly been told.


    Shaking her head, the girl replied, ¡°no, it does rot your brain. At least the part of the cerebral cortex responsible for deeper cognitive processing.¡±


    Not wanting to get into an argument with the girl who was showing signs of being agitated about her view on watching television, or not watching it in this case, the Doctor decided to push her questions in a different direction.


    ¡°So, these technic-codas, where did you learn them from exactly.¡±


    ¡°From my past life.¡±


    Hearing this, Dr. Grier choked up, hearing the statement and then instantly felt floored.


    ¡°Past life, you remember a past life?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°What exactly did you do in this past life of yours?¡±


    ¡°I was Psycher. A pyrotechnic psyche to be honest, though I did have an affinity for technomancy, it wasn¡¯t discovered until later.¡± The girl answered completely truthfully.


    Shiver.


    ¡°A Psycher? What exactly is that?¡± Dr. Grier asked, wondering where this term came from, especially if she didn¡¯t watch television. Not that any show on now had Psychers, not even recent books that would be appropriate for a child, let alone an adult seemed to have this term in it, so she was curious about the imagination of this little girl.


    ¡°A Psycher is a space ranger. Someone who was meant to go out to the edges of the universe and save civilization as we knew it.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°So you were a hero in your past life?¡±


    ¡°No, we died by the enemy at the edge of the universe. Our commander¡¯s last action was to detonate our ship, before the enemy could track us to our new location.¡± Misha answered.


    As she spoke, she had a distance to her look. Even with the shades, Dr. Grier had gotten better at following the flickers of light to see where Misha¡¯s eyes were pointing. This time they were pointing down and to the left, as if recalling a memory. Her voice was subdued as if remembering something particularly troubling, in a way she had a harder time speaking about this past life than she did the veritable graveyard she found in the back of her grandparents¡¯ estate. Hearing this, Dr. Grier knew that this was her coping mechanism, the way she dealt with everything.


    ¡°So in this life you want to be a technomantic, versus a pyromantic?¡±


    ¡°A Technomancer, not a pyrotechnic, again, but yes.¡± She said, making sure to stress the technic part of the word.


    Dr. Grier opened her mouth to speak again, but then was cut off by the large wooden clock in the corner.


    Chime, chime, ding.


    ¡°I guess that is all we can cover for today. Would you like to meet again?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think my opinion really matters with this, as it is likely necessary until you rule us out as suspects, or having more information that could possibly link grandmother to the crimes.¡± Misha said, her voice almost cold and reserved from the conversation at hand.


    Hearing that, Dr. Grier just paused her eyes going wide with how situationally aware this child was of the way the world worked in general. Not wanting to belittle her intelligence, Dr. Grier answered truthfully.


    ¡°That is part of it, though I do think you too could benefit from having someone to talk to. It can¡¯t be easy with your father gone.¡±


    With that Misha just shrugged and got up.


    ¡°Please let your mom come in. Though I will need you to remain outside while I talk to her quickly, is that okay?¡±


    Misha just nodded.


    ¡°If you want there is a playroom down at the end of the hallway.¡± Dr. Grier said, pointing in the direction of the playroom.


    At that the girl visibly snarled at the thought. ¡°The one with the old staticky television blaring in the corner.¡±


    Hearing that, Dr. Grier paused, as this was the first true emotion the girl had shown all session, and it was about the state of her old television of all things. Yes, it was an old television, but the images it showed were clear, and it picked up all the local channels for free, which was the most important thing for her practice. Yet, after hearing her and seeing her reaction, Dr. Grier couldn¡¯t help but wonder if there was more to this apparent disdain of televisions for her.


    Misha strode out to leave, but then stopped as she got to the door. ¡°Oh yeah,¡± she said, before waving her cloved hands in the direction of the hidden camera.


    Click.


    This was the second time the girl had done that odd set of hand movements, and the second time she had also heard the audible clicking sound that lets her know when her camera is rolling to preserve the session.


    Just as Dr. Grier was about to ask the girl about that, her thoughts were distracted when the mother, Andrea, came in.


    ¡°You said, you wanted to see me?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Yes, it is about your daughter. I think she might need some help coping with everything that is going on in her life.¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    Sigh.


    At this Andrea just let out an exasperated sigh. This was the sigh of a desperate mother struggling to make ends meet, one who just found out that she might need to come up with yet more money to pay yet another unexpected bill.


    ¡°Relax, I think I can work with the investigators to cover my fees for a bit.¡± Dr. Grier said, as she pulled out a business card from her pocket.


    ¡°You want to see her again?¡± Andrea asked, confused more than anything about this.


    ¡°You mean, did she scare me off?¡± Dr. Grier asked, her tone light and joking, though Andrea¡¯s reaction told her that was exactly what she was thinking. ¡°No, I think your daughter is exceptionally smart, and self-aware. I also think that she has been through a lot and would likely need some help to get through this part of her life.¡±


    There was an awkward pause, as Dr. Grier held out the card to Andrea.


    ¡°Do you think it will help?¡± Andrea asked, her whole-body trembling as she thought about throwing away more money, money that was very precious at this time.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think it would hurt.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    At that, Andrea nodded and with a trembling hand took the card, desperate for something that would help her daughter, but hesitant about paying yet another doctor¡¯s bill.


    ¡°She really is exceptional.¡± Dr. Grier said, trying to be reassuring.


    ¡°I know.¡± Andrea replied, then after carefully putting away the card, she made her way to the door. Where her daughter was there standing in the middle of the hallway, arms out wide as her gloved hands groped for imaginary objects, while her eyes shifted about wildly.


    ¡°Oh, my.¡± Andrea said, clearly startled to see her daughter there staring straight forward into the room, but somehow clearly oblivious to the world around her. Or the fact that she was in the middle of a hallway drawing attention to herself.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry Dr. Grier, I forwarded the incriminating evidence to you.¡± Misha said.


    Ping.


    ¡°What?¡± Was all Dr. Grier managed to say, before she received a link to a drop box account.


    ¡°There was too much for one email, so I had to create a private storage account for it. Hope it helps.¡± Misha said.


    Pausing, Dr. Grier accessed the link, something she knew she should never do, but she was too curious. Then she saw it, videos, emails, pictures, hotel receipts from credit card purchases together. Everything showing that her husband had been unfaithful. All there in a magic drop box.


    Pausing Dr. Grier turned to the girl, trying to wonder how she had managed to access the internet at all. Then jumping up from her seat, she darted out the door where she saw the seven-year-old wearing a modified black biker helmet and black gloves bouncing playfully through the hallways. Just as Dr. Grier was about to ask her questions, she heard the pair speak.


    ¡°How would you send her information?¡± The mother asked curiously, clearly trying to play along with her daughter¡¯s antics.


    ¡°With my mind, of course. Don¡¯t worry, I sent the link from the husband¡¯s alternate account, so there was no tie to you. Also, this way it will look like he accidentally self-incriminated himself.¡±


    ¡°Accidentally self-incriminated?¡± The mother asked.


    ¡°Yes, it is best for the doctor.¡±


    ¡°So you like the doctor then?¡±


    ¡°I like her. She is a bit too trusting, but honest.¡±


    ¡°So you want to go back?¡±


    ¡°As long as I don¡¯t have to wait in the waiting room¡­¡± She said, as she took her first step out the main door and out towards the parking lot.


    After hearing all of that, Dr. Grier paused, then realized she was going to have a busy day.


    ¡°Jean,¡± Dr. Grier said, to her receptionist.


    ¡°Yes, Dr. Grier?¡±


    ¡°Cancel all my appointments around lunch. I need to make an emergency stop to a lawyer.¡± Dr. Grier said, realizing that she needed to act quickly with the information she had been given. By a seven-year-old girl no less. Then out of curiosity, she pulled up her session recording with her laptop, only to find that there was a blank space in recording time. Right from when the girl began to wave hands, to when she was seen exiting the room to bring in her mother.


    ¡°What an odd little girl.¡± Was all Dr. Grier could say, after replaying everything and going over the details in her mind. Then she quickly dismissed those, as she had work to do, and a cheating husband to get rid of.

 Chapter 2 She鈥檚 Electric

    Chapter 2


    She¡¯s Electric


    Dr. Grier watched the little girl with her helmet and gloves enter the office building. In a way she looked like a cross between a space cadet, and a racecar driver. Her clothes were plain and nondescript, which only helped to highlight how odd the gloves and other accessories she wore were.


    ¡°Good morning Misha, are you ready?¡± Dr. Grier asked, going out and personally meeting with Misha.


    This time Misha appeared less troubled than she had, the last time they met. Part of this was likely due to the way the old television in the corner and other electronic devices were conveniently left turned off.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha said, a somewhat formal tone to her speech as if she was pretending to be royalty, though there was nothing feigned about her movements or posture. Her stance was erect, her movements were graceful. These were all things she had missed the last time the girl was here, as all of those facets were completely overshadowed by how her accessories that detracted from her actual bearing.


    As the pair made their way back to her office, Dr. Grier watched the mother for any signs of grace or regal bearing in her posture. To no real surprise, Andrea, the mother, did not show any signs of the grace that was now on display by the young patient. That is what this girl was this time, a patient, not a key witness for a multiple murder investigation that was still ongoing, but a true patient. One who would be treated and helped as needed.


    When the pair entered her office, Dr. Grier once again witnessed the girl make a quick movement with her hands. Followed immediately by an audible click, on the far side of the room.


    This time Dr. Grier was certain that the video would be turned off for this session. Did it mean that the girl had something to hide? Or was it something more innocuous, like the girl clearly not liking the exposure of electromagnetic waves as she claimed.


    The mother went to a chair on the far end of the room, out of direct sight, but still positioned where she could see everything that was happening to her daughter.


    Misha, the daughter, for her part just found a slightly raised section of carpet and gracefully slid down into a crossed-legged stance almost effortlessly. Once again, the girl chose not to sit in one of the comfy chairs that had been set up around the room. Nor did she reach for any of the toys and manipulatives that were right next to her. Instead, she just sat down and apparently stared straight forward at an empty wall.


    ¡°Hello Misha, it has been a while.¡± Dr. Grier began.


    ¡°Twenty-five days and twenty-three hours.¡± Misha said, nodding her head in agreement.


    Dr. Grier doing a quick look at her calendar realized that the statement was accurate. This was yet another subtle sign of the brilliance of the girl, which was something that Dr. Grier decided she would go back on, for now she wanted to hear from the girl what her day was like.


    ¡°Yes, yes it has. Now today is a Thursday, can you tell me what a typical day of yours looks like?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°I get up, make my bed. Shower, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, then do a set of stretches.¡±


    ¡°Stretches, do you mean like yoga?¡± Dr. Grier asked, having already heard this from the mother, but was confused when she heard this.


    Misha paused, thinking about the words, but then shaking her head. ¡°No, that would probably be the closest, but I focus on awakening my own channels.¡±


    ¡°Channels?¡±


    ¡°Yes, energy channels. I¡¯ve found that stretching in the morning, noon, and night is best for awakening my body¡¯s full potential.¡± Misha said, then almost subconsciously she began to move her hands in that semi-rhythmic fashion that she had the previous time she was here.


    ¡°Like you are doing now?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    Pausing, Misha looked almost shocked that she had been moving. ¡°Yes, though the stretches I do in the morning are a lot more intense.¡±


    At that Andrea nodded her head in agreement. Again, more things to go back to, as Dr. Grier really wanted to know about what intense meant, but there were somethings that she wanted to get to. Some agenda items that were specifically asked for by mom to cover, which Dr. Grier was more than happy to help with.


    ¡°So you stretch, then what?¡±


    ¡°I go to school, come back, stretch, do my homework, work out, then I do my chores, meditate on my actions for the day, before stretching one last time, then I go to bed.¡± Misha said.


    Hearing all that, Dr. Grier found herself locking eyes with Andrea, only for her to nod her head vigorously in agreement. Her eyes were wide and expressive, showing that she too would have a hard time believing it, if she didn¡¯t witness it every day.


    ¡°Wow, there is a lot to unpack there. But I want to focus on some of the things you noted. You said you workout?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Can you describe your typical workout?¡±


    ¡°I generally do an assortment of planks, pushups, squats, sit-ups, burpies, before going into my throwing routines. Then I run movement drills, then a few cool down pushups and squats.¡± Misha said, stating things as fact that once again the mother just nodded her head in agreement about.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    ¡°Throwing drills?¡± Dr. Grier found herself asking.


    ¡°Yes, I practice for both baseball and basketball. Given that they are two different sized spheres and two different objectives to aim for, they require different training conditions.¡±


    ¡°Now you said baseball, not softball?¡±


    ¡°Right, there are no professional softball teams that are televised.¡±


    ¡°So your goal with this is to get recognition?¡±


    At that Misha paused. ¡°No, I just know that traditionally male dominated sports get better scholarship opportunities, than other sports.¡±


    ¡°So your goal is to eventually get a scholarship for college?¡±


    ¡°One of my goals, yes.¡±


    Hearing that Dr. Grier was honestly impressed. ¡°What do you intend to major when you get to college?¡±


    ¡°Engineering.¡± Misha said but said so with a faint hint of disdain in her voice.


    Seeing the way her hands were covered with modified gloves and a weirdly insulated helmet, Dr. Grier could see the engineering angle of interest, but there was something about her response that made Dr. Grier ask more questions. ¡°Don¡¯t you normally dislike most electrical products?¡±


    Huff.


    At that the girl let out an audible sigh of annoyance. ¡°Yes, which is why I intend to revolutionize the process and switch from basic electrical circuits to crystalline substrates.¡±


    ¡°This will cut down on the amount of electrical energy being released?¡±


    ¡°Yes, though probably not enough to make a true difference.¡± Misha said.


    Again, there was a lot there, but Misha had said something earlier, and it was a topic that her mother had also expressed a great deal of interest in knowing the truth about.


    ¡°Going back to something you said earlier. You said you work out in Baseball and Basketball both because you could get recognized.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    Shaking her head, Misha corrected. ¡°No, I said, I just know that traditionally male dominated sports get better scholarship opportunities, than other sports.¡±


    Misha said, quoting verbatim what she had said prior. ¡°Right, but there was the implied undertone, or what others could assume was implied in that by doing this, you would be recognized. Is that fair to state?¡±


    Hearing that Misha paused, then shruggingly answered. ¡°Of course, people aren¡¯t going to provide additional funds for sports that no one wishes to see. As such, it only makes sense that the sports that are watched more are better funded.¡±


    ¡°Now I am led to believe that these were also the sports that you watched with your father?¡± Dr. Grier asked, trying to pose the topic lightly, but in her heart she knew this subject could go wild in a second.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Your father was also the same one who first showed you how to practice for both sports right?¡±


    ¡°That is correct.¡±


    ¡°Do you think that by practicing these sports you will eventually be able to bring back your father?¡±


    At that Misha shook her head and looked squarely at Dr. Grier as if she had gone mad. The look would have normally elicited a laugh from the doctor, as her entire demeanor was so incongruous, her shocked look, along with the fact that she was wearing a helmet that covered most of her face and eyes.


    ¡°No, I know it won¡¯t bring him back. He is in a slum house outside of Vegas with an escort laying next to him.¡± Misha answered.


    Hearing all of this, Dr. Grier¡¯s first reaction was to look at the mother. The obvious thought would be, what is she letting this girl watch at home? While other kids are watching Sesame Street, she is apparently watching one of the many vice homicide shows? Then the details of whom she was talking to, and her mind cleared up for a moment. That and the look of shock that the mother had on her face, as she too apparently wondered where that idea came from.


    ¡°You don¡¯t watch crime shows on television do you?¡±


    Disgust.


    The girl looked visibly disgusted by the suggestion, ¡°no, that stuff rots your brain.¡±


    Hearing that Dr. Grier asked the next most obvious question, to see if there was an answer there. ¡°Did one of your friends at school tell you about a show they watched.¡±


    Scoff.


    With that Misha just scoffed in utter discontent at the question. Before she could reply, Andrea cut in. ¡°Misha doesn¡¯t have many friends at school.¡±


    ¡°Is that true?¡± Dr. Grier asked, a note of sadness filling her as she realized that making friends would be hard for anyone. Let alone a bright and intelligent girl like her, with her quirks.


    ¡°They are all insipid, playing in the dirt, bragging about how long they were allowed to rot their brains.¡± Misha said, disdain was evident in her voice. Disdain and possibly something else. It was clear that this was something that Dr. Grier could help the girl work with.


    ¡°Do you get made fun of because of the way you dress?¡±


    ¡°You mean, do they not understand my need to protect myself?¡± She said, holding up her gloved hands for display. ¡°Then yes.¡±


    ¡°Why do you need to protect yourself? I mean I get that televisions and other electronic devices set you off. I get that, but this seems to be deeper than just mere electronic devices, as you are wearing it here even now, in what should be a safe space.¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    With that Misha slumped her shoulders at the comment. ¡°I am working on my tolerances, but it is taking longer than expected.¡±


    ¡°Do you feel empowered by wearing the helmet? Does it make you feel like you are a superhero? Or an astronaut?¡± Dr. Grier pressed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t feel powerful with the helmet, but the different rays and frequencies really hurt when I don¡¯t have the helmet on.¡± Misha said.


    At this point Andrea cut in, ¡°when she was young she would cry uncontrollably when the microwave was on, nearly going into a panic attack every time I tried to heat her meals.¡±


    ¡°Has that gone away?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    Misha just shook her head.


    ¡°No, now I just tell her that I am about to use the microwave and she generally goes to her room or outside. Somehow, she comes back after the microwave is done, even if she is too far away to hear the dinging sound.¡± Andrea said.


    At this Dr. Grier was really intrigued, as the whole thing seemed fantastical, but it clearly was happening and was a major thing for this little girl.


    Hearing this, Dr. Grier decided to try to offer up some form of advice to the little girl.


    ¡°Have you tried working on ways to improve your resistance to these electronic waves? I mean the waves are not going away, meaning before you start your industrial revolution, you will need to be resilient to these sensations you are experiencing. Maybe think of building some type of mental armor that protects you from this?¡± Dr. Grier asked, trying to pose something that might possibly help in this situation.


    ¡°Mental resistance to electronic and magnetic wavelengths?¡± Misha said to herself, clearly pondering the answer, as she put her hand up to her chin in contemplation. Then nodding to herself, Misha quickly unclasped her helmet from around her head. Then let the helmet rest in her lap.


    As the helmet went away, Dr. Grier was left speechless at the beautiful girl who sat there with sandy brown hair and deep green eyes just staring off into the distance. Then closing her eyes, she seemed to focus.


    Chills.


    There was a slight tingling sensation that ran down the back of Dr. Grier¡¯s neck as she felt the energy of the room suddenly change. This wasn¡¯t the same change that happens with emotional shifts of subjects, something she was well used to seeing.


    Instead, this was more a shift in the actual energy of the room, as if suddenly every molecule of energy within the room was forced to stand still.


    Zzap.


    BOOM!


    There was an electrical burst, followed by what had to be the explosion of the building¡¯s large transformer exploding outside. Then darkness settled over most of the room. Fortunately, it was still daylight out, but Dr. Grier would never forget what she saw next.


    The girl¡¯s eyes glowed with a golden color for a second, then she turned to face Dr. Grier. Their eyes met, and for a moment Dr. Grier thought she could see something more. Every muscle in her body told her to get up and go to the girl, to help her, but fear gripped her. Held her tight and forced her to just watch on. Then finally, the girl blinked, the electricity in her eyes faded, and she passed out.


    Shock.


    Dr. Grier just sat there in shock for a second, just watching the girl slump forward, her legs still locked in the lotus position. Though now her body was slumped forward, head pressed against the ground, back bowed, and legs resting on the ground.


    Whir.


    There was the sound of a mechanical whirring happening, then slowly the lights and power went back on, revealing the small form of Misha on the ground. Her helmet still clutched in her stomach.


    Seeing the girl who clearly was passed out in her office, Dr. Grier immediately went over to her, and began trying help her.


    ¡°Misha!¡± Andrea too was also scrambling forward as she made it to her daughter just a second before Dr. Grier could.


    In seconds Andrea began strapping the helmet back on her daughter, unhooked her legs and began laying the little girl back to rest in her lap.


    During this time Dr. Grier called emergency services, trying to make sure she didn¡¯t lose her first patient she was treating while in her office. Let alone one who seemed to have as much talent as Misha did.


    ¡°Hello, this is emergency dispatch, what is the emergency?¡±


    ¡°Hi, my name is Dr. Grier, and one of my patients has passed out during the middle of our session.¡±


    Somehow the words came through her, as she felt the words flow out of her as if she was just a conduit for the information. Her voice and tone felt stripped of all emotion, as she tried to give as many facts and details as possible to get the emergency services here as quickly as possible.

 Chapter 3 Acceptance

    Chapter 3


    Acceptance


    Beep, beep, beep.


    The rhythmic sounds of the EKG machine registering heartbeat after heartbeat rebounded and echoed throughout the hospital room.


    Coma.


    That is the medical term for what was happening right now to the little girl who lay motionless. Well, that was not entirely true, her eyes never seemed to stop moving, always in a state of near perpetual motion.


    As Andrea watched, that was the one main solace that she received throughout this whole ordeal; the fact that her daughter, always so bright and aware of her surroundings, was now down to a motionless bag of skin.


    ¡°You can wear your helmet, and your gloves every day. Just wake up. I swear I won¡¯t argue or plead with you to stop wearing them, anymore.¡± Andrea pleaded.


    Rapid eye movement.


    A twitch of her right hand.


    Shaking at the shoulders.


    So many signs that her daughter was alive and fighting in there. ¡°Please just come back to me.¡±


    More movement.


    The doctor said in these cases that movement seemed to be good. Also, he encouraged Andrea to continue talking to her, as there was a significant spike in registered brain activities whenever she di speak to her. That was why Andrea spent pretty much every waking hour here at the hospital.


    At first, Andrea would go to work, but fortunately this somehow fell under the Family Medical Leave Act, meaning she could take as much time as she needed. Well not infinite time but seeing as it had only been thirty days to this point, she was well within the window of time covered. Meaning that so long as Misha woke up soon, this would all be over. She would be able to be here for her daughter when she awoke and be able to see her bright green eyes and hopefully take her home.


    As for the bills, those too were somehow covered. An anonymous donor from Vegas apparently won heavily and electronically gifted it to the random GoFundMe page that had been set up for Misha. There was also the insurance from Dr. Grier¡¯s office that was also helping to cover most of the expenses as well.


    Still the whole incident seemed odd.


    Again, there were so many odd occurrences, as always seemed to happen around Misha that Andrea didn¡¯t know if it was a blessing from the Gods, a curse from below, or just one of the seemingly millions of random events that always seem to somehow follow Misha around.


    Still, as a mother she couldn¡¯t help but worry about her daughter.


    Just as Andrea began to stare off anywhere else other than her daughter¡¯s sleeping form, it happened.


    Rustle.


    The bed shook violently. Startled Andrea looked down to see that her daughter was beginning to shake violently.


    Panic.


    Once again, Andrea was powerless to stop anything that was happening. Her body froze as she saw the events happening to her daughter. Her body was shaking, her teeth were grit in determination.


    Golden light seemed to radiate throughout different parts of her body.


    For a moment, Andrea wondered whether she needed to get the nurse.


    Annkk! Annkk! Annkk!


    Just when Andrea was about to do something, the EKG that had been monitoring her steady heart beat all this time began spiking violently. Looking over the numbers on the monitor were high, much too high.


    122 Heartbeats Per Minute.


    134 Heartbeats Per Minute.


    142 Heartbeats Per Minute.


    And climbing.


    Rapid breathing.


    Misha began taking in and then letting out lungs full of air in violent bursts. For a moment Andrea saw an emotion on her daughter¡¯s face. A face that had been blank and sterile for so long was now showing one clear emotion.


    Determination.


    Seeing the look Andrea felt a surge of hope swell up in her. Then speaking from the heart, she said the first two words that came to her.


    ¡°Fight it.¡±


    A slight pause, and for a second Andrea was certain that her baby girl had heard her. Somehow despite everything, she felt that her daughter¡¯s consciousness had stopped fighting whatever it was doing, and she felt a weight stare at her for a moment. Then she could swear that her daughter nodded.


    She nodded.


    Misha had heard, and she acknowledged the request.


    Then Misha seemed to double down in her determination. This was the look that Andrea had seen numerous times, the look of complete and utter defiance. Normally, Misha would not care about anything, but on those one or two subjects that she cared about, she would ball up her feet, lower her chin just slightly, and dig her heels in. Right now, Andrea saw her doing all three. Her fingers were balled into fists, her feet were actively pressing down on the bed, and her head was elevated.


    Not much, but when she hadn¡¯t made many movements over the last month, these slight movements meant everything to Andrea.


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    ¡°Come on girl, you can do it.¡± Andrea shouted.


    Movement.


    A nurse poked her head into the room, ran over, and hit the alarm to turn off the incessant alarm of the machine. Then she looked at Misha who was spasming and bucking.


    She was fighting, and better still, she was winning. Andrea was certain that, if there was anything her daughter was good at, it was winning fights. Right now, in this moment Andrea swore she would give Misha anything she wanted. Whether it was to wear her helmet always. To get new ones that would fit her ever growing head. Anything, she would get it all, so long as Misha, her Misha, came back to her.


    The nurse left in a near sprint. No doubt to get a doctor or someone, but that was all external. Right now, Andrea didn¡¯t care. For her, all that mattered was the fact that her baby girl was fighting for her life and if she was fighting, then that meant she would win.


    ¡°Okay, okay.¡± Dr. Lopez said, as she spoke to the frantic nurse outside and then made her way inside the room.


    Bucking, spasming, fighting.


    Misha was fighting, with every ounce of strength that her seven-year-old body could muster.


    The Doctor came in, held a hand against her spasming and clinched hand.


    ¡°She is spiking. We need to administer a sedative.¡± Dr. Lopez shouted, trying to get the nurse to get the right bottle.


    Hearing that, a motherly instinct kicked in. Somehow Andrea knew that administering a sedative now, when her daughter was so close to waking up, to fighting her way through this mess. That she had to stop her. That she had to do something to protect her daughter.


    ¡°NO!¡± Andrea snarled at the doctor.


    ¡°What?¡± Dr. Lopez asked, shock evident on her face while the body of the little girl spasmed below.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare sedate her. Not when she is this close to waking up!¡± Andrea shouted over the spasming violent kicks of her daughter.


    ¡°She is going to go into cardiac arrest if we do not stop her.¡±


    ¡°If you stop her now, she will die. Maybe not physically, but mentally she will be gone.¡± Andrea said, again words and thoughts coming to her. Once again there was a slight stillness to Misha who seemed to have stopped for the moment, as if wondering if there would be a sedative applied.


    ¡°Okay, so you are refusing medical treatment for your daughter?¡± Dr. Lopez asked.


    ¡°I am refusing you to kill my daughter right now.¡± Andrea said, a note of powerful protection in her voice.


    There was a moment of silence as the two stared at each other. Finally, the doctor let out a breath and began to take a step away.


    Seeing that, Andrea let out a breath of relief.


    Then as if waiting to see if Andrea would in fact win, that is when Misha focused inwardly again. Once again, her body began to spasm violently. Her legs and arms were kicking and flailing sporadically.


    Then just as it looked like Dr. Lopez was about to do something else, it happened.


    WHOOSH!


    Once again, another burst of electrical energy pulsed through the room. This was just like how this all started with them being at Dr. Grier¡¯s office. That same electromagnetic pulse that seemed to go into and through you.


    Whoom.


    The room being set in the middle of the hospital went dark almost immediately.


    Rustle.


    There were the final last few minutes of the sound of arms hitting against taught bed sheets.


    Then silence.


    Only the breath of the doctors and nurses could be heard. As for Andrea she was silent, as she held onto her breath with every fiber of her being.


    Then glowing golden eyes opened, illuminating the dark room.


    Chills.


    A shiver ran down Andrea¡¯s back. Then she watched as the eyes of her daughter tracked over the room, until they finally settled on her.


    Whirr.


    The moment their eyes met, the electrical tension that had been in the room suddenly drained. At the same time the mechanical devices of the hospital all began to roar back to life as the backup generators kicked in.


    ¡°Thank you, mother.¡± Misha said, apparently unaffected by anything happening around her. There was a slight pause, as somehow Misha had always had a hard time calling her mother, as if the term was somehow alien to her. Yet, hearing her say it right now, caused all the tension that had been building up over the past few minutes, and even the tension of the last thirty days to suddenly subside.


    Then on reflex her body was moving. Even in the dark, Andrea knew where her daughter was, where her tiny hands were and she reached out to grab and hold onto the free floating appendages.


    ¡°Ohh, dear, how are you feeling?¡± Andrea began touching the warm hand that up until now had been seemingly cold to the touch each time she reached out to hold her.


    ¡°Yes, Misha, how are you feeling?¡± Dr. Lopez asked, coming from her corner of the room where she had seemingly cowered away to, only to come back now.


    ¡°I am fine Dr. Lopez.¡± Misha said, turning her head slightly to look at the doctor.


    With the gaze and sudden calling out of the doctor¡¯s name, caused Dr. Lopez to shiver slightly. There were obvious questions that came to mind, how did Misha know the doctor¡¯s name? Was she conscious and aware of everything that was said and done while she was in a coma? Did she sleep during that time? Did she remember anything? Also, did she know what that final process was.


    ¡°You had us all worried there, we thought we lost you for a moment.¡± Dr. Lopez said, getting a tablet out and writing down a few readings that were coming from the EKG.


    With that Misha just grit her teeth, something that Andrea knew all too well as the muscles in her lower jaw tightened slightly, causing her face to be scrunched forward. This was what Andrea herself did, and now she noticed the same indications in her daughter. Somehow Misha was annoyed with this doctor.


    ¡°Yes, you almost did.¡± Misha said, her words causing the doctor and nurse to flinch as they tried to understand what she was saying, or better still what she meant by the comment. But before they could ask, she turned her intense gaze upon Andrea.


    ¡°Thank you for stopping them, mother.¡±


    Once again there was a slight pause between when Misha stated her thought, and then the acknowledgement of Andrea as her mother. Hearing that caused an emotional damn to explode within her heart, as she felt relief, excitement, happiness, and so many more emotions flood through her.


    ¡°I am so happy to hear that.¡± Andrea said, as tears began to form in her eyes. She hugged Misha, something that she knew her daughter absolutely hated, but she seemed to put up with the affection for her benefit. At least for this one time, which is what her stiff body posture seemed to be stating. Andrea even felt one of her arms curl around and hold her loosely, a sign that she accepted the embrace. Again, small things, that all added up to be much larger than they might first appear. For Misha, this was the equivalent of her crying out her eyes, and screaming ¡°I love you,¡± at the top of her lungs.


    The doctor and her staff had the decency to wait until the embrace was over, before she continued talking.


    ¡°Now that you are awake, is there anything you would like to do?¡± Dr. Lopez asked, clearly trying to get Misha to set goals that can be accomplished.


    ¡°Yes, I intend to work out and get stronger.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Oh, I am afraid you were out for a long time. It might not feel like it right now, but your body is weak and will likely need some time to get back into the shape you were before. Fortunately, you are young and should be able to bounce back quickly. Also, the time that you were out was not as long as others who went through your same experience have had.¡± Dr. Lopez stated.


    With that Misha just nodded her head in acknowledgement.


    Flustered. It was clear that Dr. Lopez had expected Misha to react to the comment in some way, to ask about others, to ask anything. Yet, the fact that she remained quiet and only seemed to give a nod, which Andrea knew that nod all too well. It was the nod of I understand what you are saying, but I don¡¯t believe a word of what you are saying.


    Smirk.


    Seeing the same gesture that had been used so effectively against her, being used against Dr. Lopez, an outsider, caused a smile to form on her lips. It was clear that her stubborn to a fault, and iron-willed daughter was back and in full form.


    Knowing what the options were, of having this or nothing, Andrea knew she would gladly take this daughter back any day. Especially when her sass was directed at others.


    Then a thought hit Andrea, causing her to ask it almost immediately.


    ¡°When do you think we will be able to leave?¡±


    ¡°We will need to keep her at least overnight for monitoring. As always, there is the fear that once a coma patient wakes up, they will then relapse back. While we don¡¯t think that will be the case here, nor has this happened a lot with awakened coma patients, there is still that fear. Which is why we would like to keep her here and monitor her progress. Also, while she is here, we can begin seeing how much she has atrophied and likely come up with either a list of exercise to help, or physical therapists who can help.¡± Dr. Lopez said.


    There was a bit more fuss. More measurements, blood samples, and other tests were taken. Then finally after multiple exhausting hours it was just Andrea and Misha.


    Now that they were finally alone, just the two of them, Andrea took a deep breath and asked the hard question. A question that she knew her daughter would answer truthfully and honestly.


    ¡°How are you doing?¡± Andrea asked.


    With that so much tension swelled up inside her as she dreaded the answer that her daughter would bring.


    Then her daughter said three words that made her relax, instantly letting the tension go.


    ¡°I am fine.¡± Misha said. Again, that might not seem like much, but for Andrea that was exactly what she needed to hear right then and there.


    ¡°Good pumpkin,¡± Andrea said, reaching out and patting her daughter¡¯s head, making sure to remove a strand of hair from her face.


    Gasp.


    Then realizing something, Andrea let out a burst of air. ¡°I almost forgot. We have your helmet.¡±


    With that, Andrea went to the little cubby that had Misha¡¯s new set of clean cloths, her helmet and her gloves all ready to go.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need it.¡± Misha said.


    Hearing that, Andrea almost teared up, but then guilt filled her as they had so many arguments about wearing the helmet outside.


    ¡°No, you can wear it. I won¡¯t argue or try to get you to stop wearing it anymore.¡± Andrea said, speaking into existence at least one of the changes she promised to give her daughter if she awoke.


    She didn¡¯t want to argue with her about silly things anymore. Now that she was back, this was their chance to start over, to do things right from the ground up.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. I mean it, I don¡¯t need it anymore.¡± Misha said.


    Then finally the weight of her words hit Andrea as she realized exactly what her daughter was saying. Not that she wanted to wear the helmet as a fashion accessory, but that she didn¡¯t need it anymore.


    Suddenly the memory of what happened at Dr. Grier¡¯s office. The fact that Misha had been attacked by electricity when she took her helmet off. Then the month of agony and torture, the missed meals, showers, and appointments.


    So many things that had happened, could they have been avoided had Andrea not pushed so hard to have her remove the helmet and not be so embarrassing to be with in public? Even now she hated the idea that she could be embarrassed by her daughter, was heart breaking. Now that she had a chance to experience what life would be like without her daughter, and her antics, she would gladly be embarrassed and receive stares from other parents that only looked at what her daughter was wearing, not looking at who she was.


    ¡°Please, you don¡¯t need to change. Not for me. In fact, I need you to wear this.¡± Andrea said, getting out the helmet, and then offering it over with trembling hands to her daughter.


    ¡°You mean you want me to wear this, even when it is no longer necessary?¡± Misha asked.


    ¡°I just want you to be you. I am sorry it took me so long to accept that, but I just want you to be happy with who you are.¡± Andrea said.


    Then with a hesitant hand, Misha who locked eyes with her mother the whole time, reached out and grabbed the helmet.


    Relief.


    The instant her daughter¡¯s tiny fingers wrapped around the helmet, a wave of relief filled Andrea. Her daughter was back, awake, and she had her helmet, and suddenly the world felt like it was moving in the right direction again.


    Grabbing the helmet, Misha nodded, then said one in response. A word that let Andrea know everything would be better.


    ¡°Okay.¡±

 Chapter 4 Adjusting

    Chapter 4


    Adjusting


    ¡°A genius. Your daughter is too smart for our current curriculum.¡± Ms. Folk, Misha¡¯s second grade teacher said.


    ¡°What? We just pushed her ahead and now you are saying that she is still too smart?¡± Andrea asked, feeling frustrated by this. Not that hearing that her daughter was brilliant from others was a bad thing, but that others clearly seemed to think this as well was both an amazing feeling and frustrating.


    It was great in that Andrea like every other mother knew that their child was brilliant, but it was also frustrating as this was the second day in the last few months where Andrea had to take time away from work in order to visit with her daughter¡¯s teachers.


    Just when she thought that everything was starting to go smoothly, something would come up. First there was the issues that Andrea thought came up due to her father leaving. Then came the therapy sessions, and the doctor¡¯s scares.


    Even last night, nearly two months after the whole hospital scare, Andrea still has reoccurring nightmares about the event. First there were concerns that her daughter wouldn¡¯t make it. Then there were fears that bills she received would not be covered by the Therapist¡¯s insurance.


    For a time, it even looked like she might need to sue to get the insurance to be involved. Then she had the mistake of making a phone call about it during dinner.


    Her daughter had been so quiet that Andrea almost forgot she was there, while she worked on hold with a clerk for the doctor¡¯s office.


    Flicker.


    Then the lights flashed once, causing panic to awaken in Andrea as she was afraid the electricity would be cut off, even though she was in the middle of paying that bill as well.


    Then she looked over to see the faint glowing hue of gold within her daughter''s eyes.


    Andrea was about to ask about the eyes, but then worried that asking about them might be another costly doctor¡¯s visit.


    Yet, surprisingly just as the lights came back on, and the glowing lights from Misha¡¯s eyes faded, the clerk came back.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am. I just wanted to tell you, that we apparently were ablet o find the correct billing code and everything looks to be good on your end.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°We apologize for any inconvenience, but there was just a record error. The bill has been paid in full, but was apparently applied to a different account. So you should not receive any more statements from us about an overdue bill.¡±


    Breathing.


    At that, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, but she couldn¡¯t help but press a little further for more details.


    ¡°So what do I do with these bills that are already here?¡±


    ¡°Just keep them. Here I will give you a confirmation code. If you get more that are post marked after today¡¯s date, just call me and I will take care of it.¡± The receptionist said.


    ¡°Thank you, thank you.¡± Andrea blurted out, joy clearly evident in her voice.


    During that time, Misha got up from the table, washed off her plate and utensils and put them in the dishwasher. At this point, Andrea almost expected Misha to go out back and practice her afternoon workouts, but was surprised when she saw Misha heading back to her bedroom.


    Quickly covering the mouthpiece, Andrea asked her daughter who appeared to be listing from side to side as she walked down the hallway. ¡°Where are you going?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to bed.¡±


    ¡°Are you okay?¡±


    ¡°Yes, just a little tired.¡± Misha replied. Then went on, there was something odd about her speech, but before Andrea had time to process the clerk was reading off a confirmation code letting Andrea know that the bill had been paid.


    It wasn¡¯t until thirty minutes later, when the pressure of those bills was finally released, that Andrea realized what had been troubling her about her daughter¡¯s speech. She hadn¡¯t nodded.


    Normally kids who are that tired would nod first, before answering where they were going. Even those that were cognizant enough to realize they didn¡¯t need to nod before talking, generally nodded while answering. Yet, Misha despite being clearly tired just answered and then stumbled on her way to bed.


    With everything going on, Andrea found herself nodding off to go to sleep. Only for sounds coming from the backyard to wake her up almost immediately.


    Thump, clink.


    Andrea was startled awake, as it was clearly dark out, but then went back to realize that Misha was in the backyard doing her throws, tosses, and agility drills.


    That memory right there, that dedication to training and to being competitive in sports was the reason why Andrea now felt conflicted with what to do for her daughter. The fact that her daughter was a genius was clear for almost everyone. Yet, promoting her through the grades would mean she would be forced to graduate faster, making it so both physically and socially she would fall behind her peers.


    Normally, such concerns are not a problem, but her daughter was odd. Of that, Andrea was certain. Even now that she no longer wore her helmet to school, a fact that saddened her to no end, now that she had clearly outgrown that phase in her life. A phase that like the rest of her seemed to be growing up and maturing much faster than any parent would want. Now, on top of all of this, the school was trying to push her daughter ahead, but why?


    ¡°Can I ask why you all are asking for this? Is she disrupting classes in any way?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°No, normally she is quiet, and I can always call on her to have the answer. But the problem is that she is often distant during classes and discussions. My fear is that we will hamper her growth mentally.¡±


    Hearing that Andrea once again felt overwhelmed. This was the problem with genius children, there was never a clear cut path forward. The fact that her child was brilliant was readily apparent.


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    ¡°Let me think about it, and I¡¯ll speak it over with her therapist.¡± Andrea said, finally completely at a loss.


    ***


    Dr. Grier sat in her chair, while she watched the resting form of Misha sprawled out on her long leather couch.


    This was a good sigh, as it had taken months for the little girl to feel comfortable in her room. Honestly, given everything that happened when the girl first started coming, Dr. Grier was surprised that she still had a job, let alone the fact that the girl actively wanted to come back.


    Normally a girl getting electrocuted and then going into cardiac arrest right away was a death sentence for any therapist¡¯s career. Let alone the blossoming career of a recently graduated therapist trying to start off their career.


    While it took time to get the insurance company to cover the damages, eventually everything miraculously settled.


    Then before that even happened, Andrea called, asking if she had any slots available to speak with her and her daughter.


    There would need to be two times, the first had been with the mother alone to discuss a few things. At the time, Dr. Grier had figured they would be about changes or ways to safeguard her child. Instead, they were just about topics and subjects that Andrea could have asked directly, but somehow felt that Dr. Grier would get an accurate answer.


    So now, Dr. Grier was going through a way to list of things to ask about, while also wondering how the girl felt about being here. That was why she began with a little opener.


    ¡°How are you feeling?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°Satisfactory.¡± Misha said, her tone devoid of emotions.


    ¡°Nothing going on that is of interest?¡±


    ¡°You mean did I achieve enlightenment the last time I was here? If so, then the answer is yes.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Enlightenment?¡± Dr. Grier asked, then inwardly grimaced as she wondered if that was a poorly worded joke about being electrocuted.


    ¡°Yes, I managed as per your instructions and guidance to fully meld with the Lightning property. Though I do have a question?¡± The girl began.


    At the word of melding with the Lightning property, both Dr. Grier and Andrea leaned forward trying to understand exactly what the girl was talking about. But before Dr. Grier could stop the girl, she felt it easier to let the patient speak, and thus give more information that she could work with.


    ¡°Oh, and what is your question?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°I still have my original affinity for Fire, so I was wondering if this was standard for your training regimen. I also wondered if you had any combination exercises I could use to work both.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Fire and Lightning?¡± Andrea asked, a note of confusion in her voice. Honestly, Dr. Grier also had similar questions, it was just that her mother formulated them earlier.


    ¡°Yes, I am aware that you are a blank, but figured this was why you had me with Dr. Grier. As she clearly has awakened some of her base abilities. Also, she knew exactly how to help me achieve my second awakening, something I was completely unaware of until now.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Can you explain exactly what it is you are talking about?¡± Dr. Grier asked, her mind spinning with the girl¡¯s fantastical trail of logic and trying to keep up with her. There was the part about calling her mother a blank, something that Dr. Grier planned to go back to later, but for now she needed to understand exactly what the girl meant.


    ¡°It will be easier to just show you.¡± Misha said, then getting to a sitting position, she crossed her legs and holding out her hands palm up, she did the impossible.


    Fire.


    Sparks.


    In the palm of her left hand was a glowing ball of flames. The flames were an intense bright blue at the center that slowly petered out to orange, and then red tips.


    Then in the palm of her right hand was a glowing ball of bright blue sparks that was blue at the center and then sparked out into glowing bands of golden light.


    Silence.


    Crackle.


    Everyone was silent as they watched the new source of heat and light appear seemingly out of nowhere.


    To describe the scene in one word, Dr. Grier would likely go on calling the whole scene beautiful. It was a little girl lit by ambient energy that all but radiated an odd power that Dr. Grier could feel from within her core, seemingly from her very soul.


    ¡°You, are magi?¡± Dr. Grier finally asked, looking first at the girl, then to her very confused mother.


    ¡°What? Don¡¯t tell me you believe in that mumbo-jumbo?¡± Andrea asked, speaking to life the response that was almost pre-programmed into her at this point. But then she cut herself off as she looked once again at her daughter.


    Dr. Grier, seeing this, began acting on reflex. By simply pushing a button, she enacted the safety features of the room, something her overprotective father had insisted upon installing, before letting her take on this new and challenging career field.


    Click, clop.


    Chu-cha-cha-chink.


    The door bolted itself, followed quickly by the window seal closing and locking in place. The room now looked like a safe room, as the auxiliary power supply came alive.


    ¡°What? What is going on?¡± Andrea asked, suddenly frightened and going towards her daughter, using her body to try to smother her daughter and provide a maternal layer of protection around her child.


    ¡°Ouch.¡± Andrea cried out, apparently getting too close to her daughter¡¯s flame, not expecting the flames to be real.


    Misha of course quickly dismissed the flames, but the damage had been done.


    There Dr. Grier had the second major piece of evidence, a physical manifestation of the craft. Something that was nearly impossible, especially for one who wielded not one but two different elements.


    ¡°Now that we are safe. I need to ask you, Andrea, a few personal questions.¡± Dr. Grier began, making sure to stay away, as she did not want to scare awake any latent powers in the mother, or get her daughter to lash out.


    There were already several odd occurrences that surrounded the little girl, the least of which being the way she seemingly had control over electronic equipment before her awakening. Even going so far as to indirectly claim that she had been responsible for the treasure-trove of data sent by her soon to be ex-husband¡¯s alternate account. Something that even the best investigators and diviners had a hard time finding.


    Yet, one meeting with this girl, a girl who apparently seemed to like her for whatever reason, and suddenly Dr. Grier had her life cleared and more importantly had an excuse to end the joining of two major mage families.


    ¡°Questions for me?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Yes, I know we just had a meeting, but now I need to ask. Did you know about your daughter¡¯s abilities?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°NO!¡± Andrea snapped, suddenly irate at the question. ¡°How could you think that?¡±


    ¡°Did anyone in your family show any signs of being too aware? An uncle who always seemed to luck out? Grandmother always able to foretell the weather? Anything that might seem odd given the volume and quantity of times it happened?¡±


    ¡°What? No, we are normal. All of us.¡± Andrea began, clearly feeling flustered at the line of questioning.


    Andrea was about to get angry, when she felt a small comforting hand on her arm. Looking down, she felt the warmth, and then realized it was her daughter''s hand. With just a calm patient glance, her mother felt the fire within her subside.


    ¡°Sorry about that, but no.¡± Andrea said, locking eyes with her daughter, before calming down and going back to answering the questions.


    ¡°Did her father seem to be exceedingly lucky?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°No, he was also a blank.¡± Misha commented, adding her note before Andrea could even think about talking.


    ¡°What?¡± Andrea and Dr. Grier asked at the same time.


    ¡°My father was also a blank, someone who was unawakened. Also, I should point out that what I am is not what you are. I am a Psycher.¡± Misha noted.


    Hearing that, Dr. Grier remembered back to some of the earlier comments made by the girl. Comments about a past life in an alternate universe. Suddenly the words made sense, but didn¡¯t. Now Dr. Grier was certain that somehow this girl had gone through the process of reincarnation. Not entirely unheard of for a true mage, but there were also differences.


    First, the awakening she claimed, that was not an awakening. First she was far too young for such a joining. Also, the typical awakenings of magic users she had seen were spiritual awakening, rather than physical.


    No, there was something odd about this girl, maybe she had alternate methods of awakening that had been passed down.


    ¡°Can I do a quick scan on you?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha said, speaking and not using her head to nod in agreement. Something that was odd, but by now being odd was just par for the course with her.


    ¡°Okay.¡± With that Dr. Grier stood up, walked over to her desk, and pulling out the top left drawer, she slid the fake bottom away to reveal a power rod.


    Pulling it out, Dr. Grier began charging it with power as she walked closer. As she did, a faint glow began at the tip of the rod.


    ¡°Is that a Harry Potter wand?¡± Andrea asked.


    Chuckling.


    ¡°Yes, well, if it helps you can think of it that way, but it is actually slightly different. This is a foci, which we can use when trying to change the focus of our affinities. Me, I have no natural affinity for divination, but I was granted this, to help identify special children just like your daughter.¡± Dr. Grier said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible, all while inwardly brimming with energy as this was going to be amazing if she could prove that this girl did in fact have some form of magical potential to her.


    ¡°Can I?¡± Dr. Grier asked, holding up the glowing foci towards Misha.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    With that, Dr. Grier began channeling the last energy into the rod.


    ¡°I have just sent a slight pulse of my mana into your daughter. If she is a mage, her mana should either absorb, reflect, or reject the pulse.¡± Dr. Grier began. ¡°If it does any of those, we will see a slight glow from within her¡­¡±


    Dr. Grier trailed off as there was clearly no reaction from Misha. At least not the way Dr. Grier had originally detailed.


    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s try that again¡­¡±


    The second time went just as the first had. The power went into Misha, and then disappeared.


    ¡°I told you, I am a Psycher, not a magi, like you.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Okay?¡± Dr. Grier said, now truly confused. ¡°One second, I have two more test that I need to try out, before this goes too far.¡±


    With that Dr. Grier hurried back behind her desk. This time pulling out the two other focis that were there.


    ¡°These two will check for Vampirism, or Lykanthropy. People who awaken early could also be suffering from one of these diseases, and that too would explain why the energy disappeared as the viruses would completely diffuse the innate mana and convert it to enzymes that would help the conversion process.¡±


    ¡°Diseases?¡± Andrea asked.


    Grimace.


    Realizing what she said, and to whom she said it to, Dr. Grier mentally kicked herself, as that was not what she meant to say at all. At least not until she had more proof.


    ¡°This is just a precaution.¡± Dr. Grier said, and this time she truly hoped that there would not be any reaction, as losing a wild mage to one of the two diseased tribes would be a waste.


    ¡°First for Vampirism.¡± Dr. Grier said, holding up the glowing wand, then she held her breath as she waited for the energy to disappear within the little girl. This time just like when checking for the components of being a magi, the energy entered and then disappeared.


    ¡°Good.¡± Dr. Grier said, and she was truly happy for that. Being a werewolf was far better in her mind than being a vampire. Especially with the fact that Misha would be forced to be a seven-year-old vampire until the day she was ultimately slain.


    ¡°Now to check for Lykanthropy.¡± Dr. Grier said, holding up the wand, she paused. This was logically the only option left, a positive result here was nearly guaranteed. That is why, Dr. Grier reached out with a trembling hand, then with a light tap of the carefully crafted foci, she released a pulse of energy into the little girl.


    Then they all waited for the results of the test to run their course, as a glowing white ball left the tip of the foci, entered the girl.

 Chapter 5 Uncharted

    Chapter 5


    Uncharted


    Dr. Grier stood there, right behind the little girl. The fact that she had no mana, or aspects of the world were a dead giveaway that she had at one time had powers and then those same powers had been corrupted.


    It was not uncommon for unique Vampirism or cases of Lykanthropy to spring up out of the blue, where the one who was infected was a particularly strong magician. Most of the time the transition period would dissolve any lingering magic potential left in the victim. Though there were some cases where the magic would remain intact, even after the final transformation was complete.


    This last chance, that was the condition that Dr. Grier feared the most. If this girl was someone that was destined to be so gifted that they retained their magical abilities even through the transitioning phase, then she would be a nightmare. Werewolves, or those who had completed the process of subverting their genetic code to Lykanthropy, were tough to begin with. They could age, blend into society and even hold down regular nine to five jobs. In fact, of all the supernatural werewolves were likely the toughest to deal with, in terms of rooting them out.


    Flash.


    There was a reaction. The magic that had been dispersed into the tiny girl¡¯s body had a clear reaction.


    Gasp.


    Seeing the reaction of her magic within the girl, a hitch formed in Dr. Grier¡¯s throat. While she could mentally say she was ready to end the spread of the Lykanthropy virus wherever she could, saying so and doing so to a seven-year-old girl were two different things. Particularly when the girl was as bright and intelligent as little Misha was.


    ¡°She wasn¡¯t bitten by any stray animals recently, a feral dog, a stray cat?¡± Dr. Grier asked with a cracking voice, as her body betrayed the fear she was now feeling.


    ¡°No, she doesn¡¯t even leave the house.¡± Andrea said.


    Hearing that, Dr. Grier nodded. Mentally she was going through a checklist of places where the originator of the Lykanthropy virus could be. If the attack didn¡¯t occur near her house, then the next likely place would mean the attack took place at her school.


    These thoughts and more about hunting down wild animals that would dare target little girls at school came to her mind, but were then instantly discarded, as the magic glowed and gave its final conclusion.


    Black pulse: once, twice, thrice.


    ¡°Clear?¡± Dr. Grier said, seeing the results and then mentally going through what they could mean. She was clear, not only was she clear of the Lykanthropy virus, but she was completely immune to the virus. In fact, she could eventually donate her blood to help other victims of Lykanthropy and assuming the virus didn¡¯t have too much time to sink in, her platelets and metachondrial could be used to heal those infected.


    Yes, metachondrial, the unique organism from space that seems to devour standard mitochondrial strands and replace them with one of the three main variants. Namely, with the Vampirism, Lykanthropy, or Magi variant. Of the three, the Magi variant is often seen as the weakest and most prone towards being eradicated by the other two.


    Deep breathing.


    In the matter of seconds, Dr. Grier¡¯s mind went on a whirlwind of ideas. A mage had never shown the ability to be immune to Lykanthropy. In fact, Lykanthropy was often seen as a bane for mages, as the magi metachondrial was often devoured upon contact with the Lyanthropy metachondrial strains. Yet, here was this girl, who not only had magical control over two different elements, but according to her magical pulses came back as immune to Lykanthropy.


    Seeing the girl, Dr. Grier had a myriad of thoughts cross her mind. Everything from finding ways to permanently make oneself immune to both Lykanthropy and Vampirism, while maintaining control over the elements. To the more subdued fact that this girl who can clearly use magic was able to avoid the standard detection methods used. This meant, she could be trained to be a deep cover spy, one who was unafraid of possibly being infected with the Lykanthropy virus.


    Before she could delve too much deeper into the possibilities the girl had. Her thoughts were interrupted.


    ¡°Is everything okay?¡± Andrea finally asked, a note of fear in her voice.


    ¡°Okay?¡± Dr. Grier repeated, then shaking her head she went on. ¡°Things are better than okay. Your daughter is truly unique, I hope you know that.¡±


    Wide-eyed nodding.


    A now completely confused Andrea just nodded her head in disbelief, trying to understand where this conversation was going to go next.


    ¡°Well, I think it is safe to say that your daughter is, well I don¡¯t know what to say. She can clearly hide her affinity towards magic, she is not infected with vampirism, and best of all, she is completely immune to Lykanthropy.¡± Dr. Grier said, her words filling with more and more excitement as time went on.


    ¡°Which means?¡± Andrea asked.


    Blinking.


    Dr. Grier blinked at the woman, was she daft? How did she not know how important such a finding was. Then shaking her head, she realized, the mother before her was a mundane. Someone who somehow did not know about the metachondrial war that was happening on the planet at this very moment. Then while looking at Andrea, another question came to her mind, as she wondered how the mother could have passed on the unique metachondrial strand to her daughter, without herself having that same metachondrial strand? To her knowledge metachondrial was passed on by the mother to offspring, meaning that the mother must have the same metachondrial strain, right?


    Then there was the rationalization that the metachondrial strain held by the mother would make it so that she like her daughter would show up as a mundane, while clearly having the ability to access the gift, as displayed by her daughter.


    ¡°This could change everything.¡± Dr. Grier said, as her mind raced with possibilities. A new magical strain that somehow hid in plain sight and was seemingly immune to one of the two main threats to their kind.


    ¡°What?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°You two are gifted, and if you wouldn¡¯t mind, I would like for you two to come to our facilities for a bit of testing.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    ¡°But you just said we are okay?¡± Andrea asked a bit confused.


    Hearing the tone in her voice, Dr. Grier nodded, ¡°I understand how this might seem. But think about it, your daughter clearly has abilities beyond what normal science can describe.¡±


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    With that Andrea¡¯s face and body shrunk back, a sign of not trusting or believing what she was hearing. Seeing the change in demeanor, Dr. Grier tried to change her tactic.


    ¡°Your daughter is a mage, just like me.¡± Dr. Grier said, then holding up her empty hand, she too created a ball of light that floated over her hand.


    Astonishment.


    Andrea seeing the glowing ball of light stared on in wide eyed amazement. Then a more skeptical look filled her face as she knew there were many things that could cause similar reactions.


    ¡°Now, it has been years since I last practiced this. In fact, my lack of ability was why I went to the public sector, but here.¡± Dr. Grier said, as she made the tiny ball of light dance and flutter from the palm of her hand.


    The whole thing seemed whimsical; the only problem was that for Dr. Grier this was the extent of her capabilities. Her magical potential was never that strong, and her skills over said potential were minimal at best, making this whole process appear to be the equivalent of trying to do a trick you could do easily as a child as an adult and failing. Well, failing to Dr. Grier¡¯s standards, to Andrea¡¯s much lower standards, a person who was clearly getting used to the idea of magic being part of the world, her whole demeanor changed.


    Shimmering.


    The ball of light danced and fluttered its way over, until Andrea held out her hand. Then with a last-minute surge, Dr. Grier managed to move the ball to the outstretched hand, where it then rested for a second, before dispersing into a burst of tingling energy. Energy that caused bits and parts of Andrea to feel alive at the sudden and unexpected swell of energy.


    ¡°My hand, it tickles.¡± Andrea said, trying to explain the sensation that was washing over her as she looked on at her hand where the glowing ball had just disappeared from.


    Nodding, Dr. Grier just nodded her head and breathed out deeply. The whole process had been a lot more taxing on her than she had thought. It had been a long time since she last had a shaping exercise. And now that the process was over, she could tell why it was called an exercise.


    Sweating.


    Sweat billowed on her forehead, as she realized the activity was a bit more intense than she thought. Having seen the girl do not one but two different elements earlier, without so much as seeming to strain, made Dr. Grier realize even more how special and gifted Misha was.


    That was why, despite having been told not to, Dr. Grier decided to use her family¡¯s name and influence to help this process. Just having the mother and daughter who has dual affinities come to the family would be exceptional. It might even be enough for her to prove to her family that her wanting to go out and strike out on her own was a good thing.


    ¡°See, magic does exist.¡± Dr. Grier finally managed to say, while she was still clearly tired, she was able to hide her distress from the others. At least her voice wasn¡¯t breaking like it had when she was trying to cast her spell. Honestly, if her family thought she was a disgrace before, they definitely would now.


    ¡°That tingling sensation. That is your body¡¯s natural reaction to foreign mana. Honestly, you have the most unique indicators I have ever seen in a mage. Capable of dual casting.¡± Dr. Grier said, pointing to Misha. ¡°Then being completely immune to Lykanthropy, the virus that always turns its victims into a hairy were-creature.¡±


    ¡°Creature?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Yes, there are more than one variant of the Lykanthropy strains going around. The most prevalent are the wolve strains, but pretty much any mammalian predator can have a strain of Lykanthropy.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    ¡°So were bobcats?¡± Andrea asked, a note of derision in her voice.


    Seeing the look, Dr. Grier couldn¡¯t blame Andrea, as the entire concept would seem far fetched for most. This was why she doubled down.


    ¡°Your daughter held both lightning and fire within her palms. You yourself caught my light sphere. Yet, your apparent showstopper is the idea of a were-lynx running around?¡± Dr. Grier stated.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Andrea said, suddenly feeling flustered from the whole ordeal. In her mind, there was a part of her that wanted this to be real. No, a part that needed this to be real. It was like she had finally been invited to the magical world that she somehow knew existed just behind the curtain of civilization. A world of magic and wizardry, with monsters and beasts. A world that she was devastated about not actually being invited to, until now. Only once her daughter showed up, was she finally seemingly accepted into this world.


    Yet, who was Dr. Grier, just a random psychiatrist recommended by the police, after her daughter had helped to uncover a horrific event.


    Then thinking about the event once again led her to thoughts on her father, Misha¡¯s grandfather. Thoughts of him and his actions came to mind. Was he one of these creatures, a monster?


    There were so many doubts, and again part of Andrea¡¯s rational mind told her that this was not real. That this was a con artist who was trying to lure her in for her daughter. That was the thought that clung to her mind, what was it that people said? When you strip away all the impossible answers, then the only answer that remains, regardless of how improbable was the only solution?


    Well in this case, the only solution that Andrea could come up with was that there was a magic trick, something with Misha¡¯s gloves or something. No wait, she wasn¡¯t wearing her gloves today, but why? No, it doesn¡¯t matter. Right now, Andrea needed to leave.


    She needed to leave, and to take her daughter with her, and to never come back. That was the plan, the goal even.


    ¡°Well, thank you for your time, but I think we should be going now.¡± Andrea said, shakily standing to her feet.


    In her heart, Andrea knew this was a chance. But what that chance was for had yet to be determined. For all she knew this could be some odd hallucination she was having, yes, maybe some form of incense that caused psychosis to happen.


    Sniff.


    While Andrea couldn¡¯t smell any odd vapors, her mind told her that there were plenty of substances that were odorless that could cause a hallucinatory effect on people. As such, her goal right now was to get out, to think about things rationally and to most importantly, she needed to get away from the odorless aromas of this room, that she was clearly now able to smell now that she was focusing on them.


    ¡°Come on Misha, let¡¯s go.¡± Andrea said, holding out her hand towards her daughter.


    Obediently Misha rose up, and with saying a word of protest walked over to Andrea and grasped her outstretched hand.


    Relief.


    At that, slight reassurance of her daughter, Andrea let out a breath of tension that she didn¡¯t realize she had been holding until that point. Her daughter trusted her implicitly, a fact that she was particularly grateful for.


    ¡°Please, you must¡­¡± Dr. Grier said, trying to stop the pair from leaving.


    ¡°We must go.¡± Andrea said, all but dragging Misha and her small legs past the therapists. Instinctively Andrea used her body as a shield to protect her daughter from the therapist, who even now was trying to maneuver her way between them.


    ¡°Here, take this, please.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    Pausing for a second, Andrea could easily make out the fact that Dr. Grier now held out a card. Though this one was different from the one she received initially. This one was black with gold lettering on it and had an intricate background.


    ¡°No.¡± Andrea said, not wanting to touch something that might be laced with acid, or some other chemical. It was crazy to think, but then again, Andrea would be the first to admit her mind was not in the best space at the moment.


    ¡°Please just take this, and this meeting will be free.¡± Dr. Grier pleaded.


    Lip pluck.


    Andrea bit down on her lower lip, as she thought about the action.


    ¡°Fine, here.¡± Andrea said, thinking to herself, before holding out her purse and letting the doctor drop the card within.


    Dr. Grier paused for a second, before locking eyes with Andrea.


    ¡°You don¡¯t trust me, do you?¡± Dr. Grier asked, a note of pain filling her voice.


    ¡°Would you trust yourself?¡± Andrea retorted.


    Pausing for a second, Dr. Grier took a breath and then realized, ¡°no I likely would not.¡±


    At that Andrea just nodded, at least they had that in common, she thought. Then a deeper part of her told her that this might be more of a way to get her to empathize with the doctor, and that caused even more self-deprecating thoughts to form within her mind.


    No, in her mind she would not let this happen.


    In her mind, she knew what she must do.


    Dr. Grier looked like she wanted to argue, but then after a second dropped the card into the open purse. A glance down showed that the purse was everything a mundane might need. Breath mints, a hand purse, keys, a few tissues, a pair of glasses, and mace strong enough to repel a bear.


    Honestly it was the last item that caused Dr. Grier to respect the woman before her most. She almost wanted to call out the fact that she was clearly using bear repellant, but then stopped herself.


    Plop.


    The card landed with an audible clop inside the bag. Dr. Grier wanted to say more, but it was clear that Andrea had made up her mind about the next course of action.


    With the card in the bag, Andrea sealed her purse with one hand, a task that she only really learned to do as a mother. Then with everything secured she walked out past reception.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, you need to pay.¡± The receptionist shouted.


    Andrea was about to yell at the woman, feeling that she had just been lied to, but before she could say anything Dr. Grier came from behind her and smoothed it all out.


    ¡°This one we need to file under the special category.¡± Dr. Grier stated.


    ¡°Special category?¡±


    ¡°Yes, in fact mark them as that category from here on out.¡± Dr. Grier stated.


    Hearing that, the hairs on the back of Andrea¡¯s neck rose, as it was clear this was some type of code the two had already established. But for the life of her Andrea couldn¡¯t understand what it was, or what it meant.


    Andrea locked gazes with the receptionist.


    ¡°My mistake, you are good.¡± The Receptionist said, then hitting a button waved Andrea and her daughter through the magnetically sealed door.


    The two got in the Andrea¡¯s car. A car that was well past its lifespan, but somehow always managed to continue to start and drive well. In fact, the only times Andrea could recall her ever having a problem with the car was the one time she was on her way to pick up Misha from school. The motor sounded like it was on its death bed, but then just as Misha got near her, the car started purring and running smoothly.


    At that thought, Andrea turned back to look at her daughter.


    Her daughter was already in her seat, strapped in, hands placed in her lap and eyes staring forward. Seeing her daughter like that, Andrea was once again surprised at just how intelligent and poised her daughter clearly was.


    ¡°You ready?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha said.


    Sigh.


    ¡°Okay then.¡± Andrea said, realizing she was doing the right thing as she started her car.


    Hitch, cough, purr.


    As always, the car hitched violently to life for a moment, then after a second or two of sitting idly, the engine smoothed out, and then began running smoothly.


    Looking back one last time at her daughter, Andrea could almost swear that there was a slight golden glow to her eyes. Was she? The thought hit her that her daughter might be affecting her vehicle as they sat, but then she quickly dismissed the idea for being crazy. No, that can¡¯t be it.


    Then putting the car into reverse, she backed out of her spot. Then pulled forward and began heading down the road. Only once they were away from the main street, and on one of the side roads that led to their house did  Andrea open up her purse, rummage around to find the card.


    Jolt.


    There was a certain electrical discharge once she touched the card. For a moment she didn¡¯t know what to do, but then thinking about it, she rolled down her window slightly and flicked the black card with golden lettering out her window.


    Breathe.


    With that, the tension she had been feeling within her chest slowly dissipated as she let out a sigh of relief.


    The relief was short lived however, as in that next second she saw the blue flashing lights of a police vehicle flare to life behind her.


    Wailing siren.


    And like that, the day that could not get worse, did.

 Chapter 6 What Not To Do When Getting Stopped By Cops.

    Chapter 6


    What Not To Do When Getting Stopped By Cops.


    Blaring siren.


    No sooner had Andrea launched the cursed black card from her purse, than her actions had apparently been spotted by a patrol car that had been following behind.


    Whi-woo-whi-woo.


    ¡°AH!¡± Misha cried out, her hands going to cover her head.


    Clop.


    Her hands struck at the bike helmet that her mother still wished for her to wear, despite apparently not needing to anymore, whatever that meant.


    ¡°Stop, stop, stop. Make it stop.¡± Misha cried out, just as she used to when the microwave was running when she was a baby nestled tightly in her arms. Now she was crying out again, but this time there was something extra to her screams.


    ¡°STOP!¡± Misha shouted.


    Sonic boom.


    There was a weight and a power to her words.


    Andrea swore she could feel the power held within her words spread out in a wave around her. The burst went into and then through Andrea¡¯s body before exiting and leaving behind a mild tingling sensation.


    Whoosh.


    Tingling.


    The sensation almost felt impossible to describe accurately. It was as if a vibrating wave of sensation pulsed into her and then quickly sped off through her. But not just her, a part of Andrea could recognize that the wave of energy spread out in all directions.


    VROOOM!


    Just as the wave of energy left her, there was a sudden increase in speed and power available to her engine. Suddenly, the engine of her tiny Camry roared to life as if it had been a lion, rather than the mild house cat it had been for most of its life.


    Zoom.


    The increased power was quickly felt by Andrea as she felt the world begin to blur and speed past her, as her car began gaining speed rapidly. Even taking her foot off the accelerator caused the car to just speed up and fly down the winding county roads that lead home.


    Almost at the same time as her car passed the curve, the lights from the cop car disappeared, as if being eaten up by the night and the surrounding trees.


    Badump, badump.


    Andrea¡¯s heart raced as she began to quickly guide her suddenly speeding car safely around the bends, moving back fully into her lane, and then gradually began applying enough pressure on the brakes to slow her speed safely.


    Slow.


    Andrea went slowly, trying to find a safe spot to pull over, but with the roads the way they were, practically carved into the side of a nearby hill on one side, and a runoff ditch on the other, there really was no safe spot to pull over.


    As such Andrea slowed down and began pulling forward until she found the start of her yard, which was thankfully just after the exit of the country road that served as the backway into her little community.


    There was of course a main entrance, but that way often added five minutes, not due to extra distance but due to excessive traffic lights and four way stop intersections. Thus, the backway was Andrea¡¯s main way home, especially as it let her off right by her house.


    At first Andrea decided to pull off on the side of the road, where she waited. After a few seconds, it was clear that the officer that had been chasing her, an officer that she was now well and truly noted for evading still hadn¡¯t arrived.


    Seeing that her house was right there, and realizing that her argument about not running from the officer would be more believable if she was parked in her driveway with the lights off.


    At the very least she hoped that she could play it off, as in she didn¡¯t know the cop was flashing their lights at her, right?


    ¡°I mean it had to be that other nonexistent car on the road.¡± Andrea muttered to herself as she let out a breath and then eased her way into the driveway and then quickly shifted the car into park, flicked off the lights, and turned off the car in record time.


    The last time she had done such an act of turning off the vehicle so quickly was when she had come home late from curfew and not wanted to wake her dad up by the rumbling sound of the car, nor the headlights directed at his window.


    Of course, her attempts were in vain, as he had been waiting up for her in the living room the entire time.


    Having dealt with her father who never missed a beat, Andrea now found it odd to think that she could get one over on the cops.


    ¡°Breathe.¡± Andrea hissed to herself as she clutched the steering wheel with her keys tightly packed into her fingers.


    Then following her own orders, she took in a breath and let out some of the tension she had been feeling. Only now did she remember that her daughter had been nearly hysterical a few moments ago. Turning back to face her daughter, she looked and saw her daughter staring back at her.


    Well, what she imagined her staring back would be. It was now dark out, and her daughter was wearing that stupid helmet with the sottered on polarized lenses that prevented her from seeing her daughter¡¯s face.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Andrea asked.


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    Head tilt.


    Misha cocked her head to the side, an effect that was heightened by just how large and awkward the black helmet was on her head. This was what Misha had learned to mirror meant that she did not quite understand.


    Silence.


    Andrea, realizing that this was her daughter¡¯s way of asking her what she meant, elaborated her question.


    ¡°You were screaming earlier, are you okay now?¡± Andrea asked. With everything that had gone on, from being caught red handed for littering, to the sudden lurching of the vehicle, to barely being able to cover the turns on the winding back road, to realizing she was evading the police, so many things ran through her mind, that she felt guilty that it took until now for her to address her previously panicking child.


    Head straightened.


    ¡°Yes, I am fine. Are we safe to disembark?¡± Misha asked.


    Blinking.


    It still caught Andrea off-guard whenever she used that word, disembark, as if they were on a ship. Had Andrea not known any better, she would swear that she learned the word from some naval tv show, but that never happened. Even her father, Misha¡¯s grandfather, had never used such a term around her. So where did she learn it? How was it, that her go to word for exiting a vehicle was disembark, Andrea would likely never know.


    One time she had asked and got a long-convoluted story about it being the standard term for her time while serving the fleet in the alternate universe.


    Shaking her head, Andrea decided to answer the question.


    ¡°Yes, lets disembark.¡± She replied, then getting out of the vehicle she went and sat on the first of two sitting chairs that overlooked the back roads.


    Clump, pop.


    Next the girl got off her booster seat, opened the door, exited the vehicle and then forcefully closed the door behind her. While most parents had to go behind their children to close the door, to ensure everything was closed properly, Andrea never had such a problem. Though she had problems to deal with as a parent, whether her child successfully closed a door was never one of her concerns.


    Instead, she had other concerns. Like what did her daughter just do when she screamed? Why did the cop suddenly stop chasing them? Why did her little Camry suddenly roar to life like it was the lead pace car at a NASCAR speed race? Sadly, those were just the fun questions that would hopefully let Andrea sleep better tonight if she somehow knew.


    No, right now, Andrea had more pressing questions to learn the answer to.


    As they approached the front door, Andrea dangled the keys in her hand, but then decided against doing so.


    ¡°Sit down kiddo.¡± Andrea said, pointing to the far chair on the porch, meaning that Misha would have to walk an additional four of her smaller paces to the empty seat.


    Jump.


    Misha for her part did everything that was asked of her with grace and poise. Easily going over to the empty seat and hopping in.


    Once in, she looked at Andrea and quietly waited.


    Of course, as always the seriousness of the situation was slightly put off by the fact that her daughter was wearing her customary helmet and gloves.


    At first Andrea felt an intense desire to yell at Misha to take off that gear so they could talk honestly with one another. Then just as she had that thought, the fear and memory of her daughter in the hospital, and the fact that she woke up from nearly dying to almost having a complete personality change shocked her.


    Taking a deep breath, Andrea forced herself to relax. This was her daughter expressing herself, apparently.


    Also, sadly enough, her daughter no longer felt that she needed to express herself in the same way. Yet, she would continue to wear the gear that had been unnerving and embarrassing a few days ago to Andrea, now, solely because Andrea had asked.


    Realizing that was a good spot to start, Andrea decided to ask some questions while she inevitably waited for the cop to come around the final bend of the winding road and arrest her for fleeing.


    ¡°So you no longer need to wear the helmet and gloves?¡± Andrea asked, feeling like she was peeling back the scab of a wound that she herself might not want to see what lay underneath.


    ¡°Need to? No. I do not need to wear them anymore.¡± Misha said, as if it was a matter of fact.


    Nodding.


    ¡°But you do still like to wear them?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Yes, they still provide an extra level of comfort to the electromagnetic pull of this planet.¡± Misha said.


    Nodding.


    Once again Andrea nodded her head, as she had heard this excuse a dozen times before. At the time, she thought her five-year-old daughter was just spinning fantastical stories, but now she had seen things that caused her to question a lot of core beliefs in her life. What was especially vivid was the scene of her own daughter being shocked by lightning, and her body falling lifelessly to the ground. Fortunately, she had been saved, and had seemingly come out of the situation just as healthy as before.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Andrea said, letting that response linger on the wind as she tried to come up with the next question that would help her understand her daughter better.


    In a way going to therapy for what happened on her grandfather¡¯s land was a blessing in disguise, as it showed that she could talk to Misha, so long as she asked questions and accepted the answers given. Even if the answers provided didn¡¯t make sense at all, so long as she accepted the answers provided, there was dialog, they could converse and build a stronger relationship together.


    That above all else was the one thing that Andrea learned from her meetings with Dr. Grier. Also, another thing that she learned was that sometimes there were people that were weirder than her own daughter.


    That black card with golden embroidery that the doctor had given her, came to Andrea¡¯s mind. The main reason for this was that the whole series of stressful events to this point had all been caused by that card.


    Tow-truck headed out of the little community and to and through the back roads.


    Seeing the tow truck heading out of the community caught Andrea with a moment of confusion, as she saw the vehicle heading out of town, then couldn¡¯t explain why her mind had picked up on that particular event.


    Shaking her head, she realized she was still talking with her daughter, so she continued. ¡°So I take it you believe you are a mage?¡±


    Inhale.


    Andrea waited with a desperate breath as she listened to what her daughter would say next.


    ¡°No.¡± Misha replied.


    Exhale.


    With that one-word confirmation, Andrea felt a slight twinge of relief fill her. Her daughter was already weird, to have her think she was one of those holding your gemstones and wand carrying people would be almost too much for her to bear. She already couldn¡¯t go to church due to the looks she would receive from the others of the local congregation. Now, if her family found out that her daughter was a self-professed wiccan at age seven, her father would roll over in his grave.


    That relief was short lived, as Misha continued her answer. ¡°I am a Psycher. Honestly, I do not understand what the difference between a Psycher and a mage of this planet are. I assume it is people who have somehow managed to gain unique powers or abilities due to this planet¡¯s highly magnetic pull. Their minds, or something extra about them can harness this magnetic energy in a way runs contrary to most known bands of physics or life sciences.¡±


    And just like that, her daughter showed how both frighteningly intelligent she was, and how out of place she was in this world.


    These were the ramblings one might expect from a twenty-year-old who had smoked peyote for the first time and had attempted to become one with the world. At least that is what Andrea equated this conversation to. Something she would expect to hear on a university campus, versus from the mouth of her seven-year-old daughter.


    Fear.


    At this moment, Andrea realized two things. First, her daughter was granted a lot more gifts than she had been in her youth.


    Yes, while Andrea had been marked as exceptionally intelligent compared to her peers. Her daughter made her feel inadequate, even now on the front steps of her porch.


    Rumble.


    The slow rumbling of a vehicle coming from around the bend could be heard. The random traffic once again caused a pit of fear and panic to rise up in Andrea¡¯s stomach, as she knew this was the cop. Somehow, she just could tell that the cop had finally come and was now going to find her.


    Bright lights.


    There were bright lights that illuminated a large frame vehicle, one that seemed larger than the cop car she had thought she saw in the rearview mirror of her car.


    Then confusion hit Andrea, as she forced herself to relax slightly.


    That fear that had been building up within her stomach was going away, as Andrea realized that this wasn¡¯t the cop at all.


    Until she realized that it was the tow truck that had gone down the winding back road a few moments ago.


    Now the truck was coming and pulling a vehicle behind it, a vehicle that had a bevy of other vehicles that had apparently been stuck behind this one vehicle for a while.


    Shaking her head, Andrea let out a sigh. As it was a common occurrence, a vehicle popped a tire, or did something on the winding roads to spin out, thus causing an accident that then blocked others who attempted to use the same back road.


    The entire thing just caused a pit of sadness to form up in Andrea. Followed by the innate sense of relief that she had somehow avoided that traffic jam.


    Then the lights of the vehicles that were following the tow truck all came to life around the final bend in the road, illuminating the vehicle that was being towed.


    Gasp.


    With a gasp, Anrea realized almost immediately that the vehicle was the missing cop car. Springing to her feet, Andrea was standing up on her porch and stared out, over the field trying to glimpse everything that had happened to the vehicle.


    Did it crash?


    Did it pop a tire?


    Had she somehow been part of an accident or could she have saved a cop¡¯s life had she turned back around to check on the missing cop car.


    In her mind, she felt guilty, as she realized that she was so worried about trying to get away from a simple littering ticket, well a littering ticket that would have led to a fleeing the police ticket, that she never stopped to think about the cop.


    In the tow truck, Andrea saw the dark silhouette of a man wearing a police uniform.


    Relief.


    At that sight, she felt better knowing that the cop had apparently survived. Then her eyes began scanning the car for any signs of a dent of accident. The car¡¯s frame looked fine. It wasn¡¯t until the car had been dragged past her, and was still being lit up by the lights of multiple vehicles that were caught behind the disabled cop car, that Andrea noticed the black smoke that seemed to have come up from the engine.


    Seeing the signs of black smoke, a jolt of fear rose into Andrea¡¯s heart, as she turned to her daughter.


    ¡°Did you do that?¡± Andrea found herself asking, remembering the strange sensation that had flowed through her when Misha had screamed. Then her car suddenly sped up violently.


    Remembering that sensation, Andrea couldn¡¯t help but wonder if that same odd pulse had something to do with the state of the cop car as well.


    Grimace.


    Even with half her face covered, Andrea could read the micro expressions on her daughter¡¯s face well. There was the slight pinching of her jaw, as her lips were pulled back in a slight grimace. Not much, too many they might not even notice the expression, but to Andrea they spoke volumes.


    Then her daughter spoke those four words that bring both annoyance and relief to every parent¡¯s heart. Relief that they confessed, slightly, but annoyance in that they did it at all.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to.¡±


    At that Andrea could only nod her head. Then grasping at straws, she found herself asking out loud for help.


    ¡°What should we do?¡±

 Chapter 7 Back To School

    Chapter 7


    Back To School


    ¡°You sure you are ready to go back?¡± Andrea found herself asking Misha.


    No grand insight came, no great revelation about what to do next came to Andrea, despite her desperate plea. In the end her only recourse was to eventually put Misha to bed, and then to lie down, where she tossed and turned all night until finally giving way to fits of disturbed but restful sleep.


    Honestly of the two, Andrea realized she was the worst to wear, as Misha looked as stoic as ever. Though today her case of helmet head was mostly gone, wearing a helmet every day would take its tolls on a girl¡¯s curls, but a quick brush job made it, so her hair looked normal, well mostly normal. As Andrea was still having a hard time getting used to the way her daughter looked without the top half of her head covered.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha answered succinctly, no pause, no hesitation just a cold and resolute response.


    ¡°Do you want me to walk you in?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°No, I will be fine at the car drop off.¡± Misha said.


    Then before Andrea even realized, the long line of cars ahead of her slowly but surely dwindled down, until it was Misha¡¯s turn to exit. The teacher in charge of arrivals came over, opened the passenger door and Misha got out fluidly and made her way quickly to the school.


    Click.


    The door closed, and Andrea stared over at her daughter who didn¡¯t even look back.


    Seeing that her daughter clearly didn¡¯t need her, Andrea let out a breath, put her vehicle in drive and began making her way out of the parking lot. Then began heading to her job, before she was too late.


    ***


    Misha entered the school and felt the residue of emotions all but clinging to the place. Had this been her first time going through such experiences, she would have lost her way and succumbed to the perpetual melancholy that seemed to linger to the school¡¯s old brick walls.


    Yet, Misha had come a long way in her training. Lifetime after lifetime built her up for such experiences, and now that she had fully bonded with the element of electricity, she no longer felt overwhelmed by the influx of power that surrounded her.


    It still shocked her to see how primitive this world was and wasn¡¯t at the same time. Clearly the planet had seen an influx of devices and gadgets that were beyond the normal pattern for most developing planets, giving rise to the idea that she might not be the only Psycher to have reincarnated here.


    If that was the case, then Misha made it a point to try to lay low until she found out which group of Psychers arrived here first. Were they renegades that had purposefully bucked the imperial system during the war? Were they separatists? Occultists? Or worse, advanced traitors for the enemies?


    So far, every search ended up nothing when Misha let her consciousness join the great web of logic. While there were no signs of other Psychers present, Misha herself traveled with as faint of a presence as possible, so as not to alert suspicion. Her body was still weak, and while her mind was capable of a great many things, she was only as good as her body let her be. This was why for now, Misha kept herself low.


    Oddly enough, while she couldn¡¯t find the presence of other Psychers, she could now find pockets of other individuals. As there were clear pockets of individuals that she was fairly certain were werewolves, or at the very least were infected with Lykanthropy. There were also pockets of those subjected to vampirism, and a third smaller pocket that Misha could only assume were the techo-phobic mages of the world. Again, not much was known about that last group, but they did seem to have some presence on the connected world logic web, that the people of this planet called the Internet.


    Misha made her way to her classroom, and was greeted by her teacher.


    ¡°Why hello there, are you lost?¡± Ms. Folk asked, staring at Misha with confusion clearly evident on her face.


    ¡°No, Ms. Folk. This is still my designated area.¡± Misha answered mechanically.


    Hearing the words and the voice, a sudden recognition came to Ms. Folk as she leaned back half a foot to take a better look at Misha.


    ¡°Is that you Misha?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha answered, not nodding or giving any extraneous movements.


    ¡°Oh wow, you are so pretty. I didn¡¯t recognize you without the,¡± Ms. Folk paused. As she was clearly trying to find a nice way to mention the fact that Misha had been wearing a self-made electro-magnetic disruption array device that was then placed into a helmet so it would not shift around too much while moving. ¡°The helmet.¡±


    ¡°Apparently.¡± Misha responded, not quite knowing what else to say to such a statement.


    Flustered.


    ¡°Right then, why don¡¯t you go take your seat.¡± Ms. Folk said, clearly not knowing how to interact with Misha who locked gazes with the teacher and clearly felt threatened by the gesture.


    On her way to her assigned chair, Misha made a note of the sudden fear shown by the instructor. Her gaze had been meant to convey she was willing to listen to instruction, and that she was focused. Yet, for some reason that gaze had seemed to unnerve the teacher, despite it being the same gaze she had provided the teacher during every lesson. A brief thought about the visor she wore being down crossed her mind, but was instantly dismissed, as most people could or at the very least should be able to see through the basics of polarization. No, it had to be something else, was what Misha thought to herself as she sat down.


    ¡°Hey are you the new girl?¡± Brittany asked.


    Misha, clearly not being the new girl did not even look at the girl. Instead, Misha decided to go to her seat. The first thing she did as usual was clear it out of any boobytraps. This time there was just a bit of water, nothing earth shattering but enough to give her a wet bottom if she sat down before looking.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Hey you shouldn¡¯t sit there, that¡¯s the freak¡¯s chair.¡± Brittany said, clearly trying to prevent Misha from sitting down in the slight pool of water, clearly showing her to be the culprit. This was fine, as Misha was used to such antics by this point and had already labelled Brittany as the instigator for most of these petty disturbances that she had been forced to endure during her time here.


    Misha for her part realized that keeping a low profile meant that she could not stand out too much. While the helmet and gloves had made it stand out, she was still at an age where such eccentricities were not only accepted but often encouraged by external peer groups. Meaning that so far, she had kept her status as a newly reincarnated Psycher out of public attention. She had taken a risk to oust herself to the Magi, but that had been determined to be an acceptable risk, especially given how small of a footprint she and by extension the others of her group had on the interconnected web of worldly logic.


    Barely paying Brittany any mind, Misha tilted the plastic chair forward, letting the water runoff. Plastic was still a novel concept to Misha as far as polymers went, this was an archaic part of the past that she had only read about in historical footnotes. To see it still filled her with a sense of awe and wonder every time. Even when it was doing something like wasting water by pouring it onto the floor. There might have been a slight pettiness to Misha as she made sure to let the water splash towards Brittany and her ballerina shoes that she always seemed to wear to class.


    Water used to be something precious, but to this planet that had over seventy percent of its surface covered in water such pranks were deemed to be not only comical but encouraged by others.


    With the seat mostly clear, Misha then lowered her hand and proceeded to wipe off the rest of the water. Making sure to apply a bit of heat to her hand that would help quickly evaporate any residual drops of water that would otherwise sink into the plastic grooves of the chair.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Brittany screamed, apparently concerned about the mess of water that had been spilled right under her own feet.


    ¡°Cleaning my seat.¡± Misha said coldly as she locked gazes with Brittany.


    Brittany, always defiant, stared at Misha who just stared back with a cold look of indifference. While Misha felt that bullying an unevolved girl was beneath her, she didn¡¯t mind instilling minor warnings that sometimes there are people you should not mess with.


    Shiver.


    After a second of staring, the winner of the staring contest was apparent, as Brittany began to tremble slightly, while locking gazes with Misha.


    ¡°Well don¡¯t do it again.¡± Brittany said, a slight hint of fear and bluster to her words.


    ¡°You know, if I didn¡¯t have to clean my seat, this likely wouldn¡¯t happen.¡± Misha said, then quietly sat down in her chair.


    After which, Brittany stared at Misha, to which Misha just peered at Brittany from the side of her eyes with a, go on try it glare.


    Tremble.


    With that Brittany turned away, going so far as to shift her entire body away at a forty-five-degree angle from Misha.


    ¡°Whatever freak.¡± Brittany said her words meant for Misha, thought it was clear she was not comfortable with confronting Misha on her own.


    As far as morning routines went, there had been worse for Misha, and she considered this to be a minor victory.


    ¡°Hey, who is the new girl?¡± Bobby asked, his voice echoing in the oddly designed classroom.


    ¡°That is the freak.¡± Lewis replied.


    ¡°What, no way?¡±


    ¡°Way, look that is clearly the Freak¡¯s seat.¡±


    Hearing that, Misha realized this likely wasn¡¯t a win at all. Still, she decided to stick with it, for appearances sake.


    A Psycher was capable of dealing with any form of mental strain or attack. Sitting through mind numbing lessons only built-up character and furthered personal resolve, and mental resistances, Mish could do this.


    ***


    ¡°Listen up class, I would like to introduce to you our very special guest speaker today. As you know, we have been learning about Science from our studies. Well today, our guest speaker is a Doctor of Science, who has a very special job at the nearby university. Please give your complete and undivided attention to Dr. Grier.¡± Ms. Folk said.


    For a moment Misha paused and looked at the woman before her. While there were certain characteristics that clearly showed similarities between her psychiatrist Dr. Grier and this Dr. Grier. It was clear that this Dr. Grier was older, also the odd magical energy that radiated from this Dr. Grier was much more intense than that of her psychiatrist.


    Just being this close to so much power made Misha¡¯s teeth feel like they were vibrating.


    This too will pass, Misha said to herself a mantra that had helped her endure her first round of Psycher training. Now on this new world, she found herself having to revert to her earlier trainings, despite having long since completed the training and proven herself capable during the numerous courses of death and rebirth she had been subjected to in her past lifetimes.


    Mages like plastic were of course things she had read about, but nothing she had seen with her own eyes. Not until this lifetime and while she had not been impressed with the therapist¡¯s level of power, she found that this person before her now was much more powerful than she had originally anticipated from a Magi.


    Power radiated off of this woman in waves.


    Instantly most of the students began to cower from the subtle power radiating off of the woman.


    To describe the sensation, it felt like the heat one would expect in deep space, when the radiation filters go off, or when she would stand too close to a microwave. Yet despite the excessive waves of energy, Misha held still and just stared, wondering what type of test this was.


    Sobs.


    A few kids started to cry from the pressure the woman exuded. Her eyes scanned the classroom and finally locked gazes with Misha.


    The two shared a glance, at which time Dr. Grier, the more powerful and older Dr. Grier, watched the girl for a second, dropping her overall field of energy and finally directing it forward in a direct arc right towards Misha.


    Seeing this, Misha applied a quick heat dispersal technique that eliminated the majority of energy from the impacting wave. This was a must for a Psycher who was assigned as a Technomancer of a ship, as their job was often to go to the unsafe parts of a ship, weld, mend, or otherwise fix parts of the ship that had been destroyed and do so with the least amount of protection. This was why those with a pyrotechnic affinity were often chosen, as they could naturally disperse excess heat and quinch fires quickly and effectively.


    The wave passed over and around Misha, though it was less than she had prepared for, it had been more than enough for her to need to use her hands as a conduit to direct her psychic energy.


    After the dispersal, Dr. Grier¡¯s eyes widened in surprise as she had witnessed Misha¡¯s reaction to everything. Everything from her ability to withstand her dispersal of power. Something that even the teacher had cowered away from, to an odd ability to disrupt her direct probe of the little girl. Clearly her information about a girl of exceptional powers being right here in her own backyard had not been wrong.


    Seeing the girl still standing there, her left hand glowing with the residue of power, Dr. Grier decided to make her offer right here and now, to this class.


    ¡°Good morning class.¡± Dr. Grier began, instantly defusing the waves of energy she had been releasing and replaced them with a slight wave of calming energy.


    As expected, everyone instantly relaxed. Everyone but the one girl who stared back with her bright green eyes that spoke of true power.


    Even now, faced with overwhelming power and experience the girl just stared on defiantly. Seeing the girl, Dr. Grier could not help but let a slight shiver of anticipation run down her spine as she prepared herself to take on another student to the family. That is of course, if she can pass the next few tests.


    ¡°Today, I am going to tell you about Science. As you have heard, I am a professor at the nearby University. What you may not be aware, but we are offering your school an all expenses paid fieldtrip to visit our campus and to experience the wonders of science.¡± Dr. Grier said, scanning the whole room but invariably her eyes were always drawn back to the small girl who never even flinched at the power she wielded before her.


    Yes, she will do nicely, Dr. Grier thought. My daughter really does have an eye for talent, too bad her talent never manifested, otherwise she might be a great heir to our dominance. Instead, I need to find the next heir soon, if they are going to be trained properly.


    ***


    Andrea waited outside the school in the parent pickup line. The entire day she felt like impending doom was awaiting her daughter. That was why she even left work early to be one of the first in line to pick up her daughter, before having to go back to work for her second shift. Fortunately, the boss loved her daughter and allowed her in the office, otherwise this would be an issue.


    Still, as it stood, she could deal with finding a new job, what she couldn¡¯t have was something happening to her daughter, which was why she waited patiently all day for the moment that the bell would ring and students would begin migrating out of their classrooms.


    Rinngg.


    The bell rang, and Andrea tried to let out a breath, but it still clung tightly to her chest. Kids began pouring out of the building but nowhere in the mass of students was her daughter.


    Cars began pulling out and around her as they had picked up their children first.


    One teacher who was now acting as a security coordinator held up one finger then spoke into a walkie talkie.


    More time passed, until finally Misha came out. Just seeing the girl caused the breath that had been held tightly within her chest finally begin to release.


    Clip-clop.


    Misha got into the backseat and immediately buckled herself in, then sitting forward at attention just stared.


    ¡°So how was your day?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Adequate.¡±


    ¡°Did you do anything interesting?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Andrea stared, half expecting her to say something to give the sensation of fear that she had been experiencing something worth holding onto. But no, there was nothing apparently. Getting answers from her daughter was like pulling teeth from a hen. Inwardly, Andrea wondered if other parents had such a hard time.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Andrea said, then nodded her head, then began to turn around to face forward and begin driving off, finally.


    Of course, it was then, with her back to her daughter, that she finally decided to say something.


    ¡°I was given a permission slip for a field trip that you need to sign.¡± Misha said.


    With that Andrea suddenly wondered if this proposed field trip was what had caused so much anxious anticipation to build up within her. Odd that it would happen for an event off in the future, but Andrea began to relax, wondering if she should just have Misha call out sick that day instead.


    As she pulled out of the cramped school parking lot, she failed to notice the white sports car that had been resting idly by the parking lot exit, only coming to life the moment that Misha had left the school and entered Andrea¡¯s old clunker of a car.

 Chapter 8 Swing Shift

    Chapter 8


    Swing Shift


    Andrea drove to her office building, unaware that she had been tailed every mile that they left the school, all the way to series of office buildings downtown where she worked as a warehouse sales representative.


    In all, her job was remarkably simple, all she had to do was go in, track all packages coming into and out of the warehouse. Then update listings with what was packaged and placed onto which distribution truck and provide an updated route to maximize the efficiency of each driver. Such tasks normally took two people, but due to recent cutbacks Andrea had to do it by herself.


    Of course, Andrea couldn¡¯t be paid more to do the job of two people, which was how she worked out with her boss that not only could she leave for a lunch break to pick up her daughter, but that her daughter could come and sit with her so long as she was quiet and respectful.


    At first Andrea was concerned, first with how her co-workers would take to having her daughter present, but then the second and most important issue was how she would be able to maintain her work efficiency while her daughter was present.


    Oddly enough, the second issue never came to be a thing, for it was almost as if Misha was her good luck charm. In fact, many of the representatives often felt she was the good luck charm, as alerts would be noted quickly. Dispatches could be made to send individual packages that somehow always got left off of a delivery truck, and routes were often re-optimized while enroute, a feature that Andrea didn¡¯t know was possible, until it happened one night.


    ¡°Hi Andrea,¡± Walter, the floor foreman and true boss of the depot said to Andrea as she made her way off of the elevators. Then looking down, he saw Misha and a bright smile came to his face, ¡°and a special hello to you Ms. Misha.¡±


    Curtsey.


    ¡°Greetings to you as well.¡± Misha said in her overly formal way that neither seemed like she was carrying on airs nor seemed to be disingenuous, rather it always came across as she was very cultured and experienced with the ways of the world.


    ¡°No helmet again?¡± Walter asked.


    ¡°No, I no longer need one.¡± Misha replied.


    ¡°Oh.¡± Walter said, and a faint look of sadness crossed his face, before he turned to Andrea and said, ¡°they grow up so quickly.¡±


    ¡°Too quickly.¡± Andrea replied with a nod.


    What they didn¡¯t know was that at this very moment several things were happening all at once. First, was that a luxury white sedan pulled into the depot¡¯s parking lot. The luxury sedan was a clear contrast to all the other vehicles present, and one would think that the vehicle either belonged to the owner of the company, which knowing the company there was no way that such a dignified person would be out here. Or the second most likely scenario was that someone got lost and pulled off into the parking lot to regain their bearings before heading off again.


    Instead, this was a third category, where someone that clearly wanted to stand out by owning a luxury vehicle now drew attention to themselves while doing seemingly clandestine operations.


    As always, all new vehicles pulling in were video recorded and monitored. Then checked for an RF tag, that if found somewhere in the vehicle, the monitoring would stop and turn away. This time the systems did not turn away, but rather kept recording, indicating that no RF tag was identified with an initial search.


    However, the search apparently did not go unnoticed. Unlike 99% of the world, the being in this luxury vehicle not only felt the scans for an RF tag but was apparently able to realize the exact source of the disturbance.


    The car pulled into a spot, then turned off the engine and lights, then waited.


    All the while the surveillance cameras kept recording the incident, and were about to set off an alert for time to the warehouse system, when the owner of the vehicle got out. The woman was a well dressed businesswoman who looked closer to twenty-five than the actual age printed on her driver¡¯s license, which was more than double that.


    One would expect the woman to have had surgery performed to look so young, despite having such and advanced age. To which, the woman, one Dr. Grier a tenured staff at the local university would let you think just that.


    While the reason for her youthful appearance was something far more benign and profound.


    Focusing on the cameras that were continually scanning her with bursts of electrical frequencies, she found the source and then with a pure focus of will, sent off her own burst.


    Sparkle.


    The cameras, before being completely fried from the action managed to catch Dr. Grier¡¯s eyes glowing a bright white before the recording was completely destroyed as multiple components within automated recording systems shut down.


    ***


    Beep, beep.


    An emergency alert went off, just as Andrea was slowly making her way back to her desk.


    ¡°Oh no.¡± Andrea said, as she quickly logged back into the system and began trying to bring up the reason for the alert. The minute she did, she was met with a message that caused a pit to form within her stomach.


    Main Monitoring Unit Deactivated.


    ¡°Ugghhh.¡± Andrea said, as she began going through the simple steps to try to resolve the issue, unfortunately nothing worked.


    Another system check indicated that multiple fuses had been triggered.


    With that Andrea grit her teeth as she began going through the processes to restart and reboot the system. This would of course purge the last two minutes of data but would be worth it if they got the system back up.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Misha asked, coming over to stand beside her mother.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Oh it is the system. We have multiple fuses that have burst as it looks like we got a sudden surge of power somehow.¡± Andrea admitted.


    Nodding.


    Misha nodded in understanding. Seeing the head nod, Andrea paused, having rarely seen her daughter do such an act. Normally she only did so when she was clearly thinking about something else. Yet, what could she be thinking about right now?


    The gesture caught her so off guard that she looked at her daughter and could almost swear that there was a faint glow coming from behind her daughter¡¯s bright green eyes.


    Beep, beep, boop.


    Whoom.


    As Andrea stared at Misha, she missed the moment when her commands to restart the system had been accepted. They must have, as the system was suddenly back up and running.


    Turning back to the screen, Andrea began performing a quick diagnostic and was relieved to find that the system was not only back up, but the stored data was still saved. Then before she could get too relieved, she noticed a new alert coming up.


    Intruder Alert.


    Clicking on the alert caused a live video feed of the anomaly that set off the alert coming to life. In this case it was a luxury car that was slowly driving through the parking lot.


    A chill ran down Andrea¡¯s spine as she witnessed the car clearly going through the parking lot while the driver looked from side to side, her head swiveling in her seat as she looked for a specific vehicle.


    ¡°You should report that.¡± Misha said, her voice coldly logical.


    Hearing the words, Andrea blinked once, before realizing that was exactly what to do. Normally this would be a private investigator, or maybe a distrustful spouse who came to work looking to make sure the spouse in question was at work. Despite the reason, these infractions still needed to be noted and recorded.


    ¡°Right.¡± Andrea said, hitting the lockdown button and alerting the security staff to the vehicle.


    Click.


    The lockdown button was simple, as it would close the gates, and make it so the vehicle would have to stop by a security checkpoint before they could leave. As a precaution local law enforcement would also be called to be on standby if anything dangerous happened.


    ¡°What is she doing?¡± Andrea found herself wondering out loud.


    By this point Walter came in to the room to see why Andrea had hit the lockdown button.


    ¡°Is it Ms. Jones again?¡± Walter asked, coming in and wondering if it was the wife of one of the workers who often came in to check on her husband. While Andrea didn¡¯t want to pry, it didn¡¯t take a rocket scientist to realize that Mr. Jones had likely been caught cheating once before and now his wife did routine checkups on him.


    ¡°No, it is a new luxury white sedan.¡± Andrea said, almost thinking she could make out the make, but then realizing that the model being shown was apparently so futuristic and expensive that the standard decals and symbols were nearly impossible to notice.


    ¡°Really, let me see.¡± Walter said, coming close and taking a look at the vehicle in question.


    Wolf whistle.


    ¡°That is one fine car.¡± Walter stated, then cocking his head slightly to the side he added, ¡°the driver isn¡¯t too hard on the eyes either.¡±


    ¡°Walter, there are kids here.¡± Andrea said playfully, as she wondered why this random rich woman would go through their parking lot of all places.


    Then finally the driver seemed to find something they wanted as they noticed a particular vehicle and sped up. Then coming to a complete stop right behind the car in question, they pulled up their phone and began taking pictures of the vehicle from behind.


    ¡°What is she doing?¡± Andrea asked.


    Misha looked like she was about to say something, when Walter was the first to make the connection.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that your car?¡± Walter asked.


    Hearing that, Andrea quickly zoomed in, and found the angle and vantage point that showed the exact vehicle that the lady was taking a picture of, and as Walter had noted it was clearly Andrea¡¯s car.


    ¡°What is she doing?¡± Andrea asked. ¡°Also, who is she?¡±


    This is when Misha decided to speak up.


    ¡°That is Dr. Grier, she gave a presentation today and offered for us to take a field trip to her university in two weeks.¡± Misha said, rummaging through her bookbag and finding the permission slip.


    ¡°Dr. Grier?¡± Andrea asked, her voice incredulous, as she looked at the woman on the screen and while she did see some relationship between the therapist, this one was far older and had a completely different aura about her.


    ¡°Not our Dr. Grier, but I believe she is related.¡± Misha said calmly.


    ¡°Okay, since we have found out who she is, can anyone tell me why she is here?¡± Walter asked, clearly confused.


    At that Andrea just shrugged her shoulders, though she couldn¡¯t help but remember that feeling of dread she felt earlier coming back to haunt her. A premonition that she apparently didn¡¯t take to heart at the time. Something that she greatly resented right now.


    ***


    (Police Station)


    Deputy Grimes blinked twice, sitting in investigation room A, looking over at what was an empty seat. Idly he wondered what had brought him here. No one came to the interrogation rooms alone, at least not without a particular purpose, but for the life of him he couldn¡¯t remember why he had come here.


    Looking at the desk before him, there was his coffee mug that had long gone cold, and what appeared to be his cuffs splayed out neatly on the metal table.


    ¡°What?¡± He muttered to himself as he saw the cuffs on the table and quickly grabbed them, and then checked the serial number. Of course, the string of digits came to him, letting him know that these were in fact the set of cuffs that were assigned to him. Yet, there was a question that came to his mind, namely, why were they there, on the table and not in his holster.


    Shaking his head, he put away his hand cuffs, then grabbed his coffee mug and left. He gave one last look around, the room, trying to see if he came in there for some reason.


    For the life of him, he could not remember what he came in there for. Nor could he remember going in there at all.


    Looking around the room he saw his current note pad, opened up and clean of any notes, just as it had been at the start of the day. Yet, there was something off.


    Honestly it took him a moment to realize what it was, namely the pages that were normally peeled off at the tear line had been seemingly ripped out. This was odd as it was a point of pride to have his note book in good form and measure. The number one way he accomplished this was by gently peeling off each page of his notes, only after he typed them into his computer. This way he could keep up with being in the field, while also making sure to note each and every case that came up.


    Now, rather than the crisp cut offs, he noticed the straggling lines of a page that had been quickly yanked off. Seeing that, he pulled the loose threads out, as that would drive him crazy the next time he used this notepad. And it was his notepad, he checked, even seeing signs of his writing indented on the next page down. While no ink had spread, it didn¡¯t need to as each page had his signature case marking and signature. Something he had picked up in the academy, that way if he ever died during a case, those who found his note pad could at least identify him and what case he was working on. Yet, seeing the notes on the underside of the paper caused him to question his sanity once more, as the words and writing seemed to belong to a case that he had never worked on.


    What was odder still was that the case number was one he distinctly couldn¡¯t recall ever working on.


    Realizing something was amiss, he went to his desk, and after searching in his top drawer for a few minutes finally found the piece of charcoal that he had been looking for.


    Then with a deft hand he began dragging the wide piece of charcoal over his last page of his notepad. This technique had come in handy on more than one occasion when he had inadvertently marked the wrong name or key pieces of information in his case notes. That he would then have to go back and verify. This charcoal marker had been a life safer for the first few years of his career, which is why he kept one even now.


    This time the charcoal revealed not so much what he wrote on the page above with his heavy-handed writing, something that only happened when he was able to write against a metal desk, like the one in the interrogation room. But it also revealed a new case number.


    After fully covering the page with charcoal, Deputy Grimes saw notes written in his handwriting to a case he couldn¡¯t remember, involving people he spoke to that he suddenly could not recall.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; background-color: rgba(126, 140, 141, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 98.7027%">


    Case: 1048213-04-11


    Deputy Grimes


    MS: Claims she was not profiling but could not account for reason she took photographs of employee¡¯s car.


    PN: Suspect making odd eye contact and appears to be trying to use seduction.


    MS: Claims to work for the university and if we open her briefcase we will see that she is innocent.


    PN: We have consent at 18:49 to open briefcase without a warrant.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Then the message just ended.


    Everything was in his handwriting and everything was in his shorthand. Clearly, he had taken a few pages of notes by this point as the lines of paper had noted. The code MS was shorthand for his noting the Main Suspect, and this was where he would quote or try to quote the suspect as accurately as possible. The term PN was his own Personal Notes to himself so he could recall different key events while typing up the report.


    Yet, something was clearly wrong. Then realizing the note about the time and then the date, the 04 was for the fourth and the 11 was for November, but that was tomorrow, right?


    Then looking at his watch, he saw that today was in fact the fourth of November, and the time was, well it was 20:24 meaning the time he had given to look into the briefcase had been close to two hours ago.


    Fear welled up in him, as he tried to understand exactly what he had been subjected to during his missing almost two hours of time.


    Leaving the room, he began moving, but felt the world shift from under him. It was clear that he had been somehow drugged, at least that was the first response that came to his mind as he realized this was not going well.


    Staggering, he made his way down the hall to the room with the black screen. There he saw Lieutenant Williams passed out on the desk, as if she too had been knocked out by something.


    ¡°Lieutenant, wake up.¡± Grimes said, then after a second he gently shook the Lieutenant, not wanting to illicit an inappropriate touching case, but needing her to awaken to see if she was suffering any lingering effects.


    ¡°What? What happened?¡± Lieutenant Williams asked, her voice groggy and then suddenly she came to life as she realized where she was and most importantly what she had been doing. Looking around she too looked flustered. ¡°Why are you here now?¡±


    ¡°Lieutenant, tell me, what time do you think it is right now?¡± Deputy Grimes asked, trying to see if she too had the last few hours of time also missing from her mind as well.


    ¡°It¡¯s Friday, right?¡±


    Shaking his head, Grimes answered, ¡°no it is Saturday the forth. Also, can you check out this case number?¡± Grimes said, holding up the charcoal page that showed in white the text that had been written on the page above it.


    ¡°What?¡± The Lieutenant asked, then logging into the computer, realized that there was a glaring problem. ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°The computers, they are down.¡± Lieutenant Williams said, as she desperately tried to figure out what was wrong with her systems.

 Chapter 9 The Call

    Chapter 9


    The Call


    Clink, clatter, clop.


    The repetitive shot and make of a basketball flowing through a metal hoop and metal chain linked netting could be heard echoing through the backyard. The sound was so repetitive and persistent that Andrea had mostly gotten used to the sound, figuring it to be therapeutic in a way.


    If anything seemed to bother Misha, it never showed in her practice and dedication to getting stronger.


    ¡°What is that?¡± Julie, Andrea¡¯s mother asked, clearly hearing the sounds through Andrea¡¯s new phone that could pick up all types of sounds.


    ¡°That is just Misha practicing.¡± Andrea confessed.


    ¡°Is she always like that?¡±


    ¡°You mean does she always make a lot of noise? Yes.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t that get, you know.¡±


    ¡°Annoying?¡± Andrea asked, trying to figure out what her mother was hinting at.


    ¡°Yes?¡± Julie asked.


    ¡°Honestly, at first it was, but now it¡¯s kind of comforting to be honest. As long as that sound is being made, I know she is safe in the backyard.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°Are you still worried about what happened at work?¡± Julie asked, clearly noting the incident that had happened the week prior.


    ¡°You mean where the crazy lady apparently followed us from the school to our work. Then took a picture of my license plate?¡± Andrea said, bringing up the major details of the case.


    ¡°Yes, did anything ever come from that?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I called back the next day to inquire about it, and to see if they found out why that lady would take a picture of my license plate.¡±


    ¡°And?¡±


    ¡°And they said, they had no clue about what case I was talking about. Acted as if I was the crazy person for even bringing it up.¡± Andrea said with a sigh.


    ¡°Rich people, they can get away with anything, and pin it on us.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°Rich people,¡± Andrea echoed, clearly having resentment for what will happen.


    Silence.


    ¡°So what are you going to do?¡± Julie finally pressed.


    ¡°Not much I can do. With the cops clearly in on it, all I can do is drop it and be on the lookout for a fancy white luxury car that clearly doesn¡¯t belong out here.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°No, not about that, but about the Field Trip that is coming up.¡± Julie admitted.


    ¡°Oh right, I completely forgot about that.¡± Andrea said.


    Clink, clatter, clop.


    ¡°Well I think you should let her stay home for the day.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°I can¡¯t, if she stays home, that means I have to stay home, and we can¡¯t afford that right now.¡± Andrea replied, a note of desperation in her voice.


    ¡°Honestly, I don¡¯t know why you insist on staying out there so far away from your support network. If you moved back home, we could at least help out.¡±


    ¡°Mom, I can¡¯t deal with this right now.¡±


    Sigh.


    ¡°You are right, this is not the time for that, but I do need to ask what you are going to do.¡±


    ¡°What I am going to do?¡±


    ¡°Yes, are you going to finally move back closer to home, now that so much has happened out there? I mean you moved out there to be closer to his family. Then you find out that not only is Peter scum that will leave his family, but that might be a blessing in disguise.¡±


    ¡°A blessing?¡±


    ¡°Yes, wasn¡¯t his father the one who murdered all those people and buried them in his backyard, where Misha had to find them.¡± Julie said, speaking the truth of the situation. Or at least speaking what she figured to be the truth of the situation given just how crazy and chaotic the whole series of events were.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. She has been through so much, and I don¡¯t want her to think that there is no chance that her father might come back into her life.¡±


    Clink, clatter, clop.


    ¡°But there isn¡¯t, that man has left. I have already seen the new images of that floozie he is with right now, hugging her as if he has no cares in the world.¡± Julie admitted.


    ¡°You have seen him?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Oh yeah, I had to create an alternate account. Fixed it with the image of a hot but relatively unknown model. Created a semi-believable background, and he accepted me while you were still dating.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°Mother, you did this after he left?¡±


    ¡°Hah, I did this while you two were still dating. No, I just logged into the account and saw his new relationship status, and that he was proudly proclaiming his love for this random harlot.¡±


    ¡°Mother, you need to work on your insults. Also, it might not be the woman¡¯s fault, Peter is a dick.¡± Andrea said.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Amen to that.¡±


    Clink, clatter, clop.


    ¡°Say, why is there such a long time between baskets being made? Is she that bad of a shot?¡± Julie asked, suddenly realizing that it was roughly two minutes per shot.


    ¡°Haha. No, she does intervals between shots.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°Intervals?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, she gathers the ball, sprints with it up the court, goes to the other end, drops and does an exercise to comes back, works on footwork, dribbling, and movements, then takes another shot, only to go back and try it all again.¡± Andrea said, speaking of the pattern and routines that Misha does.


    ¡°That sounds exhausting just hearing about it.¡± Julie admitted.


    ¡°I know, why I now stay inside and just pretend to be a spectator from the couch.¡±


    ¡°When is she going to join a league?¡±


    ¡°A league?¡±


    ¡°You know something to get her to interact with others.¡±


    ¡°She hasn¡¯t said that she wants to, so I haven¡¯t pushed it.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°You are worried about work and the fact that if you are working, you won¡¯t be able to take her to or from practices.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Even more reason for you to come back home.¡± Julie said.


    Wince.


    With that Andrea could only wince at how well the trap before her had been laid out, and most impressively how easily she had moved her way into the trap.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking about it.¡± Andrea said, offering an olive branch.


    Sigh.


    With that Julie let out a sigh from her end.


    ¡°Well, think faster, as the longer you stay around there. The more you are hurting my Misha¡¯s chances of getting her dreams of playing in the NBA.¡±


    ¡°It is the WNBA, mom.¡±


    ¡°See, even more reason for her to be here, so she can tell me where she actually wants to play when she grows up.¡±


    Chuckle.


    ¡°Fine mom, I will definitely think about it.¡± Andrea said, and she meant it too. The more she tried to fight the need to go back home, the more she hated herself for realizing it was going to be inevitable. Right now, she could at least move back with the dignity of being able to afford her own place. While it might be smaller than they currently had, it would be more than enough for her and Misha. However, she knew that if she waited too long, she might have to move back in fully with her mother, particularly if she went under on her bills. Right now, she was barely able to tread water and keep her family afloat, but that could all change with a bad illness or something else.


    ¡°Also, while you are finally agreeable, have you thought about filing for child support?¡± Julie asked.


    Sigh.


    Andrea had been thinking about that, but every time she went to file, it felt so real. As if somehow doing so would mean that all of those years she had with Peter were a mistake, as if Misha was somehow a mistake. That was ridiculous, and clearly not something she wanted to do, but deep-down part of her would always think that filing for child support would be the same as admitting that their marriage was finally over. Given that he already had a new girlfriend that he flaunted online only made it that much easier to accept, at least it should make it easier to accept. However, Andrea still felt it was just as hard as ever to file the paperwork that Peter should logically file on his own. He was the one who left, he was the one who quit their relationship, and yet it was now Andrea¡¯s job to go fill out the forms, hire a lawyer, and get him to admit that he was still Misha¡¯s father. While he no longer had to provide emotional support, he could at least provide financial support for his daughter.


    Clink, clatter, clop.


    Sigh.


    ¡°You are right mom.¡± Andrea said, before continuing. ¡°I will file the forms immediately.¡±


    ¡°File them, I already had a lawyer draft them up for you.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°You hired a lawyer for me?¡± Andrea asked, suddenly feeling like this was a bit too much.


    ¡°Yes, consider it a gift.¡±


    ¡°A gift, for meddling in my family?¡±


    ¡°No, this is a gift for my granddaughter who needs this money and needs a mother who can take off a few hours a week to take her to sporting events or to spend time with her in a meaningful way.¡± Julie said.


    Punch.


    While there had not been any exchange of blows, Andrea still felt like she had been punched in the gut at that.


    Honestly, she knew her mother was acting out of love. In fact, the idea that her mother was hiring the lawyer and paying for their services was a weight off her shoulders, but Andrea also knew that such a gift would come with stipulations. If not direct stipulations to go home, then there would be implied implications that she would be guilted into going home, because of this gift.


    Once again, Andrea found herself being outplayed by her mother.


    Honestly, it was all rather impressive, but just because it was impressive didn¡¯t mean that didn¡¯t sting just as much as if she had been struck full on in the gut.


    Silence.


    Julie waited, clearly intending to hear some sort of reply from Andrea. Andrea for her part could not muster up the words to say. In a way it felt too forced, Peter could still come back, at least that was the excuse that had come to her mind. But then again it had been over six months since he left, no contact, cut off from all forms of communication. Honestly, the only reason why Andrea even knew he was alive right now was due to her mother¡¯s stalker account.


    Finally, after a long pause, Julie was the one who spoke.


    ¡°Look, I know this is tough to understand. And I wish the world was a better place, but your daughter, my granddaughter, is special. One in a million, possibly one in a billion special. I know it, you know it, that quack therapist knows it.¡± Julie stated.


    Clink, clatter, clop.


    Andrea sat in constant thoughts to herself, until the rhythmic nature of Misha¡¯s shooting broke her out of her own head space.


    ¡°Fine.¡± Andrea said, as much as she hated to admit it, this was for the best. Child support was not the same thing as going home, this was just extra support to live and try at her dream of having a family on her own. While the image of what a family would look like had changed, she knew that all she needed was Misha.


    ¡°You are stubborn.¡± Julie said.


    Chuckle.


    At that Andrea had to laugh, before she added. ¡°If you think I am stubborn, you should see Misha when she gets in a snit.¡±


    With that Julie also laughed. ¡°Poor dear, she gets it naturally.¡±


    ¡°Naturally?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you see, I don¡¯t know if you know this, but I too have been called stubborn, once or twice.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°Just the two?¡±


    ¡°You know, I am getting older, it is getting hard to count all the times. But yeah, I think I can say that it has occurred at least twice.¡± Julie admitted.


    Laughter.


    Andrea laughed, and with that all the tension she had been feeling suddenly released.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Andrea said and meant it too.


    ¡°So, you will file for child support? Or rather, you will allow your lawyer to file for child support on your behalf?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Andrea answered, while letting out a sigh at the same time.


    ¡°Good, then while you are finally listening to me. Make sure that you don¡¯t allow Misha to go on that field trip to the University. I know school staff will be in attendance, but I don¡¯t trust that professor with my granddaughter.¡± Julie said, clearly bringing up the last point of contention.


    ¡°Alright mom.¡± Andrea replied exasperatedly.


    ¡°I mean it, don¡¯t even send in the permission slip.¡±


    Silence.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t sign the permission slip, did you?¡± Julie asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so?¡± Andrea said, trying to remember back to the other night and wondering if she had in fact signed the field trip attendance slip.


    ¡°Well better still, just keep her home the day of the field trip, that way you know she won¡¯t get caught up in whatever shenanigans that crazy professor has. She clearly has the cops on her side, if anything happened, then you know¡­¡± Julie began.


    ¡°I know.¡± Andrea said and meant it too. The fact that the case had randomly gone cold, or dismissed as if nothing had ever happened, only made it so Andrea felt herself agreeing with her mother for the second time today, a recent record, if her past few years were anything to go from.


    Silence.


    ¡°Well, I think it is almost time to call Misha in so she can shower and get ready for the night.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Julie said, her voice tense with realizing she might have pushed too much for their one phone call.


    Andrea hearing the sudden tension from her mother, felt herself taking in a deep breath and responding.


    ¡°But honestly, thank you for everything. I don¡¯t say it enough, but I do appreciate everything you do for me, well us, for us.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°I love you too.¡± Julie said.


    Silence.


    Andrea waited, she felt the words close to coming out, but then before she could say anything, the click of the line going dead filled her ears.


    Boop, boop, dial tone.


    Andrea held the line and looked at it, seeing the time of her call flashing.


    25:32.


    That was the longest she had spoken to her mother in a long time, and it felt oddly therapeutic to talk to her mother. For a while there, particularly after Peter left, she dreaded calling her mother for fear that she would say ¡°I told you so.¡±


    Yet, that conversation never happened, instead her mother had always been there for her, trying to help her move forward.


    ¡°Maybe moving back wouldn¡¯t be such a bad idea.¡± Andrea mused to herself.


    Clink, clatter, clop.


    Then hearing that her daughter was still diligently playing in the backyard, Andrea realized that the new house would need to be close to a basketball court, so she could continue to practice.


    In her mind Andrea mentally noted that there were two main things to focus on. The first was the idea of moving, and the second was to accept the idea of child support for a dead beat dad who left.


    There was of course, something else that was also important, but those were the main two events that Andrea decided to focus on and make happen.


    ***


    (One Week Later)


    ¡°All right class, during this class trip, we will all need to buddy up as we make our way through the University Campus, and see what professional scientists are working on.¡± Ms. Folk, Misha¡¯s second grade teacher said.


    Then like that the children all began attracting and grouping together. The cool kids were easily paired off, followed shortly by the different males who often played with each other on the playground. A few of the wilder pairs needed to be regrouped, so that they would not be rambunctious enough to break anything expensive.


    Then finally there was just Misha who stood by herself off in the corner.


    Ms. Folk, seeing the girl who still had the stigma of being helmet head, still had no friends. Not that she apparently needed to make friends.


    ¡°All right, for today, you will have to be in a group of three Misha.¡± Ms. Folk said, speaking up and gently guiding Misha to join Kate and Allison.


    Kate was clearly okay with this, but Allison looked at Misha with a sneer on her pretty face. Seeing this, Ms. Folk decided to nip this all in the bud, ¡°now you all will get along for our walk across campus. You don¡¯t need to be friends, but you do need to be nice to each other.¡±


    With that Allison looked towards the ground, while Misha joined to be close, but not close enough to be within the friend zone of the two girls. Seeing the girl, Ms. Folk always marveled at how kids fell into one of two categories, those that were aware of social boundaries and those that weren¡¯t. It was clear that Misha was well aware of social boundaries, as she remained standoffish from the start.


    Well, nothing I can do about forcing kids to be friendly. Ms. Folk thought to herself, as she realized that now that everyone was paired up, it was time for this field trip to officially begin.


    ¡°Let¡¯s all go and make this the best trip possible.¡± Ms. Folk said to her class, that was in turn merging with the two other second grade classes. Then speaking lowly to herself, she said ¡°this will be fine.¡±


    Rumble.


    As she took her first step forward, Ms. Folk felt her stomach begin to turn in discontent. Mentally, she hoped this was not an omen of what would this day had in store for her and her class.

 Chapter 10 The Giving Tree

    Chapter 10


    The Giving Tree


    (Misha)


    ¡°Oh, hello little ones. My name is Doctor Grier, and today I will be escorting you around campus, showing you what is possible if you apply yourself in science and math.¡± An overly cheerful Dr. Grier greeted. Her words were incongruous to her face, but she had a way about her that set others at ease, despite how she physically presented herself.


    Seeing the Doctor, Misha noted that there was likely a heavy use of magic being used. Which was odd, as she herself did not detect anything out of the ordinary.


    The more she spoke, the more her words had an apparent effect on the students. Even Ms. Folk began to have a bit of a glassy-eyed gaze towards the end.


    This was odd, but then again this is why Misha forged a few documents and changed calendar notes by her mother to be here. While her mother had been vehemently opposed to the idea, she was just human. Meaning that she would trust her electronics that told her of notes she made to herself. Never thinking that said notes could be altered or changed easily. Even the unsigned permission slip was easy to get around, as all the teachers looked as were ticked boxes from the school¡¯s receptionist stating that a permission slip had been provided at some point. No one ever checked the permission slips the day of, to confirm that the slip was still available. As such, lying low and getting onto the school field trip was rather easy all things considered.


    The more Misha lived here on this backwards planet, the more she began to appreciate its more rustic lifestyle. Just enough technology to make life easier, but not so much that life entirely depended upon its constant maintenance for survival.


    As a Psycher, her past lives were both tough and challenging. Not that living in space wasn¡¯t hard enough, but she would often have to fend off other enemy Psychers, or their equivalents, the Bakshee, to do things a simple as travel through space.


    Yes, this world with its vast vegetation, ample water, and clean air was a seeming paradise compared to the different lifetimes of struggle and reincarnation that she had been subjected to previously. This was why she wanted to at least become aware of the true threats to this planet.


    The first way to truly do this was to come here, and somehow break away from the main tour group and find the legendary lodestar stone. A piece of the ancient comet that allegedly destroyed the dinosaurs so many millions of years ago. At least that is what the story said.


    Of course, there were odder stories that related to the stone, but that was for a different day. Right now, Misha was conducting her own investigation into the world of magic of this world.


    Now part of her explorations was always to try to find magic, that is the ability to produce a natural or catastrophic phenomenon that was far larger than what one would expect. These were said to be powers that would work in conjunction with the Psycher powers, or at the very least not hinder Psycher capabilities.


    That was the hope, and numerous research groups and scientists left the core colonies early on to explore space and to search for such phenomena. How ironic that now, far removed from her known universe, on a planet too behind the times to develop adequate crystalline communication sensors would Misha find the very spark of hope that trillions of her predecessors died to find.


    While it was dangerous, as Misha¡¯s body was extremely vulnerable in this growing state, she felt the risk was worth the possibility of being outed. Also, despite all her precautions, Misha was fairly certain that any and all surveillance systems on her now would be easily wiped out and erased. As most electronic recording devices were so primitive that even the most minor discharges of electrical currents would cause the systems to completely destroy themselves and their valuable content.


    This University did have redundant systems, and the ability to back up data to a last saved good spot, but they were primitive, relying on a twenty-four-hour cycle to be able to back up the stored data. Meaning that so long as the data was wiped before she left for today, nothing would link her as being here.


    Sadly, this world did not believe in memories of people, meaning that even if notes were made, no one would believe said notes, unless they were backed up by a recording showing the same exact scene. Even then people tended to believe the recording over anyone else who was actually there.


    Looking around, Dr. Grier took inventory of the gathered children, until her eyes spotted the group of three that included Misha, Kate, and Allison. While she seemed slightly confused at first, her suspicions were dropped when she saw the black gloves with copper wiring that Misha still wore.


    At first the gloves had been necessary for her to use her innate Psycher abilities on computers and internet connected devices. As the copper provided a direct current for her mind to be able to inject energy directly into the device, she would then be able to use the device as an extension of her own body. Just as ancient samurai felt that a sword was an extension of her body. So too did the Psycher feel that a physically connected device was an extension of their own mind and body.


    That was of course before her awakening her second affinity with Lightning. Now the gloves were mostly a reminder of her past lives and while they did make the connections between her mind and mechanical devices easier, they were not as needed as before.


    While Misha didn¡¯t always need to use gloves, today she also wore them for a very different reason. Her goal was to get close to the lodestar stone, but part of her could not deny the fact that if she was given the opportunity, she would reach out and touch the stone despite the potential consequences.


    ¡°Oh my, and who might you be, little one.¡± Dr. Grier said, going over towards Misha, the only person who was still able to maintain eye contact without a hint of blurry or glassy eyes.


    ¡°This is Misha Collins.¡± Ms. Folk said, offering up all relevant information about Misha without a second glance.


    At that Dr. Grier¡¯s eyes went wide with excitement. ¡°Collins, is it?¡±


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Then she paused, as she seemed to taste the name. ¡°I don¡¯t believe I have come across too many Collins¡¯ in our line of work.¡±


    Misha just stared, not angrily like a typical kid would, or with a scared expression like so many others would have at such a discovery. Instead, Misha just stared blankly at the woman, her eyes stating more than words typically could.


    ¡°First, we will begin by showing you our current research into natural sciences. Our primary focus currently is on regrowing organic tissues from scratch. The idea is to help people who have been injured heal faster and safer.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    Hearing this Misha almost opened her mouth, but then thought better of it. Instead, she wished to see what exactly the known processes were on this planet. Given that these people have had magic available to them for centuries now, Misha expected there to be great progress being made in the field.


    As this too was a field that often-plagued scientists and was why her bodies slowly became sexless, this both cut down on the need for physical partnerships, while also cutting down on potential organs that could eventually fail in a body.


    There during those times, it was discovered that new bodies could be produced, but at a very slow rate. Often taking years to grow and mature a shell that would be ready to be inhabited by one¡¯s consciousness.


    ¡°Whoa!¡± Almost all the half-dazed boys said, as they saw a video of a pig being injured, and then the wound being healed almost instantly with a form of powder.


    ¡°Ahh!¡± A few of the more sensitive girls cried out, but their responses were muted, likely due to the effects of the mental persuasion they were feeling currently.


    Powder, a good first step, Misha thought to herself, before continuing her thought, but ultimately meets its limits at the energy usage phase. The primary reason for this limitation was because all the energy used to activate the powder came from the injured person. Meaning a person who was injured would then have to provide the energy necessary to save their own lives, which was not always possible in every situation. Shaking her head mentally, Misha was not impressed, until she heard the Doctor¡¯s statements.


    ¡°This used to be what we had to do, in order to provide life saving skin to an open wound.¡± Dr. Grier stated, ending the video and leading everyone to a lab room that lay just behind the giant wall mounted television that had been set up just for this occasion. ¡°Now, let me show you what we are working on now.¡±


    With that Misha¡¯s ears perked up, as she finally hoped to find the very heart of magic that she had come here to discover.


    ***


    (Dr. Grier)


    The presentation was proving to be both exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. It was exhausting as Dr. Grier had to maintain twenty-three concurrent trances at a time. While controlling children was relatively easy, maintaining that control was proving to be a bit more taxing than she had originally anticipated.


    Though, despite her best efforts to try to shackle the odd girl with black gloves, this Misha Collins, Dr. Grier felt even more excited by her presence. As her ability to fully resist her control even to this point pointed towards her being a truly powerful magi, which was why she now decided to fully open up this tour to the class, and even to eventually expose the students to the special room.


    ¡°Whoa.¡±


    This time the girls and boys of the class both called out excitedly as a visibly injured plant grew back its broken branch within seconds. Then the branch began flowering. Within seconds a perfectly normal bare branch began sprouting leaves and tiny pink and white flowers.


    ¡°So pretty.¡± The girls cried out, well all but Misha who looked on with a studious gaze that implied she had seen better. Seeing the seemingly unphased Misha, Dr. Grier decided to turn it up a notch.


    ¡°Now watch this.¡± Dr. Grier said and pushed a button.


    Shortly after the button was pushed a dense wind was sent into the room with the budding plant. The wind seemed to work with the plant for a second, before the leaves of the pink flowers began to fall away.


    ¡°Oh.¡± The girls cried out but were then caught off guard by the growing red lumps on the tree.


    ¡°What is happening?¡± One of the boys asked.


    ¡°You are witnessing a new form of self-pollination, where we can get the plant to pollinate on its own, without need for mechanical devices, or even bees, if you can believe that.¡±


    ¡°Are they real?¡± A girl asked from the front of the group.


    Seeing all the eager faces, Dr. Grier smiled to herself. ¡°I don¡¯t know, why don¡¯t you tell me for yourself.¡±


    With that Dr. Grier opened a side door that had been seamlessly blended into the side of the wall. A quick scan of her hand disengaged the magnetic locks, allowing her to enter the room with the now fully healthy tree, and its one perfectly grown branch of cherries.


    Snap.


    Dr. Grier snapped off the new branch, leaving a mark on the tree, just like the one that had been healed moments ago.


    With that, Dr. Grier came out, and offered the kids to touch the branch and even allowed them to eat the cherries if they were bold enough.


    ¡°It feels so real.¡± A girl said.


    Chuckling.


    ¡°That¡¯s because it is real.¡±


    ¡°Can I have one?¡± A boy asked, after ripping off one of the cherries.


    ¡°By all means.¡± Dr. Grier said, then with her free hand gestured to the other kids to take a cherry.


    At this everyone surged forward to at least touch the branch. While the cherries were eaten quickly, everyone seemed eager to touch and feel the branch. Everyone except for Misha who just sat there staring at the group.


    Watching Misha, it was clear that she was staring at the boy who first picked off and stole a cherry. She watched him for a long moment, until he opened his mouth and started talking again.


    ¡°That was delicious.¡± He stated.


    Dr. Grier seeing the girl just stare, it was clear that her gaze had gone on to other students. With a shock Dr. Grier realized that the girl was looking at all the students who ate a cherry.


    ¡°Did you want a cherry of your own?¡± Dr. Grier asked, trying to get the girl to engage. With her holding the branch, any signs of magic would easily be felt by her. As right now this tree branch was acting as a mini focus item. Since this item was as yet unattuned, Dr. Grier would be able to feel the subtle pull of other magicians who would reach out and try to synchronize their energies with the very branch she held.


    If Dr. Grier held onto the branch for long enough, it would easily bond to her. However, this was not the intention of this test, and while she did note a slight pull of energy from one or two of the students, it was nothing close to being enough to wield true magic.


    ¡°No.¡± Misha answered coldly, no, not coldly, but succinctly. She answered in short succinct sentences, a quality that Dr. Grier would love in a future apprentice.


    ¡°Then what are you looking at?¡± Dr. Grier asked, trying to get the child to relax a little and come closer for her to use the branch as an impromptu magical calibration tool.


    ¡°The pits.¡±


    ¡°Sorry what?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    By now all of the other students stopped talking as they all looked to Misha, who everyone subtly gave more space than necessary, almost as if they understood the true danger that the girl wielded.


    ¡°There were no pits in the cherries.¡± Mish sated, before continuing in a much softer tone, ¡°you couldn¡¯t grow them either.¡± That last part seemed to be more of a statement to herself than anything, if not for the fact that this was Dr. Grier¡¯s personal domain she too might have missed the silent comment to herself.


    Hearing the girl, Dr. Grier was impressed. Thinking that even if her magical acumen wasn¡¯t high enough, she might still make a good apprentice with her observation skills alone.


    ¡°Very good observation. Yes, currently this process while fully healthy and nutritionally safe, will not cause a seed to be germinated, yet.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    ¡°So it¡¯s even better?¡± A girl said.


    ¡°That is one way to look at it. With this we can hopefully end world hunger by having plants that can grow enough food to feed a city or town within hours, versus the months that are currently available to us.¡± Dr. Grier said, stating the true benefit of this novel process.


    ¡°That is amazing.¡± Ms. Folk, the teacher for this class that Dr. Grier personally chose to escort said.


    ¡°Yes, yes, it is. One day there will not be any hunger, and people will be able to eat healthy foods all year long. At least that is the goal of our project.¡± Dr. Grier said, with that all the kids seemed excited. Well, all the kids except for one, the girl Misha just stared at the branch and shook her head. Seeing her, Dr. Grier couldn¡¯t help but want to understand what she was thinking right now.


    ¡°What are you thinking about?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    Misha looked shocked for a moment, as if she had been pulled from her own personal thoughts. Then turned to Dr. Grier and said flatly, ¡°this process cannot be sustained. Yes, for this generation of plants you will be able to do this, but these plants will die out, making it so you will eventually run out of seeds to plant.¡±


    Hearing the girl, Dr. Grier was again impressed with her foresight. Hearing her, Dr. Grier was almost certain that this Misha was a diviner of some kind. Someone who might be able to glimpse future calamities and prevent them from happening. After this, Dr. Grier didn¡¯t even need to use the stick method to see if this girl was a magi. Instead, she decided to take the girl herself to the sacred stone and see what happened when she got near.


    While this wouldn¡¯t necessarily be permitted, especially not without fully indoctrinating the girl. Dr. Grier knew that the stone would only react if she herself was a magus, meaning that her indoctrination would be conducted shortly thereafter.


    It was an acceptable risk and given Dr. Grier¡¯s status as the leader of the Southeastern district of magic, this was her decision to make regardless. Which is why she decided to pull ahead with her plan. With her mind made up, she asked the question that would forever alter the lives of the class of students before her.


    ¡°Now for the final portion of our tour. How would you all like to see a fragment of the meteorite that killed all the dinosaurs?¡±

 Chapter 11 The World Destroyer

    Chapter 11


    The World Destroyer


    (Dr. Grier)


    There was a replica of the ancient lodestar stone, multiple of them in fact. Their purpose, and why the school would have so many was easy to understand. Namely, the school and most importantly its protective faculty didn¡¯t want the lodestar stone to be stolen by anyone who might find the ability to break into their otherwise loosely guarded facility.


    In fact, it was only today that the real remains of the planetary destroyer were actually on display in the first place. The real reason of course was that this whole field trip had been designed and carried out by Dr. Grier herself, with the express intent to test out Misha Collins.


    Regardless of how this testing went, even if Misha didn¡¯t show active signs of being an awakened one, Dr. Grier still knew that she had to keep the girl around.


    ¡°This next part of our journey is a secret part of our trip. One where only five people have access to enter.¡± Dr. Grier said as she pulled out a large lanyard from around her neck that had a RF encoded chip inside. Of course, the lanyard and the RF chip both were not needed and were actually designed to be bait used to lure potential thieves. A misdirection play that was sadly needed with the number of people who would pay handsomely to gain access to the resources, and knowledge that lay in this lowest level of the facility.


    ¡°Due to its location, and level of security, we often refer to this section as the dungeon.¡± Dr. Grier stated in a faux sinister voice.


    ¡°Whoa.¡±


    The bedazzled kids all stared on in mostly awe and reverence at the statement. Their words seemingly matching their enchanted stated. Even the Teacher let out a slight wave of awe, a sign that she was able to partially resist the continued influence of Dr. Grier¡¯s powers.


    Everyone but Misha seemed both eager and excited to enter.


    Misha on the other hand seemed coldly indifferent to the whole ordeal. She could be here, or she could just as easily be anywhere else on the planet for that matter. The place and location did not seem to matter.


    Again, the more Dr. Grier saw the child, the more she couldn¡¯t help but wonder what type of witch the child would be.


    Chills.


    Dr. Grier felt her body involuntarily react to the waves emanating from the lodestar stone, a sign that a piece of the real lodestar stone was out and on display.


    ¡°I¡¯m scared.¡± One girl called out as they crossed the zone of influence of the stone.


    Looking back, Dr. Grier saw that the girl that reacted was one of the two who showed a slight reaction to the magical tree branch. This girl had the ancestry of witches within her, that much was a given.


    In fact, everyone that had at one point had a family member that touched or spent any length of time near a part of these special lodestar stone would eventually awaken bloodlines that would be magical in nature.


    Through intensive studies Dr. Grier found that her own powers would slowly improve the longer she was exposed to the lodestar stone. The children of the professors were not only capable of wielding magic earlier, but often developed into mages that were far more capable of greater feats than their parents. Such were the benefits of prolonged exposure to the stone and similar fragments.


    Of course, there were a few drawbacks, many members of the cabal noted remarkable improvement by being near the stone. Cabal members that either quit or moved away often succumbed to cancer within years of leaving. Originally it was thought of as being a curse, or something the body did naturally, as people would grow old, retire, and then die. That was the natural course of life. It wasn¡¯t until years of research later that it was proven that being in direct contact with the stone made you healthier to a point where you were seemingly always at the height of physical perfection. Your muscles grew rapidly, you seemed to defy age as your body maintained a youthful appearance. Then as soon as you left the power of the stone, your body would break down almost immediately. First there was an atrophy of muscles, then the rapid loss of youthful vigor, followed by the fact that massive lumps would grow within your body and metastasize within years, or in cases that were exposed for a particularly long time, months.


    Dr. Grier knew that she herself was a perfect candidate for near immediate death should she leave the stone¡¯s warm embrace. She first noticed a correlation when she would get sick from prolonged absences, like when she was younger and would travel abroad for conferences and the like. That was when she realized the initial studies of the lodestar stone were both accurate and incomplete. She caught her first cold when she traveled, and it nearly killed her. Since then, she has not left the stones side, and even secretly carved off a portion that was fashioned into a necklace that she now wears around her neck. The fragment of stone is so small that it doesn¡¯t fully work, unless she lets the stone touch her skin directly.


    These personal observations of hers have been left out of her notes. While she could make huge headlines within the magical community of her findings she would be caught for numerous problems. Least of which being that she desecrated a part of the sacred lodestar stone. Which would almost encourage others suffering from similar fates to hers to do something equally as drastic. Then there would also be the case that more people other than witches would likely want pieces of the stone available to them, so that they could create their own magical lineages. Lineages that would be grown and fostered outside the guidance of the council.


    ¡°You feel that do you?¡± Dr. Grier asked the girl that seemed to be quivering slightly due to the seemingly overbearing presence of the lodestar stone. ¡°What you are feeling is the faint electromagnetic resonance of the space stone. You are one of the few who can detect such energy fluctuations, meaning that you are more in tune with the world around you than ninety-nine point nine, nine percent of all instruments made by man to date.


    ¡°Really?¡± The girl asked, suddenly feeling excited by hearing the news of just how special she is.


    ¡°Uh, I can feel it too.¡± One of the boys called out, ¡°it¡¯s super creepy.¡± Then to add credibility to his findings he rubbed his arms as if they were suddenly cold.


    Seeing the boy and his reaction to praise being given to the girl, Dr. Grier inwardly sighed to herself. She didn¡¯t need to be a sixth-tier witch to realize that the boy was lying, despite having the compulsion spell telling her exactly what she had already understood to be the truth of the situation.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Before Dr. Grier could call out the boy, many of the other children also began crying out with similar claims.


    ¡°Oh, I can feel it too. That is so cool.¡± Another few kids said.


    ¡°What? I don¡¯t feel anything.¡±


    ¡°You must not be as cool as me.¡±


    ¡°Oh wait, I can feel it now. It is that weird humming thing?¡±


    Sigh.


    Dr. Grier let out a sigh of exasperation, glad she already knew who the true children with the chance to develop magical talent were from among those that were all pretending to have a reaction.


    Of those present, only the two with magical affinities had legitimate reactions to the lodestar stone, the others all clearly lied about being able to feel the resonance or were part of the quickly growing faction that thought it was now cool not to be able to be affected by the stone.


    It only took seconds for the children to break up into semi factions, with the majority of the students falling into the category of wanting to feel the energy. While the others didn¡¯t.


    Oddly, Misha stayed off and seemed to stare into the wall.


    Had it been anyone else, Dr. Grier might have thought the girl was just reading a sign. That or figured the girl was just being standoffish, which she had this entire trip. Yet, seeing where the girl was looking, an intense feeling of fascination grew within Dr. Grier. For Misha was looking in the exact right direction to see the lodestar stone.


    While the other magically talented kids seemed to have a vague sense of the direction of the stone. Namely that it was forward and to the left. Misha seemed to be staring through the protective walls, and directly at the location of the display case. A display case that normally only displays a replica stone but had been switched out for today¡¯s tour.


    Seeing the girl¡¯s response, Dr. Grier let out the last little bit of tension she had been holding. All the while the girl had avoided most of her attempts to read her ability levels, and so she had no measurable proof of what the girl¡¯s abilities truly were. Yet, after seeing her now, staring through the wall and all but burning holes directly into the stone¡¯s location, Dr. Grier knew this girl was magically talented.


    Not just magically talented, as she was staring in the exact spot of the stone, something that Dr. Grier could only do if she focused and mentally overlayed the direction, she was sensing with the mental layout she had of this facility. The fact that this girl was able to find the stone perfectly, well it was huge as it meant she would clearly be a powerhouse when she fully awoke to her powers.


    Seeing her now, Dr. Grier also felt the need to have her mother tested out. While children were often slightly more talented than their parents, that only happened when the mother or father had prolonged exposure to fragments of the lodestar stone.


    Seeing the girl and having witnessed her resistance to Dr. Grier¡¯s own powers, there was a moment when she felt that Misha might be more powerful than any child, she herself managed to give birth too.


    Of course, Dr. Grier had never married, there was never a male candidate that she found to be capable enough for her own credentials and pedigree, but the girl¡¯s father? Maybe, the idea was intriguing, particularly if he showed proclivity towards being able to wield the craft.


    Seeing Dr. Grier stare at Misha for a moment, Ms. Folk came over and spoke.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about her. She often stares off into space like that, but she is almost always paying attention.¡± She began, and then with a slightly lighter tone added, ¡°savant syndrome.¡±


    Hearing that, Dr. Grier nodded in understanding, but inwardly she knew the truth. Yes, while others might perceive her staring off into space as a sign of some form of deficiency, Dr. Grier knew the truth. That wasn¡¯t the look of someone spacing out, it was the look of someone intensely focusing on a distant point. Mentally she went through the myriad of different ideas, of which she came to the conclusion that only a few were likely accurate, though she would need to test out a few of her ideas to come up with a final answer to her quandary.


    For now, Dr. Grier decided to watch the girl like a hawk and see what other details she could gain from the girl.


    Also, for now, Dr. Grier wanted to hold off most of her own observations until she saw the girl interact with the lodestar stone.


    ¡°Come this way, and we will see and even be able to touch the stone.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    ¡°We get to touch it?¡± One boy asked, seemingly excited most about the idea that he would finally be allowed to touch something, versus all the times he secretly touched different objects, when he thought no one was looking.


    ¡°Yes, we will all get a chance to touch a part of the fabled planetary destroyer. The rock that fell from amongst the stars and crashed into our planet, causing a ripple effect of climate changes and natural disasters that ultimately led to the destruction and downfall of the dinosaurs.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    ¡°Cool!¡± The same boy who faked being able to feel the stone earlier shouted excitedly.


    With that Dr. Grier began leading the gaggle of kids around the different hallways, denoting different discoveries that all came from their having and testing of this particular chunk of the lodestar stone.


    ¡°Misha, you aren¡¯t coming?¡± Ms. Folk¡¯s voice echoed in the long corridors. Normally Dr. Grier wouldn¡¯t stop at this, no one child was worth breaking up her flow. Also, most of the students all seemed to be following her merrily through the hallways. If it wasn¡¯t for the name that was spoken by the teacher, Dr. Grier might have gone on without even witnessing what was happening.


    ¡°No.¡± Misha said, flatly, her voice almost devoid of emotion as she spoke.


    Hearing the word, Dr. Grier stopped, almost causing a collision of kids who all suddenly stopped their progress as well. Many crashing into a few of the students that were first to halt their progression. Fortunately, none of the students were pushed hard enough to tumble forward into Dr. Grier.


    ¡°Come on, this is the best part.¡± Dr. Grier said. Then turning to the other students, Dr. Grier began speaking. ¡°Did you know that the Aztecs were among the first people to have found the healing properties of the lodestar stone and set about worshipping the stone as if it was a fragment of the very sun itself.¡±


    ¡°Whoa.¡±


    ¡°So cool.¡±


    The kids were all excited. Seeing their enthusiasm, Dr. Grier pressed on.


    ¡°Did you know that there is a tradition that states you can find out if you were blessed by the Sun God just by touching the lodestar stone.¡±


    ¡°Really? How?¡± A kid asked.


    ¡°Simple, you can touch it, and if it lights up, you are blessed by the Sun God. Some say that if you were blessed heavily enough by the Sun God, Huitzilopochtli, that you were believed to be able to move the very elements themselves?¡± Dr. Grier said, then added, ¡°I bet each of you that felt the waves of energy from the lodestar stone will be very powerful and blessed by the Sun God.¡±


    ¡°See that, come on Misha, it will be fun.¡± Ms. Folk said.


    ¡°Yeah come on Misha.¡± Dr. Grier said, infusing a lot of her power into her words.


    ¡°Come on Misha.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to miss it.¡±


    With that, all the other students also chimed in, testing the girl¡¯s resolve, which she ultimately caved into.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha said, then reluctantly began walking forward.


    The room they entered into was a giant wide-open room with two walls of different depictions of various aspects of Aztec life, and the different advancements they managed to provide to the world.


    Then at the very back of the room was a sealed display case, with a foot of see-through plexiglass that could stop a rocket launcher.


    Once everyone was inside the room, Dr. Grier gestured for everyone to go forward to the lodestar stone.


    Behind the protective glass, the stone was not much. Even those that were sensitive to the effects of the stone were easily able to approach without any issues.


    With all the kids right next to the stone, Dr. Grier pulled out her remote control to the room.


    Click-clank.


    From the far end of the room, the giant metal door that they had all entered through closed tightly as giant steel rods bolted the door into place.


    ¡°What?¡± The kids all cried out, realizing that the one way into and out of the exhibit had just been sealed.


    ¡°This is just a security precaution. This stone is so valuable, that we have to keep it under lock and key, especially while displaying it to people.¡± Dr. Grier said, as she pressed another button that caused the giant plexiglass panel to begin to peel back from both sides, revealing the lodestar stone.


    The opening was smaller than the overall size of the stone, meaning that people could put their arms through and touch the stone with ease, but would not be able to grab said stone and pull it out.


    ¡°Is that really necessary?¡± Ms. Folk asked, pointing to the fact that the display case was now open and that the kids all had to reach their arms through the opened case to place their hands on the stone.


    ¡°I assure you, this is very necessary.¡± Dr. Grier said.


    ¡°Can I touch it?¡± The excited boy from earlier spoke out.


    ¡°Sure.¡± Dr. Grier said, wanting to get this over and done with.


    ¡°Form a line children.¡± Ms. Folk said, instantly taking control of the situation and instantly adding order to the chaos that had been about to unfold. ¡°One at a time. You will go up, touch the stone and then come back and wait. Is that understood?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Ms. Folk.¡± The children all spoke out in unison.


    With that Ms. Folk nodded her head and let the kids go up and touch the stone.


    ¡°Ugh, it feels all slimy.¡± The first boy said, before adding, ¡°that is so cool.¡±


    ¡°It didn¡¯t glow.¡± The first boy said, pulling away and looking at his hand. ¡°My hand tingles.¡±


    Hearing that Dr. Grier nodded, that meant the stone was already working, while it wouldn¡¯t awaken the magical potential within him, his children might be able to use a bit of magic if they continue to get exposure to the stone.


    ¡°What, no way?¡± Another boy, clearly the first one¡¯s friend spoke up.


    ¡°My turn.¡± Another boy shouted, as he rushed forward and put his hand on the stone. ¡°Oh that is slimy. And my hand tingles as well. That is so cool.¡±


    ¡°Should the kids¡¯ hands be tingling?¡± Ms. Folk asked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it is a natural phenomenon that is completely safe.¡± Dr. Grier said, making sure to lace a lot of power into her words.


    With that Ms. Folk¡¯s eyes glazed over from the deluge of power being sent into her mind.


    ¡°Okay, as long as it¡¯s safe.¡± Ms. Folk stated in a mechanical tone.


    ¡°Completely.¡± Dr. Grier added.


    The kids were making their way through the line. All the while Dr. Grier waited for the girl in the back of the line, this Misha, to have her turn at being exposed to the lodestar stone.


    No one, not even Dr. Grier herself, was prepared for what would happen next.

 Chapter 12 ANTS

    Chapter 12


    ANTS


    (Dr. Grier)


    The stone reacted every time someone touched it, after so many years of being around the stone and enhancing her own sensitivity to the world of magic, Dr. Grier could tell at least that much, that something was happening.


    Originally, the theory was that the stone generated an electromagnetic response within the body, one that resonated on some molecular level that was yet unknown to medical sciences. In fact, many cures and treatments for various cancers had come from observing and interacting with the lodestar stone.


    The quick drying up and dying away of excommunicated cabal members was the first true breakthrough into cancer and the subsequent treatments.


    The process was such that once cancer began, even being re-exposed to the lodestar stone would only end up with an even faster manifestation of cancer within the body. Something about being gone for too long, that once the process of the body breaking down began, it never stopped.


    Five students left.


    Dr. Grier watched as the second child with talent, a silent boy went over, touched the stone causing it to pulse brightly with light.


    ¡°Whoa.¡± The kids all called out, as once again they were all met with a bright colorful display. This time Dr. Grier noted a slight affinity towards Fire, her own element. The girl who went earlier might have had a Water or Air affinity, but Dr. Grier would have had to get one of the other cabal members to test her out fully. For now, it was good enough that these students had been identified early enough and could be brought into the fold.


    While a mid-tier level talent was rare, it sadly was not enough to do much, unless one had proper control and spell knowledge.


    Control was something that everyone had to work at, honestly it was harder for those who were born with immense levels of potential to gain as those that were talented could often be extremely wasteful with their energy, never knowing that often less magic was more effective in getting a desired response than throwing magic at a problem until it was solved.


    Still, mid-level talents were what Dr. Grier personally considered to be uncut gems. These were the stones that with enough time and effort could be polished into nice accents to a major piece of jewelry, never enough to be the main piece on their own, they could be added to, and applied in such a way to bring out the overall majesty of a better unit.


    There was more cheering, followed immediately by the pain filled cries of three other students who didn¡¯t have any reaction to the stone.


    Then came the moment that Dr. Grier had been waiting for.


    The time had come for the last girl, Misha Collins, to go forward and touch the stone. She moved forward, until she was about a foot away from the stone and paused.


    ¡°Go on.¡± Dr. Grier said, impatience practically oozing off of her as she waited for the outcome. Then she noticed that the girl was wearing black gloves. While gloves themselves weren¡¯t bad, they would likely mess with the level of reaction the stone would give off, completely throwing off an evaluation.


    ¡°Actually, you need to remove your gloves first, in order to the full experience.¡± Dr. Grier said, but as she spoke, her words laced with the power of suggestion hit the girl and seemed to roll right off of her as she continued to stare forward.


    Once again, Dr. Grier felt conflicted with her lack of response from the girl. She was about to try again, when she heard the girl mutter to herself.


    ¡°Ants.¡±


    Normally a little girl muttering wouldn¡¯t mean anything. But the word used, and the level of concentration given by the girl to the stone caused a moment of panic to rise up in Dr. Grier. Ants? If there were any ants, then there could be a huge colony that might either degrade the integrity of the lodestar stone, or worse. Honestly the idea of a magically charged colony of ants crossed her mind, but was then cut off as most of the time any animals that made contact with the stone and then left would die out almost immediately. The idea was cancer, but for tiny insects and other creatures, such hypothesis were hard to prove.


    Curious as to why an ant would be on the stone, Dr. Grier found herself getting in between the stone and the girl.


    ¡°Oh no.¡± Misha said, as she took an involuntary half step back.


    Dr. Grier, seeing the movement out of the corner of her eye instinctively turned to face the little girl, when the lodestar stone began to glow a deep ominous red. The red was so intense that it all but radiated in the darkened room that was brought even darker, as a way to highlight when the stone made contact with an awakened one.


    Dr. Grier then heard the automatic defenses of the observation lair engage.


    Whirr.


    Click-click.


    The door behind them began to unlock, as the solid clear plexiglass screen began to close up automatically due to a disturbance being felt.


    In her mind, Dr. Grier wondered how such an event was even possible, she almost moved her hand to her pocket to see if her remote control was still present, but as she shifted her bodyweight, she felt the all too familiar pull of the remote control against her skin, from within her pocket. There was another reason entirely as to why she was not reaching her hand into her pocket.


    The reason was that instinctually Dr. Grier knew she would have to use her hands to cast her spells here shortly. At least, that was what every fiber of her being was telling her, as she began drawing from her internal mana reserves and instinctively casting shielding spells.


    Why shielding spells exactly? Well Dr. Grier didn¡¯t know, it was instinct more than anything really that caused her to create said shields.


    Fwoom.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Her shield lit up as a bright red color in the darkened room. Fire was the worst at shielding, but fire often served as a good deterrent for stopping sentient creatures. There was also the fact that Fire was Dr. Grier¡¯s only element that she could control with any form of consistency.


    Simultaneously, as the flame shield went up, the power to the room was cut off. The emergency door that had fortunately been unbarred opened wide, revealing the only exit. The light from the exit was the most concentrated form of light within the catacombs, designed to leave everyone out one singular exit. An exit that would always be monitored and recorded for people coming and going, just in case a situation like this ever arose.


    The ambient light was just enough to show the contrast in colors between the bright reddish orange color of flames, versus the almost demonic red color that seemed to be emanating from the stone.


    ¡°Kids, everyone leave here immediately.¡± Ms. Folk shouted.


    ¡°Yes, Leave. Follow your teacher and leave.¡± Dr. Grier stated, infusing as much power into her words as possible.


    Dr. Grier had no clue what was happening, as far as she knew the stone did not have a melting point. The only way she herself had managed to cut off a portion of the stone was through an intense application of her own understanding of the flames. This was why she was so confident with letting the children touch the sacred relic as nothing manmade could destroy the stone. Only magicians could cut the stone, in fact to excavate the stone it was said that over a hundred mages worked in unison to break apart the entire meteorite into digestible chunks.


    ¡°Ahh!¡± The kids screamed as they began to panic and force their way out of the confined chamber.


    ¡°Walk, don¡¯t run.¡± Dr. Grier added, once again infusing her words with the highest concentrated power of suggestion that she was capable of manifesting.


    Almost immediately the children that had been desperately clawing and tackling others out of their way, began to slow down and walk towards the exit at a fast, but controlled pace.


    Thundering.


    The footsteps of the now restrained class of students echoed until finally the last student left. This was verified quickly by Dr. Grier who did not notice any further motion in her peripheral vision.


    Finally, even Ms. Folk left, letting Dr. Grier relax a little, knowing that the teacher would not let her children come to harm. This meant Dr. Grier could turn her attention to the most important objective, namely protecting the lodestar stone from whatever was happening to it currently.


    Jiggle.


    To her horror, the lodestar stone began to pulse slightly, as it seemed to be coming alive.


    ¡°Playing with fire.¡± The words came as if spoken by someone who was speaking in a disapproving tone. Just as someone would say to a child who did something you knew was wrong, but they clearly didn¡¯t.


    Pausing for a moment, Dr. Grier turned back to see that the words came from Misha, who in all the confusion never ran away like the others.


    Dr. Grier was about to yell at the girl, to tell her to leave, when she noticed something odd about the girl. She had her hands up in what looked to be a casting position, but there was something odd with her stance. Right foot back and at a ninety-degree angle from her body, as if digging in and creating an impromptu line in the sand that she will not cross. Her left foot forward, pointing directly at the now pulsing and jiggling lodestar stone.


    This was the fight of a battle caster, at least it was the position that Dr. Grier herself would take if she was going to enter into a battle with another supernatural. That was the first sign that this girl was at least at the Adept level of mastery, if not far higher.


    Danger.


    There is an instinctual pulse that surrounds danger and dangerous events. These are the impulses that our brains innately notice, telling us to look up when we are distracted, to look to our right towards an incoming predator or speeding vehicle. These were the same instincts that were now screaming at Dr. Grier that something dangerous was happening.


    There was just one problem, as Dr. Grier could feel not one, but two distinct sources of danger. As if realizing that two speeding vehicles were careening towards each other, with a collision all but imminent, Dr. Grier watched as the girl and the stone seemingly had a stare down.


    In her mind she saw the two distinct objects and realized that they were the items careening towards each other.


    Then the words that were muttered hit her; this little girl said that she was playing with fire. While that¡¯s what it might look like, especially as Dr. Grier was preparing a shielding spell made of Fire, that was not what the girl meant.


    Melting.


    The once jiggling lump of stone now looked like it was actively melting. Then to Dr. Grier¡¯s horror, the almost impenetrable stone broke apart and splashed out horizontally, seeming to attack and coat the thick clear sheet of plexiglass.


    Fear.


    Unimaginable fear hit Dr. Grier at the site of the mostly black goo that was spraying out, coating the sealed walls and melting away at the thick layer of protection. Protection that suddenly seemed to not be enough to keep back the glowing stone.


    The Blob, that was the movie that came to mind to explain what she was now seeing. A mass of unknown moving material that seemingly came to life and began devouring everything before it. Something so dangerous and unstoppable that it would destroy the world. These were the innate fears that came to Dr. Grier¡¯s mind.


    Dispersal.


    Then something even more shocking occurred, the little girl who had stayed behind held out her hands and did something. She cast some type of attack spell at the mass, at least that is what Dr. Grier assumed as she could feel the violent energy flow past her, and towards the writhing mass of black oozing and glowing liquid.


    SHRIEK!


    The attack landed, and the mass shrieked. An ear-piercing pain filled wail that sent shivers down Dr. Grier¡¯s spine.


    Hearing the sound and the response of the liquified rock, Dr. Grier felt something awaken within her. Something deep and powerful, something that called forth her magic and all but demanded that she use the magic on the child.


    Predator.


    That was the word that came to Dr. Grier¡¯s mind, but words is a rather loose term. Instead, the idea was expressed more through deep seeded emotions and imagery of danger, rather than any natural words.


    Hearing and feeling the suggestion, Dr. Grier turned from the pulsing remains of the stone towards the little girl. The girl who seemed to be moving her hands in another series of complex gestures.


    Magic.


    Maybe not her magic, but what the girl was using was clearly power on a scope and scale that was unheard of.


    The little girl, despite being as focused as she was, still managed to see Dr. Grier turn to face her.


    Their eyes met; all the while little Misha¡¯s hands moved through a complex attack pattern. Her fingers glowed with an odd pink-purple light that didn¡¯t register as any form of magic Dr. Grier had ever seen or heard about. Still despite the spell complexity, Misha turned her eyes up to lock gazes with Dr. Grier¡¯s own.


    In that moment, when their eyes met, a chill ran down Dr. Grier¡¯s spine as it was the look of a focused master. One who was so powerful and gifted with the craft that they didn¡¯t need to look at their casting to know where they were in their workings.


    Instead, she spoke calmly, as if there wasn¡¯t a glowing black blob that was currently melting its way through a foot thick of the toughest clear material that was available. Materials that could deflect fifty-millimeter rounds if the advertisements were accurate.


    Yet, despite all that, the girl used this moment to speak to Dr. Grier.


    ¡°Take off your slave collar while you still can.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°What?¡± Dr. Grier found herself reflexively asking.


    Yet, before she could ask for clarity, the girl had already turned her head to face the glowing black mass that despite having slowed down its original pace through the protective coating, was still over halfway through the protective layer.


    The overwhelming sense of pressure and inescapable danger built up, as the little girl finished weaving her spell, as her hands became still. Then she felt it.


    Fwa-boom!


    Clothes rustling violently in the wind, the sense of an intense heatwave burning off the microfibers of her face, the way the skin on the back of her hands suddenly felt dry from prolonged exposure to heat. These were the first sensations that Dr. Grier felt.


    She felt this much power, even though she was well over four feet away from the girl, but her positioning made it, so she was only a foot away from the inevitable attack path that the unidentifiable spell took.


    Danger and power both warred together as she felt the unbridled power of the girl on full display. It was clear that the first attack had been a stun attack, one that was done to buy time so that a more powerful attack could be cast.


    Death-shriek.


    Compared to the sound made before, the cry let out this time was more of a dying whimper, than any full-fledged shriek of pain.


    Pain.


    Suddenly Dr. Grier felt pain in her chest. On reflex, her hand went up to touch the spot of pain.


    Burning.


    Only to find that the pain in her chest was physical. Her chest and now her hand both were burning as something powerful burned. Looking down, she saw and felt the pendant that she always wore, right at the spot of pain.


    It almost felt like white hot magma was burning its way through her skin.


    Spinning.


    The pain was so intense that Dr. Grier noticed the world spinning around her. This was of course just her mind¡¯s way of processing the fact that she was falling to the ground. Her hand still clutching the pendant that had been meant as a life saving measure, now served as a death sentence.


    ¡°Idiot.¡± The little girl hissed, as she stomped over, then with a quick yank, ripped the necklace off from around Dr. Grier¡¯s neck.


    Relief.


    The moment the necklace was gone, Dr. Grier felt her body relax, as the source of unimaginable pain burned away.


    Dr. Grier watched as the pendant began glowing brightly within her clasped hand. For a moment she noticed a wince of pain on the little girl¡¯s face.


    Shatter.


    Plop.


    There was the sound of objects breaking and clattering on the floor, followed by a wet squishing sound. Instinctively, Dr. Grier turned her tired head to look towards the mass of glowing ooze that had finally broken free of its container.


    Seeing the ooze Dr. Grier felt fear, true fear grip her mind and squeeze. Fear was fierce and primal that all her overtaxed mind and body could do was begin shutting down, trying to forcefully purge everything that it had seen and experienced over the past few minutes.


    Her spell was gone, long since dissolved, when she felt her own flesh burning away above her heart.


    The last image she saw was of a wave of glowing black liquid quickly pooling and flowing towards her and the little girl. Seeing the liquid, particularly from the angle of her head resting on the floor, a comment that the girl made before suddenly made more sense.


    ¡°They do look like ants.¡± Dr. Grier managed to say, before her mind went peacefully dark.

 Chapter 13 Automated Naturalization and Terraforming Subsystems (ANTS)

    Chapter 13


    Automated Naturalization and Terraforming Subsystems (ANTS)


    (Misha)


    ¡°Don¡¯t give the Aboriginals fire, for they will inevitably burn down their own homes.¡± -Ancient Psycher proverb.


    To say that Misha was shocked to see what the equivalent of a partially detonated and detached warhead of a planetary destroyer was, while on third grade class field trip was an understatement. What was worse was the state that the warhead was in, upon her arrival.


    The warhead was leaking its toxic and electromagnetic energies out in thick pulsing waves. The waves were so intense that even the non-trained students were able to sense the odd energy that all but radiated through the protective walls.


    When she had first felt the object, her mind went wild as she had known exactly what this weapon was. It was barbaric, and something that had been abolished by all inter-galactic militaries for millennia. Even when Misha¡¯s consciousness was younger and her reincarnation resources were deemed to be lacking compared to the others, it was banned. For goodness sakes, she had read about them in her first history lessons, on how warfare had evolved over time. Originally, the Bakshee went on a scorched earth approach to the war, literally, sending out billions of such weapons.


    Their original idea was a war of attrition, seeing as Psychers were essentially immortal, their original strategies were to convert every potential planet as a future resource. Sending out billions of Automated Naturalization and Terraforming Subsystems, or ANTS, attached as warheads to different projectiles.


    When word of their actions came out, the entire community banded together to teach the Bakshee a lesson. After which there was a treaty, of course, the treaty came only after the first true battle had been effectively won by the Bakshee. For the Bakshee had gone about terraforming millions of planets to follow their three-tiered system of workers, fighters, and rulers.


    After which point even the Psychers had to change their whole renewal process, which is apparently when many of the older Psychers were no longer able to renew properly as their psyches were unable, or unwilling to merge with the lesser life forms.


    All that is to say that what she had found was a relic of a bygone war. A snapshot of the great early stages of the Bakshee Organo-Tech, that is technology that blended in as organic compounds that would inject itself into every form of life on the planet.


    Chills.


    The discovery of this warhead alone was enough to cause a flurry of emotions to run past Misha¡¯s now overclocked mind. First and foremost, she realized that this was a weapon of mass destruction, one that had for whatever reason only partially detonated when it originally landed. How she was aware of that, well most of it was guess work, based on the amount of radiated energy that was still seeping off the warhead. Had the warhead been fully detonated, then logically its full supply of biological contaminants would have been used up.


    There was also the second and likely most important fact, as to why she knew that this piece of technology was not only old, but also directly related to the Bakshee terraforming campaigns.


    Part of what came about from all the intergalactic agencies banding together to fight off against the Bakshee was that there was a massive exchange of both technology and communication types.


    For shorter lived races, the idea of learning every language of every known space faring race might seem arduous. For the Psychers, learning every language was part of life, just as learning every known scientific theorem, every known mechanical schematic, and every known physical, magical, and technological capabilities of all space faring races.


    With an unlimited lifespan, such devotions to continual learning were not only encouraged, but also enforced, largely due to the number of resources available to people who were able to diversify their relevance to the fleet. This was why, even at the end, Misha herself had over thirty reproduction pods available on three different fleet ships.


    Yet, somehow despite her redundant backups available, she had only been able to find a form to latch onto out here.


    This discovery of early Bakshee meddling did answer quite a few questions that had been raised. Namely about the appearance of werewolves, vampires, and now mages on this planet. An advent that was likely the first of what would be many evolutionary changes by the creatures of this world to adapt to an inevitable Bakshee hierarchy of standards.


    While these thoughts had been going through her mind as she made her way towards the strangely glowing stone. They were all but proven, when Misha¡¯s mind was finally able to mentally connect to the organo-technics of the stone. At which point, she was met with the message that would forever change her understanding of the world in which she lived.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48.5405%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Automated Naturalization and Terraforming Subsystems engaged.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The words appeared in glowing blue boxes within her mind. Even without her traditional visors she could see the message, as they had a remote telepathic link available to them. Seeing the message in what was considered space language, or ancient space protocol, Misha felt both fear and nostalgia burst to life within her mind.


    For seven years she had been stuck here, forced to try to understand where she was, and ultimately coming to grips with the fact that if she wanted to have access to advanced technology, then she would have to create said products herself.


    Now though, that had all been shattered as she could feel her mind pressing into the soft coding.


    Just a light caress.


    Organo-tech, or at least the evolved variants that she was used to, the ones wielded by Bakshee warriors and the like were highly resistant to most Psycher mental probes. Often setting off defensive barriers and counter attacks, if too much of a probe was felt.


    Yet, with this one, it felt like she was pressing her way through jelly. Her finger felt the barest of resistances, but then was let in almost instantly.


    ¡°Ants.¡± Misha found herself saying, as she made her way through the different coding.


    Seeing both how complex and how open the subsystems were, was astonishing to her mind. Within seconds she was at the root directory, or the basic four templates of metachondrial that would be applied to the cells of different living organisms in the world.


    She found that in addition to the three base templates: workers, fighters, and rulers. There was a fourth template that was clearly still in the initial testing phase.


    This last template was in a testing phase, primarily due to how much code was lacking from the base template. While the other three looked similar to the more evolved versions that these three would inevitably grow into, this fourth template seemed oddly broken, as if it was meant to be the fabled Bakshee Omega-Strain that would rise up and be the ultimate rulers of the universe. Finally uniting all Bakshee planets under one unified umbrella.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    Seeing the code just sitting there, Misha realized that there were a few alerting strands around the Omega-Strain Module that would likely send the remaining defenses of the warhead into activation mode, but Misha determined this to be an acceptable risk.


    Especially as Misha had already begun the safety measures, of unlocking the metal beams in the sealed door behind them and closing the thick protective layers.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 61.9459%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Self Defense Mechanisms Engaged.


    Organic Host Materials Found.


    Engaging Organic Compounds to determine system compatibility.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Unfortunately, either Misha¡¯s control wavered for a second, causing her beams to intersect the ancient alerting protocols, or a temperature range was met, that most organo-technical devices were highly sensitive to, especially as her Psycher powers were inherently laced with Fire, and or Lightning attributes now. Meaning that even with older and well-aged sensors, the fact that she had managed to get down this far, to the effective base coding of the planetary destroyer was beyond impressive.


    Taking a quick breath, Misha calmed her mind as she began to focus on what would happen next. Then not doubting her choice in trying to understand this incomplete version of the Omega-Strain, Misha psyched herself up while simultaneously going in for the kill.


    ¡°Playing with fire.¡± Misha said, as she mentally began carving her way through different layers of the organo-tech coding. While she hated herself for having to act so harshly, she ultimately decided to act as quickly and skillfully as possible.


    In an ideal world, she would have had time to evaluate this device multiple times before going in for her current approach. In said ideal world, she would also have had her real body which would have been able to mask the temperature of her probing and hidden her from this discovery by a clearly inferior alerting system to what she was used to.


    Of course, even with the systems she was used to, she never managed to get to this point in her investigations, as they all had new alert systems that were told to detonate upon discovery of Psycher probing. The fact that this device apparently chose to try to assimilate her, versus kill her shows how early in the war this weapon was used. As this was likely before, the Bakshee and the Psychers truly engaged in intergalactic battles.


    Though Misha herself could not recall a time when her fleets and the Bakshee were not at war with each other, apparently there was a time when such was the case. This weapon was apparent living proof of that time. If anything, this made shutting down, dismantling, and ultimately reverse engineering this feat of technology that much more important. For this was the backdoor needed to understand how Bakshee originally terraformed planets and forced new life to meet their needs. This might be the way to find out exactly how the Bakshee were able to change the standard mitochondria and evolve it into the different forms of metachondrial that ware prevalent today.


    This was why Misha only used a light but delicate attack to temporarily disable the lodestar stone.


    Disabling Flame-Lance.


    The scorching hot wave of flame shot out from her hand and like a scalpel in the hands of an expert shot out and sliced across multiple defensive components.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 98.7027%">ANTS hull integrity compromised. Diverting power away from primary attack measures, rerouting power to stabilizing power cores, and defensive barriers.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    This was great, as it meant the devastating blast that such a warhead would normally be able to have was disabled, as it rerouted power away from such places.


    With the main fear of blowing up the entire facility, and herself with such a blunder, Misha was ready to focus.


    With a quick focus of her will, she forced her mind to the various templates and began copying each, making sure to have the basic patterns for how these templates would first be added, then how they were supposed to progress through the generations. There templates were a treasure-trove of knowledge on how the Bakshee thought, and how they truly had a deeper view of life. Even in comparison to her own Psychers, who were among the first to achieve immortality, or at least a form of immortality. The Bakshee had the ability to scope out life and find new planets that could be altered just enough to meet their needs. Then gradually over time become viable hosts to be accepted into the fold of their never-ending network of interconnected planets. Honestly, the whole process she was seeing was beautifully complex and elegant at the same time.


    A spiral pattern of life.


    Life designed to be altered and evolved until finally it met some unknown apex of design, form, and specifications. Then finally she was given a choice by the system that she was invading.


    It only took a second to realize that without her own memory banks, only her own mind could be used to take mental photographs of each file type, which she had in triplicate, making sure to use every part of her Psycher derived photographic memory. Then she was given a choice by the system.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 98.7027%">Choose File Type to Copy: Worker, Fighter, Ruler, or Alternate-1.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing this, Misha realized this was likely the prompt everyone was getting upon their direct physical contact with the stone. If nothing was available, the system was designed to automatically choose a strand to follow. Making most follow the route of the worker, followed by those that would be fighters, and finally those that would inevitably be chosen to rule.


    The selection process also made it clear that the choice of file would be the one she would be forced to integrate with.


    Badump, badump.


    Misha¡¯s heartbeat quickly at the realization. In her old body she had long since gotten away from such stimuli as adrenaline and other possibly euphoric inducing emotional stimulants, opting as most Psychers to go for a coldly logical approach to life that was devoid of emotional attachments. Now that she was in an imperfect body, she felt her body reacting on its own to how much her mind valued this decision.


    Rustle.


    Off to the side, the professor shifted her weight. As Misha turned her attention away momentarily to face the professor, Misha noticed the glow of the defensive measures of a part of the ANTS coming alive on the body of the professor.


    Turning and locking gazes with the professor, Misha struggled to both maintain her control over her current actions, not wanting to rush her decision. Especially as she felt that her emotions were biasing her decisions. Logically she wanted to see and evaluate the Alternate-1 option, the unknown Omega-Strain variant that she had never seen before.


    But that was the problem, because she had never seen it before, Misha had no data points to compare and contrast against. Also, part of her mind told her that she would somehow be special with this option, which again went against the Psycher code. For while a Psycher ultimately wanted to be needed, they did not want to be unique, as that often meant a single point of failure in Psycher society.


    Logically she should choose the role of Ruler, which if she had to guess would either be those with the elements of the planet. This was also the rarest and hardest to evolve sample.


    While the Alternate-1 option had no established evolutionary points. While there were clear notches for where evolutionary points could and would occur, it was clear that what those evolutionary points would cause to come about were unknown variables at this point.


    As Misha mentally warred with herself about which option to choose, again a sign of her emotions wreaking havoc on her logical mind. She decided to at least try to avert the immediate threat posed to the university professor that was wielding middle tier ruler grade magic.


    ¡°You might want to remove your slave collar.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°What?¡± Was all the professor asked, but before Misha could state anything else, she herself was met with a wave of cascading information.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 31.7838%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Choice compatibility Calculated:


    Alternate-1 Candidate found, viability 59%.


    Ruler Candidate viability 92%.


    Warrior Candidate viability 0%.


    Worker Candidate viability 100%.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Those were the viability options for each of the options available. Admittedly they were all high percentages.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 69.7297%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">User Choice removed, applying Alternate-1 due to highest recorded viability ever discovered.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Shatter-plop.


    At that the oozing black rock crashed forward, using the rest of its energy to burn a path through the remaining plexiglass, before pooling together and then slowly surging forward.


    ¡°AHH!¡±


    Near delirious screaming could be heard, coming from Misha¡¯s right. Hearing the sounds, Misha turned to find the professor writing on the ground as she clutched at her chest.


    ¡°Idiot.¡± Misha said, momentarily dropping her attention away from preventing the surging black ooze from coming forward and instead focusing on the necklace that looked like it now considered the professor to be an intruder.


    Clutching the pendant, Misha felt her mind connect to this disconnected sub-system of the overall ANTS stone, and felt attack messages coming to life within her mind.


    Attack Sequence Engaged.


    Seeing the message, Misha instantly inserted her consciousness into the detached part of the system and hit the Disengage commands.


    Instantly the system messages in her mind died out as the stone that had been ready to self-destruct was deactivated. Misha then dropped the pendant next to the professor, as she saw the wave of black goo stretching out, and all but forcing its way towards her.


    Chills.


    Misha felt a shiver of fear run down her spine. Part of her told her to run, that nothing good could come from being exposed to this black ooze. Yet, she stayed, forcing herself to see what this lost Alternate-1 pattern entailed, trying to find out exactly what this lost coding could eventually become.


    Breathe in.


    Breathe out.


    With that Misha felt her mind and body relax enough to take what would come next with stoic poise. She would survive this, that much she was certain of, she was a Psycher after all. Even the death of this host would not cause her consciousness to suddenly loose its stability. She had traveled through space as nothing more than this consciousness, and she would be able to do so again once this was over. Now though, now she had a chance to truly find out what was happening with the Bakshee. She might even be able to discover a way to end them once and for all. That alone was worth the risk of this body.


    So focused on staying still, despite the pooling black ooze getting closer to her, that she almost missed the moment the professor, nearly delirious from pain croaked out, ¡°they do look like ants.¡±


    Cackle.


    Hearing that, Misha felt herself laughing from the sheer incongruity of it all. Which was good, as it meant she was relaxed by the time the oozing black slime found her. Oozing black slime that would likely chase her down to the ends of the Earth to implant its forbidden knowledge directly into her genetic code.


    This was why she only felt a slight prick, upon their grabbing onto her, before she felt fire erupt from the puncture point and spread liquid fire throughout her small frail body.


    ¡°AHH!¡±

 Chapter 14 Not Again

    Chapter 14


    Not Again


    (Andrea)


    ¡°Hi mom.¡± Andrea spoke into the phone.


    Just hearing her daughter¡¯s unbridled fear and apprehension in her words caused Julie, Andrea¡¯s mother, to instantly go on alert.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Julie asked, now fully awake despite the late hour.


    Silence.


    There was a brief pause, just long enough for a mother¡¯s instinct to activate, ¡°everything okay?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Andrea replied in a dried soft sob that sounded like a combination of a sad laugh and her choking on her words. ¡°It¡¯s not alright. Today, well¡­¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Today was the field trip, and there was an accident.¡± Andrea managed to somehow get out without fully choking on her words.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t we agree she wouldn¡¯t go on that stupid trip?¡± Julie asked, only realizing afterwards that her words might come across as insensitive.


    ¡°We did, I even set up reminders for it. But I apparently got the date wrong or something as I have it as tomorrow in my phone and everything. I, I even had leave scheduled for tomorrow so I could spend the whole day with Misha.¡± Andrea said, then with a resigned chuckle she added. ¡°Good thing too, as Misha is once again in the hospital.¡±


    Sharp gasp!


    The soul sucking sound of her mother breathing in deeply, and unable to speak could be heard.


    ¡°Is she okay?¡± Julie asked.


    ¡°Yes, well no.¡± Andrea said then shaking her head, she began pacing about the hospital parking lot. ¡°She is fine, perfect even. Her vitals are fine, and apparently despite having to be dug out she is alive and doing well.¡±


    Vroom.


    The sound of two cars racing by wildly could be heard off in the distance.


    ¡°Where are you?¡± Julie asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m in the hospital parking lot.¡±


    ¡°With Misha?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Andrea said, and that was the question that seemed to break her as tears began falling. ¡°I needed to get away. She is still in a coma. Apparently, she was found under a pile of dense rock that had somehow melted onto her.¡±


    Even the description that Andrea was given seemed to not make sense.


    ¡°Melted?¡± Julie asked, incredulity in her voice.


    ¡°Yes, well at least that is what the medics and firefighters who managed to save her said.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°This was on the University tour?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m still waking up. Can you walk me through what happened.¡± Julie demanded.


    ¡°I still don¡¯t know everything that happened. Apparently, they went to a room where a meteorite was being held on display. All the kids went up and touched the rock, then something happened, where the teacher and all the students escaped, leaving behind Misha and the professor who apparently stayed behind to try to rescue Misha. At least that is what I was told.¡±


    ¡°And the being buried?¡± Julie asked, by now, Andrea could tell that her mother had put her on speaker phone as her mother was clearly banging around in her bathroom. The echoing chamber, along with the random uses of the sink told Andrea that her mother was using this time to wake up.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Apparently, all the students and the stupid teacher left her there. Then when they returned, they found her completely covered under a layer of dense black rock that had molded to her skin. While the professor that was giving the tour had third degree burns on her chest and hands.¡± Andrea said, spewing off facts that she had gathered.


    The professor was also unconscious, and had been taken into the same hospital, but her room was at the far end of the hospital, well away from her Misha.


    Having seen the passed out form of the woman, rage built up within Andrea¡¯s chest, and had it not been for how serious her own daughter¡¯s injuries were, she would have gone over, and well it was best that things had turned out the way they had.


    ¡°Oh, that is terrible.¡± Julie noted.


    ¡°Serves her right, I don¡¯t know how, but I am certain that she is the one responsible for all of this.¡± Andrea said venomously.


    ¡°I see.¡± Julie said, then with that it seemed that Julie had apparently made up her mind as she began moving a bit more in her own end.


    Click.


    ¡°What huh?¡± A distinctly male voice could be heard talking in the background of Julie¡¯s line.


    ¡°Phil, get up.¡± Julie said in her matriarchal voice that demanded there would be no argument. This was the type of voice that was seldom used, but was always obeyed.


    ¡°What, why?¡± Phil asked, a bit groggily, but apparently trying to come to his senses after having been in a deep sleep.


    ¡°It¡¯s Misha, she¡¯s in the hospital again.¡± Julie stated.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    ¡°What again?¡± Phil asked, as he spoke it was clear that he was getting up, as his voice seemed to be more direct.


    ¡°Yes, and we are going to be with her.¡± Julie said forcefully.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°Apparently she was burned.¡± Julie stated.


    Hearing that, Andrea realized something had been misunderstood from their conversation. Honestly, the entire thing caused Andrea to wonder about her own sanity as well. Still, this was the time to fix any preconceived errors.


    ¡°No, Misha wasn¡¯t burned, that was the Professor.¡± Andrea clarified.


    A pause.


    ¡°Then what happened to Misha, was she just buried, and they are keeping her for observations?¡± Julie asked.


    ¡°No, they¡­¡± Andrea began, then paused as the weight of her words hit her. ¡°She was found buried under a wall of stone, but rather than being burned, she is fine. At least physically she is fine, no lacerations, no internal bleeding, honestly the doctors don¡¯t know what is wrong with her.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what is wrong with her?¡± Julie asked, realizing that her daughter was having a hard time saying this last part.


    ¡°She¡¯s apparently suffered trauma and is now in a coma. Which is why we are now in a different wing of the hospital than the professor who caused all of this.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°That sounds like a lawsuit.¡± Phil muttered.


    ¡°It does, but this is not the time Phil.¡± Julie said, her voice brokering the fact that there were more important things to worry about.


    ¡°Yeah, I got it, I¡¯m getting up.¡± Phil said, apparently reacting to something Julie was doing on her end of the line.


    ¡°Thank you for calling, we are on our way.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°Thank you, but you don¡¯t need to come.¡± Andrea replied.


    ¡°Nonsense, this is my granddaughter we are talking about. Of course, I am going to take time to spend with her, isn¡¯t that right Phil?¡± Julie said the first part to the phone, then the next to Phil.


    ¡°Right.¡± Phil said, his voice clearly further away than it had been a moment ago. If Andrea had to guess, she would place him as going to the bathroom to get ready.


    Just realizing that the two of them were coming made her feel instantly better about everything. For the first time all night it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she was finally able to breathe.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Andrea finally managed.


    ¡°None of that. We are family, and we stick to our own.¡± Jule began, then once again speaking to the side towards Phil, Julie continued. ¡°Who knows, maybe this time we can finally convince our daughter to move closer to us.¡±


    ¡°Maybe.¡± Phil said, his voice clearly, just replying in a way that would get Julie to stop pestering him while he was still trying to wake up.


    ¡°Mom, I can¡¯t¡­¡± Andrea began, not wanting to deal with this complication as something else that she would have to deal with now. Right now, she already felt like she was at her wits end.


    Eerk.


    Just as she was having that thought, a high-end gray sports car raced through the hospital parking lot and parked immediately in the handicapped parking spots at the front. The car screeching to a halt, only a few hundred feet away from the entrance to the hospital.


    By this point, Andrea had found her way towards the smoker pit which was a few hundred meters away from the main entrance to the emergency room but was still close enough to see everything that was happening.


    From here, she had a full view of a very young and well-dressed woman quickly get up and out of her vehicle. Using movements that clearly indicated that she was not in fact handicapped. That act alone was enough to make it so Andrea made sure to see the face of the handicapped parking space taker.


    Then dawning recognition took her as she got a good view of the young woman¡¯s face. It was brief only a second, as her porcelain facial features and dark movie star hairdo only became visible when she got close to the entryway of the emergency room. Right at the part where the lights of the hospital fully covered her and displayed her prominent features. That was when she saw the face of the last person she expected to see here.


    ¡°Hello? Hello!¡± Julie shouted through the phone. Her words instantly pulling Andrea away from what, no who she saw enter the emergency room.


    ¡°Yeah, sorry, I just got distracted.¡±


    ¡°Distracted?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I just saw.¡± Andrea began, but then stopped herself. ¡°I need to go back in and check on Misha.¡±


    ¡°Okay, you do that, and we will be right there.¡± Julie said, apparently appreciating the chance to likely get dressed and changed for a three-hour car ride here.


    ¡°All right.¡± Andrea said, mechanically, her feet already pulling her forward towards the entry way to the hospital.


    ¡°All right love you.¡±


    ¡°Love you too.¡± Andrea replied mechanically, as she turned the corner to see the woman that she had identified as belonging to the gray sports car in the handicapped parking spot. This was also someone who Andrea identified easily, as she had been involved with Misha¡¯s last trip to the hospital.


    Now to see her here this time, it only caused her blood to boil.


    As she entered the lobby, she heard a conversation already going on.


    ¡°Yes, I am here to see my mother, Dr. Pamela Grier.¡± The well-dressed model said.


    ¡°Pamela, Pamela,¡± the receptionist began, then stopped after finding something on her screen. ¡°Ah here she is, in the burn unit, room 322. Take the elevator around the corner to the third floor, it will be on your right-hand side as you exit the elevator.¡± The receptionist said, handing back an identification card back to the young lady.


    Seeing the interaction Andrea just paused, not knowing what she would do if the young lady, Misha¡¯s former therapist, saw her. Rage filled her as for a moment Andrea almost felt her muscles tighten so much that she would strike at the distracted woman. All it would take is one look, one moment of recognition that she was here.


    Fortunately for her, and the therapist, she didn¡¯t notice her, the therapist didn¡¯t even look back, so caught up in her own apparent grief that she failed to notice the lurking threat right behind her.


    Andrea just stood there, fists clinched as she waited for any sign that the girl had gone.


    Ding.


    After a minute, the elevator dinged open, followed by the unmistakable sound of people entering and exiting the car.


    For some reason, Andrea¡¯s senses were dialed up to eleven tonight, which was good as it meant she could hear and almost sense everything around her.


    ¡°Do you need anything?¡± The receptionist called out, her voice echoing over the empty waiting room area.


    Hearing her, Andrea suddenly realized where she was, and what she was doing. She was being foolish, standing here with her fists clinched, while staring over a waiting room.


    ¡°No thank you, I am just going to go back up to my daughter.¡± Andrea said, then turned left. This was the same direction as the elevators, but Andrea decided to take the stairs, not for any form of fitness needs. Lord knows, Andrea already got her steps in today with all her constant pacing. No, this was just so she could avoid putting a third person in the emergency room tonight, and likely end up with herself being taken to jail.


    For tonight she would be civil, for Misha¡¯s part. The last thing she needed was her daughter to awaken to find out her mother was incarcerated. No, for now she would remain by Misha¡¯s side.


    Then finally she would also consider the agonizingly terrible thought of moving back in with her parents. At the very least it was clear that she needed to get Misha away from this area, no, the area was fine. Well mostly fine, there were the crazy in-laws with the unsanctioned cemetery in their backyard. Then there were the doctors, plural, who every time they met with Misha she ended up going to the hospital. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized her mother was right, in that moving was likely the best and only option available for her and Misha.


    Not that she would ever admit to her mother being right, as that would cause a whole cascading effect.


    This was why, taking a moment to herself, Andrea paused in the stairwell and typed out a four-word response to her mother that spoke of exactly how she felt at the moment.


    We are moving home.


    No sooner did she hit send and begin her trek up the stairs when she got a response. For a second, she was surprised that her texts would even send in a stairwell, but then once that idea passed, she saw her mother¡¯s response and couldn¡¯t help but chuckle at her reply.


    Mom: Oh, that is a big decision. I do agree with your decision and realize you must have spent a long time coming up with this. As such, your father and I are ready to help you in any way you need.


    Seeing the response from her mother who knew Andrea would never accept the idea if it came from Julie, only laughed. It seemed that her shallow attempt to take credit for the idea was not entirely unnoticed, still she appreciated her mother¡¯s attempt to help her keep some of her ego. It was clear the way things were going that she would need as much ego as she could over these next few months, particularly with how much crow she felt she would be eating here shortly.


    This was why she wrote out a one-word reply.


    Thanks.


    ***


    (Misha)


    While her mother and grandmother both began planning for an inevitable move. Misha herself was experiencing a deep fundamental change, deep inside her body she could feel the effects of organo-tech slowly working and altering her body¡¯s genetic code and composition.


    Misha mentally watched from her closed off command center and was in awe of the way Bakshee technology worked tirelessly to integrate itself into every line of genetic coding she had. Even the garbage coding, the coding that was there to be a buffer to safeguard her main coding was being altered.


    All the while her body was undergoing deep fundamental changes, she could occasionally get stimuli from the outside world. From the sound of things, her mother was scared and worried about her.


    Unfortunately, Misha was too busy monitoring the changes that were happening at rapid rates around her, to be able to respond. Even mentally recording the changes and the rate of changes was proving to be exhausting for Misha, even with her superior mnemonic abilities.


    Then finally after a long time, the changes began to slow down. With that, the strain that was on her mind to keep up and track the changes and rates of changes finally ceased.


    That was when Misha, still having root access to the incomplete coding template that had been applied to her body noticed the new system message.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 20.973%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">System Upgrade Complete.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 21.9459%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Commencing system reboot.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Then there was a flash, of white hot pain, as Misha felt the system try to battle with her mind. This was exactly what Misha had been prepared for, and immediately began engaging her own mental resistances, as the battle for control over the mental control over her newly enhanced body began in earnest.


    Fortunately, Misha was a Psycher, which meant they were most suitable for just such a battle.


    ***


    (Andrea)


    Flinch.


    Andrea almost thought she was dreaming when she saw her daughter move. Andrea was so tired that she had managed to fall asleep with her head against the bed. Which was the only reason she felt the shift.


    Waking up, she looked to see that her daughter was moving, her eyes were flickering. For a moment, she thought about calling for help, but remembered that they said there was nothing much they could do for her now, except pray that she wakes up.


    Seeing her daughter flinch filled her with such hope. Then to her surprise, she noticed the faint stirring of her eyes moving rapidly from under her eyelids.


    ¡°That¡¯s it girl, fight it!¡± Andrea said, ¡°fight it and come back to me.¡±

 Chapter 15 Homecoming

    Chapter 15


    Homecoming


    (Andrea)


    This time going home couldn¡¯t help but feel failure. While no one would say otherwise, Andrea knew the truth of the situation, that she had failed. At least that is what she told herself.


    Honestly, other than Misha, Andrea¡¯s first attempt at adulting was terrible. She had failed at marriage, failed at keeping her daughter safe, and despite knowing that she needed to protect her daughter, she couldn¡¯t help but feel she let her down by somehow messing up the date of the stupid class field trip.


    She had been so busy that she all but assumed she had written the date down correctly, now she had taken to writing notes to herself in a journal. This way her systems would be redundant and backed up.


    This way if she needed Milk, and it was on her list, it was also written down in her notepad.


    Slow rumble.


    Her car turned off the main road and went down the old mile long gravel road that led to what was once an old farmhouse that had been modernized by her parents.


    Seeing the trees and freshly cut fields of grass, Andrea took in a deep sigh.


    ¡°This is our new home.¡± Andrea said, to Misha who as usual sat quietly in the passenger seat silently watching everything that happened around. While staring off in the distance was nothing new, most kids would have some form of reaction. A few would have the look of awe as to how green and clean cut everything looked, as Andrea¡¯s father was meticulous about his care of the yard.


    While her family had long ago sold their acres of land to commercial developers, the family still had and maintained a vast ten-acre plot that would serve as the inheritance for the kids. At least that was her father¡¯s statement. Really Andrea thought it was because Phil hated dealing with people and thought it would be easier having at least two acres minimum between his family house and the next nearest residence being built.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha said, in her almost robotic tone.


    Hearing her speak, Andrea couldn¡¯t help but be frightened. Granted this was how she normally was, somehow unflappable about anything life threw at her. You go to therapy and get the equivalent of ten tasers worth of voltage going through you, and what happens, but she asks to go back.


    Then she goes on a class field trip, has a stone melt on her, and she wakes up asking for granulated sugars.


    While this response was nothing out of the ordinary, well other than her randomly asking for sugars. And she and the doctors all noted the same exact oddity, that she asked for granulated sugars, not cookies, donuts, or energy drinks. She just asked for granulated sugars.


    After that, she had been asked to monitor her daughter''s progress over the next few days. To see if anything was out of the ordinary.


    Honestly, Andrea could have dealt with ordinary, well other people¡¯s versions of ordinary. When you have a daughter that is like Misha, trying to see if anything off about her is challenging. Which was why she pressed to see if she could get her to talk more.


    ¡°Remember all that new construction coming in, and the super center?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha answered.


    ¡°Well, that all used to be part of the farmland owned by our family.¡± Andrea said, a form of pride and nostalgia in her words.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha answered.


    Hearing that Andrea could only chuckle at herself, as she knew that would not be something that would interest Misha. Then off in the distance, she saw the old barn. Seeing the barn, a slight smile came to face, as she tried another topic, as they made their way down the long winding road.


    ¡°You see that big barn.¡± Andrea asked, pointing towards the building that had one time held three harvesters.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Well, that is Granddad Phil¡¯s secret shed.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    ¡°Yep, all types of mechanical devices in there, from a tractor used to mow the lawn, to many other devices.¡±


    Hearing that, Misha¡¯s ears perked up, as she turned to look directly at Andrea. Seeing her response, Andrea couldn¡¯t help but smile as she had finally found a subject that Misha was interested in.


    ¡°Oh?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. In fact, I bet if you ask granddad nicely enough, he might even put up a net that you can practice shooting at over there.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha said, but this time there was the faintest hint of emotion in her words. This wasn¡¯t the obligatory response she normally gave to get Andrea to be quiet, but rather the tone of someone who actually looked and acted interested.


    With that, Andrea was just about down the long driveway when she found herself asking the most important question.


    ¡°You doing okay?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    The answer as mechanical as all the others.


    Gears braking.


    With that Andrea finally found her parking spot, a spot that looked like it had always been well maintained just in case she ever decided to come back.


    ¡°Do you want to talk about it?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Hearing that Andrea could only nod a defeated sigh of a mother who had expected that answer, but had foolishly hoped that there might be something more if she pressed.


    ¡°Well this is our new home. We should go and check it out.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


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    Click-clop.


    Then like that Misha had unbuckled her seat belt and exited the vehicle faster than a seal team member. In the time Andrea had to reach down unbuckle her seatbelt and look back, her daughter was already out of the car, heading off to the barn.


    ¡°Wait, you can¡¯t.¡± Andrea began, calling out to Misha.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s okay, Granddad is already there working.¡± Julie said coming out to the porch after hearing the car slowly grind its way up the long driveway.


    ¡°He is?¡± Andrea asked, but only got a head nod in return from Julie.


    Andrea gave one last glance towards Misha, but then realized that if she wasn¡¯t safe here, then she likely wouldn¡¯t be safe anywhere. Nodding to herself, she turned to face her mother.


    ¡°How was your drive?¡±


    ¡°Long.¡±


    ¡°Misha¡¯s still the same chatterbox as ever I take it?¡±


    Chuckle.


    ¡°Yeah, I guess you could call her that.¡±


    Julie looked and realized something was off, but then after a moment she realized what was wrong. ¡°She¡¯s not wearing her gloves?¡±


    Hearing that Andrea just shook her head. ¡°Nope, apparently she is too old for those now too.¡±


    Julie also shook her head at that revelation. ¡°Almost like this world keeps forcing her to grow up too quickly.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡±


    The two watched the little girl go off and enter into the open barn, never taking a wayward step or looking around. It was clear that she was on a mission to go straight to the barn and see her granddad.


    ¡°Well, why don¡¯t you come on in and tell me about everything.¡± Julie finally managed.


    ¡°All right ma.¡±


    ***


    (Phil)


    The girl came, and immediately Phil took in a deep calming breath. He was waist deep within the engine of his last working riding tractor, trying to get the lines to figure out why the maintenance required light kept coming on.


    With so many dangerous pieces and parts around Phil wanted to send out a warning to the girl, particularly with how accident prone she had been recently.


    He waited for her to do what every grandchild inevitably did, and that was get off the gravel path and try to touch his toys. At least, that was what he expected. Which was why he stopped all movement as he sat there waiting like a shark to pounce.


    Crunch.


    Yet, his time to strike never came. Her steps skid to a stop at the edge of the gravel line.


    He paused, waiting to see if she would do anything, but then he remembered this was the smart grandchild. The one with more patience than Jobe.


    ¡°Well come on, get over here, where I can at least see you.¡± Phil said, waving his long arm over the top of the tractor and pointing to a safe spot that was directly behind his back.


    Grinding.


    The crunching of feet over rocks was the only indication that the girl was even there and obeying his words.


    Hearing her move, or rather, not hearing her, Phil was once again reminded of why he liked this grandchild the best. Yes, he wasn¡¯t supposed to have favorites, but dang it, this kid was nearly perfect. At least in his eyes.


    Phil waited until she had taken up her position behind him, then he began working. This was one thing Phil always believed in instilling in the kids, and grandkids, the need to work. Thus, he didn¡¯t mind it when the kids stood behind him and watched him work.


    ¡°It is nearly summertime, as such, I am going through the different lines, checking them. Cleaning them out and changing the fluids where needed.¡± Phil said, as he went through his annual process of winterizing the equipment. Now that he was down to his last tractor, he wanted to make sure he took good care of it.


    Phil looked back to see the girl just standing there, feet shoulder width apart taking in everything he said. Not asking any questions, not saying she was bored. Again, to Phil, she was the perfect kid, and he was very proud to call her his own. Even if she was cocky, going around with her helmet and gloves, that was just her ready to drive a tractor, in Phil¡¯s opinion.


    Finally, Phil got to a point where he could finally begin to relax as he managed to reassemble the tractor with all of its pieces attached.


    ¡°Phew. That was some work.¡± Phil said, closing the engine door and wiping his forehead. Then turning to see Misha, he paused as he saw his daughter. Well what could very well be the spitting image of his daughter.


    Blinking.


    Phil blinked trying to understand what was happening before he realized that the girl behind him was his daughter, well obviously not, but the looks and similarities were striking. He tried to remember when she managed to look like his daughter. Obviously when she was in the hospital, he saw her, but then she was all hooked up to wires, with tubes running out of her mouth. The whole sight was a bit too much for him, so he ended up waiting in the waiting room, opting to go on food runs or necessity runs to help out the girls.


    Now though, there was something wrong with what he was seeing.


    ¡°No gloves or helmet?¡± Phil asked, finally articulating what was throwing him off.


    ¡°No.¡± Misha answered flatly.


    ¡°Any particular reason why?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°I outgrew them.¡±


    Hearing that Phil just nodded his head. In his mind he couldn¡¯t help but feel a bit ashamed at that, as he had been one of the people talking the most about her needing to be normal, but now that he saw her normal, well he knew it wasn¡¯t right.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Phil said, suddenly having a hard time explaining what he was feeling. Then realizing this was a great time to bond with his granddaughter, he spoke up. ¡°Do you want to take the mower out one last time?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± Phil asked, wondering if she was suddenly frightened of riding in the mower. Given everything that had happened to her recently, he couldn¡¯t blame her, but would try to give her a bit of encouragement to help her get back on the horse, or mower as it were.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t connect the tubes correctly.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°What?¡± Phil asked, and suddenly felt like she was playing him for a fool.


    ¡°Also, you didn¡¯t add in your winter supply of oil.¡± Misha said, pointing towards the still sealed oil canisters.


    ¡°Well yeah, I couldn¡¯t add those until the engine was put back together.¡± Phil said, going over to the oil.


    He had been so excited about his granddaughter that he nearly forgot the obvious. Smart as a whip this one, not that Phil could let her know that.


    With the warning Phil went over to the first container of oil, opened it and began to go over and was about to pour it in, when Misha spoke up again.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t do that.¡±


    Hearing that, Phil turned to face the girl.


    ¡°Oh, and why is that?¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t tighten the oil lines correctly.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°How do you know?¡± Phil asked, curious.


    ¡°The fifth line on the right side, you only tightened it seven full rotations.¡± Misha said, pointing to a spot under the hood.


    ¡°Really? Well seven is a lot of rotations.¡± Phil replied.


    ¡°Yes, but the others you tightened to seven and a half rotations.¡± Misha added.


    ¡°A half rotation?¡±


    ¡°I counted.¡± Misha said.


    Chuckle.


    Hearing her, Phil couldn¡¯t help but laugh, she was so serious that it was comical. Unfortunately, Phil was too tired right now to back in and try to find one random hose that was not tightened fully. Also, he was fairly certain that this girl was pulling his leg, I mean who counts rotations, Phil thought to himself as he decided to pour the oil in and deal with the consequences.


    ¡°It will leak.¡± Misha said, in that same warning tone that all the women of this family seemed to somehow inherit.


    ¡°Yeah, well, let¡¯s pour this in, and then check back on it in the morning. If there is a leak, then you can tell me that you told me so.¡± Phil said, curious about whether there would actually be a leak in the morning.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha replied.


    This was the same monotonous tone that she always had, though Phil could swear that he heard a bit of the typical Collins woman I told you so, in that reply.


    Working quickly Phil emptied all the canisters of oil into the tractor.


    ¡°Come on, we will see how it works tomorrow. This will be our little science experiment.¡± Phil said, wanting to both prove his granddaughter wrong, while also coming up with something that the two of them could do together.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha said. Then began picking up a few of the pieces of trash that had fallen.


    Again, nothing asked, no needing to be prodded, she just saw something and decided to help quietly. This only added to her tally of why Misha was his favorite.


    ¡°Come on, let¡¯s put the trash in here then wash up before supper.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    Then like that, Phil felt a little bit easier about having his daughter and granddaughter come back into the house. While he might have made a few mistakes while raising his daughter, he had the chance to fix those this time by spending quality time with his granddaughter. It might not be enough to fix his relationship with his daughter, but she was old enough now that she didn¡¯t need him to be perfect.


    Whereas this girl, she clearly needed something to go right for her. The deadbeat husband left her, despite all his warnings to his daughter at the time.


    Still, looking back at Misha who followed him like a living shadow, Phil couldn¡¯t help but be thankful for that creep¡¯s existence. For without him, he wouldn¡¯t have his Misha, not that he would ever admit that to Andrea. That was one where he was right from the beginning and would forever claim that as a win.


    ***


    (Midnight)


    It was midnight and Phil couldn¡¯t sleep.


    Rustling.


    Phil tossed and turned in bed all night, until finally he decided to get up and check the motor.


    ¡°You alright?¡± Julie asked, somewhat angrily, somewhat concerned.


    ¡°Yeah, just going to check something in the barn.¡±


    Humph.


    With that Julie decided to lie back down, as she knew better than to try to get Phil to stop once he was in one of his moods.


    Putting on his overalls and work boots, Phil made his way out in the chilly night air to the barn.


    As he got there, he turned on the light, and stared at the tractor.


    Then looking under the tractor he saw a particularly dark patch of shadow under the engine. Going over to the pool, he put in his finger and found that it was a small pool of oil. Seeing it, he couldn¡¯t help but hiss silently to himself. Then popping the hood, he looked and in a matter of seconds he found the line that was slowly dripping oil down the line before it dropped.


    Pulling out his wrench, he went over and tightened the hose that was the clear offender, as it was covered in oil. Then doing a quick count, he realized that the girl was right, it was the fifth hose on the right-hand side. Thinking back, it was as she said, just a half turn was needed to fully tighten the hose in place.


    Putting the tool away, and closing the engine, Phil decided that this would be one of his wins as he was not technically caught.


    That thought lasted until he got into the back room, where he managed to strip off his boots, wash his hands in the outside basin. Then go into the kitchen where he would then take the back staircase up to the master bedroom. The trip was something so mechanical to him that he never had to turn on the lights, in fac the preferred it this way as it was often easier to get back to sleep afterwards.


    Click.


    Phil entered the house and quietly as possible closed and latched the door. He was so focused on his task, that he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard someone speak from behind him.


    ¡°You fixed it.¡±


    ¡°What the?¡± Phil shouted.


    Click.


    His hand moving by reflex to turn on the kitchen light, showing Misha drinking a cup of water by herself in the dark.


    At this, Phil realized one thing, this girl had the patience to wait and catch him red-handed.


    ¡°I had to check on something in the barn.¡± Phil replied, not wanting to admit his defeat, at least not yet.


    ¡°Good.¡± Misha said, getting up from her chair, and placing the empty cup directly into the dishwasher.


    The girl was creepy, did Phil ever mention how this girl was not his favorite, particularly when she tried to scare him half to death in the dark.


    Phil gripped his chest, as he felt his still pounding heart finally beginning to calm down.


    ¡°Goodnight granddad, see you tomorrow.¡± Misha said.


    Again, while there was seemingly no emotion behind those words, Phil could tell she was looking forward to spending quality time with him. And like that, Phil realized she was his favorite still, even if she was a little scary at times.

 Chapter 16 Organo-Tech

    Chapter 16


    Organo-Tech


    (Misha)


    It was gone, well muted was a better way to put it. Misha¡¯s mind, once her sharpest tool, was heavily worn down. Well worn down by her standards at least, as she could still feel herself slowly gaining control over the alien operating system that was in control over her body. Well not in control of, altering her body was a better way to put it, again this all seemed odd.


    If she had to put the exact process into words, it would be that her body now seemed to be actively impeding her true Psycher abilities. As if she was constantly surrounded by a dampening field.


    As for the last few days she had seemingly been at war with her own body. Forcing her mind to work overtime to get past the limitations that her body was now imposing on her with its recent organo-magnetic changes that were wreaking havoc with her normally indomitable control.


    Before she needed to wear a modified helmet and gloves to avoid constant over stimulation and feedback. Now it almost felt like she had lost the ability to feel, as her senses were dull.


    Even simple machines, something that even a moderate technomancer could control with ease, proved to be overly difficult.


    For a moment she thought that it was good that she was not part of the fleet, as at this rate she would have easily lost her position. A technomancer that couldn¡¯t interact with machines was worthless to the fleet. This would also be her own fault as she was the one who had assigned her own task of trying to take on the enemy coding into her host body.


    Still the overall process had been a success, first of all she had survived. The fact remained that if her current body died, she was certain that her psyche would still remain and be able to take the gained information about not only this fourth class, something that was previously unknown. While also being able to be a proper technomancer in her next rebirth.


    There was also a proximity issue with her powers. Now she had to be extremely close to technology to get it to operate anywhere close to the way she wanted.


    Even without her innate technomancer class related skills working, she was still able to easily diagnose potential errors with the machinery that her granddad was using. Though it annoyed her to no end that she couldn¡¯t fix the noted errors herself.


    For a moment, she had given up hope on this seemingly broken piece of technology.


    Her last record from the system that had violently attempted to take control of her own psyche was a message from the system.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 13.0811%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reboot required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Of course, that had been nearly a week ago at this point. During that time her mother had removed her from school, gotten her records transferred here. Then Misha as a last act scrambled the forwarding records from the school and other local subsystems about the address that they would be moving to. This was of course to hide her trail from the family of ruler class individuals, or mages as they were more commonly referred to as.


    That was the full and final extent of Misha¡¯s psychic capabilities, at least for the moment. Any further attempts to use her powers were met with intense migraines and bouts of dizziness.


    Then tonight, she got the message that both frightened her and set her mind ablaze with future possibilities.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 21.4054%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">System Reboot Complete.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That was also when she learned about her class¡¯s true purpose.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 98.7027%">Alternate-1 Hunter Mode Activated.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 98.7027%">Alternate-1 Primary Purpose Identified: Find unacceptable candidates from the Worker, Warrior, and Ruler casts and eliminate them to improve the overall quality of planetary resources.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 25.9459%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Initialization baseline commencing.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With her mind processing these messages, her tiny body began to feel an intense tingling sensation all over.


    The tingling quickly went from a deep ache that one would get from sleeping in the wrong position for too long, to an intense burning sensation over most of her body.


    Rustle.


    As she did, her body kicked and spasmed from under the sheets. Instantly, Misha realized that she had been sleeping, and had allowed both her mind and body to enter into a forced meditative state.


    Now though, now she was wide awake with pain coursing through every fiber of her body. As she could feel the full limits of her body being recorded.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 32.7568%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Baseline Characteristics Identified:


    Strength: 4.3


    Dexterity: 7.1


    Agility: 6.2


    Stamina: 7.7


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 94.7027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternate-1 Candidate identified as being woefully inaccurate towards culling resource abusers. Initiating Advanced Life Growth Model.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    That was all the information that was feely given. Fortunately, for Misha, she still had her backdoor access to what the growth files actually meant.


    The coding was a bit basic, and as was noted earlier, there was no clearly defined evolutionary path for her class. Each other class had certain thresholds of power that once obtained the candidate would be able to do more, and eventually evolve their overall growth pattern.


    For Misha, she was given two primary paths of evolution, at least at first. With this first part of evolution, she could improve her Attributes in one of two ways; the first was through direct physical activity, basically anerobic workouts that constantly pushed her body to its limit. The second was through the use of a Reaper system.


    There was no further information available about what exactly the Reaper system was, though she had her guesses with the fact that she was given the Hunter system, and that her system clearly wanted her to take away resources from members of the other classes that were deemed to be unworthy.


    Of course, after seeing how these feeder planets would ultimately evolve into primary resource nodes for the Bakshee, Misha knew exactly how her judgement would fall for most of the indoctrinated class holders she found.


    Relief.


    With the system finally alive within her mind, it took Misha a moment to realize that the pressure she had been feeling in her mind was finally relieved. No longer was her body producing constant waves of feedback that made using even the simplest of Psycher-related abilities all but impossible. Now, after having to fight through such conditions, she almost felt that her control had improved, mainly due to intense strain she had been put through over the past week.


    This gave her yet another way, she felt she could improve herself. With the awakening of the system within her mind she found that she now had two main goals. The first was to improve her overall hunter abilities of her current class, the second was to work on ways to force her control to improve as well.


    Misha even had the targeted goal for her first physical transformation, if the system within her mind was anything to go off of. According to the rating profile recorded for her current species, her baseline Attributes were listed as ten for an average healthy adult. While the maximum required for her first-class evolution was at twenty attribute points. Only then would she fully awaken the resources available to her Reaper system.


    Unfortunately, this whole awakening process had left her parched.


    That was why Misha found herself drinking glass after glass of water, all while watching her granddad try to sneak out the back door as quietly as possible.


    Misha finished two more glasses, and found herself sitting there in the dark, which felt oddly comfortable given her current condition.


    Finally, just when Misha was about to head back to bed, her granddad re-entered the house. Seeing him, and somehow able to feel the fact that the machine would somehow run properly even from here.


    Clearly this whole reboot had been better for her than she had expected. For her past twelve rebirth cycles her distance had remained the same. Now after one week of intense feedback and forced bodily evolutions, her effective range had seemingly doubled.


    This was why she was certain to speak to her granddad, once he got in.


    ¡°You fixed it.¡±


    ¡°What the?¡± Phil shouted.


    Click.


    The light came on, momentarily blinding Misha, but within two blinks her eyes adjusted from being able to see clearly in the dark, to being perfectly okay in the light. Again, a small change, but one that was easily noticed by Misha¡¯s highly adaptive mind.


    From her earlier memories, this was easily four times faster than her body used to be capable of, in adapting to such situations.


    ¡°I had to check on something in the barn.¡± Phil replied.


    ¡°Good.¡± Misha said, getting up from her chair, and placing the empty cup directly into the dishwasher.


    Phil gripped his chest, and was apparently still showing signs of being frightened by her sudden outburst. Honestly Misha, never intended to scare the old man and had assumed that he had seen her both times exiting and entering the house. As she was almost certain that their eyes met in the dark this last time.


    Realizing that granddad needed a moment to calm down, she spoke.


    ¡°Goodnight granddad, see you tomorrow.¡±


    ***


    (Dr. Grier)


    Dr. Lauren Grier sat in the room with her mother. To say that it had been a Hell of a week would be an understatement. First the week began with Lauren finding out that her mother had been admitted to the burn ward, as there had apparently been a fire related accident on a school field trip that she was hosting.


    Then there was the fact that while doing routine blood work to make sure there were no extraneous conditions, it turned out that her mother, a person who has never been sick a day in Lauren¡¯s life was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. Not just any cancer either, but the type that you normally only suffer after being exposed to high doses of radiation.


    ¡°Are you certain that you are not aware of your mother or any of her co-workers working with plutonium, or any other rare earth metals?¡± Deputy Grimes asked, as he wrote words into an actual pad of paper.


    ¡°No,¡± Lauren said, but then added, ¡°I have to say it has been a while since I saw people use pen and paper to take notes.¡±


    Hearing that Deputy Grimes seemed to be a bit flustered by the comment, but he quickly recovered.


    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised as to what details you can get from the simple methods of recording.¡± He responded, finally.


    ¡°Ah, server errors?¡± Lauren asked, remembering the times when she lost all her progress on a thesis paper, thanks to a computer glitch that lost all her work. Fortunately, it had been early on and she was easily able to recover, but still that had been a heart breaking experience that caused her to record things in triplicate after that.


    ¡°Something like that.¡± Grimes said, then quickly changed the line of questioning. ¡°Can you tell me who else was part of the staff that your mother usually spoke to?¡±


    ¡°The fellow staff members, well there was Dr. Rodriguez, Dr. Howick, Dr. Thurman, and Dr. Li.¡± Lauren stated.


    ¡°I see.¡± Grimes said, having apparently already put together the pieces all the doctors that worked on a recent program were all now coming down with the same fast acting form of cancer.


    There was an awkward silence that fell over the room, as Deputy Grimes flipped through a few pages of his notepad, before finding something.


    ¡°All right, one last question, it was said that the last person in the room with your mother was one Misha Collins.¡± He began.


    ¡°That is correct.¡±


    Nodding his head Deputy Grimes continued, ¡°based on my notes she is a patient of yours?¡±


    At that Dr. Lauren Grier felt a strange pit of fear, ¡°she might be, at least she was for a case where she was referred to me on, but she is no longer my patient as of a week ago.¡±


    ¡°Do you happen to have a way to contact her mother?¡±


    ¡°I, I should? But can I ask why?¡±


    With that Deputy Grimes shook his notepad, ¡°well we did have a few files get corrupted and purged from our network recently, most somehow involving cases related to this girl.¡±


    ¡°Okay, is there any reason you need to contact her?¡± Dr. Grier asked.


    With that Deputy Grimes just stared at the lady that was roughly his own age and stared her in the eyes for a moment, before speaking. ¡°Your mother, and all her coworkers who were working with this space rock have all been diagnosed with advanced forms of cancer. This girl was found under that very rock, where it had to be physically peeled from her somehow, and you don¡¯t think we should warn her about the possibilities of having been exposed to radiation.¡±


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t that be something the CDC is involved in?¡±


    At that Deputy Grimes once again locked eyes with her for a second. Once he was certain she was clearly missing the bigger picture, he spoke.


    ¡°Do you really want the CDC, and all that entails to get involved with whatever your mother was doing here? Also, would you really want that to happen to a little girl?¡± Deputy Grimes asked.


    With that Lauren dropped her shoulders, as she realized that she would easily be dragged into a federal probe if that happened. As it was, she was already expecting to be drawn into something similar, but it might look more favorably on her that she was willing to work with law enforcement from the very beginning, as there were very few ways to look good with everything that was going on around her.


    ***


    (Deputy Grimes)


    Little did Dr. Lauren Grier know, but the good deputy had other reasons to try to speak to Misha Collins¡¯ mother, as apparently before all this, there was an incident at Ms. Collins¡¯ place of work the week prior to this incident that involved Dr. Pamela Grier stalking the place of work where Ms. Collins and her daughter were both staying. This was of course after that same Dr. Grier gave a class presentation to Misha¡¯s school, where she invited everyone to an all expenses paid tour of her place of work.


    Everything added up to there being too many coincidences in one place to let Deputy Grimes rest easy, until he made sure both the mother and her daughter were safe.


    Oddly enough, he found out all of this by going back to the location that his notes provided. See he had the case number, which involved an altercation where the police were called upon a motorist who was in a restricted parking area taking pictures of the cars on scene. When he went back to the place of the crime to re-ask the questions, that is when he found the details that had originally gone missing when both his notes and original case file involving the incident were somehow deleted, with him losing hours of time.


    In fact, he had just regained his notes on that missing incident, when he was called to do the follow-up about the university. That is when he came across the names being tied to both cases.


    With this, he felt he was truly on to something. Missing hours of time, files randomly getting deleted, an entire department being mind wiped, and now a melting space rock. This had everything needed for a Men in Black movie. Most people would stop at that, realizing that if the most likely connection other than a sad stream of coincidences had to be aliens.


    Deputy Grimes himself even realized that this entire thing was so far fetched that he almost didn¡¯t believe it himself. Yet, he promised himself he would quit, as long as he found out that Misha and her mother were not being held at some secret government black site. As that was the other part of this case that was also concerning, namely the fact that every record involving Misha and her mother had also been corrupted and deleted, even from her former place of employment, where she had just worked last week.


    He promised himself, he would find out that this little girl was safe, and then would call it a day, lest he too get caught up in this strange web of missing persons and extraterrestrial generated cancer.

 Interlude I (Ten Years Later)

    Interlude I


    (Ten Years Later)


    (Lauren)


    Lauren stood in the rain in front of a stone. The reason she chose to do this was personal. At first, she made multiple trips a year, but those times slowly stretched out, until now when it had been over a year since she last visited this somber place.


    Looking down she saw a giant gauche stone with Cyrillic writing on it. Roughly translated the stone read as the following:


    Here Lies Dr. Pamela Grier


    Mother, Sister, Friend, Scientist.


    Seeing the stone, it was clear that her mother had already chosen the stone and had it made years before her death.


    The joke was on her, as other than the first word was accurate. Pamela¡¯s sisters had all died, probably before the tombstone had been commissioned. The friends, well they all died as well, caught up in the same odd radioactive cancer that somehow took her own life. As for the last word, well that was the word that her alma mater probably wished they could take back, particularly right after the news of what happened began to make national headlines.


    For years there, there was a scare for not only the people in the community, but for the University as a whole.


    In the end, the school opted to bulldoze the entire site, burying chambers of what were believed to be radioactive secrets and diabolical research, if rumors around campus were to be believed.


    Fortunately, Lauren¡¯s mother passed away before the worst of the rumors could reach her, that likely would have been the final nail in her coffin. Not that she needed any more nails, whatever happened, whatever she and her colleagues were researching was ultimately deemed too dangerous to continue.


    The group had the patent for a cure for cancer that had passed all testing, fortunately the school was able to transfer that discovery to a different division who took the lead, and resources generated by the discovery.


    In the end, Dr. Grier was blacklisted, posthumously of course, as even on her deathbed no one would dare tell her off to her face. This of course caused issues for Lauren, who found that being called Dr. Grier in the same state where her mother once reigned supreme was even more of a curse after her death than it was while she was still living. Even if your chosen career is in a completely different field of study then that of your mother¡¯s.


    Of course, for a female with a name problem there is an obvious and easy, get married.


    At first, she rebelled against the idea, but after finding an old grimoire of her mother¡¯s detailing some of the simpler emotionally binding spells, the path forward was simple, if repugnant. All she would have to do was practice up on her craft, find a man that was suitable and moldable to her suggestions and forever change her life trajectory.


    To avoid having to go down that undesirable path, she opted to pick up shop go to a new state and start up her practice anew. Yet, even the new start wasn¡¯t enough, as ultimately ties to her mother were still easily found, forcing her to marry and remove any traces of her being Dr. Lauren Grier.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Dave Hill, her husband and biggest supporter asked, coming over to cover her with an umbrella after seeing that she had been out in the pouring rain for a bit longer than would normally be warranted in such a situation.


    All in all, Lauren had to feel that she had chosen well, all things considered. Seeing him come out and hold open his umbrella over her, she couldn¡¯t help but let out a smile.


    ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s go home.¡± Lauren said, as she began walking back to the vehicle that sat with the lights still on, and the wipers going at full tilt in this torrential downpour.


    ¡°As you command Dr. Hill.¡± Dave said, excitement in his voice as he prepared to drive the seven hours back home so she could be back in time for her first appointment tomorrow morning.


    ¡°Thank you, Dave.¡± Lauren said with affection evident in her voice.


    She had chosen well, and she often wondered whether the final bindings that her mother taught her were needed at all. Still, it was too late to take back the bindings, for a myriad of reasons. The most important being that once a binding was applied and reapplied, they either had to be let go gradually, or suffer the rage effect.


    Lauren always promised herself that she would stop reweaving the bindings that bound Dave to her, but by now she was too attached, and couldn¡¯t imagine her life without him. Maybe next year, she promised herself as she made her way from her mother¡¯s tombstone. Then with that, she wondered if she would make the trek out here next year, as well. That seemed like it would be the perfect time to bury all past failures as it would be ten years since her mother¡¯s passing, and seven years since she first bound Dave.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Both were important numbers, that is of course if one believed in numerology. Which Dr. Lauren Hill would never admit to, at least not before those that were Unawakened to the craft.


    ***


    Andrea


    To say that the last ten years were tough would be an understatement. At first Andrea had to tap down a lot on her pride to move back in with her parents. At the time she felt like she had lost at everything. She was a single mother who had a deadbeat husband who was MIA. Her special needs daughter was being stalked by a crazy professor, and her ex¡¯s parents were apparently serial killers.


    When she moved back in, she thought it was rock bottom.


    Yet, she had managed to somehow stay afloat during it all. Now after ten years, she can safely say that moving back in with her parents was the best decision she ever made.


    Her father, the person who was hard as nails and seemingly hated everyone was wrapped so tightly around Misha¡¯s little finger that she was surprised the digit in question had not fallen off due to lack of circulation.


    Phil was every bit the father and male role model that Misha needed in her life. Making sure that anything she could possibly want was taken care of. Misha needed a safe place to practice basketball afterschool, after there was a shooting at the local park where the girls used to gather. Say no more, with ten acres and plenty of time and money, granddad created a regulation size court, complete with two regulation sized hoops and a fence to keep the balls from rolling off in the fields.


    That was fine at first, until it was clear that Misha needed lighting, also he hated the idea of her practicing in the rain, which she would, as she never missed practice. Another reason why granddad loved her, as she was ¡°tough as nails, with grit. You can¡¯t train for that. Either you have it, or you don¡¯t, and my girl¡¯s got it in spades.¡±


    Yes, Andrea had been replaced by her daughter. At first, she tried to deny it, and was slightly resentful of the treatment she received, if she was being completely honest with herself. Fortunately, her mother set the record straight.


    ¡°You can¡¯t be mad at Phil for loving your daughter. She is exactly like you, down to the stubborn, never back down attitude of hers. Rather than getting angry at Phil for treating her better than he treated you, try to think of it as his wishing he could go back in time and correct some of the mistakes that he made with you.¡± With that, Mom had once again saved the day between her and her father.


    The other major change was the fact that Andrea was able to drop her last name and revert back to her maiden name, even getting Misha¡¯s name transferred to her grandfather was surprisingly easy. Even the lawyer hired by granddad said, ¡°this was one of the easiest cases of child abandonment I¡¯ve ever seen get processed. Congratulations Ms. Tulley, to both you and your daughter.¡±


    As easy as the divorce was, and getting the ability to change her and Misha¡¯s last names back to that of her grandfather was easy. Despite clearly wanting it to happen, Misha seemed sort of unexcited when the news came.


    For a moment there, Andrea could almost swear that Misha already knew that everything would pull through the way it had. Yet, ultimately Andrea chalked that up to Misha just being as emotionless as usual.


    Still, there were times that she wondered where and how her daughter became so smart. In fact, she was incredibly smart, almost too smart for her own good. So smart that rather than constantly being told she needed to be pushed ahead in each grade level, they ultimately opted to homeschool her. Which was as simple as telling her which topics to study and letting her have access to the internet.


    In fact, they could have likely avoided high school entirely, had it not been for the fact that Misha wanted to get a degree from an actual university. While granddad had already set aside enough money for her to get a doctorate, he never told her.


    Instead, he always told her, ¡°You need to start working on getting scholarships.¡±


    Which was why this year, she would be going part time to high school classes, in order to be part of the senior teams, while also attending community college.


    Which she somehow managed to pay for by fixing her friends¡¯ and their families vehicles.


    Andrea couldn¡¯t complain about this herself, as she had been saved many times by her daughter¡¯s seeming love for all things mechanical. A gift she must have gotten from her father, as that was clearly not something that she had any inclination for.


    Yes, things were going well, almost too well. Which was why she felt like the other shoe was destined to drop here shortly.


    ***


    (Captain Franklin Grimes)


    Ten years, or the second half of an already impressive career ended just like that. Captain Grimes had managed to do a lot during his long career. Helped kids get out of a burning building before the firefighters showed up. Yes, he was aware that he filled the stereotype that all policemen really wanted to be firefighters with that act, but he couldn¡¯t help himself. He saw children in need, and thinking nothing of his own safety, he charged forward and did what he needed to do.


    Now that it was time for him to retire, he could safely say he had only a few regrets. There was of course the case where he found two teenagers parents dead from an apparent drug overdose, where if he was not delayed by a traffic jam to do the welfare check, he might have been able to save the parents. Then again the kid that he rescued had obvious lesions and bite marks from fleas, given that the infant was the one that survived it wasn¡¯t a complete loss in his opinion. Yes, it was a terrible way to look at the sad situation of two kids who made a mistake, and then resorted to drugs rather than trying to actually become the adults they were supposed to be.


    That case took many years of therapy to workout, but he did track the child who was adopted to a good home, and by all accounts seems to be doing well for herself.


    There was also the time where he was forced to draw his weapon, fortunately he never had to fire the weapon as he was able to talk the man with his own weapon down and eventually get him to drop his weapon. Still, it had been touch and go there for a moment.


    No, out of all the cases he had worked on in his career, the one case that would go down as his Eleanor would have to be the odd attack by space rock and subsequent disappearance of Misha Collins.


    From everything he had gathered, the girl was gone, either she was a ghost in the system. Or she had been abducted by aliens who then purged all documents of her from existence.


    Pulling out his old case files, he had always kept that one, despite its formal copy having long since been sent to the unsolved cases department. He still had all his handwritten notes related to the case. Even going back to the former company that the mother Andrea Collins worked for. There had been a lead that she found out later on, after talking to Walter Hargrove, Andrea¡¯s former manager.


    Seeing the note, Captain Grimes paused as he wondered why he never ran down that particular lead.


    Witness (Walter Hargrove): Mentioned something about Andrea moving back home with her parents who lived in Jackson.


    Seeing the note, he instantly realized why he had stopped, as there were dozens of states that all had Jackson.


    Still, Grimes was now retired. He was not married anymore. While he still had cordial relationships with his ex-wife, he had no intention of staying in the same state as her. As such, he figured now that he had the time, might as well try to go out and look for Andrea and Misha Collins.


    A quick search showed that Jackson Kentucky was the closest location. Realizing it was either solve this personal case and make sure that he could rest easier knowing that this little girl grew up healthy after changing her name and identity to hide from a cult of semi-religious nuclear nut heads or get fat sitting on his couch watching sports and drinking beer all day.


    While the appeal of getting old and fat did appeal to him, there was one major reason he really wanted to solve this case. Ultimately, he wondered if this was his true alien case.


    Deep down inside, despite not telling anyone about it, he secretly hoped it was aliens. To his defense the alternate, of the girl being hunted by crazy cultists with melting space rocks seemed like the less exciting option of the two.

 Chapter 17 Putting the Ass into Assimilation

    Chapter 17


    Putting the Ass into Assimilation


    (Julie)


    VROOOMMMMM!


    The fully restored 1995 Ford Mustang GT roared to life, every ounce of its V8 engine on full acoustic display for everyone to hear. With the wide-open fields leading from the barn that had long since been modified into a mechanical repair shop that Phil and Julie could work on vehicles together.


    Over the course of the summer, Julie had become very accustomed to hearing the purring growl of the vehicle sparking to life each morning, well before even Phil would dare to get up.


    ¡°No, you don¡¯t!¡± Phil shouted, as he was up with a bolt as he went from being deeply asleep to instantly awake in less than a second.


    Julie who had expected something like this to happen just sighed as she got up, put on her slippers and tried to cut off Phil from making an ass out of himself. Well, more of one than he already seemed hell bent on becoming.


    ¡°Stop it, you are not taking that to school!¡± Phil¡¯s voice could be heard shouting from off in the distance.


    Fresh coffee smell.


    As Julie made her way down, she instantly perked up as her senses took in the sweet aroma of freshly brewed coffee.


    Looking towards the source, Julie was delighted to find not one but two cups of coffee pre-made, along with notes underneath each.


    ¡°That girl is too good for us.¡± Julie said, grabbing her coffee mug and preparing to go outside with it. For a moment, she thought about grabbing Phil¡¯s coffee, especially before it went cold.


    ¡°I said, stop that engine now!¡± Phil shouted.


    Then hearing him go on, Julie ultimately decided to leave his here, as she assumed he was already worked up enough to cover any cold coffee.


    Hot fragrant steam.


    The instant she walked outside, the steam of her coffee came wafting upwards. It was an unusually cold morning. Moving carefully so as not to spill her coffee, Julie made her way to the two. There was the stoic as ever Misha who was just staring down her grandfather, and Phil who looked irate that Misha would dare take her car to school.


    ¡°Get out of my car now!¡± Phil said.


    Misha just stared at him, her eyes showing so much discontent that even her mother could take lessons.


    ¡°Come on, that car is too much for your first day of school. Someone is bound to steal it.¡± Phil said, a bit calmer.


    ¡°It¡¯s got anti-theft devices already installed.¡± Misha responded.


    ¡°Oh yeah, and what pray tell are those anti-theft devices?¡±


    ¡°Manual transmission.¡± Misha responded flatly.


    Chuckle.


    At that Julie couldn¡¯t help but laugh at the girl¡¯s deadpan sense of humor and delivery.


    By this point Julie was apparently close enough, as Phil heard her laugh and turned towards the still approaching Julie.


    ¡°Don¡¯t encourage her.¡±


    ¡°But she does have a point Phil, even if they do break in, how many kids her age do you think will be able to drive off with that vehicle?¡± Julie asked.


    Silence.


    It was clear that Phil was looking to make an argument of some kind, which was why Julie went ahead with the next stage of her comment. ¡°Besides didn¡¯t you say that this would be Misha¡¯s car if she could pull it from the ashes and get it to work properly?¡±


    At that Phil finally looked chagrined.


    ¡°I did, but that was before I thought she could actually fix it.¡± Phil replied.


    ¡°So, she proved to be so industrious that she took on an impossible task by herself and completed it,¡± at this point Julie gave a quick overly dramatic look at the vehicle, ¡°perfectly, and you now what? You want to take back your word?¡±


    ¡°But it¡¯s an antique.¡± Phil responded with a non sequitur, clearly harping on the idea of a teenage girl driving a restored vehicle to school.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that just give your shop more credit, as you can clearly use it to restore classic vehicles.¡± Julie said, gesturing to the recently modified barn that had been converted into a makeshift mechanic garage that the two could spend hours working together in.


    Slurp.


    At this point, Julie decided that her coffee had long enough to cool down, as such she pulled it up and took a loud slurp.


    ¡°You had time to make coffee?¡± Phil asked.


    With that Julie just shook her head slightly. ¡°My amazing granddaughter did, before her first day of school.¡±


    Hearing that Phil turned to Misha, and looked at her as if she had somehow sinned against him.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t make one for me?¡± Phil asked, pain clear in his voice.


    At that Julie once again had to step in and set the matter straight.


    ¡°She did, it was on the table on the way out the back door. Had you been in anything less than a blind rage, you would have seen your coffee mug and a personal note addressed to you.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°A note? What does it say?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, I didn¡¯t have enough time to read it seeing as I had to stop my idiot husband from looking like a fool.¡± Julie replied.


    With that, Phil visibly deflated as he realized he was likely going to lose this battle of wills. Particularly as Misha had already bribed grandma to help with fresh coffee and a morning note.


    ¡°Fine, it¡¯s just so hard to see both my girls leaving at the same time.¡± Phil finally said, ¡°can I get a hug before you go?¡±


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Hearing that Misha rolled her eyes, ¡°fine, but this is taking longer than I expected.¡±


    ¡°You planned for this?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°For you to make a fool of yourself, no you did that on your own. I just calculated what was the easiest way to defuse this situation.¡± Misha said, speaking more to him than she would to anyone.


    Hearing her talk to the old man, Julie couldn¡¯t help but feel a pang of jealousy at that. As it was clear that the two really did have a special bond with each other. An odd and probably borderline dysfunctional bond, but a bond, nonetheless.


    ¡°Fine well let me get a goodbye hug real quick.¡± Phil said.


    ¡°Fine.¡± Misha said, her reply tight as she opened up the door to make this a little easier.


    Phil on the other hand went around the door and hugged the fully restored Mustang GT. ¡°I¡¯ll miss you, take good care of my granddaughter.¡±


    ¡°Oh my god.¡± Misha said, slamming her door shut as she saw the smirk filling Phil¡¯s face.


    Slam.


    ¡°Are you done?¡± Misha asked after seeing that Phil was still draped over her car.


    ¡°No, but I guess I will have to carry on regardless.¡± Phil said, his voice dripping with melodramatic tension.


    At that Julie just shook her head and let a faint smile come to her lips, seeing the way Phil interacted with his granddaughter was endearing. That was the man Julie had originally fallen in love with, a man who changed drastically to meet the harsh life of a farmer. And now had only two hobbies, fixing cars, and trying to spend as much time with his granddaughter as possible.


    ¡°Goodbye my sweet.¡± Phil said, patting the top canvas cover of the convertible before stepping away.


    Rumble.


    With Phil finally away from the vehicle Misha put it into gear and then began rolling away.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell my wife,¡± Phil said, waving goodbye to his car.


    Julie just rolled her eyes, then told him her feelings, ¡°you are mush.¡±


    ¡°Thanks grandma.¡± Misha said, rolling up next to Julie and stopping her progress for a moment.


    ¡°Thank you for the coffee.¡± Julie replied, implying that she knew exactly what the coffee was for. Again, the depths that this girl could see problems before they started and try to correct them was astounding. ¡°When are you going to be back?¡±


    ¡°Probably late. Today is the first day of tryouts.¡± Misha added.


    ¡°Okay, well, I¡¯ll see you when you get back.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°Bye.¡± Misha said, as she rolled out slowly over the long gravel driveway. Her car was rumbling like rolling thunder through the morning air.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe I lost both my children at the same time.¡± Phil said, coming over and watching as Misha slowly rolled down the road.


    ¡°Those aren¡¯t your children. Your child is still inside getting ready to help file your taxes and help you prepare for your new business venture.¡± Julie chided the old man.


    ¡°I know, but I messed up a lot with her. With Misha and Diane.¡± Phil said, clearly calling the restored vehicle after one of the list vehicles in Gone in 60 seconds.


    ¡°Diane, wasn¡¯t that the Ferrari?¡± Julie asked.


    ¡°It was the Ferrari, but I didn¡¯t want to name the vehicle Eleanor, and that was also the 1995 Ferrari, so I went with that.¡± Phil said, explaining his convoluted logic.


    Shaking her head.


    ¡°Did Misha agree to this name?¡± Julie asked, thinking that this clearly had the makings of something Misha was not a part of.


    ¡°Why should she get a vote in what I call my kids?¡± Phil responded.


    Eye roll and shaking the head.


    ¡°She really has you wrapped around her finger if you are thinking like this.¡± Julie said.


    ¡°What do you mean me wrapped around her finger, Ms. I¡¯ll come out here to protect her for a cup of coffee.¡± Phile shot back.


    At that Julie just shrugged and drank a nice warm sip of her still warm coffee. ¡°What I can I say, I never said I wasn¡¯t wrapped around her little finger.¡±


    At that Phil looked like he was about to protest, which was when Julie quickly changed the subject and made it so she could spend the rest of her morning cup of coffee in peace.


    ¡°Besides, isn¡¯t your cup of coffee getting cold?¡±


    Loud slurp.


    ¡°Oh, right.¡± Phil shouted as he ran off towards the kitchen where his cup of coffee was waiting for him.


    With that, Julie watched her granddaughter get to the end of their long driveway and wait for a second before turning left towards the school.


    Realizing that Julie got to spend the last few seconds of this morning view in peace, thanks to her crafty thinking, Julie smiled to herself, as she realized where Misha might have gotten her diabolical streak of planning ahead from.


    ¡°She is my daughter too,¡± Julie claimed to no one in particular, before finishing up her coffee and heading inside herself.


    ***


    (Misha)


    The primitive technological machine purred to life, effortlessly gliding along the back roads that would eventually lead to the local high school.


    Senior year.


    The thought came to her, as she got closer to the school. Honestly Misha had more than enough credits to graduate, having taken and passed every state required test.


    No, this year was about building a resume for sports and activities, which should help her not only get into prestigious schools, but also get much needed scholarships to said schools.


    Logically the career path that made the most sense to pursue was the Mechanical Engineering degree path, but that would be the equivalent of telling a master painter like Michelangelo to get a degree in drawing with crayons. The entire thing seemed not only beneath her, but she often felt that she would have to hold back or feign innocence as to knowing certain key fundamental truths to reality that had not been fully conceptualized here.


    That is why instead of going the engineering route, she decided to go into the realm of cybersecurity, at least it seemed easy on paper. Though she did have plenty of time to go and make a final career path choice later on.


    For now, her first goal was to fit in.


    Vroom.


    Misha downshifted easily to force her car into slowing down as she entered the school parking lot. Yet, as soon as she entered the parking lot, there was the faintest scent of musk in the air.


    At which point her organo-tech heightened senses began picking up the barest hint of something.


    Fortunately, her embedded coding told her what she had instinctively identified on her own.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 37.8378%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warrior Class Members Genetic Materials Identified.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that message, Misha felt that she was onto something, as she drove around the parking lot with her windows down letting more of the different scents fill her car.


    Finally, she got close enough to the vehicle, or rather vehicles in question to trigger the next response message.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 55.027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C below threshold standards.


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C below threshold standards.


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C below threshold standards.


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C below threshold standards.


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    Tier 2 Warrior Class member identified ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seven warrior class members, who apparently traveled in two different vehicles.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 20.5405%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reaper standards possible.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing that message, Misha was curious as to what exactly her Alternate-1 template had in mind for her. For now, she figured she would first try to identify who these seven individuals were, and then what exactly the Reaper system was capable of.


    She also realized that she needed to be cautious, as she had grown to appreciate the cover that she had developed over the years. While she still mentally knew and saw herself as a Psycher, life on this backward planet was not entirely terrible.


    Additionally, she had the idea of being somehow able to replicate the coding and abilities of the Altnerate-1 genetic templates to see if she could create a Psycher variant that was capable of much the same processes. The ability to identify other Bakshee would be invaluable, which is what her class seemed to be able to do.


    Realizing she was glad for even more reasons for coming to school she rolled up her windows, found a parking spot and then made her way to school, this was going to be an interesting year.


    ***


    (James Rider)


    James wondered idly in the halls, he was the stereotypical kid with dark hair and glasses that strangely found that he didn¡¯t belong to any true group in the school. This fact never truly bothered him, as he often managed to avoid most of the factions that formed. Instead, he made himself out to be a very neutral mechanical group.


    Your computer didn¡¯t work, bring it to him. You watch wouldn¡¯t sync with the cloud storage, bring it to him. Basically, he had managed to make it so he was simultaneously respected by each of the different groups of friends, while not truly being part of any himself.


    The only group that James could not seem to gain a firm foothold in was the jocks. Namely because they rarely if ever used electronics, and even when they did the electronics were mostly just digital media players so they could stay laser focused during practices.


    ¡°Hey James.¡± Darcy Smolders said, greeting James with her typical exuberant nature.


    James really liked Darcy, he truly did. In an alternate world without numerous statistical data points proving the contrary, Darcy and James might even have dated.


    The reason why they never dated was not on a lack of trying, at least not for Darcy¡¯s part. Rather it was James¡¯ stubborn attention to statistics and probability that told him that relationships between highschoolers never lasted. At most they would last five years into college at which point they would invariably fail due to one issue or another.


    Knowing all of that, James had always turned down Darcy¡¯s advances. Not that she made many, but she did make enough to let James know that she would be more than willing to, if he but gave her a chance.


    ¡°Hey Darcy, how are you?¡± James asked cordially, still making sure to keep his trusted friend zone open and clear.


    ¡°Oh, you know, pretty good.¡± Darcy said, with the faintest hint of barely constrained glee to her voice.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± James asked.


    ¡°Why whatever do you mean?¡± Darcy asked, a hint of faux shock on her face.


    Seeing her like that, James realized he had missed the mark. So, she wasn¡¯t doing something, which meant, ¡°what do you know?¡±


    ¡°Oh, nothing much, but I heard we will get a new student in our Computer Science class.¡± Darcy said.


    Hearing that James decided to press for more details, as this seemed to be too much action for just a possible new friend to make. ¡°So?¡±


    ¡°Well, she is a girl, and I just wanted you to know that as friends, I saw her first, so I call dibs.¡± Darcy said.


    Hearing that, James just looked at her, knowing full well that he had expressed his feelings on dating while in high school.


    ¡°Okay.¡± James said, a note of apathy filling his voice.


    ¡°Swear it.¡±


    ¡°Swear what?¡±


    ¡°That you will give me dibs and not be jealous.¡± Darcy said.


    ¡°Okay, I swear on our everlasting friendship that you will have dibs with this new student and I will not do anything to stop you from pursuing her.¡± James said, holding up his hand in a poor imitation of swearing a promise.


    ¡°Good.¡± Darcy said bubbly, as she seemed to wiggle in excitement.


    Seeing her, James couldn¡¯t help but ask the obvious question, ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t like women as much.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s about a ninety ten split, but since she is clearly a ten, I will take it.¡± Darcy said.


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know what you are missing.¡± Darcy said.


    ¡°Clearly I don¡¯t as I have never seen her before.¡± James answered honestly.


    ¡°Clearly, otherwise you would have strenuously objected to my dibs.¡± Darcy spit back.


    With that James realized that it was two minutes until class, and Darcy was supposed to be in English, which was at the far end of the building.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to be late?¡±


    ¡°Probably but it is worth it. Again, tall red head, glowing green eyes, she is mine, you promised.¡± Darcy said, then quickly kissed the tips of her right hand, before smacking them on James¡¯ forehead. ¡°See you in Computer Science.¡±


    With that, Darcy began bouncing bubbly away, causing James to shake his head. As he didn¡¯t know if Darcy actually had a thing for this girl, or was using her to cause jealousy within James, or if she just wanted to stir up trouble because she was bored. Regardless, he was now interested in seeing this new girl that was now twice off limits, once due to James¡¯ own personal rules of not dating in high school, and due to his deep seeded friendship with Darcy.


    Little did he know, that he would quickly come to regret his sacred promise.

 Chapter 18 Meeting the Pack

    Chapter 18


    Meeting the Pack


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    ¡°Ohh, hey girl.¡±


    The voices and annoying cheers of boys and girls alike echoed in the hallways. Hearing them was easy for Amoni with her enhanced hearing. If she had tried, she almost felt that she could taste the different pheromones that males and females were giving off.


    ¡°Uh, who is that?¡±


    The girls talking sounded both jealous and annoyed by the person they were seeing. Hearing the commotion, it was clear that they were talking to or about someone new.


    While this was interesting, especially for a small school like theirs, Amoni felt that there was no way she would run into this person. As this was the Advanced Placement, or AP, Physics C: Mechanics. Of all the people in the new generation of her pack, she was the only one able to keep up with the rigors and requirements of being in AP Physics. In fact, the standards for this class were so high, that unless you were in the AP prep courses in your Junior year, there was no way you would be recommended to join this class.


    Which was why Amoni figured she would hear about this new girl once class was over. The fact that there was a new girl was nothing new, and in fact had quickly made the rounds of the school before the day even started.


    From everything she heard, the new girl was tall, red-headed, and muscular.


    That description alone was enough for Amoni to think about the indoctrination process with her, but only if she was cool. After the last few yahoos were added to the pack by her cousin, Jerome, it was noted that Amoni would be in charge of choosing who would be added to the pack.


    This was no small task, for being pack meant you were part of the family for life. There were obligations that came from being invited to the pack. Obligations that meant that even if the newest pack member grew overly arrogant from joining and began picking a fight with everyone, it was the pack¡¯s obligation to back up said moron. Even when a victory in such a case would just be a pyrrhic victory.


    Again, lessons were learned, and Amoni showed Jerome why she was better at piecing together intel. At this rate, she was clearly setting herself up to be the next pack shaman. While she had always wanted to be the leader, being recognized as a shaman was no small feat, as it would grant her minor abilities to commune with the earth and spirits.


    At least that is what she was taught by her father, as her father was the current pack shaman, meaning that if she was accepted by the spirits, she could gain a lot of interesting abilities to help the pack. Until she got to the point where she could protect the pack, she felt it was her job to ensure that everyone who joined the pack from here on out were vetted. With seven of them in this school alone, she felt she was already at her pack¡¯s maximum.


    Well really this was Jerome¡¯s maximum as he would invariably need to be the one who kept everyone else in line. Still as the guild¡¯s recruiter, she knew she would at least have to have a list of reasons why the new girl didn¡¯t meet their new standards.


    These were the thoughts that were going through her mind, before she saw her.


    The girl was tall and powerful, that much she had already known thanks to the rumor mill. What the rumor mill had failed to mention, or what Amoni had failed to fully grasp was why everyone spoke so highly of her. She was beautiful, as she all but radiated a form of indomitable power.


    Seeing the girl, Amoni wanted to use this moment to help her, as she was clearly lost. Likely coming in to ask for directions to her actual teacher. Fortunately for Amoni she sat further back and was unable to respond to her entry before she handed over a piece of paper to the teacher, Dr. Cahill. Yes, this school managed to hire a person with a Doctorate in Mathematics, which was why the courses were so tough.


    Dr. Cahill was also why there was a matriculation process for those students who wanted to take AP courses through the local community college. Right now, through all her AP courses, Amoni was looking at nine credits already completed, and was hoping to complete another twelve credits by the end of this year, putting her at twenty-one credits, or roughly over a third of the way to her associate degree. The goal was to spend one more year saving money by attending the local community college, and then heading off to state.


    Of course, that was if she didn¡¯t make the girls¡¯ basketball team and get recruited by a nationally recognized organization.


    Never put all your eggs in one basket as it were, at least that is what Amoni was planning by joining. Sure, it was cheating by being part of the pack, as her first evolution made it so she was finally tall enough to join the team. Before her recent evolution to the first Tier, she had been an undersized 5¡¯6. Now that she had achieved her first evolution, and the growth spurt associated with such an achievement she was 5¡¯10. With her next tier evolution, she hoped to be over the six-foot threshold. That was where she expected to stay unless she somehow managed to get another evolution while in college.


    Though it was hard to tell what allowed some to evolve faster than others. All that was known for certain was that the last personal evolution seemed to end when your natural growth cycle also ended, meaning that right now Amoni was under the gun to get these last two evolutions.


    Unfortunately, no one really knew what people needed for an evolution.


    These thoughts seemed odd, to Amoni, as she didn¡¯t quite know why they came to her. Then looking at the towering girl before her, her sudden apprehension became apparent, as her mind was clearly sizing up the competition. Her mind saw the girl before her and instantly saw her as a threat, not only to her pack, but to her own position on the team, but why?


    The girl while tall and apparently muscular, due to the way her muscles bulged out from under her clothes did note a stronger build, but there was more.


    Something about the way she moved, gracefully sliding in. Maybe she was one of those dancers with the pink leotards? They were muscular and often graceful, right?


    The entire time Dr. Cahill was interacting with her, he was writing things down in his notebook.


    Then it clicked, he wasn¡¯t trying to give her instructions on where her class was. He was marking her down as being a student enrolled in AP Physics.


    ¡°There you are. All set.¡± Dr. Cahill said, tearing off a tab from the bottom of her sheet. Then standing up from behind his desk, he looked around and said, ¡°try to find a seat wherever.¡±


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Nod.


    The girl just nodded and quickly scanned the room.


    Shiver.


    Emerald green eyes locked gazes with Amoni for a second, and in that second it felt like she was the prey. From the day Amoni was born she was pack, until the day she died, she would be pack. At least, that is what she was told. She would always be stronger, faster, and tougher than any human.


    Yet, seeing that girl lock gazes with her, something primal within her screamed. No, scream would imply they had control over their emotional state, even to a minor extent. Screaming implied that there was strength enough to at least appear to be fierce and fight back.


    No, when her eyes locked on with the new girl¡¯s it was like the proud wolf that had always been there barely restrained was cowed.


    Then her heart stopped, as the white girl began walking forward, right towards her.


    Badump, badump.


    ¡°Amoni, right?¡± The girl asked.


    Fear.


    Hearing the girl call her name, Amoni wanted to lash out, ¡°how do you know my name?¡±


    ¡°Coach Green gave it to me. She said you would be in most of my classes.¡± The girl said, her hands neutrally held at her sides, her left hand holding onto a stack of papers. This left her right hand, the hand closest to Amoni, open and able to strike out or defend. Amoni realized all of this, and then disregarded the thought.


    ¡°Coach Green?¡± Amoni asked, the words sounding somewhat hollow on her lips as she tried to place the familiar name. Then suddenly it came to her, that was the high school basketball coach, well for the women¡¯s basketball team.


    ¡°Yes, you are Amoni Jacobs, right?¡± The new girl asked, but it was clear that she had somehow known who Amoni was.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Nice to meet you, I¡¯m Misha Tulley, I¡¯ll be the new point guard.¡± Misha said, not offering a hand and just sitting down in the open seat next to Amoni.


    Amoni looked at the girl, who didn¡¯t offer her hand, didn¡¯t make any threats. Just spoke in a calm matter of fact tone that only caused heightened tension to form within Amoni. Then after hearing the words, Amoni realized something was off.


    ¡°Wait, I am the point guard.¡± Amoni stated.


    ¡°You were the point guard. I think coach plans to move you to the shooting guard position.¡± This new girl, this Misha, said.


    Instantly, the wolf inside Amoni began to grumble and howl at the indignity. Turning to face the girl, Amoni found two cold emerald eyes staring back at her. These were the eyes of a predator, of one who had seen a lot and likely dealt with a lot. For a moment, Amoni looked into those eyes and saw the true focus of someone who would stop at nothing to remove obstacles from her path.


    In that one gaze, Amoni realized a few things. Many were primal, things that couldn¡¯t be placed into words. She had the eyes of a killer, at least that is what her instincts told her. Those were the cold and calculating eyes of someone who had committed the ultimate act, and probably done so callously.


    The other major thing Amoni learned was that for the first time in a long time, her wolf, her inner fire could feel fear.


    Amoni wanted to be strong, she wanted to challenge this girl right here and now to a fight, but somehow she knew that the girl was ready for such a provocation. That if given the sign to fight, the girl would lash out with her now closer left hand and there would be nothing Amoni could do to stop it. That was the sensation of fear that she had while looking at this white girl.


    Finally, realizing that she had been staring for too long, Amoni decided to say something to see if she could recover some face, ¡°we¡¯ll see about that.¡±


    With that Amoni turned to face Dr. Cahill who was already beginning to go over today¡¯s lesson. Then just as Amoni thought the situation was over, she heard the girl speak.


    ¡°We will.¡±


    Shiver.


    Out of the corner of her eye, Amoni could see the cold piercing gaze of the girl staring her down and all but calling her unworthy. Sadly, Amoni couldn¡¯t do anything other than stare forward and try to regain some of her dwindling self-respect.


    This had been a nightmare, but she was now certain of one thing, this girl should be in the pack, but only if Jerome could somehow tame her. Otherwise, she would wreak havoc with their pack structure. Though she would be able to reign in some of the more unruly pack members that Jerome let in.


    These thoughts and more seeped into her mind.


    Then out of the corner of her eyes, she looked to see the girl staring forward with a laser focus. However, her predatory instincts were too high as she immediately looked over once Amoni did, causing their eyes to lock for a second, before Amoni turned away quickly.


    This was not going to be as good of a year as Amoni had hoped. Fortunately, this was only one class, and then practice, Amoni could and would get through this. At least that is what she told herself.


    ***


    (James Rider)


    The entire day James had heard people talking about the new girl this and the new girl that. Honestly the whole thing seemed a bit too clich¨¦ to him, as he was so over a pretty face getting all the guys¡¯ attention. This was even more reason why James decided that whatever happened, he would not give into temptation and would not even look at the girl.


    Besides, this was his dominion, the computer lab was practically his haven where he set up shop; fixing tablets or phones, writing papers, and generally finishing all the assignments that the other classes gave to him.


    James told himself that he wasn¡¯t lazy, as lazy would imply he didn¡¯t do his work at all. Instead, he was economical, as he used as much of his forced time in the school to take care of school related activities.


    His time after class was just that, his.


    He was about to start his final paper due in the morning, when a bouncing ball of energy came barreling through the science lab door.


    ¡°She¡¯s here, she¡¯s here.¡± Darcy said, all but squealing with delight.


    Looking at her, James realized he had never seen her this excited since she got a pet bunny for easter.


    ¡°Who?¡± James asked, though he already had a fairly good guess.


    Ms. Phillips just looked at the two and shook her head. That was the thing about Ms. Phillips, she liked it quiet, but she tolerated some noise before the class began.


    Then just as Darcy had all but predicted, a few seconds later a new student came into the classroom. As soon as he saw her, James instantly thought that she was a new girl come in.


    She was tall, curvy and a natural red head, not one of those fire in a bottle types. At least that is what he assumed by looking at her.


    Then to his surprise she went over to Ms. Philips and handed her a schedule of some kind.


    ¡°Yes, you must be the new girl I have heard so much about.¡± Ms. Philips began, already going into her harsh no-nonsense demeanor. Hearing her talk like this, James wondered what exactly caused Ms. Philips to be like this. Then as she spoke, things became clearer.


    ¡°Ms. Green has already informed me of your situation and the fact that you intend to be on her basketball team. While I am all for student athletes, I want you to know that this is a serious class. I don¡¯t expect to see you coming in here and being disruptive, or taking naps, or otherwise interrupting my classroom.¡± Ms. Philips began, and as soon as she spoke, James realized the trouble. This girl was apparently on the sports team, and she didn¡¯t want her to come in here and think it was a free ride.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Was the one-word response that the new girl gave.


    Hearing her response caused an unexpected snort to come from James, as he watched arguably his favorite teacher look momentarily lost for words as she opened and closed her mouth for a moment.


    Ms. Philips was quick to recover as she then asked, ¡°so you are going to withdraw?¡±


    ¡°No, I will follow your instructions,¡± the girl replied.


    ¡°Well, okay then, find a seat,¡± Ms. Philips stated, and seemed momentarily quelled by the response, before adding, ¡°you do know this is an AP course, right?¡±


    ***


    (Misha)


    The entire day had been slow and grueling, which was what she had expected and had even mentally prepared herself for. Yet, it had been worth it to see how school life really was.


    From what she had seen, werewolves tended to stick to most of the sports related programs. Also, the term werewolf was a bit of a misnomer as it appeared that at first the changes in Lykanthropy were minor. Most of which could be attributed to subtle shifts in diets, momentary growth spurts and the like. Honestly though, the one thing she did not expect was to see a vampire in the computer lab, though honestly that too was something that should have been obvious, if she had been trying to find places where vampires would use to hide in plain sight.


    The teacher was on the third tier of her evolution, while the fledgling kids were only on the first or second tier.


    Also, it was clear that vampires could easily walk out into sunlight, but that they appeared to prefer to be in the shade. These were all good data points, and ones that Misha herself fully intended to delve deeper into.


    For now, she wanted to see how a first-tier werewolf would react when their position on the team was challenged. Also, if she was being completely honest with herself, she wanted to see how her current Attributes stacked up against evolved beings. Particularly as she was still far away from reaching the values needed for her first evolutionary change.


    In her mind she mentally accessed her organo-tech interface.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 34.9189%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Advanced Life Growth Model Accessed.


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 14.9 / 20


    Dexterity: 14.9 / 20


    Agility: 14.9 / 20


    Stamina: 14.9 /20


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That was the maximum her Attributes could rise to. With ten being the average, she was clearly well above average for the typical human. Yet, she could tell that there was something, a bottleneck of some kind that had been seemingly imposed upon her by the system. Though she couldn¡¯t quite explain why.


    Mentally her backdoor access told her she was missing required growth hormones, but the hormones¡¯ descriptions were lacking from the incomplete template she had found. Honestly, she was beginning to think that her class was just meant to somehow cull the weak from the evolutionary process. Yet, the more she saw, the more she realized that even the tier ones of this place were lacking. Especially as none of the noted Attributes were above the 15-point threshold, which she mentally noted as some form of threshold.


    While the tier three vampire did seem like she would be a formidable opponent, even during the daylight hours.


    For now, Misha had her own goals to set. Namely taking on a team with three Werewolves and seeing how well she could run an offense against them.


    ¡°Today we will be doing a five-on-five scrimmage. Everyone give it everything you¡¯ve got.¡± Coach green said, then with that everyone lined up in their perspective positions.


    ¡°You ready?¡± The girl Amoni asked, a slight hitch in her voice as she attempted to stare down Misha and failed.


    ¡°Are you?¡± Misha shot back, as she walked to her starting position.


    Once everyone was in position, Coach Green nodded, then threw up the ball, and quickly retreated before chaos erupted on the court.


    ¡°Begin!¡± Coach

 Chapter 19 Head Games

    Chapter 19


    Head Games


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    The game had started just as Amoni and her pack had expected. Well, her pack plus Michelle who was close to becoming part of the pack, but for whatever reason the virus hadn¡¯t spread to her, yet. Michelle, well let¡¯s just say she was a work in progress.


    Still, the game began as most anyone would expect.


    Amoni and the A-Team dominated the court. They were faster, stronger, and tougher than the team that came before them.


    Even the new girl was nothing compared to her, at least at first. Despite her being taller, Amoni was able to barrel into and through the skinny girl.


    This of course resulted in fouls being called by coach, but a few of these were needed to put her in her place. All it took was one or two good charges and most people would back down, would cower, not her though.


    To Amoni¡¯s surprise the new girl, number 7, as per her jersey, refused to acknowledge this girl by name. Right now, she was dirt, no she was less than dirt, as she was a pebble in her shoe that Amoni would grit her teeth and deal with.


    Yet, that little pebble was persistent. With her long arms and size, she was able to make up for many of the advantages that her inner wolf gave her.


    The girl had skills, begrudgingly Amoni had to agree to that. She wasn¡¯t the fastest, that was J-Sweep, aka Jasmine Sweet, who was anything but sweet. The toughest of their pack was K-Bar, aka Kami Barrett. While the strongest would of course be Amoni, with Two-Tone being the final member of the pack. With the four of them, and Michelle they were easily able to overcome the giant obstacle that was the new girl before them.


    At first, Amoni had taken to bringing up the ball, but the girl was always there, ready to pounce. Her long arms moving in ways that Amoni had never seen before.


    Playing against number Seven, was almost like playing against an octopus, as her long rubbery arms would snake out low, tapping the ball and creating a steal.


    Almost like she could read her mind as to where she was going. Amoni tried to look down court, but every time she did, the new girl would move. Then she was off, racing down the court at the far end.


    The first few times it took Amoni a second to realize what had happened, as her mind instinctively waited for the ball to bounce back up into her hand. She waited, and waited again, but nothing. With a start she turned to see that the new girl was first chasing down the ball that was hurtling towards the far end of the court. Then she got it, tapping it once, then twice in motion, before gaining control over the ball and taking it in for a quick layup.


    Swoosh.


    The whole thing happened so quickly that Amoni only managed to take six steps towards the basket before the all too familiar sound of the ball gliding through a tight nylon net could be heard. Hearing that, Amoni just looked over in complete shock.


    ¡°Get your head out of your keister there Jacobs and get the ball.¡± Coach Green said, her fiery demeanor on full display as Amoni awoke from whatever the heck that was that just happened. Then she began running down the ball.


    This time just like every time, the new girl set up her defense just inside the rebound area. This girl was going to test her inbound skills during a scrimmage. At first, Amoni was offended by such a gesture, but then begrudgingly accepted it.


    K-Bar came up to get the inbound, but as Amoni threw it, the girl with her tentacle arms shot out and tipped the ball away.


    There was a scramble for the ball, but it went out before the tall girl could get to it.


    Whistle.


    ¡°Focus Jacobs, last warning!¡± Coach Green said.


    Then with that, it was on. At least that is what Amoni thought.


    This time Amoni managed to get the ball in via a bounce pass. With that Amoni thought the girl would cover K-Bar or at least go back on defense, but no the girl just stayed there keeping pace with her.


    ¡°You aren¡¯t going to go after K-Bar? She not worthy of your time?¡± Amoni asked, trying to get her to be distracted for a moment.


    ¡°Not my assignment. I have to trust my teammates to cover her.¡± Number Seven said.


    And like that the afternoon practice went.


    Every time Amoni got the ball, or was near the ball, that freakishly long monster was there. Her arms flailing out to intercept the balls being passed to her, poking at the ball while she dribbled, harassing her while she was shooting.


    Of course, the answer to over coming the new girl was simple, pass the ball and let the rest of the team take over. That was the great thing about team sports, it took everyone to win.


    While the girl did manage a few points from steals, every time she passed the ball to her teammates the ball would be swiped away, or the other B-Team members would get trapped and cause a turnover.


    Coach was over there on the side keeping score.


    42 ¨C 19


    Seeing the score made Amoni feel somewhat accomplished. Even though she was out here sweating up a storm, the other girl seemed calm and composed. Yeah, she was sweating, but it wasn¡¯t much, not in comparison to the way Amoni¡¯s whole body felt like it was on fire. Even her wolf, the source of rage she had felt for so long and always been able to call upon for a second wind was gone, somehow cowed by this monster.


    Honestly the girl was a monster, not that Amoni would ever admit it, but she felt it. Even now it felt like just being near the girl was causing her strength to be sucked away somehow. Though she would never quit, her mind would not allow it.


    Instead, rather than focusing on her diminishing physical capabilities, Amoni tried to get into the mind of her opponent. That¡¯s right, trash talking.


    Even down by thirty, with all of the other B-Team members hunched over and looking defeated, number Seven was the only one who held herself upright with poise and precision. Seeing her standing defiantly, despite the effort everyone had put in, Amoni wanted to take her down a peg or three.


    ¡°How does it feel to put in so much effort, and still lose?¡± Amoni said, noting that aside from the an odd bucket from Izzy, the other points all came from number Seven.


    ¡°Pretty good.¡± Number Seven stated.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Pretty good, you like losing?¡± Amoni pushed.


    ¡°No, but I¡¯d rather contribute and lose than provide nothing but turnovers for my team that wins.¡± Number Seven said.


    With that, the fire that Amoni had been searching for came back, but it was small. Her inner flame was weak, almost non-existent.


    ¡°What do you mean!¡± Amoni said, standing upright and getting right into the new girl¡¯s face. At least she tried to, as the new girl just stood up from her crouch and towered over Amoni, who was easily a head shorter than the new goliath to the team.


    ¡°I mean, your teammates avoid you on offense. They get others to inbound the ball. When they pass, they avoid giving you a chance to get the ball because you don¡¯t have the hustle to make a simple pass work.¡± The new girl said, speaking more in that one sentence than anyone had ever heard her say the whole day, not that Amoni knew.


    Instead, all Amoni saw and felt was rage.


    Grr.


    The fire inside Amoni burned, as she balled up her fist and swung.


    Thump.


    Only for her fist to meet rock hard muscles and bones.


    Amoni paused, as so much had happened in that one moment. Normally a strike from her was all powerful, able to strike down even Jerome, if she managed to blindside him with the strike, yet something was off. This time the strike came, but there was no force behind the blow.


    It was almost like the fire that had been burning within her was quenched. No, not quenched, as it was still there, still burning brightly. In fact, it was probably brighter than it had ever been, but the size of the flame had been brought down.


    WHISTLE!


    ¡°That¡¯s it Jacobs, you are out of here! You are banned from practice for the week!¡± Coach Green shouted.


    Rage.


    Amoni felt rage, at least she tried to feel the rage bubbling up within her, but there was nothing to call on, as her inner wolf seemed to quit. The wolf that had been a part of her since birth was now missing entirely. She still felt strong, probably much stronger than any normal human, but compared to the monster before her, she realized there was a clear gap between the two of them.


    Amoni paused, her fist still balled up, then she looked at the fist that now randomly throbbed in pain.


    Suddenly it felt like the world that she had know had changed.


    Looking from her hand, she looked up at the giant of a woman before her and saw that rather than rage, hatred, or anger, all she saw was nothingness in her glance.


    That look more than anything hurt Amoni more than she realized, as it almost felt like she was nothing to her. This girl who had come in, challenged her for her position on the team, and her classes was just looking at her like she was nothing.


    Seeing the girl, and no longer able to access the inner strength that often seemed boundless in its potential for violence, Amoni felt hollow.


    Her world, her everything had ended.


    Looking back the girl was right, her teammates had avoided her for the majority of the game, opting to do four on four. As the new girl¡¯s defense was amazing, honestly having a chance to look at it, it was amazing.


    Suddenly the striking out seemed more like the temper tantrum of a kid who didn¡¯t get their way, versus the strike of someone trying to put a pack member in their place.


    Shatter.


    Something broke within Amoni at that moment, or maybe it had broken earlier and it was only now that Amoni finally noticed.


    Staring there stupidly for so long, Amoni finally lowered her first, and then replied back the only way she could.


    ¡°Okay, coach.¡± Amoni said, then began to walk away.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Coach asked, not even looking at the person she was talking to was clear.


    ¡°Yes, coach.¡± The new girl said.


    And like that, Amoni knew that her spot on the team had been lost for a week, and likely longer.


    Honestly, Amoni would have been delighted to have been told that the team would be gaining a defender as talented as she was. Yet, not when it came at the cost of her spot on the team. Not when it meant that she had to concede what her inner wolf had seemingly already accepted, that they were woefully inadequate compared to the new girl.


    At that moment, Amoni promised herself that she would get stronger, and that she would show the new girl and coach both that she was top dog in this team.


    Mentally, Amoni began getting ready to ask K-Bar and the others what happened after she left. She would also use them to keep tabs on the new girl for the rest of the week in practice.


    Yes, that is what she would do.


    She would take this, and learn from it and be better. These were all things that she told herself as she made her way out of the locker room, not even opting to shower as there was something she had to do first.


    First, before this got any further, now that she was away from everyone, she reached for her chest and tried to reach for her inner wolf, that indomitable source of power and strength that had always been there was gone. Well not gone entirely, but weakened. No weakened wasn¡¯t the right word either, she felt stronger, as she always did after a good workout, but there was something off about her that was hard to understand.


    This was something that she would need to fix, especially before she got back on the court with that monster.


    ***


    (Misha)


    ¡°Tulley, great work out there today.¡± Coach Green said, clearly waiting for the hot-tempered Jacobs to leave and calm down.


    ¡°Thanks coach.¡± Misha replied.


    With that Coach went on to speak to the rest of the team.


    ¡°If anyone wants to know what it takes to work your way off the bench in a game, look at Tulley here. She is a prime example of what to do, in order to get more minutes. On defense she was lights out, isn¡¯t that right, Barret?¡±


    ¡°Yes coach.¡± The girl, K-Bar, answered.


    ¡°All right, I think we have done enough of a scrimmage today. This has given me enough to see what I am working with for this year. Now this next part isn¡¯t a test, but a sign of how much you are ready to commit to your own improvement. We have access to the weight room for the next hour. I expect all of you to at least hit every core muscle group once.¡± Coach Green said.


    Then like that the team of nine remaining players was dismissed.


    Only once they were dismissed did Misha begin walking towards the weight room. As she moved, Michelle, the only non-pack starter for the team came towards her.


    ¡°Misha, that was so amazing. Just like you were in the league.¡± Michelle said, her voice all but squealing with delight.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha replied dryly.


    ¡°Wait, you two know each other?¡± J-Sweep asked.


    ¡°Yeah, she has been a member of my summer leagues for the past few years. At first, I played against her, but then finally was on her team, and we won. Since then, I have been requesting to be on her team ever since.¡± Michelle said, speaking of the summer league that the two had played during middle school and most of high school.


    ¡°Where¡¯d you play before this?¡± K-Bar asked.


    ¡°The League.¡± Misha responded.


    ¡°You learned all those moves from that Summer League?¡± J-Sweep asked.


    ¡°No, they didn¡¯t teach us anything. If it wasn¡¯t for me going over to Misha¡¯s place to practice, I likely wouldn¡¯t have made the team this year. Even still, I barely made the team.¡± Michelle answered truthfully.


    ¡°You did fine.¡± Misha said, speaking of how the girl had pushed herself all game.


    Whistle.


    Coach let loose a whistle, then shouted, ¡°everyone get off my court! It is time to let the others use it.¡±


    Then like that, the girls all broke off to do different exercises or go to different equipment. As for Misha, she went to the only piece of equipment that could work entire body at one time, she went to the rowing machine and began to push her mind and body.


    As she did, she felt a wave of excitement and euphoria fill her mind as her system activated.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 26.9189%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternate-1 Reaper System Activated.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 96.5405%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Conditions met, reset Tier 1 Warrior Amoni Jones to Tier 0. All Warrior Attributes were condensed to their base level to ensure optimal growth pattern initiated.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 41.6216%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Remaining energy absorbed by Alternate-1 Reaper System.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 16%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Points remaining: 0.2.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    After seeing the message, Misha¡¯s understanding of the true purpose of her class became clear. Her class was not meant to truly kill off those that were part of the system, rather she was supposed to reset those that weren¡¯t found worthy. This would cause the power levels to drop, apparently, but the idea was that they would be stronger once they went through the threshold again.


    Seeing this, Misha realized just how the Bakshee became so powerful, as this system allowed all of their soldiers to achieve perfect evolutions each time.


    With this revelation, Misha realized that the threat posed by the Bakshee was far greater than she had anticipated.


    Still she had more to discover with the system, at least that was what she told herself as she was left with the 0.2 Attribute point increase.


    Ultimately Misha decided to add one tenth of a point to her Agility and Dexterity.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 20.1081%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Dexterity: 14.9 -> 15.0</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Agility: 14.9 -> 15.0</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Confirm selection.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that Misha mentally accepted the change, and then nothing happened. Pausing, Misha wondered if she missed something with this new limit to her abilities. For years she had been stuck right here, and for years she wondered why she couldn¡¯t make it past this seemingly insurmountable threshold.


    Yet, after a moment she didn¡¯t feel any changes.


    With that all Misha did was continue to press herself, trying to see if that 0.1 of an Attribute would make any tangible difference in her current workout.


    Unfortunately, nothing happened, at least not until she finally stopped.


    Standing up, she felt calm at first, before she felt a system message take over her mind and all but force her to the ground.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 51.3514%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">System update commencing now that physical exertion period has ended.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 19.8919%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">System update beginning...</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Then like that, the world went white, and Misha¡¯s mind felt the fact that her body collapsed lifelessly to the floor, as the simple changes she had selected went into effect.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 12.7568%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Recalibrating¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Messages whirred to life past her ever conscious psyche, as she focused and began memorizing the changes.


    Then, finally, after a moment, it happened.


    The changes went into effect, and Misha was told to make her first decision.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 24.4324%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Mid-Tier Evolutionary point met.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 20.8649%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Choose from the following¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Then from there Misha was met with no less than a dozen choices, each of which would have seemingly significant impact on how she grew and developed as an Alternate-1 template user. It was clear that the choices she made here and now would fill out the way her body and class would be able to evolve once she reached the first Tier of evolution¡¯s threshold.


    Seeing the choices before her, Misha¡¯s mind grew wide with the possibilities before her, then she finally made her decision.

 Chapter 20 Pruning the Evolutionary Tree

    Chapter 20


    Pruning the Evolutionary Tree


    (Misha)


    Blinking.


    Everything had been so cerebral for Misha.


    Even now she was still trying to understand exactly what had happened, or what was still happening.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 28.4324%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Physical Characteristics:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Strength: 14.9 / 20 -> 14.9 / 14.9 (Max)


    Dexterity: 15.0 / 20


    Agility: 15.0 / 20


    Stamina: 14.9 /20 -> 14.9 / 14.9 (Max)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    First off all it seemed that now thanks to having broken through her mini-threshold of 15 for Dexterity and Agility, it seemed that she was forever blocked from being able to increase her Strength or Stamina as her new maximums for both Attributes were now capped at 14.9.


    Additionally, the choices she had been granted thanks to her Mid-Tier evolutionary point were as follows:


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 87.8919%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Dual Attribute Advancement protocol engaged.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Requirements: Must have Dexterity and Agility roughly even with each other throughout growth. Dexterity and Agility both must reach the species maximum before evolution to first tier is possible.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 69.9459%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Candidate must choose from the following system skills available: Current Ability Points Available (2)</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 41.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warrior Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Sense Danger (3)


    Feral Weapons (2)


    Increased Durability (1)


    Enhanced Comprehension Speed (4)


    Enhanced Senses (1): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell


    Increased Attribute (1): Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Stamina


    Shaman (5): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Worker Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Enhanced Senses (2): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell


    Increased Attribute (3): Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Stamina


    Enhanced Comprehension Speed (1)


    Increased Endurance (2)


    Commanding Voice (5)


    Allure (4)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 47.027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Ruler Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Elemental Focus  (1): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    Secondary Focus  (2): Lightning ¨C Prerequisite (Fire and Air)


    Secondary Focus  (2): Ice ¨C Prerequisite (Water and Air)


    Secondary Focus  (2): Metal ¨C Prerequisite (Earth and Fire)


    Commanding voice (2)


    Allure (2)


    Increased Comprehension speed (1)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 19.7838%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternate-1 Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Improved Harvesting (2)</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    From everything Misha saw, it was clear that this alternate system was one that seemed to make abilities from all the other groups available.


    It also went a long way in showing the differences between each group.


    Also of note was the fact that while she could see that each Attribute could be improved with these ability points, she was unable to improve her Strength or Stamina from any of the classes.


    There was also the fact that while she had gained two points to spend, how she gained the points largely remained a mystery to her. Was this a carryover of her gaining the 0.2 Attribute points from the Werewolf, or was this related to her passing the fifteen-point threshold for both Dexterity and Agility?


    Honestly, she didn¡¯t know, and her insight into the back-end coding for this ogano-tech class provided very little in the way of answers.


    Looking at the options available, it seemed that the way she chose to develop with her currently available ability points would dictate what options were available to her in the future.


    Also of note, according to the system she would already have three points of ability already purchased in that she could control both Fire and Lightning, from her Psycher abilities. In a way, Misha couldn¡¯t help but feel that if she chose these abilities her powers would be enhanced, but they didn¡¯t seem worth it. Especially as she could only choose the one-point Fire and would then be stuck with one additional ability point.


    For now, her options were rather limited by her lack of points to use. Also, there was the fact that most of the other abilities noted were widely known by Psycher researchers into the development of the different Bakshee classes. With that mentality and the fact that she was here to gather information on the enemy and their newest class, Misha decided to go with the class option that was available to her.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 31.027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Improved Harvesting Chosen (2). Confirm?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha thought toward the system.


    Then just like that, the world flashed white for a second, before her mind opened up, and new coding seemed to unravel throughout her body.


    Tingling.


    Her whole body tingled, but not in the good way, rather her body tingled in the way your foot would go asleep from sitting on it for too long. Unfortunately, rather than this being on one isolated area, her whole body felt like it was reacting to this change. Even her scalp tingled.


    Then just as quickly as it all started, it stopped.


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 29.6216%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    New Alternate-1 initiative started.


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Misha just stood there, staring off into the distance as her mind slowly began to speed up and catch up to the slightly improved movements she could make.


    Up until now, Misha had not been the fastest, strongest, or one who was able to last for a particularly long time. Still, she had managed to push herself.


    With the increases, she tried to push herself. Only to find that her body was too tired from the day¡¯s strenuous activities to keep going.


    Mentally, she felt that she could force her body to pull a second wind, mainly by modifying her body¡¯s ability to slowly create and release of the enzyme, phenylethanolamine-N-methyl transferase, the main catalyst for adrenaline creation.


    While this would cause her body to break down, particularly if she used too much adrenaline, right now she felt it almost worth it, to see if she was in fact stuck.


    Only recently had her body grown to the point where she could handle certain loads of weight in her lifts. Despite putting as much as she could into growing out her body, she remained a tall and lanky form.


    Her form and body type are also what caused her to choose putting points into Dexterity and Agility. Dexterity to increase her hand and ability to move precisely, something that should help with throwing a softball and shooting a basket. While Agility would help her get just that much faster.


    Even now she could feel the slight subtle changes, the elongation of her bones. The tightening of her muscles into cords that compressed themselves inwards.


    From her understanding of organo-tech, this build made sense. As humans could be great at on thing, and often that was all that was available to each person. The strongest person is not expected to be able to win a race, nor are they expected to be able to compete in a marathon.


    In all, Misha felt lucky that she had chosen two seemingly complementary growth paths. As now she could also feel the tingling sensations from her fingers down through her wrists and forearms.


    From just an internal glance it was clear that her body had undergone severe changes.


    While she was tempted to try out the new changes that had happened to her body, after a few minutes of moving around a bit more sluggishly after everything, she ultimately decided to head home.


    Going out to the parking lot, she felt that something was off about her vehicle. While it was still there, and there were no direct signs of damage to the car, something seemed to be off.


    Looking around she found that the other vehicles that had she had parked next to had already left for the day. Looking at those spots, she felt there was the same thing there, but again whatever it was, the impression of being wrong was faint, almost inarticulable to even Misha and her advanced searching.


    Yet, she could feel something residing in the whole area. In particular, she felt the odd thrum of energy, if barely.


    Strangely enough that same sensation of energy that lingered over the two parking spots that held the pack vehicles earlier, had a similar trace around her vehicle.


    Realizing this, Misha had her suspicions, but felt she would need to get proof.


    With that, Misha opened up her glove box, pulling out a mostly dead pre-paid Motorola. These were the cheap ones that depending on your plan could allow you to access the internet and were rarely used for their actual purpose, that of making a call.


    With the phone on, Misha let her mind connect to the device. During this time she did a number of things, first she channeled a bit of her own mentally charged Electrical energy into the device, not too much, but just enough to charge the phone so it could do everything that she needed the device to do.


    Then with the phone active, she had it actively scan for wireless networks in the area. There was a public Wi-Fi, and a secured Wi-Fi network that belonged to the school. A quick sideways check of a connection, and she was in.


    This was the one thing she loved about this world, hiding her actions were easy, as everything was meant to be a straightforward connection. Even the standard preventative protocols in place meant nothing when your psyche was the conduit. If she had to describe the options she used, it would be the same thing as being able to slip through a gap in a wall by simply turning to the side or moving over or under the walls being set up.


    It went without saying that her way of entering and exiting a network also made it so she left no digital footprints of her actions. At most data centers would record that a random file was opened by an unknown process, nothing indicating that a student in a school parking lot had easily hacked the local networks with her mind and was now rummaging through video recordings of the very same parking lot.


    Nor did it record the fact that a copy of a time stamp from 5:32:04 to 5:33:47 PM was recorded and forwarded to an anonymous account. The clip in question showed one Jerome Jones taking a long slow look around the parked and unattended 1995 Mustang GT, before getting into his van, along with a few other members of his vehicle that also took the same exact circuitous route.


    Seeing them move, Misha wondered if there was some type of pheromone marking going on, ¡°like ants.¡± Misha muttered, then paused, wondering why that statement seemed to strike a chord of remembrance within her.


    Still, nothing had happened and as far as Misha was concerned Amoni, the only member of the wolf pack that had legitimate issues with Misha was not involved in this incident. Still, it was odd and something that Misha wished to track in the future.


    With everything seeming to make relative sense, Misha discretely disconnected her mind from the school¡¯s data servers, the disconnected her phone from any attempts to connect to the internet, before powering the phone back off and putting it back into her glovebox.


    Then with her school day effectively over, she started up her car.


    VROOM!


    Where the vehicle purred to life, rumbling in an oddly therapeutic way that would have sent her space self into conniptions. Yet, being on land and planet side made the whole rumbling of a mechanical motor seem oddly exhilarating in a way she was never able to fully understand from just reading her history nodes.


    Now, in her new life, she was living history, and if things kept developing as they were, she felt she might just create history as well.


    Still, that would be a different day. For now, she had to get home and help her granddad at the shop.


    ***


    (Frank Grimes)


    To say that Frank¡¯s ¡®World Tour¡¯ as he was mentally calling it was going well, would be an understatement. He had almost gone for an RV, but had seen a few youtube videos about that, which finally made him give up that dream. Instead, he had a modified van that he had placed a roll away bed in, and was now using that van to make a magical retirement tour of all places Jackson.


    He started off in Jackson Kentucky, which was a huge bust as no one seemed to know anything about Andrea nor Misha up there. He found that out after spending an afternoon in the census bureau office. From there he went East, to Ohio, where he found Jackson Ohio to also be small and quaint but was once again able to search the local census bureau but found an Andrea who was around the age noted as the missing mother, but not one Misha.


    Following his east ward trajectory, he found himself of course heading to Jackson West Virginia, where his vehicle, which had already put on quite a few miles was ready for both an oil change, and a tune up. Before he retired, he meant to get a new vehicle, but didn¡¯t want to get a new vehicle just to put on a lot of miles on it, for this last pet project. As such he had decided originally to just bear with it, and see where his vehicle would, or in this case could, take him.


    That was how he found himself somewhere off route 62, in the middle of absolutely nowhere trying to find a place he could guide his dying vehicle towards.


    Fortunately, while Frank had skimped out on a new retirement vehicle, his personal phone was up to date. Well up to date enough to get enough reception to find the nearest mechanic that was open after 7PM on a Monday.


    According to his internet search there was only one, Phil¡¯s Rustbucket Garage.


    The name screamed affordable, though Frank half expected that with his car there, He would likely be stuck here for a week. After looking at the web page for the shop, it almost seemed like the entire budget went towards hosting the company¡¯s page, as the page was well designed and easy to navigate.


    Frank was particularly happy with the fact that he was able to at least get an appointment to be seen tonight, as part of a Free Consultation.


    While the consultation was free, Frank assumed a shop like this out in the middle of nowhere would all but force him to stay in town for a few days while his vehicle was worked on. This was honestly okay with Frank, as Jackson West Virginia was more than three times the size of Jackson Ohio, meaning that if Frank was being diligent, he would have to stay here for close to a week before meeting and ruling out everyone.


    Chime.


    His phone dinged as he both made his appointment and found the directions to the garage from his current location automatically get populated on his phone. Pausing, Frank felt a slight sense of panic fill him, as he wondered how the directions came up. Granted, he had wanted the directions and given the backroads that he was being directed down currently it was a good thing the directions popped up when they did.


    Still Frank couldn¡¯t help but think that he had not in fact asked for the directions to be pulled up.


    Realizing that he had to have, either clicked a button, or spaced out and caused the directions to auto populate on his phone, ultimately, he realized the end result was the same. He had the directions he wanted, even if he couldn¡¯t remember making the request.


    Shaking his head at the oddity, he just figured it was likely an automatic feature for booking an appointment so late. Yeah, that had to be it, right?


    Thinking about it for a moment, Frank realized that this was definitely the case, as this was not the sign of early onset dementia or him going senile at all. He was still young, and laser focused, even with the fact that he was now retired and doing what many would consider chasing the thought of aliens.


    ¡°No such thing as aliens.¡± Frank muttered to himself as he found himself making what was the last turn, before making a turn down a dirt road, where there looked to be only an old farmhouse, and a large converted barn.


    Putter, putter, putter.


    By now, the thermometer on the dashboard was also rising wildly.


    With sheer determination Frank drove the slowly dying vehicle forward until it all but passed out, like that one Greek runner when he ran the first marathon. This time, the vehicle made it, just to the point where a ray of golden light shown from the open garage bay door, onto his vehicle.


    From the driver¡¯s seat, all he saw was an old man who looked like he had a severe case of scoliosis, and a young red head.


    ¡°See pops, I told you we had a customer.¡± The girl said.


    The old man, who was likely the mechanic of the place just grimaced and tried to straighten up his back, but failed miserably.


    ¡°Ah, who let¡¯s people book this late.¡± The old man, who Frank looked for, but was unable to find any form of a formal work shirt that had a name on it. Judging by the name of the place, Frank figured the guy was likely Phil, though given where he was, he could easily accept the old man to be a Clem, Curtis, or even a Cletus.


    ¡°Hi, I¡¯m Frank Grimes. I scheduled a consultation.¡± Frank said after getting out of the vehicle and handing the keys.


    The red head, who had one of those oddly young older faces that Frank always had a hard time placing came over and greeted him.


    ¡°Thank you Mr. Grimes.¡± The girl said going over to grab the keys.


    ¡°Looks like a broken head gasket, a few loose lines, and will need coolant and an oil change.¡± The girl said, placing her hand on the warm engine, then turning back.


    Sigh.


    Hearing that the old man just sighed, ¡°that much.¡±


    ¡°¡¯Fraid so.¡± The red head said.


    The two seemed to be lost, but hearing this, Frank instinctively reached for his revolver, only to find that it was not on him.


    Pausing for a moment at the fact that he was here in the middle of nowhere and was apparently being taken for a fool. Still, despite Frank not having his service pistol, he had more than enough savvy to realize how to handle this.


    ¡°You can¡¯t be serious, just placing your hand on the car and finding out all of that.¡± Frank said.


    ¡°Relax, relax, I will check it. Heck if you want, I will even show you each piece that she just listed. But you gotta understand, she has a way with machines. If she says that is what you need, then that is what you need. Feel free to tow it to another shop, but they will all agree. Frankly, I kind of hope you do get it towed elsewhere as that will mean less work for me to do.¡± The old man said, then coming forward, he realized he forgot to do a proper introduction.


    ¡°Sorry about that, it¡¯s past my bedtime and my granddaughter here has me helping her earn money for college. That¡¯s why we are open so late, as she can work on the cars after school.¡± The old man said, then holding out his hand, he finally introduced himself, ¡°nice to meet you, the name¡¯s Phil.¡±

 Chapter 21 Repair Costs

    Chapter 21


    Repair Costs


    (Frank Grimes)


    Frank grew pale as he looked over and saw all the parts that were broken. There was no magic, no deception, just this Phil guy, going through and showing each component that his assistant had pointed out.


    The head gasket had a crack right down the center, which of course caused it to leak coolant. After seeing that and realizing that he had apparently been leaking coolant for a while, Frank attributed the smell of burning coolant to be why the girl was able to diagnose the problem so effectively.


    Still, he couldn¡¯t help but feel that he would be taken advantage of here. Especially with how vulnerable he felt out in the middle of nowhere.


    ¡°Look, I tell you what, it¡¯s late. Why don¡¯t I get my daughter to drive you to a hotel in town. We will give you a list of parts that need to be fixed, along with a quote from us on what it would cost us to fix the issues. Then you can compare our cost with that of our competitors.¡± Phil replied.


    ¡°Your daughter?¡± Frank asked, pointing to the girl that was already under the car with a light inspecting the vehicle for possibly more problems.


    ¡°No, that¡¯s my assistant.¡± Phil said with a chuckle, ¡°no, sadly I am far too old to have a daughter that young.¡±


    Then before Frank had a second to process that statement, he raised his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp piercing whistle.


    WOLF-WHISTLE!


    Even with Phil¡¯s head facing away from Frank, the recoil of that whistle was piercing.


    ¡°Gah!¡± Frank said, as he covered his ears.


    ¡°Oh, sorry about that.¡± Phil said, but before too much else could happen two women came out of the nearby house. It was clear that this was one of those old Ma and Pop type establishments, but Frank didn¡¯t realize just how true that was until now. Then taking another look at the garage, it was clear that this was a converted barn that had been fully automated into a vehicle repair shop.


    Giving a quick look around the yard, Frank saw a few vehicles parked, along with one or two restoration projects.


    ¡°Is that a Shelby GT on the rack?¡± Frank asked, clearly seeing the vehicle frame that had captivated him as a kid.


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s my Elenore alright.¡± Phil said proudly, taking a moment to relax and look at the sight. ¡°Since my partner here stole my last project car. I decided to start over with a bigger and better model.¡±


    As he spoke, he pointed to his assistant, who was still working under Frank¡¯s vehicle.


    Then before he could inquire more about this bit of byplay between the two, the two women from the house made their trip out to the garage.


    Looking at the two, they looked to be almost mirror images of each other, though one was clearly older, maybe an older sister.


    ¡°Andrea, my dear. Would you be so kind as to provide this man a ride to town so he can get a motel room for the night?¡± Phil said, with a slight sparkle in his eye.


    Hearing the name caused Frank¡¯s ears to perk up. Though for the moment he was just too tired and exhausted from the day¡¯s events to realize why the name was important.


    The woman looked hesitant at first, taking in Frank¡¯s tall and slender build.


    ¡°Oh, I fully understand driving a stranger into town. Though if it makes you feel any better, I was a cop for twenty years.¡±


    ¡°Twenty?¡± The mother asked, suddenly barging into the conversation.


    ¡°Yeah, in fact I just retired and started on a road trip, something I¡¯ve always wanted to do.¡± Frank admitted.


    With that, the mother turned to Phil, and they exchanged something in that gaze. Something that only people who have been married to each other, or close friends for a long time can tell. At that gaze, Phil nodded, apparently answering some unspoken question.


    Turning away from the old man, the older female, the wife of Phil, Frank supposed, began speaking.


    ¡°Well, I guess there is nothing more to it, than for my single daughter here to give you a ride into town.¡± The mother said, placing her hands conspiratorially on her daughter¡¯s shoulders and giving her a slight push forward.


    Seeing the gesture, Frank couldn¡¯t help but laugh, as this was not the first time that someone had tried to hook him up with their daughter. Frank had been a catch, particularly after word spread of his ex-wife absconding with a delinquent. That was years ago, and while Frank promised he would never marry again while on the force, as that would be too much pressure on any relationship, he suddenly realized that he didn¡¯t have that same problem right now.


    The girl, well woman really, looked to be a few years his junior, but still quite the catch. Which made him wonder if there were other things at play with why someone like her was still single.


    With a timid bob of her head and flicking of her hair behind her ear, Frank felt his heart flutter slightly. Particularly with the way she was now blushing at him.


    Before he felt his body locked up on him, he relied on instincts, striking out his hand and going for a quick introduction.


    ¡°I¡¯m Frank, Frank Grimes.¡±


    The woman, this Andrea, seemed to hesitate at first, but then sent out her own delicate hand that seemed to dance gracefully into his outstretched palm.


    ¡°Andrea Tulley.¡± The woman said, and like that the recognition of why the name sounded familiar came to him. As he attributed this name to the person, well people he had been searching for all this time. Then just as quickly, it was dismissed as he had found nothing relating to a Tulley in his searches. There was a Foxworth, Heath, Miller, and even a Combs, but no Tulley.


    ¡°A pleasure to meet you,¡± she continued.


    During this time Phil, the owner of the garage, went off to talk to his assistant. Not that Frank noticed, as his eyes were firmly locked on the woman before him.


    ¡°Oh, I assure you, the pleasure is all mine.¡± Frank said, making sure to add a deep baritone to his voice.


    Quiver.


    Everything but her hand in his palm suddenly shook, and like that Frank could already feel himself falling for this woman. If he didn¡¯t stop himself now, he would likely do something stupid here in the next few days of searching.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°So, what brings you to town?¡± The mother asked.


    At that, Frank felt himself blushing, but then tried to answer with as honest of an answer as he could. ¡°Funny that you say that. There was this cold case that I got right at the midpoint of my career, and well it never went solved. Two people went missing, there was a cover up, and I never had the time, nor resources to try and solve it, until now.¡±


    Gasp.


    At that both the Mother and Andrea both raised their hands in nearly similar ways. The only difference being that Andrea rose her left hand to cover her mouth, as her right hand was still firmly implanted within Frank¡¯s own right hand.


    ¡°That is so tragic.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, so now that I¡¯m retired, I can go around trying to solve that cold case, and hopefully give myself some closure.¡± Frank said.


    ¡°That is admirable.¡± The mother began.


    Before the mother and daughter had time to ask more questions, their conversation was abruptly cut off by the reemergence of Phil.


    ¡°Tell you what,¡± Phil began saying, as he cleaned his grease covered fingers with an old rag. As he spoke, there was no pause, no hesitation, he just spoke and gave everyone enough time to look back at him, before he continued to speak. ¡°I¡¯ve spoken it over with management,¡± he said, gesturing back to the young girl who was now actively working on the car, not just searching for broken parts.


    ¡°We have decided that we will fix your car free of charge, so long as you spend the money you would have on this repair on taking this young lady out to dinner.¡± Phil stated.


    ¡°What?¡± Andrea and the mother both spat out at once. The mother looking indignant, the daughter, did she blush at the statement? No, the daughter was embarrassed.


    ¡°Hey, I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how stubborn she can be.¡± Phil said, once again gesturing towards the girl who was now actively taking parts away from the underside of the vehicle in order to get deeper into the engine.


    Frank almost wondered what she was doing, but then asked the question that was the most pressing on his mind. ¡°You have a new head gasket?¡±


    ¡°No, the boss thinks she can weld it back together.¡± Phil said.


    ¡°Weld it?¡± Frank asked, wondering if he was crazy.


    ¡°Look, it will be free and at most cost you a dinner out with a pretty girl. Worse comes to worse, we will even tow you to another shop that will fix it the way you want.¡± Phil said.


    Hearing all of this, Phil looked from the old man, back to his apparent daughter, then back to the old man.


    After hearing all of this, he was certain that the woman, and likely the whole family had a few screws loose. Still, she seemed mostly harmless, and apparently, he had received the seal of approval from the dad. Not that such a state was tough for Frank, but the thought still counted. Realizing that at the very least he would be out an evening of his life for a relatively free repair job, and given that they had his vehicle effectively locked up. There was not much he could do.


    At the very least he could have his own story of why you never got to Jackson West Virginia.


    ¡°If you wouldn¡¯t mind, would you save me from a huge repair bill and allow me to take you out to get something to eat?¡± Frank asked.


    ¡°All right,¡± Andrea replied, blushing brightly and like that Frank knew he was in for trouble as he could already feel his heart strings pulling at him. ¡°Just let me get my things and I can show you around town.¡±


    Then before he knew it, Frank was in a well maintained, light blue Buick Regal that seemed to purr as it went down the street.


    ¡°You have this thing supercharged?¡± Frank found himself asking, wondering about the smooth gliding nature, even over the seemingly rough gravel road out.


    ¡°No, honestly I don¡¯t know how my daughter did it, but she is a wiz with cars. Well all things mechanical really.¡±


    ¡°Your daughter?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, she was the one who was under your vehicle.¡± Andrea replied.


    ¡°Ah, at first I thought she was some type of charlatan, stating things that were wrong without even looking at the motor.¡± Frank said.


    ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t know how she does it, she has Savant Syndrome, and her passion in life is all things mechanical.¡±


    ¡°Savant Syndrome?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it is a diagnosis that means that your kid will be far smarter than you could ever hope to be, and that your claim to fame in life might be that you had an exceptional child.¡± The woman said.


    With that, there was an oppressive air that seemed to fall over the car. Suddenly Frank understood how such an attractive woman could have gone unclaimed for all these years. She had no self-confidence and she apparently spent most of her time trying to take care of her child. That was when he decided to speak up.


    ¡°Savant or otherwise, you did a great job raising her. Still, I¡¯d like to learn more about you.¡±


    ¡°Me? Well, there isn¡¯t really much to say¡­¡±


    And like that, the oppressive atmosphere of the car ride went away as Frank found himself actually liking the idea of talking to this complete stranger. At first Frank felt odd about the whole situation, especially with the father seemingly pimping his daughter on him, but seeing her, it was clear that she was someone worth learning more about.


    Also, he did kind of need a ride around town for a while.


    ***


    (Phil Tulley)


    Once his daughter and the retired trooper left, Phil found himself going over and talking to Misha, who was diligently taking apart a motor right now.


    ¡°So tell me, what do you really think about him?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°He is one of the good ones. The old time characters that you spoke about missing from back in your day.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°So you already looked him up?¡± Phil asked.


    With that, Misha just slid herself out from under the car on their personal rolling cart. That one look of cold silence was enough for Phil to realize he had messed up.


    ¡°Yeah, dumb question,¡± Phil agreed. At that Misha slid back under the engine and continued to work. He still wondered how she always managed to look things up when she was never on her phone. She would often claim it was via her smart watch, but from what he understood, the smart watch wasn¡¯t as capable as she made it out to be. Yet, she always had the answers she wanted, even when her watch was a simple Timex. Honestly, the whole internet and technology thing confused Phil, so he tended to take everyone else¡¯s opinions on the matter as fact. Especially when it came to things his granddaughter would say.


    ¡°So what is he like?¡± Phil asked, suddenly wondering whether this was a good idea of setting up his daughter with a random stranger. Though truth be told, she was getting old and needed to leave the house, again. Misha could stay, but his daughter needed to get her confidence back and get her stuff out of his secondary shop.


    ¡°He has an 84% case closure rating, no complaints or allegations of abuse. He was married, but the wife divorced him upon finding a soul mate. No kids, and a bachelor¡¯s degree in criminal psychology.¡± Misha stated succinctly.


    ¡°You got all that from your watch?¡± Phil asked, still trying to wrap his mind around the ability of his daughter.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Was the short one word answer she gave back.


    Shaking his head, he didn¡¯t believe it, but then again everything about his granddaughter was unbelievable. Sometimes he found himself wondering if she was like that. You know, gifted with the ESP stuff. The way she just knew things, that always got to him. Yes, he read up on Savant Syndrome, which is what she was accredited with, but that didn¡¯t seem to confirm the way she knew everything.


    Also, with Misha around paperwork seemed to go smoothly. Their taxes were never audited, even paperwork that had been going on to litigation about selling off part of the old farmstead had finally been resolved somehow.


    Honestly, after a certain point Phil just assumed that Misha was his good luck charm, and was content to keep it at that. Still there were times like these, when she suggested things about people that she just met that made him nervous. But to be fair his granddaughter had both given her word about the man, even before he came, and despite his initial hesitations around the complete stranger, he felt Misha might be onto something.


    Thinking back, he remembered the exact words she spoke.


    ¡°I bet you the next man that comes will be perfect for mom. So long as she doesn¡¯t blow it.¡± Misha said, making sure to add that last qualifier.


    ¡°Perfect for your mother?¡± Phil asked, at first he felt it would be sometime over the weekend, but somehow at that moment he got a ping on his tablet.


    Bzz.


    Pulling out his tablet, he realized there was an alert for a 7:30 PM appointment.


    ¡°A maintenance request?¡± Phil asked, wondering if she somehow got the message to her watch before he did.


    ¡°Yep, looks to be a big deal.¡±


    ¡°A big deal?¡±


    ¡°Yep, the man is from out of state and searching for places open after 7 o¡¯clock.¡±


    ¡°How do you know he is searching for places after 7 o''clock?¡±


    ¡°Because it is 7:10 now and we just got his request, ergo after 7.¡±


    Hearing that, Phil couldn¡¯t refute her logic, but again, the way she just knew things boggled his mind.


    ¡°I¡¯ll fire up the outside flood lights, to let him know we are here.¡±


    ¡°Okay, fine, but don¡¯t you dare fire up that sign.¡± Phil shouted back, not wanting everyone to know that his Granddaughter had set up his garage as a Rustbucket. When he first signed the papers, he thought they were just a joke, yet there it was on his taxes and everything.


    Fortunately, Misha handled the Taxes, which meant only mail and that stupid sign were proof that she got one over on him.


    ¡°I have to pops, otherwise people won¡¯t find us.¡± Misha said.


    Chum. Vrrr.


    Then with the flipping of a few switches the floodlights came on, as did the stupid sign stating that he either needed to learn to file papers on his own, or be less trusting of his granddaughter.


    Though honestly, the name worked, and their work had been honest. It just hurt his pride more than anything, not that he would admit to such an event.


    With that thought in his mind, he turned back to Misha, and wondered ¡°how long will this take you?¡±


    ¡°Once I get all the fluids out, I should be able to weld the engine back together quickly, then just new fluids and everything should be good.¡± Misha said, speaking as if everything she said would be easy.


    ¡°Do you believe anyone will believe you can weld a head gasket together?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter what people believe, it only matters what you can do.¡± Misha shot back.


    Hearing that Phil just laughed, ¡°hey, that¡¯s my line.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡±


    With that, Phil just smiled at the girl, then proceeded to see if he could get away with going to bed relatively early.


    ¡°Well then, if you don¡¯t need me for anything, I will check on a few inventory items.¡±


    ¡°Good night granddad.¡± She replied, calling him out on his farse of an excuse.


    Chuckle.


    ¡°Well, goodnight.¡±


    With that, the old man went into the house, letting his granddaughter work on a complete strangers vehicle in the middle of the night. Honestly, the more he thought about things, the more he found himself voicing his thoughts out loud, ¡°you know if it was anyone else, I wouldn¡¯t trust them to be alone.¡±


    ¡°If it was anyone else, then you wouldn¡¯t even trust them with your tools, let alone work alone in your garage.¡± Julie said, coming from the shadows and causing Phil to jump into the air.


    Yipe.


    Phil let out a manly cry, at least that is what he called it, as he reached up to touch his pounding chest. ¡°Do you women mind not scaring me in the sanctity of my own house.¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t mind scaring you at all,¡± Julie responded.


    Then the two shared a knowing look.


    ¡°You think it¡¯s okay for her to go out with him?¡± Julie found herself asking.


    ¡°Misha gave it her blessing, so I figured there was nothing for me to worry about.¡± Phil replied.


    Scoff.


    ¡°I remember when you would never accept your daughter going out with anyone, now it¡¯s okay as long as Misha says so?¡± Julie said.


    ¡°Well, it is about time we got her out of the house. The little one can stay, but the older one, she needs to spread her wings and fly again.¡± Phil said.


    Chuckle.


    ¡°She has you wrapped around her little finger as always.¡±


    ¡°Does not.¡±


    Eyebrow raise.


    With that Julie just raised a questioning eyebrow, and that was enough for Phil to realize he wasn¡¯t going to win this argument.


    ¡°Well, if you are done questioning my parenting skills, I will be off.¡± Phil said, and with that he kicked off his shoes, before making his way up the back staircase to their bedroom.


    ¡°Goodnight.¡±


    ¡°Goodnight.¡± Phil replied back.


    Julie stayed down in the kitchen as she always did, patiently waiting for Misha to be done working for the day, waiting until all the tools were replaced, and the lights were turned off, and Misha had come in and locked the door. Only then did Julie put her cup of half drunk coffee back in the sink and mutter a quick goodnight to Misha before she too made her way up to bed.


    Phil hearing all of this, only smiled coyly to himself as Julie tried to creep into the room unheard. Seems like I am not the only one who is wrapped around her little finger, Phil thought to himself before he finally let go of his thoughts and let his mind fade into the darkness of sleep.

 Chapter 22 Synchronizing

    Chapter 22


    Synchronizing


    (Misha)


    Patterns, routines, and above all trusting the known universal truths. These are the things that Misha had long ago accepted as the only way to progress and succeed in life.


    In her past lives, she had been a cog in the wheel of consistent gradual improvements. As a Psycher there were known truths, and the most important was the standard and mostly predictable deviations of change.


    Recently Misha has had this fundamental understanding questioned by the sheer growth and potential offered by the new insights she has gained into the Bakshee organo-tech.


    Also, now after having seen the effects of her class in person, she understands what is at play. Evolution is chaotic and wild, allowing for multiple deviations that are unique and astounding to behold. While there are somethings that are specific to each class, the classes do offer a cross-pollination ability that allows for further growth and adaptability to each new situation.


    Ultimately, she was beginning to have doubts about how superior her standard deviations and repetitive savings and altering base models was, when clearly her kind was losing the war.


    In fact, given how small her fleet was at the end, and the fact that she ended up here likely meant that the main fleet was destroyed. Though such thoughts were counterproductive to her current status, and she figured that while she was here she might prepare a few things.


    After yesterday, she felt she understood the system.


    That was until she had accepted her Double Growth Rate.


    Ever since that point, she has seen unexpected new parameters come to light. Her family, people that she had grown to care for, people that she had grown to accept as being completely incapable of becoming part of the organo-tech process now had options.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 55.027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Target: Phil Tully</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Compatibility Ratings:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Warrior: 0%


    Worker: 55%


    Ruler: 43%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reset ratings and rework progression?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    None of those percentages were particularly good. But there were options that Misha could instantly see were available.


    In particular, there was the fact that now that she gained Double Growth Rate, that meant she was now able to enhance the probability of an awakening. Meaning she could take any or all of those probabilities and double them.


    It would be a slow process, but there were certain things that Misha found interesting.


    In particular, since she was part of a Reaper System, she could forever cut out the probability of future delineation of the target¡¯s offspring. This seemed to already be the case as Granddad Phil, her mother, and she herself had all had a 0% compatibility with the Warrior trait.


    By removing future variations from appearing in the next generations, she could artificially increase the chance of Phil or those of his lineage becoming a Worker, or a Ruler.


    Then there was the fact that new sub-options were also available for her, if she created a forced awakening.


    With her ability to double the chances of the organo-tech accepting the proposed changes, she could guarantee a hundred percent success rate for her aging grandfather to awaken as a Worker, and give an 86% chance of Phil transitioning as a Ruler class.


    This was an interesting development, and one that Misha had only read through while trying to understand her new capabilities, when she realized that part of her new abilities meant that she could not only force an awakening, but also force the way this variant of an awakened being would mutate.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 46.3784%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warrior Class Mutation Paths Available:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Transcendent Attribute: Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Stamina.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Durability.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Regeneration.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    This meant that the new species of warriors, or Werewolves as they were known on this planet would start off with one of the following evolutionary paths available, before reaching their First Tier. Meaning they would seemingly be twice as likely to succeed.


    While Misha found the information to be interesting, she never thought it would be worth delving into in the slightest, until she saw what available for the Worker class.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 58.3784%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Worker Class Mutation Paths Available:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Longevity.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Increased Cognitive Capabilities.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Relentless.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    For a species whose baseline was measured in the timeline of a century at most, the fact that her grandfather Phil, and grandmother were both past the midway points of their maximum lifespans was not missed on Misha. Yet, this class seemed to make it so she could force both her grandmother and grandfather to be able to live for at least twice as long, if not longer depending on what eventual evolutionary paths they took once they increased their class Tier ratings.


    Then there were the possibilities that were offered to her for converting her grandfather into a Ruler class.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 47.2432%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Ruler Class Mutation Paths Available:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Omni-Elementalist</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Double Elemental: Capacity/ Power / Control</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Commanding Voice</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    The options available for the Ruling class were also amazing and terrifying. With this whole process, Misha could lock in bloodlines to produce powerful children that would always start off with a permanent guarantee of awakening as the chosen class upon the time of complete physical maturation, and also make it so deviations or merging of bloodlines would create even more powerful offspring in the future.


    To make matters worse, after doubling the chances of successful awakening in a person, the organo-tech components that remained related to the other two classes available could be consumed by Misha. In fact, Misha even saw that if she chose, she could force her grandfather to take the 0% chance of awakening as a Warrior class, and ultimately reap the benefits of his relatively high ratings for becoming a Worker or a Ruler.


    Honestly, the sheer audacity of such a class caused her to feel nauseous and make her hate the Bakshee that much more. The fact that this class made it so everyone was effectively nothing more than organic testing materials that could be used to streamline and alter planetary resources that would eventually be assimilated into the fleet made her feel nauseous inside.


    The worst part about her class was the fact that despite everything she knew to be disgusting about the class itself, she couldn¡¯t help but cling to the idea that if she wanted to, she could spend twice as long with her grandfather.


    Then the true gravity of that situation would hit her, where she would force her grandfather to evolve into an instrument of the enemy. Where she would justify the loss of her conviction and morals to having a safer universe by allowing this one exception to her morality.


    Of course, it would never stop with just one change, as she would likely do the same for her grandmother and mother as well. Then she knew that as time went on they might have others that they wish to bring in and alter as well.


    No, it had to end here and now with her.


    She still gained resources from reverting the warriors who had assimilated into the various sports teams available. That would be a start for her reaping, in addition, she found the idea of reaping from the other workers that were in school to be equally fair game, as she had long since declared a war against them in multiple past lifetimes.


    Now she would just find better ways to deal with them.


    Her true goals had not changed since her awakening of this seemingly obsolete class. Namely, she needed to sabotage the resource potential of this planet, while also reconnecting to the remnants of her main fleet.


    These were the thoughts that went through Misha¡¯s mind as she made her way through her first few classes of the day.


    ***


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    The new girl didn¡¯t even look at Amoni throughout the entire Physics class. They even had a pop quiz that the girl somehow managed to pass while seeming to be in a daze of some kind.


    Originally, Amoni wanted to stare daggers at the girl, to get her to look back in fear the way most people did when she sent her full attention on them, but this girl was different. She didn¡¯t even flinch at the full focus of her Wolf-stare.


    Oh, it was so on. Today after class, during practice, she would show this new girl who was top dog, and there was only one answer for that. Ever since Amoni joined this school, or any sports team there has only ever one top dog, her. This time would be no exception, her team clearly won yesterday and while Amoni admittedly had an off day herself going zero for three from the field and all but locked down defensively by the stranger, today would be different.


    Today Amoni would focus on what the girl did and figure out ways to get past her stifling defense. Now, all she needed to do was to set the stage by intimidating her a bit and¡­


    ***


    (James Rider)


    The new redhead was intense, no, maybe focused? It was hard for James to figure out exactly why he kept getting drawn into her actions.


    Honestly, she wasn¡¯t doing anything other than just staring at the screen. At least that is what it looked like to James, who hadn¡¯t been staring at her, though he was just curious how the new girl was adjusting.


    Occasionally James thought it might be nice to go over and try to talk to her, but words and text flew across her screen.


    This was odd, as it didn¡¯t seem like she was moving her hands, nor clicking on anything in particular, yet the words and texts of the problems assigned were clearly being accomplished at a high rate of speed and accuracy if the flashing green checkmarks were anything to go by. But despite how quickly she worked through her programming aptitude tests, her focus never seemed to waver from the screen before her.


    This was not the first time that he had noticed something odd about the girl. Ever since Darcy pointed her out to him, he couldn¡¯t help but feel that there was some type of attraction to her.


    Yet he had his set understanding of the world. High school romances never lasted. Also, he had apparently let Darcy claim dibs, even though Darcy as always was taking the long and arduously slow route of biding her time to ask out the target of her affections.


    Chime.


    Just as James was thinking about how quickly she was going through her class work, James heard the completion sounds.


    ¡°James another certificate?¡± Ms. Philips asked, coming over with a giant smile to greet James. Though her face quickly soured as she saw that James only had up a social media post up, as he had clearly been caught browsing the internet, versus working ahead in class.


    ¡°No,¡± James replied sheepishly, and then with a head gesture looked towards Misha who was already past the certificate, causing the box to minimize itself before continuing onto the next page.


    With her hands on the keyboard, she would move her hands but nowhere nearly as fast as the text would appear on the screen before her. Seeing this, Ms. Philips immediately shouted, ¡°are you cheating in my computer class?¡±


    Misha for her part just appeared to stare straight forward not even paying attention to anyone as she stared forward at the screen, as more and more texts just scrolled past.


    ¡°Are you even listening to me?¡± Ms. Philips shouted as she went over to shake Misha.


    Blinking.


    Misha shook her head as if being pulled from a daze and asked. ¡°What? What is wrong?¡±


    ¡°That all depends. Tell me how you were hacking in my class, and I might let you off with a warning.¡± Ms. Philips said, as she defiantly crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at Misha.


    Misha looked lost for a second, before she seemed to understand. Then she spoke to herself, ¡°I guess I was getting distracted.¡±


    ¡°Yes, though I will tell you we have a harsh policy against cheating here.¡± Ms. Philips stated.


    ¡°You can¡¯t prove that she cheated.¡± James felt himself saying, trying to come to the defense of the new girl.


    Hearing that Ms. Philips just shook her head and spoke her mind, ¡°I can as I saw her sitting there while someone else that she let remotely access her box was typing for her.¡±


    James was about to argue, but then Ms. Philips continued, ¡°I¡¯d stop while I was ahead Mr. Rider, as you were my first choice for assisting her with cheating. Fortunately, you were clearly distracted, otherwise I would be sending you to detention as well.¡±


    ¡°Detention?¡± The new girl asked.


    ¡°Yes, along with all your records dropped, and you being kicked out of the computer class.¡± Ms. Philips said defiantly.


    At that Misha just stood up.


    ¡°What? You aren¡¯t going to deny it?¡± Ms. Philips asked.


    ¡°Not much point in arguing with someone who doesn¡¯t even understand the fact that these computers are on a mock network that is constantly monitored for any signs of external or internal connection events. Meaning that if anything like you were suggesting did happen, you would have received an alert to your computer, your work phone, and your personal phone at your house.¡± Misha replied, getting up and walking out.


    ¡°Just how do you know that, and where are you going?¡± Ms. Philips asked, feeling indignant at the fact that this girl had spoken about her redundancy in tracking network activity, but still had not received an alert.


    ¡°I understand technology, and I am going to detention as you noted.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Good, see that you do.¡± Ms. Philips said, trying to somehow regain some of her composure from this encounter that started off as a matter of praise, then to immediate signs of hacking, to now her wondering just what this girl had done to her network.


    Then as soon as Misha left, Ms. Philips made a few quick notes that the new student would be getting detention. A feeling of joy washed over her as she was able to stick it to that annoying Ms. Green who thought she ruled the school.


    Ping.


    Once that email was sent off from her phone, Ms. Philips sat down and began doing immediate triage on her corrupted system, hoping that she would be able to find out what backdoor hacking program was used to breach her network. The first thing she did was disconnect the computer from the internet and begin pulling up all processes. It would take time, but this was not the first time she had sniffed out people using her classroom for malicious purposes, but it would be the first time she caught a sports athlete directly cheating while in her classroom, which made her smile and hum excitedly.


    ***


    (Frank Grimes)


    It wasn¡¯t until the next morning when he woke up in the sanitized sheets of a Holiday Inn that Frank realized why his tired reflexes were all but screaming at him to pay attention to the hot MILF chauffeur he had last night.


    ¡°Andrea, her name was Andrea, she even had a daughter.¡± Frank said, his now much more coherent mind was finally able to piece together the puzzle pieces that had been sent to him last night. Still, there was the chance that the daughter wasn¡¯t the same one. He often found Andreas, but rarely if ever did he find a Misha. That said, at the very least this gave him yet another reason to call the chauffeur back and set up another time to meet. At the very least, seeing her again would make this the best Jackson County he had come to visit.


    Now all he needed to do was find his phone, which he did, only to find that the phone itself was dead, and that of course his charger and everything he owned was in that car that was still being worked on.


    ¡°This is going to be one of those days, isn¡¯t it?¡± He said to himself, as he decided that there was no way the vehicle would be fixed immediately. Also, he still had to go through public records and while finding his way back to that garage would be tough, the name was fairly easy to recall. ¡°The Dustdevil? Rustdevil? Something¡­¡± Frank pondered as he tried to remember something about last night.

 Chapter 23 Teaming Up

    Chapter 23


    Teaming Up


    (Phil Tulley)


    To say that Phil was angry would be an understatement. He was livid, going so far as to even curse, worse than the time he caught his finger in the widget after his granddaughter told him to watch his hand. Of course, at the time he had not heeded the warning and continued to work away diligently, never realizing the amount of pain and humiliation that he was about to face.


    This time he felt the same amount of pain and embarrassment, but this time the source of his emotions were for a much different reason.


    ¡°What do you mean you think my granddaughter was cheating. Either she was, and you can prove it, or she wasn¡¯t.¡± Phil said angrily.


    He was in a meeting with Ms. Green, Misha¡¯s basketball coach, Ms. Philips, her computer something teacher, and one of the vice principals of the school.


    Despite being outnumbered three to one, Phil felt he was easily holding his own, particularly as Ms. Green was backing him up.


    ¡°I found your granddaughter passing programs without even touching the keyboard.¡± Ms. Philips said.


    ¡°Yeah, she gave you an answer for that, she wrote a program that scrolled through pages faster so she could focus on the actual test questions being asked.¡± Phil said, hoping he remembered the point that Misha had said. While he never really cared about computers, it was clear that Misha herself cared about them, which meant that Phil would at least try to understand the basics.


    ¡°Yes, which she shouldn¡¯t have been able to download, as the computer was locked off from all other internet connections, other than to the source where the questions are generated.¡± Ms. Philips stated.


    ¡°So, you admit that the computer was locked off? Also, she wanted me to tell you to look for the account creator and the file creation date time tamp?¡± Phil said, now pulling out his card of concepts he needed to bring up.


    ¡°Yes, I saw that, the file I found ¡°Misha¡¯s forwarding powershell script was created during class and is listed as being created by Misha¡¯s classroom account.¡±


    ¡°So what is the problem then?¡±


    ¡°The problem is that, well the program that was there was elegantly simple.¡±


    ¡°So anyone could write it.¡±


    ¡°Technically, but to be able to parse down the commands it did down to just two hundred words is something beyond most master programmers.¡± Ms. Philips concluded.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, so what exactly is the issue here then?¡± Mr. Vann, the Vice Principle assigned for students whose last name began with T through Z for the school.


    ¡°The program is too elegant for a mere student to write, meaning she had to have taken the program in from somewhere.¡± Ms. Philips said.


    ¡°So your whole argument for why you have assigned Misha detention is because she produced something that you don¡¯t think she is capable of creating?¡± Phil asked, trying to make sure he understood the comment.


    ¡°Yes, while I was unable to find any external connections to sites other than the testing site, her programming, along with her perfect score on the questions being asked indicate a high likelihood of her cheating.¡±


    At that point Phil did something that no one who had gathered expected. He relaxed. He visibly let out a breath and just chuckled slightly to himself.


    ¡°Is something about this funny?¡± Mr. Vann asked.


    ¡°Honestly, yes.¡±


    ¡°You mean to say¡­¡± Ms. Philips began but was cut off by Phil who raised a calming hand and began speaking.


    ¡°That girl, she is probably the smartest girl on the planet. I am not just saying this as a proud grandparent, I mean it. She is probably not only the smartest, but most self-aware person I have ever met.¡± Phil began, and then paused for a second, before continuing. ¡°Have you ever met someone who was smart, not just smart able to retain facts, but able to retain facts and apply them. Not just able to recall facts, but able to use them and apply them to everyday life?¡±


    ¡°When I was young, I mistakenly thought of myself as intelligent. Yet, when compared to that girl, I am slow, dumb, and will easily miss simple things. But there is one thing I can say for certain, that girl does not need any help or outside assistance when it comes to computers and electronics. The reason why we have a garage now is so that we can do something together in my last few years of working, where I can actually be of assistance to her. Though honestly, she does all the work. Don¡¯t worry, she has taken all the certification courses and passed them all herself, but really when it comes to anything mechanical or remotely technical in nature, that girl will run circles around the rest of us before we even know where the finish line is.¡± As Phil spoke, it was clear that he was speaking from a place of love. Though his words were clearly having some effect, as Ms. Philips looked to have slightly softened her stance, at least for the moment.


    ¡°What would you have me do?¡± Ms. Philips asked.


    ¡°Test her again, this time with pen and paper. You have a printout of the answers she provided the first time. Have her answer the same exact questions again, and if there is any deviation from what she posted online to what she writes on the paper, then you can have some shred of credibility of her possibly receiving outside assistance.¡± Phil stated.


    ¡°What if she memorizes the answers that were given?¡± Mr. Vann asked.


    With that Phil turned his attention from Ms. Philips to Mr. Vann and replied succinctly, ¡°then she will have learned something, if only for a moment. Which is more than you can say for most students who will walk through those doors.¡± Phil ended his statements by pointing in the direction of the school entrance.


    ¡°Another thing you can do, to prove that she learned what those fancy certificates prove. Have her do something with the skills you suspect her of not truly knowing. If she can do a project with those skills and use them in a meaningful way, then what more could you ask for as a teacher?¡±


    ¡°I like that. This way, it is not just a matter of her learning answers to a test. But her having and showing the skills that she reported as having.¡± Mr. Vann said.


    With that, Phil nodded his head slightly, as he inwardly counted down figuring that Mr. Vann was now on his side, at least for now. Now all he needed was to convert this last person to his side.


    For her part, Ms. Philips looked lost in contemplation.


    ¡°What would you have me have her create?¡± Ms. Philips asked, clearly more for herself, than for others to provide meaningful insights.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t there something that you would want automated at the press of a button?¡± Phil asked, figuring that Misha would somehow be able to do something like this, especially considering Misha had created her own tax assessment program that worked by him just double clicking the file that said ¡°Phil¡¯s_Yearly_Tax_Return.exe¡±


    If she could do that at age twelve, then whatever this teacher could come up with would be easy for his granddaughter to create.


    The teacher sat there in thought for a moment, before tapping her pointer finger against her lips. Now that he was not so worked up, Phil could see a few of the better features of the woman. Had he been twenty years younger and his wife, well wife and now granddaughter not been in the picture he might contemplate a shot at the young looking vixen before him.


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    Still, Phil felt that for a moment, he might need to put on a bit of the old Phil Tulley charm. Then before he could figure out what exactly that charm consisted of now-a-days, Ms. Philips seemed to break.


    ¡°You know, there is a project that I have been needing additional help with for my programming group.¡± Ms. Philips said.


    ¡°So, we can drop this suspension, and I can add this girl back to the roster?¡± Ms. Green asked.


    Ms. Philips snarled in response, literally curled up her lips and almost hissed. For a moment, Phil could swear that he saw something feral about her teeth. Her canines looked larger for a moment, but then Phil blinked at the same time that Ms. Philips seemed to regain her composure at having to work with the basketball coach.


    ¡°Yes, for the moment I will remove her suspension, pending an independent review by creating a program using the abilities she claims to have learned. Given that she earned a hundred percent on all certificate programs offered, this should no doubt be easy for her to accomplish.¡± Ms. Philips said smugly as she crossed her arms against her ample chest.


    Phil, watch yourself here, she is the enemy, and above all this woman is threatening your granddaughter¡¯s academic future. Phil chided himself, as he felt that there was something wrong with his self-control. Though now that he had seen her, Phil might not be so opposed to come back and talk to the teacher once more, to see how his granddaughter was doing of course, nothing more.


    ***


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    ¡°I thought you were kicked off the team due to cheating.¡± Amoni spat, instantly seeing the crux of all her recent problems staring at her, dressed and ready for practice.


    ¡°Nope.¡± That was it, the one-word response that the girl dared fire back in response. Hearing that, something primal in Amoni told her to stand down, despite the words being more than enough to normally provoke a response out of her.


    ¡°Amoni, what are you doing here! I thought I told you, you were gone for the week.¡± Coach Green shot out.


    ¡°I was, I mean, I am, but I am K-Bar and J-Sweep¡¯s ride home. So I need to stick around, coach.¡± Amoni answered respectfully.


    Coach Green stared at Amoni, and in that moment they shared a pack thing. This was Coach Green¡¯s way of showing that she was not only dominant, but that she was evaluating everything Amoni did.


    ¡°You can watch, but do not say a word.¡± Coach finally stated.


    ¡°I will coach.¡±


    ¡°I mean it though, one word and you¡¯re gone.¡±


    ¡°Okay coach.¡±


    ¡°Maybe you can learn something about playing as a team from watching.¡± Coach Green said, her voice trailing off, loud enough for Amoni and her supernaturally enhanced hearing to catch, but stated more as the lessons a shaman would try to impart on a particularly troublesome youth. Amoni knew that voice all too well, as it was the voice her father and grandfather both used while talking to her cousin Jerome.


    ¡°K-Bar, do you think you can handle guarding the new girl for today?¡± Coach Green asked, clearly back in her instructor mode. With the turning of her back, the page had been turned both symbolically and literally that Amoni was no longer part of Coach Green¡¯s mind from here on out.


    ¡°You got it coach.¡± K-Bar said.


    Then with that, Amoni watched the scrimmage begin. This time with only three pack members playing the pace of the A-Team was much slower, the passing and execution of rotations looking like a slow grind more than the well-coached team they were.


    Of course, there was one clear reason why the A-team was having a hard time. First Amoni wasn¡¯t there to play point, her speed and physicality made it easy to dictate the pace of play. The second thing was, Amoni saw K-Bar also get locked down by the octopus girl, with her long arms that spun out and struck at the ball at random angles, constantly keeping K-Bar on the defensive while moving. The of course meant that the team was slower to rotate, and slowly over time found their excluding K-Bar from any return passes.


    Meanwhile, the new girl had gotten faster if anything.


    Despite how long and awkward she looked, her footwork had seemingly improved. Her handles had even gotten crisper, as she was able to dribble behind her back, between her legs, and generally do things that made K-Bar look silly when she tried to make a poke at the ball.


    Then about halfway through the second quarter it happened, K-Bar looked visibly winded.


    At that point, Amoni who had been trying to pretend to focus on getting ahead on her course work looked up to see what was wrong with the normally energetic pest that was K-Bar.


    But looking at her, it was clear that something drastic had happened, she was winded. Sweat beading and pouring on her head, and her hands constantly going to her hips to help support her sternum whenever there was a break or pause in the action.


    One would expect her opponent to be equally as winded, but this was not the case, as the new girl looked just as relentless as she had when this scrimmage began.


    Looking at her it was clear that she wasn¡¯t stronger, or at least hadn¡¯t been at first, as K-Bar had been able to move her out of the way with a simple forearm push at first, but now her arms seemed to quiver and shake when she tried the same thing.


    Watching this, Amoni felt a slight chill as it was exactly as she had felt yesterday. Where her energy, her wolf just disappeared on her, and it felt like she was just a regular mortal running up and down the court, not the all-powerful creature of destruction that her family had told her that she was.


    Seeing her like this Amoni couldn¡¯t help but wonder what she was doing? Was she also an awakened one? And if so, which group was she a part of? Normally her wolf would have smelled a challenge if she was part of another pack, meaning that she might be one of the other groups, but if so, then which one?


    Amoni didn¡¯t know, but she needed to find out.


    For years there had been a steady truce between the factions, but it was clear that this girl might not have gotten the memo. That or she now dared to tread into places best left uncharted by external groups.


    ***


    (Patricia ¡°Patty¡± Philips)


    There was something off putting about the new girl. At first Patty felt that it was likely because the girl was a werewolf, yet every inspection showed that she was not part of that faction.


    Also, there was the argument that she was quite possibly a gifted prodigy when it came to electronics. A background check by her superiors in the cabal hinted that she might be a good candidate for being indoctrinated.


    Given how rare such alerts are from upper management it was enough for Patty to want to take a further glance at her. That and the spirited argument by the parental unit of the girl was enough for her to begin putting her to the initiation process.


    First would be a series of assessments to gauge her acumen. From there, it would be a matter of gauging her body¡¯s ability to acclimate to the virus. At her age, she was quite possibly at the perfect age of development to take the virus and be able to survive the transformation process afterwards.


    Even the parental unit smelled of vitality, so much so that it was all Patty could do to try to hold back her pheromones from the old man. Even with her restraint, she didn¡¯t think she had been too successful in her endeavors as everyone around her had shown signs of arousal and attraction. Actually, of everyone present, Mr. Tulley showed the least reaction to her flustered sense of emotions.


    Even the daughter herself seemed to be posed or particularly strong will, coming to think of it, as she also showed no signs of being swayed by her abilities either.


    Thinking about it, Patty realized that if the daughter proved to be a viable candidate, then she might not stop with just the daughter, for surely the family that spawned a genius would also be worth indoctrinating to their cabal as well, right?


    ¡°Yes, we will see how well you perform,¡± Patty spoke to herself, as she began crafting the backbone of a program and codex that everyone in her cabal would ultimately devote their lives to solving, as its solving would ultimately bring them closer to the apex of evolution. Once there, they would no longer need to hide in the shadows. Once there, they would rule the world freely as they saw fit. ¡°To do this, we will just need a simple computational program, at least for the first test. From there, we will see her true potential value to the cabal.¡±


    With that, Patty replied back to her leader, sending a simple response.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 74.5946%; background-color: rgba(126, 140, 141, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Hello V,


    As per our earlier discussion, the subject has been re-instated. Will beginning compatibility testing tomorrow.


    -P


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ***


    (Frank Grimes)


    Frank felt so stupid, all this time he had been looking for a mother and daughter pair, only to find out that that the people he met last night in the middle of the night, after nearly driving for far longer than was safe given his mental state by the time he finally arrived at the auto garage last night.


    Now he was looking at a sign he had been searching for relentlessly for the last ten years, and there it was staring at him, right in the face.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.5405%; background-color: rgba(53, 152, 219, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Andrea: My daughter stayed up all night and fixed your car.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the message Frank¡¯s heart raced as he realized the coincidence of it all. A Jackson county, a woman named Andrea with a daughter, but the ages were off. The woman he saw yesterday was far too young to have a teenager, wasn¡¯t she?


    Then Frank decided to reply back, wanting to see if his thoughts that his gut was now screaming at him were accurate.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48.1081%; background-color: rgba(22, 145, 121, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Frank: Your daughter?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.5405%; background-color: rgba(53, 152, 219, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Andrea: Yeah, she was the girl who performed your initial diagnostics.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Hearing that, Frank was certain that this couldn¡¯t be the case as that girl he saw was clearly an adult, at least someone who was old enough to be a full-time mechanic if what he was being told was anything.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.5405%; background-color: rgba(53, 152, 219, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Andrea: Yeah, does that make me old?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    At that Frank realized the trap, and paused as he had absolutely no clue on how to answer this without getting into trouble.


    Still, Andrea had been more than pleasant enough to at least speak to.


    Realizing this, Frank decided to change the approach.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48.1081%; background-color: rgba(22, 145, 121, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Frank: I¡¯m now retired, does that make me old?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And then as soon as he sent it, he immediately regretted that, as there was no other way to look at that statement other than yes, his best years in life were past their prime.


    Realizing the mistake, especially as he saw the signs of her typing, Frank let out a huff, and then decided to go for broke.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48.1081%; background-color: rgba(22, 145, 121, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Frank: I think I still owe you at least a lunch for your assistance yesterday.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.5405%; background-color: rgba(53, 152, 219, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Andrea: You offering?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48.1081%; background-color: rgba(22, 145, 121, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Frank: Yes, so long as being asked by an old man doesn¡¯t offend you.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.5405%; background-color: rgba(53, 152, 219, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Andrea: Depends, are you asking me out?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that Frank paused, then wondered if he actually was, the going for broke he replied back.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48.1081%; background-color: rgba(22, 145, 121, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Frank: Yeah, I guess I am.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that Frank waited anxiously for a reply, arguably the longest reply in the history of replies.

 Chapter 24 Six of Ten

    Chapter 24


    Six of Ten


    (Misha)


    This was Misha¡¯s second day in a row of Reaping the energy from a Warrior class Bakshee. Just like yesterday, she had options available to her, though this time there was a bit more information provided by the system. A system that was seeming to build itself out as time went on, that or Misha was finally able to unlock further insights into what was expected of her and her class.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 57.4054%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternat-1 action taken: Reset Tier 1 (below threshold standards) Warrior to Tier 0.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Effect: Reaped 0.1 Attribute Point and 1 Ability Point from target.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Rewards doubled due to Double Growth Rate.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Final Effect: 0.2 Attribute Points, 2 Ability Points.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Finally, the system seemed to explain itself. Though a lot of this was Misha¡¯s watching the system and trying to determine a rhyme or reason for the changes. It seemed that reverting a Tier 1 candidate back would generate a 0.1 and 1 Ability Point for someone at the lowest threshold. Yesterday, Misha had either received double the base amount due to the Warrior she reset yesterday, Amoni, had met the minimum threshold standards, or there were other variables at play.


    Then when Misha did her job, of resetting the candidate back to Tier 0 to restart their building process, Misha was rewarded by the Reaping system.


    Misha found that once again, she had the ability to improve herself once more, which she did by applying her 0.2 Attribute point boosts evenly.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 24.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Physical Characteristics:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Strength: 14.9 / (Max)


    Dexterity: 15.0 -> 15.1 / 20


    Agility: 15.0 -> 15.1 / 20


    Stamina: 14.9 / (Max)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    As soon as the bonuses were applied, Misha could feel her body burning and pulsing, much like they had done yesterday, but this time it felt a bit more manageable.


    Then just like before, she was once again granted access to the system skills. Just as before the options for the first three classes did not change. Though as usual she was hesitant to choose one of the options. First, the options having different prices made no sense if she could just pick and choose from different sections at will. This led Misha to believe that choosing one of the sections would somehow restrict her access to the other classes, or worse, restrict her own access to variables within her own class, which was the class she desperately needed to learn the most about, if she was going to be able to provide actionable intelligence to her fleet.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 69.9459%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Candidate must choose from the following system skills available: Current Ability Points Available (2)</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 42.4865%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warrior Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Sense Danger (3)


    Feral Weapons (2)


    Increased Durability (1)


    Enhanced Comprehension Speed (4)


    Enhanced Senses (1): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell


    Increased Attribute (1): Dexterity, Agility


    Shaman (5): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Again, the options were the same. The only difference was that now Strength and Stamina were permanently removed as even possible options for her Increased Attributes. This slow deletion of choices further confirmed the theory that if Misha chose an option from one of these other classes, it might impact what options she will be presented in the future.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.5405%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Worker Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Enhanced Senses (2): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell


    Increased Attribute (3): Dexterity, Agility


    Enhanced Comprehension Speed (1)


    Increased Endurance (2)


    Commanding Voice (5)


    Allure (4)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    It didn¡¯t go unnoticed that the Worker class was now missing the chance to increase her Strength or Stamina as well.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 45.9459%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Ruler Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Elemental Focus (1): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    Secondary Focus (2): Lightning ¨C Prerequisite (Fire and Air)


    Secondary Focus (2): Ice ¨C Prerequisite (Water and Air)


    Secondary Focus (2): Metal ¨C Prerequisite (Earth and Fire)


    Commanding voice (2)


    Allure (2)


    Increased Comprehension speed (1)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Ironically, only the Ruler class had remained unchanged since the previous day. The most obvious changes of all came from what was now available to her for her Alternate-1 class upgrades.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 20.3243%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternate-1 Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Double Daily Harvest (1)


    Reaper¡¯s Eyes (2)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The first one seemed like it would be a cheaper doubling of attributes again, but after thinking about it, Misha realized that there was a current cap on the number of class wielders that she could reset each day. Well that was not entirely true, Misha realized that she likely could reset dozens of classes each day, but her ability to reap the rewards from her harvesting was limited.


    Worse, now that Misha had a chance to sense everything going on, it was clear that she was now near the maximum for what she could harvest for the day.


    With two points, her logical mind told her that if she once again wanted to maximize her benefits for the day, she should take Reaper¡¯s Eyes. Though that was the Psycher training in her kicking in, the one that stressed slow gradual and controlled growth through acceptable deviations.


    Shiver.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    At this moment, Misha felt a slight shift in her mentality, a very minor shift but it was one that she could instantly feel swelling up within her.


    Logically her mind told her to take Reaper¡¯s Eye, particularly as it would likely give her greater clarity and insight into what she could reap as a reward from each harvest. Given that Misha could die and likely find a new host to assimilate to, this was the best logical option for getting data.


    But right now, Misha felt the strain of being surrounded on all sides by the enemy. Right now, she was a spy on a developing hostile planet. Right now, she not only needed to gain as much knowledge as possible. But right now, she also needed to gain as much power as possible, as quickly as possible. This was why Misha going against the slow grind of measurable growth, for the first time in her many lives, deviated from what was acceptable.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">You have selected Double Daily Harvest for 1 Ability Point, continue?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha mentally replied back to the prompt.


    Then just as before, she felt an intense burning within her body as her mind and body seemed to react.


    Rumble.


    Her stomach rumbled as her body shifted around organs slightly, as her body mutated just enough to expand a unique fleshy organ that had been part of Misha¡¯s body for the past ten years. Now, in the blink of an eye, it had expanded to an almost imperceptible degree to anyone that wasn¡¯t watching.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 23.027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Double Daily Harvest activated.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 30.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Current Ability Points Available (1).</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that Misha closed out her options screen. Then looking around the weight room she looked to see the other members of team working out, just as Coach Green had ordered them to do.


    Screech, squeak.


    In the distance the unmistakable sound of tennis shoes screeching to a halt on basketball courts could be heard. The boys were already practicing.


    Realizing that Misha still had at least one more harvest available for her today thought for a moment to go out and challenge the boys. Of which, three would be members of the local pack.


    For a moment, Misha stared out the door wondering if she should challenge the boys and reap from one of them, but she stopped herself.


    Instead, she turned back to see the two remaining targets on her team. One was J-Sweep who was a tall specimen with a well-defined speed build. While the other was a girl named Two-Tone who acted as the power forward for the team, and was a mountain of muscle.


    Realizing that getting matched up with Two-Tone on the court would be inadvisable, Misha instead opted to challenge her here and now to a competition of strength.


    To begin this, Misha had to begin the reaping system by first making contact with the target. Then from there, she would need to make a few more contacts over time to continue the reaping and resetting process.


    Looking at the big girl who was currently performing 275 pound dead lifts while listening to her music blasting in her ears, Misha developed a plan.


    Two-Tone bent over, her golden skin glistening from the layer of sweat that covered her, then just before she was about to grip the weight, Misha made her move.


    SQUEALCH!!


    Shock!!


    Misha caused the device to do a dual discharge of both a slight electrical current and an overly large ear-piercing shriek of noise. For a werewolf with likely sensitive ears, Misha figured this would be more than enough to get a reaction.


    ¡°AHH!!¡± Two-Two howled in pain, as her hands that had been reaching down for the bar, shot up, grabbed her headphones and threw them across the gym floor, shattering them immediately.


    At that, Misha moved forward to place a quick hand on Two-Tone, ¡°you okay?¡±


    Shake.


    Two-Tone was clutching at her sensitive ears, which Misha tried to help by grabbing the arms, pulling them down and looking into the ear of the giant warrior.


    ¡°You seem fine.¡± Misha said, checking out the right ear, moving her hair out of the way to fully see the air canal. Then doing the same on the other side.


    ¡°What happened?¡± K-Bar asked, coming over and joining in to check out their teammate who was still in pain, but clearly recovering from the sudden shock.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I guess my sweat got into the headphones and caused them to short out.¡± Two-Tone said, then looking up she looked to the now broken set of headphones that lay ten feet away. With careful trembling hands she reached out, and tried to scoop up the headphones that were clearly broken and cracked after the violent toss. ¡°NO, no, no, no no¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh no, that was your birthday gift, right?¡± K-Bar asked, though it was clear she already knew the answer.


    With this, the giant Two-Tone began crying as she held the headphones in her hands and shut her eyes tightly.


    This was when Misha made her final move, to pat the giant girl on her back and complete the reaping process.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 23.5676%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reaping process successful.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Misha was happy with the results of her efforts, but did feel a little bad about the inadvertent breaking of the girl¡¯s headphones. As such, she decided to try to fix things while she could.


    ¡°Hey, I think I can fix that.¡± Misha said, pointing to the headphones that were broken and dangling together by wires and processor cards.


    ¡°What?¡± K-Bar asked, clearly not believing her ears.


    Fortunately, Two-Tone either didn¡¯t hear, or was too caught up in the idea that the headphones could be fixed that she disregarded her friend and holding up the headphones towards Misha as an offering asked, ¡°really?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, here, let me take these real quick. I think I have my tools in my bag.¡± Misha said, grabbing the headphones, as she did, her mind was already going through the diagnosis process. As a trained technomancer, this was a relatively minor repair work and something that she could fix within seconds. That said, she needed to make it look like she could do this as a normal inhabitant of the planet, which was why she went over and pulled out a pair of needle nose pliers from her bag, along with a light that she had mounted to a headband. She also made sure to put on her copper wired work gloves, and within seconds she was ready for the technical work needed.


    ¡°What is she doing?¡± J-Sweep asked.


    At this time Misha was too busy in her own world of repair, but fortunately for her, Michelle was there to fill in the pieces.


    ¡°Misha is like a savant with all electronics. She can literally fix anything. I had an old iPad, that I was going to throw away due to a cracked screen. She not only fixed the screen, but then streamlined the programming, and did something to it. Now it works better than even the newest versions still.¡± Michelle said excitedly, while praising her friend that she invited to the team.


    That distraction by Michelle was enough for Misha as she used the time to move the wires and components back into place, welt a card back together with her pyrokinesis. Then she used the same pyrokinesis to weld the broken plastic sides together as if they had never broken.


    ¡°Done.¡± Misha said, holding up the headphones that looked like they were brand new out of the box.


    ¡°What? No way.¡± Kendall from the B-Team said, reaching out to touch the headphones.


    ¡°Hey!¡± But before she could lay her hands on the headphones Two-Tone, had already grabbed her headphones back and started moving them gingerly in her hands. At first, she just rolled the headphones around looking for any signs of a break, or a crack, things that she was certain were there moments ago. ¡°I can¡¯t see any break lines at all.¡±


    ¡°See, told you she is amazing.¡± Michelle said.


    ¡°So are you going to be some type of repair person when you grow up?¡± Holly, also from B Team asked.


    With that Misha just shrugged, as she began pulling off her equipment. Then while doing so, she spoke, ¡°you should test those to make sure they still work properly.¡±


    Though the way Misha spoke, and her actions of still cleaning up her equipment seemed to note that she knew that the repaired device would work perfectly.


    ¡°Right.¡± Two-Tone said, then taking the headphones, she pulled them apart, half expecting them to break in her hands, only to let out a sigh of relief when they clearly opened wide enough to fit her head and hair. Then turning on the Bluetooth device, she was hit by a lout wave of music.


    You will be mine!


    The music was so loud that everyone could hear it, it was so loud that Two-Tone herself had to pause it to stare at the settings.


    ¡°Was it too loud?¡± K-Bar asked.


    ¡°No, well yes, but that was as loud as it was when I first got them. They kept dying so I had to keep turning up the volume, but let me see¡­¡± Two-Tone said, as she lowered the volume and then pushed play.


    Muffled music.


    ¡°Yeah, this is amazing, they are as good as new, maybe even slightly better, as I remember originally listening to them on fourteen, now they are on twelve.¡± Two-Tone said, taking off the headphones. Then turning to Misha she said, ¡°thanks.¡±


    ¡°No problem.¡± Misha said, as she packed up her bag, put it in her locker and then began going to complete her workout.


    ¡°That was so cool.¡± Olivia said, trying to listen to the music playing.


    ¡°Yeah it was.¡± Two-Tone said, as she stared at the new girl who was about to hit the treadmill to do a run.


    What they didn¡¯t known, what none of them could see was the fact that Misha had purposefully distanced herself as her reaping was complete as she received details of what her actions rewarded her. In addition to working herself further into the local pack of werewolves, she also received another 0.2 Attributes and 2 Ability Points for her efforts.


    Once again, she applied the 0.2 Attributes to Dexterity and Agility evenly. With that both attributes were raised to 15.2.


    Then with her now three Ability Points, she decided to see what else was available for her class.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 25.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternate-1 Abilities:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Decreased Reaping Time (1)


    Reaper¡¯s Eyes (2)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing as there were still two options available, and Misha had enough points for both, she decided to purchase both options.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 77.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">You have selected Reaper¡¯s Eyes for 2 Ability Points, and Decreased Reaping Time for 1 Ability point, continue?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing that, Misha paused for a second, before inwardly accepting the changes. Just as she began to feel the slow burn of organo-tech focusing on her eyes and on the way her hands could harvest the organo-tech materials of others, she felt frustration for the first time in a long time, as she realized that she might have made a mistake.


    Then pausing for a moment, Misha pulled up her new ability list and realized just how far she had come, and how much further she still had to go.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 45.0811%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternate-1 Progress to Tier 1 (6 / 10)</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Growth Specialization: Speed and Accuracy Build</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Abilities Owned:


    Double Growth Rate


    Double Daily Harvest


    Decreased Reaping Time


    Reaper¡¯s Eyes


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Suddenly the choices that she had been given made sense, as everything seemed to be about either increasing efficiency, or decreasing the time needed to do certain tasks. With this realization, Misha finally understood that even the way she applied her Attribute bonuses had a direct impact on the growth rate and potential of her Reaper class.


    With that in mind, Misha wondered what was now available for her class¡¯s future abilities, unfortunately she had spent all of her Ability points and was therefore unable to access the shop.


    This didn¡¯t bother Misha, as she assumed what options were now available wouldn¡¯t be that important, especially as they were just Tier 0 options. In the coming days, Misha would realize just how wrong that assessment was.

 Chapter 25 The Proof

    Chapter 25


    The Proof


    (Misha)


    By Wednesday Misha¡¯s muscles burned. Not just burned but felt like they were coiling and constricting bands of cords that pulled her body together. Yet, despite their increased tension, they provided movement that was unlike anything that Misha had ever felt within her body before.


    Just the act of moving was tough, but at the same time limitless. By taking a single step, she felt that the distance she could cover was increased by a few centimeters. While this wouldn¡¯t amount to much for a single step, the distance gained per step would add up. Mentally she tried to do a few tests, first she calculated the time it took to run new distances.


    While her muscles were tight and constantly felt like they were burning with each stride, she realized that almost half a minute had been shaven off her normal mile time.


    Another thing that Misha began doing was counting her paces, or at least attempting to, to see how many steps she was cutting out from her normal runs.


    Also, there was a coiling bounce to her step that she was able to keep and maintain, where each step taken helped propel her forward just that little bit further, until she was at her goal.


    Realizing that she was going to have an easier time with movements, her next process was seeing her lateral movements and conditioning drills.


    Yet, with each test her body performed flawlessly. It almost felt like she had spent the past few months working with dense weights on her body that had now been removed. Another way to look at it would be to assume she had suddenly landed on a planet with a lower gravitational pull than what she was normally used to.


    Not a lot, but enough to be apparent. Her body could move, and even jump higher.


    Realizing that this was just the changes from two solid days of maximum advancement, Misha felt true fear in her heart. For this growth rate was exceptional and, in her heart, she knew there were likely limitations to her progression. Limitations that she needed to document, while also pushing this body to its absolute maximum to see what level of conditioning a single body could gain from this Bakshee improvement method.


    In her mind she had visions of the perfect combination forming of the Psycher Mind training, being linked to Bakshee bodies that could grow and adapt rapidly to external stimuli.


    Of course, such a thought alone was heretical. To be a Psycher meant that you placed your mind and conditioning above all else, that you were given one body, and one clone template to build and adapt from that could support your enhanced Psycher capabilities while utilizing the least amount of resources possible. By comparison these Bakshee bodies were extremely wasteful and inefficient, only to achieve such exponential growth rates due to the rapid waste of planetary resources that would prove inefficient for a self-sustained fleet.


    In a way, everyday that Misha was in this organo-tech body, she was breaking the tenants of the Psycher codes that had been etched into her training for generations. Yet, as far as she could see, this was a necessary evil, if anything her rapid growth rate, while wasteful, could be seen as a good thing as she was ultimately reaping from future Bakshee supply planets. However, those were all just excuses meant to hide the true problem that Misha was now facing.


    Namely, Misha was gaining power, and felt that her mind could interact with the world around her in such a way that made her feel truly powerful. As if she herself could take down hordes of Bakshee on her own with knowledge of how the universe truly works.


    Tingle.


    Whoosh!


    Misha was so lost in thought that a small fire had started to burn the dead grass out on the field. Misha¡¯s first response was to run over and squash it, trampling on the flames with her feet, yet that wouldn¡¯t help. A second ago, that flame that spontaneously combusted, was not as spontaneous as many might think, for she had inadvertently caused the fire.


    Her mind wandered, and that allowed her body that had been generating friction from running to expel a large doze of electrical discharge, in a focused manner that was released in a wave of lightning around her. Lightning flames are of course the most devastating and hardest to put out, making them the most dangerous to deal with.  Given how dry the grass in the fields were at this time of year, they caught fire in an instant.


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    Focusing on the flames, Misha¡¯s mind told her to panic, as she had burned to death many times in multiple past lives. As a technomancer it was her job to fearlessly charge into the burning hulls of a worn-torn ship and try to put out the flames so that the ship might be able to escape. Her innate knowledge and control of Pyrokinesis, or the ability to wield flames, made her invaluable to the team. There was also the fact that, being one of the few Psychers who had developed extrasensory powers, she became fearless in her job performance, always counting on the fact that she would be revived.


    It was because of this very fearlessness, and her expertise that Misha had her auxiliary growth pods approved constantly.


    Now she had a new talent of controlling electricity that she needed to harness and practice. Focusing on putting out the flames that she had inadvertently created was a great way to practice her craft and find out more about what she could do with this new power of hers.


    Focusing her mind, she focused on both the secondary flames, and the base electrical discharge, trying to get both to work in tandem to put out the flames.


    The process wasn¡¯t easy, but within a few moments she had stopped the spread of the flames, containing the flames to a tight circle. Then with its outward momentum stopped, she then slowly brought the flame in, until the chemical reactions ended.


    By the time the flames were out, all that remained was a dense charred black mark on the ground in the shape of a circle. Almost as if someone used a metal trashcan to set a blaze and then the heat burnt the grass underneath a coal black color.


    Phew.


    The minute the flames were extinguished, Misha let out a breath that she didn¡¯t know she had been holding.


    Only once she lost her intense focus on the flames, did she let her mind relax, which was when her senses were able to see everything around her. To take in more stimuli and realize that she had been watched.


    Turning her head, she saw granddad there.


    He just stood there, eyes wide in disbelief. It was clear from his posture that he had seen the fire and her reaction to it. At first Misha wanted to refute the fact that the flame was her doing, but as she turned, she realized that her left hand was still extended towards the flames.


    ¡°I, I can explain¡­¡± Misha began, hoping that there was a way to not frighten her granddad, the person that meant so much to her. Even now she felt her mind breaking another core Psycher Tenant, never get close to the enemy.


    If her granddad disowned her, or told her to leave, she didn¡¯t know what she would do.


    All she could do was sit there and wait for him to respond.


    Finally, after a second, he spoke, and forever changed Misha¡¯s life in this new world, on this foreign planet well beyond enemy lines.


    ***


    (Phil Tulley)


    Misha was up early as always. That is part of why Phil felt so proud of her, as she never ceased to amaze Phil with her ingrained discipline. If there was a task, she would solve it, or sit down think about it and then solve it.


    If Misha wanted to get stronger, she would do a second workout. The fact that she was put on the B-Team for practices didn¡¯t go unnoticed, and was something Phil himself had worked out with Ms. Green.


    ¡°Make her earn the spot. Make her show the varsity members that have held their positions for years that she is not only better, but hungrier than everyone else.¡± Phil said, and at the time Ms. Green seemed to doubt the approach but acquiesced to get his blessing for his granddaughter to join the team.


    From what he heard; Ms. Green was more than appreciative of the suggestion as she was already noting how hard everyone was working during practices.


    Apparently, Ms. Green had also taken a liking to his Misha, as she had called him for an emergency meeting about Misha¡¯s pending probation.


    Fortunately, he had managed to drop everything and get to the school on time to make a difference. He even had enough time to get Misha to tell him exactly what happened. He knew that there was no way Misha would contact someone else for help on how to cheat with computers. If anything, those fancy people at Microsoft should try to contact her for advice during her class time, but that was a different subject.


    Now, less than eighteen hours after being accused of cheating and potentially being kicked off the team, she was out training faster and harder than ever.


    She was so fast that Phil jokingly thought to himself that she would start a fire.


    Little did he know, his thoughts would prove accurate when a small brush fire started right as she ended her mile run.


    Whoosh.


    The blazing orange light was bright in darkness before dawn.


    Seeing the flames, Phil ran on reflex, grabbing the small fire extinguisher from the kitchen, and rushing out the back towards the flame and his granddaughter.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll¡­¡± was all Phil could get out, before he got closer and saw that Misha was focused intensely on the flames. Her hands were out, and she began slowly moving her hands inwards, until finally they connected.


    Phil couldn¡¯t help but notice that as her hands moved, so too did the flames, until finally she managed to put the flames out entirely.


    With that display, Phil just stood there in shock.


    Then she seemed to become aware of her surroundings as her head instantly swiveled and turned towards Phil, at which point she spoke, ¡°I, I can explain¡­¡±


    Hearing that, Phil paused for a second, before dropping the fire extinguisher in his hands to the ground. That was when he shouted, ¡°I knew it!¡±


    At that Misha paused and almost seemed to tremble. ¡°No, it¡¯s not what it looks like¡­¡±


    With her trembling, Phil went on reflex and charged forward. Arms out wide.


    Misha for her part just stood there and looked down in resignation.


    ¡°Oh my baby girl, I am so proud of you.¡± Phil began, grabbing Misha up in a giant bear hug, and lifting her off the ground, or at least trying to. ¡°Oof, you have gotten big. But look at you. I knew there was magic, and of course leave it to my little pumpkin to prove it.¡±


    ¡°Granddad, that wasn¡¯t magic.¡± Misha began, a note of desperation in her voice.


    ¡°Oh, of course, right. Wouldn¡¯t want the men in black out here, but that is fantastic!¡± Phil said, as he let down Misha and stared at her.


    ¡°I, I just¡­¡± Misha began.


    ¡°Shh, enough said, this will be our little secret.¡± Phil said, giddily as he felt like he had finally proven something to himself that he had always just known existed. ¡°Oh, this is so fantastic. Thank you, thank you.¡±


    Then Phil kissed his granddaughter on the cheek, as he could finally rest assured, feeling vindicated that he had been right all this time. Also, this just further cemented in his mind why Misha was his favorite offspring ever. Not only did she enjoy working with him, but she was living proof that magic existed.


    ¡°Now all we need to do, is figure out how we can both keep this a secret, while making sure you can put out a fire you create in under a minute.¡± Phil said, pointing to the circular burn mark in the ground.


    ¡°Yeah, about that¡­¡± Misha began.

 Interlude II Crop Circles

    Interlude II


    Crop Circles


    (Darren Hallsprings)


    Darren was flying his long-distance UAV for a ride around the old farmstead, the one that had been recently sold and mostly turned into zoned off lands for up-and-coming Mega plazas, when it happened.


    Return home.


    The first time it happened, he had managed to get to within four hundred meters of the old farmstead. After that, the range had slowly increased to four hundred and ten meters out, then each progressive time the distance seemed to increase by an additional ten meters.


    After the first time, Darren took this as a sort of personal challenge, as he couldn¡¯t understand how the code was triggered. Normally it only occurred when the drone was low in power, but each time after the first, Darren made sure to fully charge the drone before sending it out again.


    Yet, every time he sent out his UAV it always got sent home.


    One day, he decided to go to the line personally and see with his own eyes if there was something that caused the change. Riding his bike, he found the back trails to be somewhat enjoyable. The place was the exact middle of nowhere, no signs of powerlines, or large cell towers that might cause interference with his UAV and possibly cause a drain of its battery.


    Which was why he was confused to see that the domain, or rather the area that seemed to be cut the new cut off point for where his UAV could move and record ended at the end of the hold Tulley farmstead.


    With his own eyes, for months he had gone about trying to see what exactly was happening in this one area that caused his UAV to get sent home. Being this close, he took out his UAV from his backpack and released it, causing the device to go up, and begin to cover the open fields of the farm.


    Return to sender.


    Yet, this time despite having started much closer, the UAV somehow got programmed to go back to his home. That was a wasted day. Well mostly, he did get a good afternoon bike ride in, but otherwise all it did was cause him to become obsessed with finding out the secrets for why his UAV would constantly be sent home from there.


    Darren thought of everything, from government super tech being produced, to unnatural amounts of rare elements that would cause electrical feedback to anything. Honestly, he was at a loss, and decided to just go and check everything, even going so far as to find out how to jailbreak his UAV so it no longer had the Return Home feature.


    He even did a few test runs with the now jail broken UAV to find that it worked perfectly, well to be honest even better than perfectly. A few of the restrictions were lifted, meaning he could technically climb into air space of planes now, not that he actually intended to, but the option was there. Also, most importantly, even with a test run of the plane flying for hours on end in one spot just an inch off the ground, the UAV never returned home when it was low on battery power. Instead, it just crashed to the ground. Fortunately, the one-inch fall was nothing too much for the robust UAV to handle, and with a quick recharge the device was as good as new.


    Now was his chance to cause the UAV to do a set route over the old Tulley farmstead, so he could finally see what exactly was causing the UAV to malfunction in the first place. Now, even if it did run out of power, he had a good excuse to go onto the Tulley farmstead as he would just be looking for his UAV that just so happened to have glitched and randomly died while flying over this one stretch of land.


    Takeoff.


    The flight was simple and smooth. Within seconds the UAV had risen up to a height of a hundred feet, and stabilized nicely, despite being fully exposed to the winds and elements from up there. Normally this was too high, and something Darren opted to avoid, as he didn¡¯t want to have his battery drain faster, but as everything that his UAV saw was being livestreamed straight to his personal computer, where it would be simultaneously copied to a cloud account, he felt this was a worthwhile venture.


    Never did he expect to see what he would happen to at that time.


    As he flew his UAV, he began seeing the signs of fire and smoke from far away. With his height and angle it was clear that a fire was happening on the Tulley farm.


    This was not surprising, as this was the time of year when many would resort to such measures to clean up waste and debris from open fields. Being as this was an old converted farmland, it was not too surprising for Darren to see signs of an open fire, particularly being this close to dusk.


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    What was odd however, was the size and intensity of the flames. There was an odd sort of uniformity to the flames. Normally flames had a central point that rose higher than others, and all the flames seemed to feed that one internal point. This time, however things were different. This time it almost seemed like the fire was created in the form of a ring.


    Then as he got closer and closer, he saw that there was a singular black figure in the middle of the flames. Well not black, but their overall appearance was hard to identify due to how high the flames around them were.


    Shocked.


    That was all that could happen. There in the center of the burning circle was a tall creature that appeared blurry due to the view through the flames and constantly changing air pressure that seemed to distort the actual size and image of the creature in the center of the ring of fire.


    Then there was a pause, as the flames seemed to pause for a second, then almost break apart, as the creature at the center of the pillar of flame became visible if only for a second. During that second, there was a pulse.


    Static.


    There was an electrical surge that almost seemed to happen, one that even caused the image from his monitor to pulse and distort for a second.


    A second later, the image became blurry, causing the dark figure at the center of the flames to become even more distorted. Then there was the clear response for the UAV to be sent home.


    Darren felt a sense of relief there, as he almost smiled to himself having dodged a bullet, as he saw the command come across the screen.


    Return home.


    But that function had been erased as part of the jailbreaking process.


    Then he could almost see the dark figure nod in understanding that its commands had been discarded. Raising its right hand, a pulse of energy shot out, distorting the air as it came closer.


    From this height and this distance, the pulse of energy almost died out by the time it reached the craft. So transfixed on the stream of energy was he that he didn¡¯t even take into account the fact that he needed to move his UAV out of the way. Instead, he, like the UAV, just sat there and watched the rippling distortion of space shoot out, collide with his aircraft. Then there was a second where the waves washed over, the UAV trembled for a second, then all Darren saw was the UAV falling out of the sky, before the last few seconds of the feed from the UAV went to his computer.


    ¡°Shit.¡± Darren said, as he gently tapped his monitor, wondering if that would bring back the image.


    A few seconds later, his screen alerted him to what he already knew.


    Connection feed lost.


    Seeing the message, Darren paused for a second, before his mind began to process everything it had just seen.


    Badump, badump, badump.


    Then his heart began to race. Seeing that, the burst of energy, the control over technology, he had seen it, finally he had proof.


    ¡°Alien people, are here.¡± Darren said. Then looking at his computer, he saw the folder with his recordings. Realizing the truth of the matter, that the government would likely take his files away if they found out the UAV was his and what he recorded, he decided to make copy. Pulling out a flash drive he transferred the file, then pulling away the loose floorboard in his room to reveal his secret hiding spot, he placed the file in the floorboard, and sealed it up.


    Only then did he debate with himself about whether he should go and get his UAV or not.


    Finally, after a few excruciating minutes, he decided to go down to Tulley farm and retrieve it. If he could find it, before anyone else could, he could likely avoid any problems. At least that was what he hoped.


    As he rode, he figured the easiest answer was that his UAV got lost on a routine fly about and collapsed. It would almost be impossible for him to be proven to have been actually piloting the craft, unless of course people saw the number of times he tried to access the fields and failed.


    As he got closer to the spot where his craft landed, he realized it was already dark out. This actually proved to be a good thing, as it meant he could try to hide his movements even easier. Though finding his UAV would be tougher than expected. Still he had the GPS of its last fall, and as he got closer he tried to find the UAV, while also seeing what happened to the alien.


    Just in case he could collect anything he had his GoPro running in night mode, collecting everything he did and saw. Yes, this would be incriminating, but only if he had been trespassed from this property. As he entered on the one path that conveniently had no Private Property signs on display, he could make the argument that he didn¡¯t see anything.


    These were all flimsy arguments, but ones that he made for himself as he realized that he absolutely needed to know one thing. Are there such things as aliens.


    It wasn¡¯t until he arrived at the scene that he began seeing the aftereffects of the flames on the fields. That is when he saw the circular patterns, and the interconnecting burn paths. If he didn¡¯t know any better, he would swear that the Tulley¡¯s were trying to create Crop Circles. But why? Wouldn¡¯t just creating them cause news reporters to come and try to investigate the area?


    Then again, Darren figured that if they had been spotted, the easiest way to cover up the fact that aliens were here would be to hide them in plain sight by staging a fake crop circle.


    The more he thought about it, the more he realized this might be too much.


    ¡°Faking an alien burning the lands as possible crop circles, that is ingenious.¡± Darren said, as he searched the area, trying to find his UAV, only to realize that it was either in the deep grass, or it had been moved.


    Only after looking around for a bit did, he find the UAV, it was hidden in plain sight, right at the center of the last crop circle he saw being created by the pyrokinetic alien.


    As he approached the spot, he felt a strange sense of tension building in him, as he realized that this was likely a trap.


    ¡°They always put the cheese at the center of the mouse trap.¡± Darren mused to himself as he saw the wide-open field that led to his UAV.


    Deep breaths.


    Darren tried to calm himself as he thought about what to do. On the one hand it was obviously an alien trap of some kind. Or maybe a top-secret government conspiracy where the government was working jointly with aliens on some secret project out in Jackson West Virginia. Just saying sounded stupid, which instantly also made it completely plausible. What better place to hide than somewhere far away from everything.


    Part of him thought about just leaving the drone there and never claiming it again. Then another more pragmatic side of him remembered how he mowed lawns for a year to save up for this, and how much it meant to him and his possible future career as a UAV journalist.


    Granted there wasn¡¯t a market for such a profession yet, but within ten years, many people would likely outsource their video feeds from extra sources, and he intended to have a network of UAV drones going about monitoring everything and providing real time accurate data wherever possible.


    With his future career aspirations on the line, Darren decided to take the chance and run out, grab the drone, run back to cover and then leave the property line as quickly as possible.


    That was his plan, unfortunately for Darren, while his mind was fully in on the steps needed to take, his body wouldn¡¯t move.


    He was so focused on the drone ahead, that he failed to hear the light rustling of overgrown grass from beside him. Only when he heard the words spoken did he even move.


    ¡°So, is that yours¡­¡±

 Chapter 26 The Fall

    Chapter 26


    The Fall


    Often it is hard to tell when you are the highest, an apex, the zenith. Most people only realize that they met their zenith when the moment has passed. When the inevitable descent is rushing full force towards you.


    That descent can be caused by almost anything, a random encounter causing you to be in a bad mood at the wrong time, which then causes you to blow a seemingly chance encounter. To slightly more impactful and less subtle exchanges, like walking in a cheating partner or spouse.


    Then there are the catastrophic events that are not only impactful to the people who were part of the event, but as is often the case, catastrophic events often have a ripple effect on them. That effect has wide-sweeping changes. Like a meteorite crashing into the ocean, where a wave of force is generated, causing a tsunami to lash out at distant areas.


    Sometimes, it is minor acts that start off as a moderately impactful event that spiral out of control, causing a moderate event to become a catastrophic event.


    While the starting point for catastrophic events is often unknown, the one thing everyone can attest to about catastrophic events is that they will forever change and leave scars for not just one life, but multiple lives once their devastation is fully known.


    ***


    (Jerome Jacobs)


    Wind.


    The windows of the van were down as Jerome sped down the deserted backroads. These were the open roads that sent chills down Jerome and his pack member¡¯s spines as the air always smelt the purest out here.


    While there was the unmistakable smell of asphalt, there was also the faint musty smell of life, of wind, and of freedom.


    ¡°AWOOO!!¡± Rodger, the newest recruit for the pack howled out, screaming wildly into the air and all but daring the world to challenge him to a fight.


    Young blood, that was all Jerome thought of the guy who was officially going to be made a member of their pack tonight.


    ¡°You ready for this?¡± Jerome asked, nearly screaming to have his voice heard over the roaring winds that flew through the open vehicle filling the van with new scents and the slight sting of cold autumn air.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Rodger said, though he huddled in on himself a bit. Despite wearing the school¡¯s jacket, it was clear that he didn¡¯t find the jacket to be as much protection from the elements as Jerome and the others did. Though that would all change after tonight.


    ¡°Well then, let¡¯s not delay this any further.¡± Jerome replied. Then stomping his foot onto the accelerator he let the V-8 engine of his vehicle rip open as he let the intoxication of speed, smells, and being near his pack take over.


    VRRRROOOOMMM!!


    The van roared to life, as its wheels clung to the twisting back roads. Despite having superior reflexes, Jerome, being in a vehicle, still had a few things that he was subject to. Namely, despite being innately stronger, faster, and more resilient to most people, he was still bound by physics. He still could only act and react to the stimuli he was given as quickly as his brain could recognize change.


    Most importantly, even if he could react to a change, like the sudden appearance of a van on the road, he could only do so much with his skills and talents.


    Flying down the road, Jerome inherently found himself riding in the center of the two-lane road. While this road was often empty, tonight there was a slight problem. Whipping through some of the turns, he only had seconds to see the lights of a vehicle coming in the opposite direction.


    Even then he had just enough time to swerve right, trying to get back into his lane.


    Unfortunately, while his mind and reflexes were more than adequate to try to adjust to the oncoming threat, his vehicle was not.


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    ¡°Oh shit!¡± A voice cried out.


    Jerome didn¡¯t know who it was, though he felt it was the new kid, Rodger, as everyone else just stayed quiet and let their pack leader do his thing.


    However, this in case, the best Jerome could do was narrowly miss striking the vehicle head long, as he swerved right, where he grazed the front left bumper of the oncoming vehicle. This caused the vehicle to fishtail and spin out. Realizing that the vehicle he just crashed into was close to being pulled and grinding along the side of his van, Jerome did the only thing he thought he could do at the moment, he sped up.


    This caused the two vehicles that had for a brief moment in time been stuck together get separated.


    With force and momentum on his side, Jerome managed to shoot his vehicle forward, only receiving a slight scrape across the side of his van from where the front grill of the vehicle he crashed into scraped across and tore a deep gash into his side.


    FWA-BAM!


    There was the unmistakable sound of a crash from behind, but for now Jerome had his own problems as his wheels skid wildly on the ground as he attempted to wrestle control over his vehicle.


    ERRRKKK!!


    With the worst part over, Jerome found himself slamming on the brakes as his vehicle screeched to a sudden halt at the center of the road.


    ¡°Oh shit, of fuck, oh shit.¡± Rodger just started cursing.


    ¡°What the heck, J?¡± Tricksy from the back called out.


    Spinning.


    The world spun for a second, until finally Jerome¡¯s superior abilities and healing took over.


    ¡°Oh shit, I think you killed her.¡± Dontrell said as he stuck his head out the window to stare at the crashed vehicle that had clearly spun out across the road and was now impaled sideways, facing the exact opposite way from where she had been traveling.


    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t.¡± Jerome said, then pausing for a moment, he paused and turned to Rodger. ¡°You still ready to become a member of the pack?¡±


    ¡°What? I mean, yeah, I guess, but shouldn¡¯t we go to help her?¡±


    ¡°No, today, you will become an old school member of the pack. Tonight you will get your first blood.¡± Jerome began.


    ***


    (Phil Tulley)


    ¡°So, is that yours?¡± Phil asked, the boy who was staring wide eyed at the drone that had fallen from the sky.


    Even after having witnessed the event personally, Phil still had a hard time understanding how his little granddaughter had managed to do such a thing from over a hundred yards away. And yes, even though she was now an inch taller than him, she would always be his little granddaughter, as he remembered that seven-year-old child that came in and immediately told him how he had messed up with his repair job. Then then brat had ambushed him, after he went out to correct his mistake away from prying eyes, or so he thought.


    She¡¯s just too smart for her own good, Phil thought to himself as he now saw the way that same little girl could use that powerful mind of hers to create fires and disable drones from the sky.


    Now he has this random boy coming, and in order to keep him from coming back, he worked out a thing where he would scare the boy just a bit.


    ¡°What? HAAA!¡± The boy screamed wildly, as he darted towards the middle of the open circle, but rather than heading towards the drone as Phil had expected, the boy entered and then quickly left the open field to reenter the tall grass.


    Swish, swoosh.


    After that, the unmistakable sound of a large creature making their way quickly through the overgrown foliage could be heard. Realizing this, Phil just chuckled to himself.


    Misha who had been standing at the far end just waiting, as Phil had instructed eventually walked out from her own cover and picked up the drone.


    ¡°Hahaha. Oh man, that is too much fun.¡± Phil said.


    Then with a complete surprise to his face, he saw the little drone that had been dead, completely dead not moments ago spark to life at Misha¡¯s touch.


    Whirr.


    Then within seconds the drone¡¯s blades began to spin about violently and angrily. The sound like that of angry bees waiting to be unleashed on a target.


    For a moment the device looked like it was broken, but then Misha just stared at it, before giving a slight nod to herself. After that, it was a quick flick of her wrist upwards and the drone was thrown up into the air.


    The drone wobbled and shook for just a second, before it managed to stabilize its flight. Then it rotated slightly, turning roughly ninety degrees, before focusing out and away from the house and garage. Then quick as whip, it lurched forward, streaking across the night sky, over the last remaining unchanged fields and likely off from which it came.


    ¡°You sent it home?¡± Phil asked, looking from the drone back to Misha.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha said staring at Phil. There was clearly a look on her face, as she still seemed to be holding back. Despite all they had managed to do this afternoon, despite all he had worked with her on, it was clear that his granddaughter was still holding back.


    Nodding.


    Phil nodded, trying to use the familiar gesture to help his mind focus on what was happening, and what to do next. Finally, after a few minutes, Phil finally pressed on.


    ¡°You ready to continue?¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t Ohma be coming back here soon?¡± Misha asked.


    With that Phil paused, wondering just how late it had gotten. While he knew they were far enough away to be protected from the prying eyes of most people. Well aside from those annoying teenagers who wanted to spy on his granddaughter with their drones, he felt safe. But realizing that the boy might still be out and about, despite the scare, Phil realized that they had done enough for one night.


    ¡°Yeah, probably for the best that we head back in.¡± Phil replied.


    Then looking at the time, he wondered exactly where Julie was exactly, as she should be home by now. Then he realized that she likely went out to get groceries.


    ¡°Besides, she might need us to help unload her car once she gets back.¡± Phil said, officially ending their first true training session together. As they went back in, Phil began musing to himself about different ways he could help improve Misha¡¯s power and potential.


    While he now felt better knowing that Misha could protect herself from most any danger she found herself in, she was still his little girl and would therefore be someone that he always worried about. Now as a proud grandfather of a child who could produce flames with her minds, he like most boys his age thought about the most important steps to take from here. Namely, he wondered what to burn next, and how big of a fire she could create and for how long.


    Honestly, he would have been proud of her for any powers, but to produce flames on command that was awesome.


    However, despite his elation at finding out about this new secret that he and his granddaughter had, he couldn¡¯t help but feel that something was off. As he made his way back to the house, Phil couldn¡¯t help but have the niggling thought that something was not quite right.


    While he tried to dismiss this thought, it still came back to him.


    For a moment he thought about using his phone to call Julie, to see how she was doing, but then stopped himself. If she was just running late then calling her would only infuriate her further as the call would likely just be more of a waste of time.


    ¡°Everything okay?¡± Misha asked, seeing that Phil was just standing there staring at the blank phone in his hand.


    Phil, suddenly realizing how odd his glance looked, looked down at the phone and paused.


    ¡°Yeah, just getting old and forgetful.¡± Phil said, as he tried to hide the fact that he desperately wanted to hear from Julie again at that time.


    Little did he know exactly how important that call might have been.

 Chapter 27 First Responder

    Chapter 27


    First Responder


    (Frank Grimes)


    The night had been an amazing success. Frank had heard and experienced several things. The most important thing was that his car, and livelihood for the foreseeable future was fixed. Of course, Frank knew that he would have to check this out personally, as this was rather quick for a high school and grandfather with arthritis to have fixed in a week, let alone the day and a half or so that had allegedly happened.


    Honestly, Frank would have thought the whole thing to be a scam, had he not seen the crack in the head gasket himself. While he was not the most technically proficient officer, he like the others on staff had a mild fascination with mechanics. Over time Frank had learned to do all the basics, but changing out a head gasket, that was clearly beyond him.


    ¡°So your daughter, Misha, fixed it?¡± Frank asked, phishing for the second major clue he had been looking for.


    ¡°Yes, Misha can fix anything. That girl is a certified genius.¡± Andrea said, more than a little excited about her daughter. While having pride in one¡¯s child was not unexpected, it was clear that Andrea was positively beaming while talking about her daughter.


    ¡°You are clearly proud of her, as you have a certain glow while talking about her.¡± Frank said.


    With that Andrea just smiled, as she thought about what to say in response. There was a brief awkward moment that filled the car as Andrea sorted out her thoughts, then finally she spoke.


    ¡°For the longest time I messed up. My dad didn¡¯t approve of anything I did. He hated my choices of study, he hated the guys I dated,¡± a slight pause before she continued. ¡°He absolutely loathed David. Saying that David was the worst decision I would ever make.¡±


    Silence.


    ¡°For a time, I thought he was right. He left me while I was pregnant with Misha, just went out and never came back. Those first few years were the toughest. There I was trying to make it as a single mother with no support. Oh, I could talk to mom, but dad had all but cut me out of his life. Until he finally met her. The moment he locked gazes with her, it was as if he knew she was seeing right into his soul, and you could see the moment he fell in love with her right there. As if that was the daughter he had always wanted.¡±


    Pause.


    At this Andrea began to drive a little slower down the back roads, as a tear formed in her eye causing her to wipe the offending drop away.


    Chuckle.


    Then just as she was wiping away the tear, she laughed as a funny thought came to mind.


    ¡°After that, dad only made one reference to my bad choices, calling out David in particular.¡± At this, the smile on Andrea¡¯s face grew wide as she clearly recalled the memory in detail. ¡°That¡¯s when I pointed out that Misha wouldn¡¯t be here now without him.¡±


    Silence.


    ¡°What happened then?¡± Frank found himself asking.


    ¡°Oh, he dropped the subject and never brought up David again. While he still didn¡¯t like the jerk, it was clear that he was okay with having his Misha. Which meant we could heal as a family.¡±


    Frank let those thoughts compile in his mind. Then he remembered his long-standing unsolved case, the one that brought him here. While he found an interesting correlation and felt that this was almost destiny that brought him here, particularly with how much he enjoyed spending time with the quirky Andrea. Yes, she was a bit neurotic as one would expect from her being a single mother for so long, she didn¡¯t seem to have the excess baggage that one might expect from such a person, at least not that he could see currently. Still, he felt the idea of a cold case potentially involving aliens to be a bad topic, especially as there clearly were no aliens involved up to this point.


    Chuckle.


    Frank laughed with her, and despite how it might seem it wasn¡¯t forced. Rather, it was the comfortable laugh one would have when laughing at the bad joke a friend would make. He looked at her, and while she was constantly looking forward, Frank couldn¡¯t help but see the way she would constantly peek out of the side of her eyes to see him as they spoke.


    ¡°What are¡­¡± was as far as Frank got, before the sound of a roaring engine cut through their conversation.


    Vroom!


    High beams blared right into the eyes of Andrea and Frank. On reflex Andrea swerved right, running just off the road, while slamming on her brakes in an effort to avoid a collision. Fortunately, this was one of the few almost even patches of backroads that had a relatively level shoulder to grind to a sudden halt.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Rumble-vrrt.


    The car ground to a complete halt on the side.


    Panting.


    Crink.


    Andrea already being at a complete stop, took a moment to place the car in park, apply her hand brake, and even had the wherewithal to put on her emergency blinkers.


    Then with that moment of insight down, she collapsed into her seat.


    ¡°I am sorry, I just need a minute after that.¡± Andrea said, holding her hand over her heart.


    ¡°No, I completely understand.¡± Frank replied, feeling that he too needed to take a deep calming breath after that.


    Finally, after a few deep breaths, Frank asked the obvious question, ¡°are you okay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, not the scariest thing I¡¯ve ever had to witness, but one of the few that I knew took years off of my life.¡± Andrea admitted.


    Seeing her lighthearted response, Frank felt this was good as it was clear that she would be able to recover from this relatively easily.


    ¡°Oh, and what was a scarier event?¡± Frank asked.


    ¡°Probably the time Misha got electrocuted while at therapy.¡± Andrea said after only a second of hesitation.


    ¡°She got shocked at therapy; you mean electroshock therapy?¡± Frank questioned.


    ¡°No, that was the odd part. We were just in Dr. Grier¡¯s office and suddenly a jolt of electricity came from the wall socket and zapped my Misha, when she took off her helmet.¡± Andrea said, as a haunted look came to her face.


    Frank, hearing the name Dr. Grier did ring a few bells, though he couldn¡¯t quite place where he heard the name before, nor why the name sounded so familiar.


    ¡°She wore a helmet?¡± Frank asked, grabbing onto the part that really stuck out to him.


    ¡°Yeah, it was a big thing. At the time I thought it was the biggest thing, which was why we were there at therapy. Looking back, I realize that it was just my own fears and prejudices that wanted her to change.¡± Andrea said.


    ¡°Well what happened?¡±


    ¡°She recovered, and oddly enough never wore the helmet again.¡± Andrea stated with a faint hint of sadness to her words.


    Frank was about to ask more, when Andrea let out a breath, then shifted back into drive and slowly worked her way back on the road.


    ¡°Thank you for that.¡± Andrea said, as she had clearly relaxed from almost being run off the road.


    ¡°Not a problem. If I had been in my cop car I would have chased down that vehicle as they were clearly speeding.¡± Frank admitted, finally recalling a few odd details about the vehicle, namely the fact that there was a long scratch line down the side of the van, as if they had run into a tree branch or something. Though it was odd that the markings were on the driver¡¯s side door.


    Now that Frank had time to recall the details, Frank realized why his mind picked up on the details.


    ¡°Yeah, they were clearly dangerous, as they nearly ran me off the road.¡±


    Stationary lights.


    Up ahead there were what was clearly the lights of a vehicle that was just sitting still. Having seen the lights, Andrea slowed down around the turn, only to see a vehicle that looked like they too had run off the road. All except there were a few odd marks. First, the front right side of the vehicle had been crumpled in on itself. Second, there was the fact that the vehicle was more than halfway off the road, while this wasn¡¯t the worst thing, there was the fact that they were almost definitely resting against the trees that were right off the end of the road.


    Complete stop.


    Then as he looked on, Frank could see why Andrea had come to a complete stop, as the woman that was driving was passed out on the steering wheel.


    Before Frank even knew what was happening, his instincts kicked in. Within a second he had his seatbelt off and was out the door, quickly going over to the vehicle, to see if he could render first aid to the victim.


    Seeing the old woman that despite being covered in blood looked oddly familiar, Frank turned to see that Andrea had just shut down. This happens sometimes, in such cases. The sight of blood is debilitating for most, realizing that she needed something to do, he began taking control of the scene.


    ¡°Call 911.¡± Frank ordered, while his voice wasn¡¯t yelling, his words were stated with enough conviction to awaken Andrea from the fog that had covered her.


    Lurch.


    ¡°Gah!¡± Andrea shouted, as her car lurched forward before Andrea slammed on the brakes and put the vehicle in park. Then began pulling out her phone and began to make emergency calls.


    ¡°911, what is your emergency?¡±


    ¡°Yes, my name is Andrea Tulley, I was driving home, when I found my mother¡­¡± At that, Andrea lost all composure.


    Hearing her break down into uncontrollable sobs.


    With that, Frank suddenly understood why this woman looked so familiar, as it was clearly Andrea¡¯s mother. Thinking back, he did remember meeting her, if only in passing the other night.


    Realizing that time was of the essence particularly with how much blood was there, Frank decided to take over. Running back, he grabbed the phone and placed it on the roof of the mother¡¯s vehicle, as he began working and talking at the same time.


    ¡°Hello this is Franklin Grimes, I am here on the scene too. We have what appears to be an elderly female who was the victim of a car crash. Her vehicle is currently impaled onto a tree, and she is bleeding profusely from her head and neck.¡± Frank began rolling out details as he took off his shirt, and used it as a temporary bandage, while he waited for emergency responders to come.


    ***


    (Phil Tulley)


    Phil was beginning to get more than a little antsy. While his wife was a full-grown woman and capable of being out late, there were a few things that Julie Tulley never did, she never drove in the dark, at least not if she could help it, and second she never stayed up past ten PM. Tonight she had done both, also there was an unmistakable feeling of dread that he now felt coiling up within him.


    Yet, he didn¡¯t want to seem like one of those old coots who couldn¡¯t last a day without his loving wife. He could, sometimes he even dreamed about such a life of freedom, but ultimately those were just fantasies, as he knew his heart truly belonged to Julie and couldn¡¯t imagine a life without her. Even when she was out late and neglected to call and tell her husband.


    Honestly, Phil was mad, though he knew that anger that was rising in him would be over and done with once he saw his wife and knew that she was happy. While he would never say it, at least not to her face, he would know that his life would be absolutely miserable without her. Though again his life would be more miserable if she was aware of that fact, which was why he opted never to tell her such, lest she walk all over him.


    ¡°Phil.¡± The word like a shot in the dark, the tone so serious, so ominous that Phil couldn¡¯t help but look at Misha, the source of the word.


    Before Phil could say a word about her calling him Phil, she continued. ¡°We need to go, Nana is in trouble.¡±


    ¡°She gets called Nana, but I am just Phil?¡± Phil quipped, though he was already moving, his body somehow having expected such a response. Then a question came to him, ¡°wait how do you know?¡±


    ¡°I keep track on mom¡¯s phone.¡± Misha replied.


    Phil, following Misha out, went to drive the Mustang GT, but Misha shut him down. ¡°You are going to need to be a passenger for this. Also, have you taken your heart medication?¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t scare me with your driving.¡± Phil stated, and meant it too. Honestly, Misha drove like a racecar professional, all her movements were clean and crisp, never showing any signs of hesitation or jerkiness. Had it not been a blow to his pride, he might even admit that Misha might be the better driver of the two, only because Phil was now getting older, and his reflexes weren¡¯t what they used to be.


    ¡°No, it is what you will see.¡± Misha said, as she began getting the car moving along the long gravel road out.


    ¡°Wait, if you are tracking your mother¡¯s phone how do you know about grandma?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°They found her.¡± Misha stated.


    ¡°Found?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Silence.


    Then as they began gliding through the backroads, Phil found himself asking the next most important question.


    ¡°Why are you tracking your mother¡¯s phone?¡±


    ¡°You said to do so, while she was out with this guy from out of town.¡± Misha noted, her tone resolute.


    At that Frank tried to think of whether he had in fact given such a command, but could not for the life of him remember doing something like this, though it was something he would ask her to if he thought about it.


    ¡°Did I?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°Not really, but it was an implied task.¡± Misha quipped.


    ¡°Huh,¡± was all Phil managed in response as his mind began plaguing him with ideas of what he would find. Unfortunately, nothing could prepare him for what actually awaited him.

 Chapter 28 The Decision

    Chapter 28


    The Decision


    (72 Hours Later)


    (Phil Tulley)


    The world that Phil had known had been spun on its head in the past week. First there was the fact that Misha could create fires with her mind.


    Then came the death of his beloved Julie. Had it not been for Misha he likely would have followed her. Yet, Misha never gave up, never let him mourn. That or when he could mourn, he was always forced to do so in a helpful manner. Honestly, being near Misha these past days made him wonder who was older, as she had profound ways of dealing with death.


    While it was clear that Julie¡¯s passing clearly affected Misha, she never let it go too far. She focused on projects. First was encapsulating everything that made Julie special. She went with him through their bedroom, where they took items and enshrined them to help preserve the memories of Julie.


    ¡°Here is your mourning room. When you need to decompress, you will come here, focus on the good memories you had with Julie, then realize you need to make more good memories once you leave. While you are here, you are allowed to be weak, to let the weight of everything hit you. Here you will not be judged, stay in here as much as you need. But once you leave that door, you are my grandfather again, and I will need you the same way I always have.¡± Misha stated, her words brokering no judgement or sense of guilt.


    The room, or mourning shrine, was Julie¡¯s old work office. Which was perfect as everything in it was mostly hers to begin with. Everything else just involved taking a few mementos, photos, and nick-nacks to especially remind Phil of his Julie.


    One day he just woke up, and then the room was there, complete with his favorite lounger that he would sit in the living room with and just enjoy an evening with Julie, while she too sat in her own chair.


    This was his favorite chair that had been moved without his permission to this room, and yet the way it was arranged, so close to Julie¡¯s chair that if he held out his hand, he could almost imagine holding her hand while they enjoyed a television show, or a movie. Now when he sat in that same chair, he felt the same familiar comfort, and the movie he saw was the room filled with photos and memories of Julie. The movie he would watch was of his past. Which Phil realized was exactly what a movie was, even ones set in the future were always a past event that was captured and recorded and set about for all to see.


    Honestly, Phil didn¡¯t know how Misha did it, but the room was just catching enough to spark fond memories of the past, while not appearing to be overly cluttered, which after having memories of Julie that spanned close to seven decades, there were clearly a lot of memories that were worth remembering.


    Just entering the room caused tears to flood his eyes, as he wept silently. Distantly he was aware that at one point Misha had closed the door, giving him his privacy. A fact that he was immensely grateful for.


    On that first night, Phil felt that he had cried enough and for the sake of his daughter and granddaughter, he decided to come out. Only to find Misha standing there with a plate of food and a soda.


    Misha took one look at him, then shaking her head, handed him the plate and drink, before demanding that he head back in. ¡°No, you aren¡¯t fooling anyone. No one needs you to be strong now. Right now, this is your time. Mom is out with her cop, and there is nothing pressing for you to do. Go and only come out when you are actually ready.¡±


    Phil wanted to protest, but just saw the defiant stare of Misha and sighed.


    The meal was light, nothing more than bread, condiments, meat, and a slice of cheese, but at that moment that meal was heavenly. Only a moment later did Phil realize that even his mini table was there. Normally this was used to hold the remote, but since there wasn¡¯t a television up here, the table was empty. Which was where Phil finally rested his empty plate and glass.


    That night Phil fell asleep in his easy chair, his hand draped over Julie¡¯s chair¡¯s armrest. His hand up constantly searching for a warm hand that would never come.


    When he finally felt good enough to leave the room, he did as Misha said. He mentally made a note that once he passed the threshold of that room, he would become Phil again. While he was in Julie¡¯s old office, he could be as weak and distraught as he needed to be, but once he left, he would be Phil again. Or as close to Phil as he could be, for her at least.


    After walking through the doorway, he was surprised to see that the hallway was relatively empty. Last time, Misha had been there seemingly ready to pounce on him. This time, had he come out when she was not expecting him?


    ¡°Oh, good, you¡¯re out.¡± Misha said, looking like she just got out of the shower and was dressed in full winter gear. ¡°Now get showered and cleaned, we have a busy day today.¡±


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Before Phil could protest, he saw Misha enter his shrine, and was about to call out, only to see her go in and pull out the empty dish and cup. As he came out, she paused to look at him, ¡°are you really going to spend today dressed like that?¡±


    With that Phil looked down and saw that yes, he had been in a bad way these past couple of days. There were stains on his shirt, and just looking down caused his nose to be close to his own sweat and body odor that made him cringe.


    ¡°Yeah, not your best look. Better go fix that. Then come on, daylight¡¯s burning.¡± Misha said, still pressing him.


    While he wanted to protest, he did remember her all but stating that she would push him once he left that room.


    For a moment he regretted leaving the sanctity of that room. Then a moment later, he realized how much he needed this, his Misha pushing him on, just as she always did.


    ¡°Fine.¡±


    The act of grooming was both cathartic and helped wash away the funk of the past seventy-two hours. He had gone through so much, from Julie being pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, to a police search being set up to look for the offending vehicle, to now Misha telling him to get dressed and go with him.


    Oddly enough, they walked.


    Misha as usual was quiet, and seemingly introspective. That was the best part about her, she never spoke to hear herself speak, as so many kids today seemed to think was necessary. Instead, she only spoke minimally, which made her words have more meaning.


    ¡°Where are we going?¡± Phil finally asked, although he had a vague idea given that they were heading in the very same direction that had caused his life to change what felt like a lifetime ago.


    ¡°You already know,¡± Misha began, but continued, ¡°though I will get to the point. We are going to see if we can find out more information.¡±


    ¡°More?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°Yes, I am pretty sure I can get more details than the cops could.¡±


    ¡°Does this have anything to do with your,¡± Phil began, but then only managed to make vague gestures with his hands towards his head when she looked back.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    That was enough for Phil, as he mulled it over. The oddity of how much everything had changed so quickly. Just a few days ago, they were scaring off a boy who wanted to spy on Misha, and now they were potentially going to the scene of a murder.


    In the daylight, the spot of the accident was easy to see.


    Not only was there broken glass on the ground from where Julie¡¯s van¡¯ impacted the trees on the right side of the road, but now the signs of tread marks on the asphalt were readily apparent.


    Phil was busy looking at the tread marks, trying to imagine how fast the car had to have been going to create such long streaks, but he couldn¡¯t.


    When he looked back, he saw Misha just standing there, over the remains of the wreckage, her right hand out, and her eyes closed in concentration as she seemed to focus on the remains.


    That¡¯s when she asked the craziest question imaginable.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    Revenge is an alien concept, one that a Psycher long ago was taught to dismiss. Revenge by itself is irrational, a waste of energy, and ultimately can blind one to the true way things are meant to go.


    However, things had changed. Whether it was this new body, the forced hybridization of her Psycher profile and this Bakshee organo-tech body, but either way the result was there. Misha, despite all her training, despite her need to lay low and gain as much insight as she could into Bakshee fundamentals, she felt true emotions.


    Rage.


    If she had to point out the one emotion that was currently driving her it would be rage. Not the crazy manic rage that so many Bakshee are prone to exhibit. This was not the lash out wildly and strike at an enemy and inflict as much damage in a self-destructive manner.


    Instead, this was Psycher rage, cold, defined and logical.


    Why she was here, and how she suddenly found herself in this state was both obvious and slightly wanting in its simplicity. Bakshee, always known for their baser desires had found a wounded creature and killed that creature.


    Of this Misha was positive, as the scent and unmistakable musk of Bakshee Warrior, or Werewolf genetic material was present all along the driver¡¯s side door of her grandmother¡¯s vehicle. The scent of a newly awakening warrior was also present throughout the entire murder field, and that is what happened. It was a fact that her grandmother had been murdered, no, not just murdered. She had been hunted down, disabled, and then left to bleed to death on the side of the road.


    Psycher Rage.


    The more she thought about the conditions, the more she took in and understood the effects of what was happening, the more Misha realized that justice would need to be delivered.


    In the civilized universe, peacekeepers would come in and deal with the situation, finding relevant parties and doling out punishments. While this planet was not at the same level as the Intergalactic Federation, they did have a court system.


    However, the court system here was often unable to truly deal with problems to a satisfactory level. This was why Misha began to make plans to ensure that justice was dealt out adequately.


    For now, she would gain evidence, find out who was involved, and then make her move. By the end of this, Misha wished to prove one thing, Psycher rage was a state that one never wanted a true Psycher to reach, ever again.


    ¡°You find anything?¡± Phil, Misha¡¯s grandfather asked.


    Phil too was broken, having lost the love of his life, it was clear that he was barely hanging on. If not for the constant pushing of Misha, he likely would have given up, or begin the process of self-extinguishing, the process where his inner fire ultimately fades to nothing.


    ¡°I¡¯ve found plenty.¡± Misha said.


    Right now, it was just the two of them. Andrea had gone off to be with Frank who was a good help all things considered. Which meant that it was Misha¡¯s job to do two things, first find out who did this, and second to make sure her grandfather didn¡¯t follow his now ex-wife¡¯s path.


    Hearing her, Phil sparked to life, as the first sign of his inner fire glowed within his eyes. This was the brightest his curiosity had sparked since this whole thing began.


    ¡°What did you find?¡± Phil asked, a note of curiosity in his voice as he looked at Misha, his eyes wide with hope.


    ¡°Depends, just how far are you willing to go with me to get justice?¡± Misha asked.


    With that Phil paused, looking at Misha like she was speaking gibberish.


    ¡°Justice?¡±


    ¡°Yes, justice. You and I both know that the lacerations on her neck were not caused by broken glass, despite what the coroner said. Also, you and I both know that the vehicle that did this, had to have sustained damages, despite being able to drive off.¡± She said coldly, as she pointed to the wide-open stretch of road that looked different under the glowing light of the sun.


    ¡°Do you know who did this?¡± Phil asked, a slight rising light to his internal flame sparked as it was clear that this was a topic he cared deeply about.


    ¡°Yes. Now the question is, do wish to help, or do you wish to just rest and assume the world will work itself out?" Misha was probing, she already knew the answer she expected, but she just wanted to hear him say the words.


    ***


    (Phil Tulley)


    Badump, badump, badump.


    Hearing this, something deep within Phil stirred to life, as he realized that this was what he wanted. Deep in his heart, he knew that this was not something that Julie would want, but she wasn¡¯t here. She would never be around again to speak out against injustices of the world, or bad actions.


    Right now Phil had a choice, he could either accept what happened to Julie, go back to his shrine and slowly die a little more each day. Or he could move on, help his granddaughter and exact the justice that he felt was befitting such a crime.


    ¡°She was killed?¡± Phil asked, though he already knew the answer. Something about the events seemed odd, the spots of blood on the road that had not had a chance to be washed away told the story that was separate of an accident victim.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Hearing that resolute answer, Phil just nodded to himself, then finally answered. ¡°Okay, what exactly do you have in mind?¡±

 Chapter 29 Psyops

    Chapter 29


    Psyops


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    The time had come and passed since Amoni had been both kicked off the team, and once again been able to drive her beloved van. In an ideal world, Amoni would have been off suspension for hitting a teammate, been accepted back to the starting squad, and been given her vehicle back.


    There was of course just one problem, well multiple problems if Amoni was being truly honest with herself. First, while Amoni was no longer suspended from the team, she had been demoted to the betas, yes, her coveted starter position had been stripped from her.


    Coach even went so far as to say, ¡°you lost your position by your own actions, now you have to earn it back from your own actions.¡±


    Amoni had taken that to be Coach¡¯s speech for, ¡°prove that you deserve to be a starter and you will once again be a starter. Until such a point, you will be the first one off the bench.¡±


    In the past, Amoni would have brushed off such thoughts easily. Yet, the message had been clear, the new girl had not only stolen her spot, but she was the one that Amoni needed to now beat, in order to regain her coveted position.


    That was the first major problem. While she had served her suspension, she now had a long road uphill to get back to where she was.


    To make matters worse her cousin Jerome had apparently hit a deer or something, what did that have to do with Amoni? Well good question, apparently it meant that her van, which she let him borrow for a pack thing, was now MIA. How messed up is that, he hits something while driving her van, the van he has been using since the start of school, and suddenly he has the audacity to demand his car back?


    Worse, the entire pack seems to agree to this, as Jerome got his father to talk to Amoni¡¯s father, and now it is a political problem. While her father promised to work something out, to either get her vehicle fixed, or get her a new vehicle, but unfortunately such acts would take time.


    Then, to make matters worse, she now had to either take the bus to school, or sit in the lap of Roger, the newest sycophant of Jerome¡¯s little crew.


    Needless to say, the bus sucked. Amoni had to wake up thirty minutes earlier, to arrive barely on time.


    The worst part of it all, Amoni had been replaced.


    Rather than having to ride the bus in solidarity with the other members of her pack, they all ditched her like rats from a sinking ship, and got a ride with the new girl. The very girl who had gotten her suspended and taken her position on the team.


    Freaking traitors.


    To make matters worse, those traitors had no loyalty. Not even K-Bar seemed to understand the level of betrayal, saying ¡°look it is just a ride. She even offered to pick you up as well.¡±


    As if Amoni Jacobs would ever lower herself to ride in some two-bit instigator¡¯s ride.


    Seething.


    Rage was building up, burning just under Amoni¡¯s skin. The more she thought about the injustices that had been levied against her, the more she thought about things, the more she felt true rage, coped with utter helplessness. Never in her whole life had she ever felt so obsolete.


    For the longest time, she had been the pillar of the school. A model student, a starter on the basketball team, and able to drive her own vehicle and be the sole ride for her fellow teammates. Then in the course of a week, ever since that new girl came, she had been dropped off her pedestal. Not only had she lost her position, and her car, but now that same new girl was even taking her spot as the smartest in the class.


    Ping.


    To make matters even more annoying, Amoni was now being stalked by a cyber stalker. For now, her phone kept getting blown up by random numbers and users who all asked her the same annoying question.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 21.8378%; background-color: rgba(126, 140, 141, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">God: Where is your van?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 39.3514%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%; text-align: right">A: Bitch if I knew do you think I would be riding the bus?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    That was Amoni¡¯s typical response, before she would go and block the user. Unfortunately, the person she had annoyed, or who now took delight in annoying her was persistent, as even after blocking the one account they would come back with more, all asking the same question. When Amoni contacted the phone company to get this person to stop, the company had no records of any messages being sent to Amoni¡¯s phone.


    What was worse, was that now her once favorite class was slowly turning into a nightmare. AP Physics was slowly turning into, how amazing the new girl is at math. She was now even asked to help with handing out assignments and asked to help others who were having a harder time grasping the materials.


    Of course, all the boys in the class feel for the act almost immediately. Half of whom lost their minds, even Peter pretended to lose his mind as he just wanted the girl to come over and check his answers.


    Seeing as how everyone was basically drooling over the new girl, it only made Amoni hate the girl more. As no one ever drooled over Amoni when she was asked to be the class helper, not that she would let anyone drool over her, but still it would be nice to be appreciated at least once.


    ¡°Toady, we will have a pop-quiz to see how well you all would do on a cumulative test. There are four sections that will be covered, everything from Area to Slope, to Ohm¡¯s Law.¡± Dr. Cahill, the physics professor stated.


    Then he handed out the nine question quiz.


    Groan.


    As the first set of students looked at the problems, the other students began to moan in unison.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, this is all I have for you today. Once you are done with this, you can consider the rest to be a study hall period.¡± Dr. Cahill stated reassuringly.


    Amoni got the page and instantly inhaled. The problems were not impossible, but were clearly tough. Just looking at them showed they would take a few minutes just to figure out what each question was asking and then trying to remember the different mathematical formulas to solve each type of equation would be time consuming.


    Out of the corner of her eye, Amoni watched the new girl, waiting for the moment that she crumpled her shoulders in defeat.


    Yet, that moment of commemorative misery was lost. As the new girl, seemed to not have an issue with the questions being asked, and instead went and began answering the questions almost instantly.


    Seeing that, Amoni grimaced, wondering if the new girl had somehow cheated. Still, she would be the girl at her own game. Focusing, she went and began solving the first problem before her.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 12.1081%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Part 1:


    <ul>


    <li>W, H.</li>


    </ul>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Those were the answers for Width and Height that were missing from the seemingly easy to solve problem. Then from there, the rest of the questions always felt easier. While the problems were tougher after the first one, having that first success under your belt was always a good confidence booster.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 9.94595%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    <ul>


    <li>3</li>


    <li>R3</li>


    </ul>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Paper rustling.


    No sooner had Amoni finished the first section, than she heard papers being rustled. With a quick glance she saw that it was the new girl getting up and taking her paper to the teacher. Seeing that, Amoni inwardly smiled, realizing that the new girl likely had to go up to ask about a particular problem.


    ¡°Oh, you are done already?¡± Dr. Cahill asked surprised.


    With that, not just Amoni, but everyone else looked up in astonishment as well.


    ¡°Uh, yeah, these all seem to be in order. You can head off to your next class, or if you want, you can stay and help.¡± Dr. Cahill said, gesturing to the podium at the front of the classroom where Dr. Cahill generally gave his lectures, not at the desk that he was currently sitting behind.


    With that, Amoni felt the strain of being left behind, and forced herself to press through.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 16.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Part 2:


    <ul>


    <li>15</li>


    </ul>


    Part 3:


    <ul>


    <li>Y=0</li>


    <li>U</li>


    <li>R</li>


    </ul>


    Part 4:


    <ul>


    <li>V4</li>


    <li>N</li>


    </ul>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    There, she was done. Amoni took a mental breath, letting her mind relax. A quick scan of the room showed that everyone else was still working, only the freak was done.


    Having stopped, the freak looked up from whatever she was doing and made eye contact with Amoni.


    Chills.


    As Amoni¡¯s eyes locked with the new girl¡¯s, Amoni felt fear. There was a barely controlled fury that seemed to reside in that gaze. A gaze that spoke volumes about contempt.


    Suddenly, whatever Amoni had been thinking she felt towards the girl seemed to be nothing compared to the hostility that seemed to be radiating from the new girl.


    Smugly, Amoni got up and defiantly went to the new girl with her answer sheet.


    The girl for her part seemed cold, but with a glance down at the sheet nodded in approval.


    ¡°Good job. Looks like you got those right,¡± the new girl stated.


    With that Amoni confidently smiled to herself as she began taking her paper from the girl and was about to take it to Dr. Cahill, when she asked something that almost sounded like gibberish given the context.


    ¡°You just have one last question to answer.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Amoni asked.


    ¡°Where is it?¡±


    ¡°Where is what?¡± Amoni asked, feeling both mentally tired and not wanting to deal with this crazy girl.


    ¡°Look at your answers and see what question they ask.¡±


    ¡°What are you?¡± Amoni began, but then looked at her paper and mentally put together all the answers for each section, only then did she see the tenth and final question.


    As she stared at the answers, it was clear that each part seemed to form a word that when put together made a phrase, and that phrase sent chills down Amoni¡¯s spine.


    WH3R3 15 Y=0UR V4N?


    Badump, badump, badump.


    As her mind comprehended the question, Amoni felt her mind race as she saw the same question that kept getting sent to her phone.


    ERRRK.


    Suddenly the rumbling movement of the bus stopped, and Amoni noticed the movement of others around her. Suddenly she realized where she was, she was on the bus. Apparently, she had fallen asleep on the long meandering ride to school.


    To make matters worse, not only had she fallen asleep on the bus, but she had dreamed about taking a pop quiz in class.


    ¡°This sucks,¡± Amoni muttered to herself, looking around the parking lot only to find her car parked in Jerome¡¯s normal spot. Again, she wondered what exactly happened that made it so Jerome got his car back, while Amoni¡¯s van was now missing.


    As she arose, she felt a crink in her neck from having to slump over on the hardened pleather that smelled of farts, sweat, and broken dreams. Everything that seemed to perfectly epitomize the typical high school experience. An experience that Amoni now herself had to be a participant of.


    Bzzz.


    Then just at that moment, she got another text. ¡°Now I¡¯m even dreaming about being in class, while the bus, how lame,¡± Amoni admonished herself as she got up, not even wanting to look at the message that she knew was on the screen.


    Still, after a few moments, curiosity won out, all but forcing her to see the new message that awaited her.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 24.2162%; background-color: rgba(126, 140, 141, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">G0d: WH3R3 15 Y0UR V4N?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the message, only two words came to Amoni¡¯s mind to express exactly what she was feeling. Her dream had all but given her the same exact question, written out the same exact way.


    ¡°What the¡­¡±

 Chapter 30 Technonic Dreaming

    Chapter 30


    Technonic Dreaming


    (Misha Tulley)


    Phew.


    Misha let out a sigh of relief as her mind felt like it was reaching its peak. It had been a while since she pushed herself to such an extent.


    The idea she had was a sound one, if a little unconventional by Psycher standards. Her goal had been to transfer her consciousness twice, once from her own mind through the phone infrastructure of this world, then to find one initial access point and transmit her consciousness to an otherwise stationary victim, where she could force a hallucinogenic dream.


    In her trials of the new method, Misha realized three things. The first was that this world was so infantile that it let every segment of the world be connected to every other segment of the world. Not just once but multiple redundancies of connections were present, in case one particular neural world network segment got taken down or compromised.


    The second thing Misha realized was that transferring her mental consciousness from an organic structure (herself), to a mechanical structure (the phone network), back to an organic structure (Amoni) was possible, if not a bit taxing. Clearly there were ways Misha could try to work on and improve her technique, possibly ways to use the energy of the phone systems themselves to amplify and charge her powers, but for a simple test run, this was good enough.


    The third thing that Misha realized was that Amoni for her part was seemingly not involved with what happened to her grandmother, which was good as retribution would need to be absolute.


    Now the only problem came with finding out exactly who was involved in the acts, though Misha had her guess, she wanted to be confident in her conviction. Just because she was here on a planet that had not yet conformed to the official code of conduct of all Intergalactic Space Faring races yet, didn¡¯t mean that she herself hadn¡¯t signed those very accords thousand of years ago.


    As a matter of honor, she needed to be resolute in her convictions before delivering punishments. To herself and others, she needed to ensure the following, before delivering punishments.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 94.4865%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Intergalactic Rules of Engagement:


    <ul>


    <li> For any action, one should expect an equal and proportional reaction.</li>


    <li> In the case of a crime committed outside the typical senses of an executing officer, proof of the crime must be made available in an unaltered form via a brain scan upon first contact with an Intergalactic Governing body.</li>


    <li> A Psycher is considered to be an executing officer and intergalactic peace keeper until otherwise stripped of their position or title.</li>


    </ul>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Those commandments were what drove Misha to her conclusion. Normally, in the case of prejudicial ties to a crime a Psycher would renounce their role as executioner and give the action to another Psycher or governing body. Unfortunately, there were no other governing bodies than Misha, meaning she had to dole out a punishment that was proportional, while also having irrefutable proof of a crime having been committed.


    Now that she had proven that her ability to conduct an interrogation by inducing Lucid Dreaming could be done at a distance to people, Misha began to formulate a plan for revenge.


    ***


    (Rodger Lee)


    Sweat.


    Ever since that night, Rodger had felt both alive and trapped. He felt alive in the fact that his mind, his body, and even his soul had all been infused. He was blooded, apparently changing his hands into claws and providing a quick scratch to the seriously disabled lady was enough.


    With that act he had proven himself to be a killer to not only himself, but to the pack spirits as well.


    Honestly, it had all sounded like some made up mumbo-jumbo to him when he first heard about it. The only reason he even tried to entertain the idea was due to Alishia, and that was really only because she was easy. Well easy to those who were pack members, for everyone else they had no chance at the veritable goddess.


    In fact, it had been Alishia that had been the one to both push him out of the van in the first place, and the first one to welcome him back with an amazing kiss after the action had been completed.


    Trembling.


    In a moment his mind was back to the moment just after.


    The woman had been unconscious, and likely would have died from the injuries she had already sustained. What he had done was a mercy killing, putting the old hag down before she had time to fully suffer. It wasn¡¯t like she was young and had her whole life before her, instead she was old, with wrinkled skin and liver spots.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Swipe.


    As he walked back to the van, he felt a warm sticky substance on his fingers that he invariably tried to shake off, to no avail.


    He got back in, not wanting to touch anywhere, lest he spread the blood around Jerome¡¯s van. Well it was Jerome¡¯s cousin¡¯s van, there was some weird family dynamics that he couldn¡¯t quite understand, but suffice to say, he mentally understood the need to stop spreading blood everywhere. Having watched enough crime investigation shows he knew at least this much.


    Though right now, he could smell the blood, which was making him both nauseous, while also awakening a primal side to himself.


    ¡°Let me see,¡± Alishia said excitedly, grabbing Rodger by the wrist and all but looking at the blood still pouring down his hand.


    Glowing eyes.


    Her eyes glowed yellow for a moment. In that instant he knew her for the predator she was and always had been.


    A primal part of Rodger told him to pull his hand away. While another, more feral part of his mind told him to wait and see.


    He was glad he listened to that feral part of his mind, for what happened next was amazing.


    The van had already begun to drive away, but all Rodger could feel at the moment was his heart beating as Alishia began sucking the blood off of each of his fingers. An act that simultaneously disgusted and aroused him in equal measures.


    Then, once the blood had been cleaned off of his fingers, she licked his palm, then the back his hands. After a moment they locked eyes, one of her hands gripped his wrist so he couldn¡¯t move, the other went about licking her own fingers seductively before him, as she too was now licking away the blood that had somehow gotten onto her fingers. Likely transfer stains from Rodger¡¯s hand, while she was maneuvering his hand about to clean it thoroughly.


    After that, she just stared at him, her eyes glowing a possessive shade of blue. Then before he knew what was happening she reached down to his waistline. For a moment he half expected the best, only to be immediately disappointed when her hands stopped and gripped at the hem of his shirt. However that disappointment was short lived, as she quickly pulled up his shirt, freeing his left arm, and head, and letting the shirt drape over his right hand.


    There she stopped.


    Here he was, in the van of the coolest kids of the school, being teased by the schools most beautiful woman, and he was there with his shirt off, skin exposed to the howling wind that crept through the broken windows, but none of that mattered. In fact, this moment was the first time he truly felt alive.


    At the time Rodger didn¡¯t know what he wanted to happen. He half expected the shirt to be fully taken off, but was somewhat confused when Alishia wrapped his shirt around his hand.


    Looking down, Rodger was confused, as he saw Alishia work her hands quickly to wrap up his hand, before tying the end to a knot.


    ¡°There, now you must keep your hand wrapped, until we get to the bonfire.¡±


    ¡°Bonfire?¡± Rodger asked.


    ¡°Yes, the bonfire, where we will burn away all your clothes and ties to this night.¡± Alishia stated.


    Rodger didn¡¯t know exactly what this all meant, and a part of his mind told him that this was dangerous, he had just committed murder. Though again he tried to rationalize it to himself, that the person he killed was done as a mercy killing. Just like hitting a deer with your car, it would be heartless to leave the deer out on the road to slowly die from its wounds. What he had done was no different, a mercy killing, at least that was what he tried to tell himself.


    However, all semblance for self-doubt was quickly lost as he found Alishia suddenly caressing and straddling him there in the back of Jerome¡¯s van.


    ¡°This will be a good night.¡± Alishia hissed in his ear, before biting down on that same ear.


    And it had been a good night, the best night, actually.


    All he remembered was the pack driving the broken van to an empty field, where they torched it, not wanting to leave any signs of a crime.


    Rodger looked on with shock at what he was seeing, then was especially shocked when he saw Alishia and the other girls throwing their clothes into the broken windows of the van that were burning brightly.


    ¡°What is happening?¡± Rodger found himself asking, his mind only now waking from a semi-haze that had seemed to cloud his better judgement for most of the night.


    ¡°We are burning our clothes. We were out skinny dipping, when someone stole our van, sideswiped and killed an old lady, then burned the vehicle to hide any evidence of a crime.¡± Jerome said calmly as he too began taking off his pants and throwing them into the fire. Now only a set of white boxer shorts remained of Jerome¡¯s clothes, but those too were quickly discarded.


    ¡°What are we doing?¡± Rodger asked.


    ¡°This is a formal indoctrination.¡± Alishia began, then coming up to Rodger she looked him square in the eyes and asked. ¡°Do you want this?¡±


    Seeing her there in all her glory, Rodger couldn¡¯t help but be excited, ¡°yes.¡±


    He managed to say, then before he knew it, Alishia¡¯s form began to change and morph before his eyes. Again, part of his primal mind told him to run, to be frightened, but just as he managed to try to move, a massive clawed hand grabbed him around the bicep.


    Rodger was about to scream to cry out, but before he could, he felt massive jaws bite down on his neck and jugular.


    The next thing he remembered was waking up naked in a field that was far removed from the burn site. He woke up cuddled next to Alishia, who had taken the form of big spoon.


    As he awoke, his senses were heightened, he could smell the remnants of sex and smoke and violence that permeated both himself and Alishia.


    A quick scan showed that he was not alone, as others were also in the field.


    When he finally sat up to regain his composure, he wondered if everything had been a dream.


    Then with a shock, he looked down at his hand that seemed to still radiate with blood energy, but was visibly clean. Only now did he stop to ask himself, ¡°what have I done?¡±


    Stagger.


    Rodger rocketed awake in an instant. One second, he was passed out, somehow able to relive the vivid details of that night clearly in a dream. The next second, he realized he was awake in class.


    Snigger.


    As he finally regained his bearings, he looked around the room to find that he was in class.


    Phew.


    Rodger¡¯s heart was racing, even now as he tried to slowly calm himself down. ¡°It had looked and felt so real,¡± Rodger thought to himself.


    Only after a few minutes did he look around the classroom to find that the school¡¯s new red head was there, what was her name again? Michelle? Something. Anyways, while he was able to mostly avoid the gazes of others, he felt his newly enhanced senses warning him to be careful with the new girl.


    However, given his recent actions, he felt that this just meant she was a challenge that should also be conquered, just like Alishia.


    Bzzz.


    The school bell rang, signaling the end of class.


    Rodger watched as the red head gathered her things, and purposefully seemed to avoid making any eye contact with him. With that, his primal instincts took over, seeing her as a weak lamb trying to escape, which was why he felt emboldened to make his move.


    ¡°Hello there pretty lady, I don¡¯t think we have been properly introduced.¡± Rodger said, going in for as much charm and charisma as possible.


    When she stopped and turned, Rodger locked gazes with the girl and for a second, he felt his heart stop as he locked eyes with the green-eyed goddess.


    Badump, badump, badump.


    Rodger¡¯s heart raced with excitement or fear, or both, Rodger couldn¡¯t be certain, all he could tell for sure was that he needed to know this girl, to have this girl.


    And so he waited as she just stared at him, then finally she spoke.


    ¡°No, we haven¡¯t,¡± she said, and like that, adrenaline and hormone infused pheromones flooded Rodger¡¯s body as he went in for the kill.


    ¡°Well, then I am Rodger Lee, a pleasure to meet you.¡±


    With that the red head nodded, before turning.


    ¡°Wait, and you are?¡±


    ¡°Late for class,¡± the red head spat out as she turned and made her way down the hall.


    As she turned herself again, a feral smile crested Rodger¡¯s lips as he now felt a certain thrill with the hunt. Within a second Rodger was following the girl down the wrong hallway, stalking his prey.


    And like that, the hunt was on.


    Little did he realize that he was the one who was soon to be hunted.

 Chapter 31 Opening The Box

    Chapter 31


    Opening The Box


    (Phil Tulley)


    This was not what she would have wanted.


    Then again, he also knew that she would have wanted him to protect Misha as best as possible. The only way he felt that he could do so was to stay by her side.


    Thus, the only option he had was to choose to go with Misha, even if it meant ultimately angering the ghost of his true love. Not that she was around to be able to complain anymore. That was what hurt the most, that deep dull ache that welled up inside.


    What only served to make matters worse was how deep he had suddenly found himself. Drawn in by his granddaughter, who all but lured him here. No lure wasn¡¯t the correct term, guided would probably be a more accurate description, though directed would also suffice.


    Essentially, she knew what she was doing, and she struck when he was the most vulnerable to such statements. The fact that he found himself here was no question, as he knew if given the option between blissful ignorance or complete knowledge, he would, like Adam, choose knowledge over all other options.


    In a way, one could say that this conclusion was almost biblical in nature, as everyone Phil could think of would jump at the chance to know, to truly know what happened. Even if she had asked later, and Phil wasn¡¯t so emotionally attached, he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would make the same exact choice again. The fact that he wanted, no, that he needed to know.


    That night, when they had gotten back from the hospital, it was just Misha and him. Andrea, his daughter, has gone back to the motel room with that Frank guy. Normally Phil would have hated such conditions, but it was good that she had someone to talk to at the time. Also, from what he could tell, Frank was a decent guy, as such he couldn¡¯t really hold too much against his daughter for trying.


    ¡°So who did it?¡± Phil finally asked.


    By now he had come to expect his granddaughter of a great many things. The fact that she knew what actually happened when the cops supposedly had no clear leads was not unbelievable. In fact, according to the cops it was a rando wound caused by glass fragments that caught and tore Julie¡¯s neck and carotid artery. Despite no clear sign of where the glass came from, nor how Julie managed to cut open her neck after the vehicle had come to a complete stop.


    No, the more Phil thought about it, the more he realized that his granddaughter was correct, that something was happening.


    Finally, they sat at the dining room table and sat quietly, staring at each other.


    Misha¡¯s cold vibrant green eyes seemed to glow with their unearthly vigor.


    Silence.


    She sat there staring at Phil, waiting for him to finally break the cloud of secrecy that had somehow fallen on their house.


    ¡°So you say you know who did this?¡± Phil finally began.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Misha answered then after a pause continued, ¡°now the only question is how much do you truly want to know?¡±


    Pause.


    Phil stood still, hearing the words and judging his granddaughter¡¯s face. While she was normally considered to be emotionless and stoic beyond her years, Phil had found that he could read her. In fact, he was one of the few people alive who could come close to actually being close to figuring out what Misha was thinking at any given time, that or if he couldn¡¯t figure out what she was thinking, then he could very easily figure out what she would do.


    This time, he didn¡¯t know what she was thinking, though he could extrapolate a few things on what she might do.


    ¡°Let me guess, if I don¡¯t help you, you will go on doing what you need to do, without me?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Misha answered, the word cold and echoing within the dining room.


    At that Phil paused and mused to himself.


    ¡°So this is the proverbial Pandora¡¯s box?¡± Phil mused mostly to himself.


    A look of confusion crossed Misha¡¯s face, but only for a moment as she seemed to contemplate the statement.


    ¡°You could say that, by opening this box you will find out about all the monsters that have already been unleashed upon the world. By just realizing the existence of the contents of the box, you will be subjected to knowing that monsters, true monsters exist within this world.¡± Misha answered.


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    If anyone else had made such bold claims, Phil would have scoffed at them, as this was close to some melodramatic poetry reading, at least that is what Phil would claim as his excuse to leave here now. Then again, he already knew she was right, as the girl before him could create fires, with her mind. Considering that effect, the idea of true monsters existing in the darkness didn¡¯t seem too far of a stretch.


    Chuckle.


    ¡°Let me guess, if you show me the contents of the box, we will also find the hope that is hidden at the bottom?¡± Phil asked, semi-delirious at this point, as his mind felt like it was near the breaking point.


    Head shake.


    Misha shook her head no, ¡°I will not lie. The box has been opened for a long time, if there was hope at one point hidden within the box, it has likely been taken away or destroyed. No, if you find any hope within the box, it will be one that you create and strive for on your own. Your hope that you can prevent this from happening to someone else. Your hope that you can avenge your wife¡¯s death. Your hope that things will be better, after this.¡±


    Silence.


    Phil didn¡¯t know what to say to that. As always, the thing he loved and hated about his granddaughter was the fact that she didn¡¯t yammer on incessantly. Instead, she gave an honest answer and then was quiet. Now the reason he hated this, was that it forced him to reflect inwardly on what was happening, on what he wanted to happen.


    The fact that the girl before him was really his only remaining tether to this world was not lost on him. Afte Jules, there was just Misha, even he was not so lost at to miss this fact. The fact that it was clear she was ready to go out on her own, without him, to avenge Jules, well that also caused a minor battle of personal contempt to go off within him.


    ¡°To be clear, regardless of whether I choose to join you or not, you will still go about this course of action. But you will just do so alone and without me?¡± Phil asked, trying to buy time, but wanting to make sure he hadn¡¯t missed Misha¡¯s clues.


    Nod.


    ¡°That is correct,¡± Misha answered, while nodding, the head movement was something she only did when she wanted to stress a point. The fact that she chose now to do such a gesture was not lost on Phil.


    After a few moments of contemplation, Phil finally came to the conclusion that he needed to know one last thing before he continued.


    ¡°All right, say we are in this. You and I know there are monsters out there, we know monsters killed Jules and left her to die like a stuck pig on the side of the road. We know all this, and we even know that the police around here are too incompetent to stop them. What would we do to stop this? What would our role in this be?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°Your role would be as a facilitator, and an alibi when needed.¡± Misha answered, making sure to give time for this information to settle in.


    After a moment Phil nodded, whether this was a subconscious gesture of understanding, or an overt attempt to inform Misha that he was okay with this explanation, Phil didn¡¯t know, as he was mostly lost in his own musings at this point.


    ¡°As for what we would do, the answer to that is quite simple. We would fix this problem like we do most problems.¡±


    At that Phil found himself repeating the words, his lips moving in a way that was reminiscent of a fish trying to breathe on land. Seeing him lost in thought, Misha continued.


    ¡°We would destroy the problem at the root.¡±


    With that Phil paused as he wondered ¡°just how far down do these roots go?¡±


    ¡°Pretty far,¡± Misha answered in a tone that said she was underselling this point by a lot.


    ¡°And what exactly would we do to remove these problems, roots and all?¡±


    At that Misha just paused, then finally demanded confirmation on the unspoken question. ¡°Are you in?¡±


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m in. They took Jules, and lord knows if I don¡¯t do anything they will take you too. No, I am in. Now tell me, what do you need me to do?¡±


    ¡°First, we need to build a better hen house.¡± Misha answered.


    ¡°Hen house, what for?¡±


    ¡°To attract a wolf.¡±


    ***


    (Rodger Lee)


    He was being played. The worst part is, he knew it, and yet couldn¡¯t seem to do anything to stop it. For some reason, call it luck, happenstance or sheer happenstance, every time Rodger turned around there she was, the new girl.


    Each time he saw her, he could almost feel his pulse begin to race as baser instincts within him began to rise to the challenge before him.


    For his part, Rodger was still getting used to the recent changes of becoming a werewolf. He had always been strong, but now he felt immeasurably powerful. He felt strength and power in equal parts that made him feel like he could conquer the world. This was why, or at least part of why his mind could not seem to handle the fact that the girl that he wanted had rejected him.


    Then to make matters worse, not only had she rejected him, somehow easily managing to slip away from him despite him having found and blocked her in the hallway. He then had the misfortune of seeing her everywhere he went.


    Shoes squeaking on a gym floor.


    There was the unmistakable sound of tennis shoes scraping on a freshly polished gym floor that seemed to cause even more issues for Rodger, who was now dealing with heightened senses.


    There in the court was the girls basketball team, clearly in the middle of a practice, as the coach was there directing them and yelling out actions to take.


    As he watched the scrimmage, he saw the new girl seem to gracefully glide across the court. It was clear that she had practiced smooth transitions from standing still, to explosive movements. While it was clear that she wasn¡¯t stronger than the other girls, she didn¡¯t need to be, as her hands and feet seemed to make her glide about the floor.


    ¡°Hey man, stop gawking at my cousin, or you will be late for practice.¡± Jerome said, coming in and catching Rodger staring red handed at the girls.


    With a shock Rodger wanted to protest, as he hadn¡¯t been staring at the cousin, but at the girl who was guarding his cousin, the red head.


    ¡°No, I was watching her.¡±


    ¡°Oh the new girl,¡± Jerome said, then paused to stare at Rodger. Then after a second, he seemed to come to a conclusion, ¡°you need to stay away from her man.¡±


    Whistle.


    ¡°Good job, now take a break.¡± Coach Green yelled out to the team. With that the team began to break apart, each member getting their water bottles and drinking from them religiously.


    ¡°Why is she taken?¡± Rodger asked, while exclusivity was accepted by the Alphas, it wasn¡¯t a hard and fast rule. This was something that had drawn Rodger to the lifestyle to begin with.


    ¡°Hah. No, she is definitely not taken.¡± Jerome answered with a scoff, but then continued. ¡°That said, I think you want to avoid her if you can.¡±


    Then as if she overhead the private conversation between the two, Misha looked up and locked eyes with both Jerome and Rodger, staring at each with a cold intensity for a few seconds, before turning her back on the two.


    ¡°See what I told you. You need to get yourself a good girl and not deal with that type of trash.¡± Jerome said.


    With that Rodger paused, then he asked the question that had been on his mind all afternoon. ¡°What happens if we make her one?¡±


    ¡°What like pack?¡± Jerome asked.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°No way man, she is not of the life.¡± Jerome answered.


    ¡°Not yet, but she could be.¡±


    ¡°Ha,¡± Jerome replied, ¡°but seriously I would avoid her at all costs.¡±


    ¡°But I am allowed one right?¡± Rodger asked.


    ¡°You are talking about the pass for admission?¡± Jerome asked.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Jerome shook his head, ¡°you can, but it will be a bad day if it doesn¡¯t work out, if you know what I mean.¡±


    ¡°But I could use it on her?¡± Rodger asked.


    ¡°Yeah, I mean I guess, but it might be a waste.¡± Jerome replied, then pausing like an older brother he gave more. ¡°You need to be really certain about the pass that you provide. As it is not just a matter of them, but the fact that you are offering up part of yourself as well in this process.¡± Jerome replied.


    With that Rodger was about to say more, but Jerome cut him off.


    ¡°Come on, we are already late.¡± Jerome replied, tapping Rodger on the chest to get his attention before leaving the gym.


    Rodger began moving towards the exit that led to the football field out back, but paused for a moment to take one last look at the new girl. As he did, he saw that she too had taken that exact moment to stare back at him. Their eyes met, and he saw a fiery resolve in those eyes that made him relish the idea of the hunt.


    Yeah, I think she might be the one, Rodger thought to himself as he made for the exit.


    Little did he know, he was responding exactly the way Misha had anticipated.

 Chapter 32 Fast Times and Faster Prices (Amoni Jacobs)

    Chapter 32


    Fast Times and Faster Prices


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    Amoni sat, knees tucked tightly to her chest as she was wedged between K-Bar, and J-Sweep, in the leather lined back seat of the new girl¡¯s Mustang GT. Two-Tone, the largest of the team had managed to gain shotgun, and thus avoided being cramped in the back seat. Not that the car was particularly small, but rather so many of them crammed into one spot made it so their long legs all but collided with each other as they all tried to give as much space as possible to each other. The only problem was that each of them were huge, even the new girl was long and gangly.


    ¡°Thanks again for taking us.¡± Two-Tone said.


    With that the new girl just nodded, though her actions seemed odd, almost as if they were forced in some way. There was something off about the gesture, there was a slight pause in her muscles, the time before she responded was also off. Not so far off that a normal person wouldn¡¯t seem to notice, but slow for Misha.


    For the briefest of moments Amoni wondered if Misha was some sort of immigrant, someone non-native to the states. That would make sense as to why she was so off about most things, seemingly separate. This would also explain her weird skills and fundamentals, as one of the moves she used during practice was clearly what was referred to as the Euro-step. While Americans had taken to using such a move, the way she uses the inside mis-direction step is seamless. Then even when you counter the feint, she is able to quickly adjust and fire within seconds. The only way to do that is to have practiced the moves and counters over and over to perfection.


    With all the evidence that Amoni could identify, she was now almost certain that this girl before them was from Europe or somewhere. If she was, then her actions would make sense, she might have even been scouted, find a tall European with decent basketball acumen, groom her for an elite college program.


    The idea seemed fantastical, but there were many odd stories that people heard, particularly when it came to recruiting basketball players from other countries. Even the idea of Misha being brought over a year early to help integrate properly didn¡¯t seem like too much of a stretch for Amoni to consider.


    With Misha being a foreigner so many minor things would make so much sense, the way she seemed almost clueless to the dangerous pack members that now surrounded her. Granted they were all happy to get a ride from the girl, but Misha seemed to be totally uncaring about the lurking threat of being surrounded by so many predators.


    Even the most unobservant of normies, or those who were not pack members felt an instinctual fear of being around fellow pack members. Yet, this girl not so much.


    In fact, this girl seemed to have no sense of preservation. Though not that she really needed to be preserved, as she met every challenge head on, which was as commendable as it was annoying. Annoying in that Amoni had met very few people who dared to challenge her, and of those that did, only this girl and Jerome had managed to actually stand up against her.


    Finally, through her own thoughts, Amoni realized that entire conversations were going on around her. Conversations that meant almost nothing.


    ¡°Oh, look isn¡¯t that the new football star, Rodger?¡± J-Sweep asked from Amoni¡¯s right side.


    Screech.


    At that, the whole car came to a complete halt, as Amoni was able to see her car being driven by Jerome pull right next to their car. Well it wasn¡¯t really her car, but rather the car she had gotten used to driving and maintaining as her own over these past few months.


    ¡°Hey, ladies.¡± Jerome howled out in his annoyingly arrogant tone. Right now, just hearing her cousin made Amoni¡¯s blood boil, as he was driving her car. The whole reason why they all had to cram into the new girl¡¯s vehicle after practice was due to him.


    In fact, the more she thought about the time and circumstances.


    ¡°Damn Misha, do you have a thing for Rodger?¡± K-Bar asked from Amoni¡¯s right side.


    Flustered.


    There was a quick tightening of muscles, that almost looked like anger if Amoni had to guess the cause. With that, Amoni cut in, completely losing her train of thought about the new girl from being from Europe, and instead focusing on this new chink in her armor.


    ¡°Oh, wait, look at that, she is.¡± Amoni said mockingly, adding to the comment.


    Nothing.


    This time there were no flashes of anger from being called out on her attraction to the newest pack member. Instead, all she saw was calm.


    No, not true calm, but more of a forced calm that one would expect to see right before a storm. Honestly, Amoni didn¡¯t know what to think about the new girl¡¯s reaction.


    Red Light.


    Due to the sudden stopping, both cars ended up missing the green light and instead had to wait patiently at the red light.


    ¡°AWOOO!¡± Alishia cried out from Jerome¡¯s car.


    Hearing her, Amoni instantly recoiled in anger, as she hated that girl. She hated Alishia¡¯s striking good looks, her indomitable spirit, and the fact that she was clearly going to try to be her own Alpha. Right now, it was assumed that Jerome and Alishia would be co-alphas of the newest pack members, but Jerome was too stupid to see how much Alishia plotted behind his back.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    The one-time Amoni tried to warn her stupid cousin about the betrayal, he just laughed at her and called her jealous. That was why she had been mostly silent about the entire thing since, realizing that her words were falling on deaf ears, she chose to follow the wisdom of her father and not speak again, until he was willing to listen.


    Unfortunately, it had been months since they last spoke on any meaningful level. It seemed that Jerome was adamant that he only listened to Alishia, who he figured was aiming for the role of pack shaman. This was a fact that had been passed onto her in strictest confidence by other members of the pack earlier this week. In fact, she had only managed to confirm the allegations when she happened to overhear a conversation between Jerome and his father, the current pack chief.


    There he confessed that he doubted Amoni¡¯s commitment to the pack and felt that Alishia would be a better Shaman.


    ¡°The choice of who you choose as your shaman will ultimately be up to you. Just realize that until you surpass me, making firm decisions now on who you will choose and for which position is a waste. You should spend this time gaining strength, and prestige.¡± Mr. Jacobs said.


    That seemed to be enough for the day.


    The next of course is when something happened to Amoni¡¯s van. Something about an initiation gone wrong, which Amoni was still being left in the dark about, as her parents and her uncle were apparently handling the matter.


    ¡°We should totally race them.¡± Two-Tone said, her words pulling Amoni out from her musings.


    ¡°What?¡± Was all Amoni managed, but then before Amoni could formulate a challenge to the statement, J-Sweep was already rolling down the window and shouting at Jerome.


    ¡°Let¡¯s race sucker!¡± J-Sweep shouted.


    ¡°You¡¯re on!¡± Jerome cried out, his bravado all but forcing him to accept the challenge.


    Vroom.


    At that Jerome let his engine rev just a bit, as Amoni looked, she saw the same toothy grin in his smile.


    ¡°That¡¯s my car.¡± Amoni said, only to have her words drowned out by the other girls and passengers in Jerome¡¯s vehicle as well.


    The only person not shouting was Misha, who just revved her engine even harder clearly challenging the vehicle.


    Logistically there should be no real challenge here, as the GT clearly was faster and more powerful than Amoni¡¯s old but maintained Accord.


    The only thing that Jerome had was superior reflexes. Reflexes that could be used to get the head start, accelerate forward and ultimately try to run Misha off the road in some perversive form of dominance.


    ¡°No, don¡¯t.¡± Amoni tried, but before her words could be settled, the red haze of the traffic light ended, revealing a bright green color.


    VRRROOMMM!


    And before Amoni could react, she felt her entire body get thrown backwards into the leather bucket seat, as the vehicle she was in accelerated forward at a speed she could not have predicted.


    No squealing of tires, slips in traction, just perfect grip and acceleration.


    From the corner of her eye, she saw her own dark gray car slowly fade behind, a sign that Jerome had either missed the start, his tires didn¡¯t grip well enough, or the Accord was not able to accelerate at the same speed and pace that Misha was able to get out of her GT.


    The effect was obvious, as they met the straightaway out of town and had already hit the posted speed limit and the increased buffer within seconds.


    Hrr-vrrr.


    The Accord, Amoni¡¯s beautiful Accord, well it wasn¡¯t really hers, as the van had been hers but she still loved and cared for that Accord like it was her own, revved to life and began gaining on them, but they were just too slow.


    Movement right.


    A car quickly peeled off the side road, and was about to swoop in to stop Misha, but she quickly swerved around the merging vehicle before disaster could strike.


    Only after they passed the vehicle did the unused rack of blue lights on the top register in Amoni¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Oh shit!¡± Two-Tone and J-Sweep both cried out in unison, their minds having registered the threat almost immediately. Still, Misha did not stop her acceleration.


    There was a moment when time seemed to slow down.


    Amoni saw the moment the flashing blue lights of the cop car that they had passed blazed to life. For a moment Amoni felt her heart skip a beat, as she knew she would be part of a traffic stop.


    Then there was something, a flash of bright yellow from the front. Looking forward, Amoni caught the barest traces of blinding yellow light coming from the rearview mirror. Her mind was trying to process the cause for the light, when suddenly she heard the screeching of brakes from behind her, then the unmistakable sound of one vehicle crashing into another.


    VERRRR!


    Boom-crash!


    Prrr.


    Silence.


    After that, Misha just drove on, slowly lowering her speed until she was going the posted speed limit.


    Everyone was quiet, as everyone, Amoni included, all turned back to see the aftermath of what happened.


    As she looked back, she saw a white police cruiser pulled out halfway into the right turn lane. Behind them was the crumpled remains of a dark gray Accord that had smoke rising from the engine block. Further investigation showed that the police car was not much better, as the back driver¡¯s side wheel well looked like it was now impeding the tire, making it so that even if the officer wanted to still chase after Misha, he wouldn¡¯t be able to.


    Just seeing the vehicle in such a state caused Amoni¡¯s heart to rise up in her chest, as her baby was gone. Her car, the vehicle that she had been destroyed.


    Within seconds, the cop, a young skinny guy who Amoni knew was pack, or at least pack adjacent in his beliefs stepped out of his vehicle and began heading towards the back to see the damage.


    That was all the group managed to see, before they got to a turn and the scene of the accident got out of view.


    The entire thing had been surreal.


    Even now, as the spike of adrenaline that she had felt during the race and subsequent chase by the cops began to fade, Amoni could only feel slightly lost at the whole sequence.


    Worse there had been something wrong about the encounter.


    It took Amoni a second to realize, but even with the cop suddenly swerving into the lane like that, Jerome should have been able to react quickly enough and swerve around. Sure, he likely would have become the next target of the officer, having to make such a quick maneuver, but the fact that he didn¡¯t move, well that seemed to mean something happened.


    Then there was the glowing yellow light from the front of the vehicle. Only now did Amoni wonder if she saw the eyes of Misha glowing yellow, but if so what did that mean?


    ¡°Wow, we were so lucky.¡± K-Bar said.


    ¡°Lucky, they took out my car.¡± Amoni replied indignantly.


    ¡°Yeah, but look on the bright side?¡± Two-Tone said from the front.


    ¡°What bright side?¡± Amoni squawked, yes she hated it, but her voice did sometimes squawk when she got excited. It was small and something that only people who knew her knew what to look for, but it still bothered her, nonetheless.


    ¡°Now they too will have to ride the bus, just like us.¡± Two-Tone said.


    There was a slight awkward pause as everyone took in those words. Then after a second, everyone began to laugh.


    HAHAHA!


    ¡°Serves them right.¡± K-Bar replied, feeling the same indignantly that Amoni herself felt from the whole situation.


    ¡°Yeah, that makes what two cars in a week? The man should be forced to stop driving.¡± J-Sweep added.


    Ears twitching.


    With that Misha¡¯s ears twitched, as she apparently liked something she heard in that last statement by J-Sweep, though for the life of her Amoni couldn¡¯t understand what exactly.


    Then before Amoni had too much time to think about the new girl¡¯s odd reaction to J-Sweep¡¯s comments, the new girl spoke.


    ¡°You know, I could give you all rides to and from school for the next few days,¡± Misha offered.


    ¡°Really?¡± Two-Tone asked.


    ¡°Yeah, I mean, we are teammates, after all.¡±


    There was something off about the way Misha said teammates that caught Amoni¡¯s enhanced senses and seemed to stick in there, but there was nothing about her words or actions that truly let Amoni understand why she would react so differently with that word alone.


    Maybe she was from Russia and was used to saying comrade? Amoni mused to herself, but ultimately dismissed the idea, as the entire team seemed to be excited at the idea that Misha would drive them to and from practices for the next few weeks.


    Only once they all got out at Amoni¡¯s house, and Misha had driven away did the others all bombard Amoni with questions. Questions that unfortunately Amoni was unable to answer.


    ¡°So, can we make her a full member of the pack?¡± Two-Tone asked, clearly excited, as she had been one of the first to speak up for the new girl since seeing her.


    ¡°I have to agree. I was at first reserved about her as well, but seeing her these past few weeks. She seems cool.¡± J-Sweep replied.


    With that, all eyes turned to Amoni, while her eyes instinctively turned to K-Bar, her biggest friend and confidant.


    At that K-Bar winced slightly, realizing what she was about to say might hurt a little.


    ¡°Honestly, agree with these two. She is pretty cool, if you just give her a chance,¡± K-Bar replied.


    Then like that, it was up to Amoni, to press the fact that the final member of their pack dominated team would be Misha.


    This was no small ask, as the people recommended by the shaman should be resolute. Anyone wishing to be a shaman had to make sure that the people that were brought in were of the highest of quality and character, as being a pack member is for life, meaning that if a mistake was made it would be costly, both for the pack and for the unfortunate soul who was unworthy of the chance they were given.


    Realizing all of this, and the fact that Alishia was already getting her hooks into new recruits like Rodger, made Amoni realize that if she wanted to be the pack¡¯s shaman, she needed to act decisively. This threat to her pack¡¯s position was likely the only reason why Amoni was willing to even contemplate adding the new girl in the first place.


    ¡°All right, I¡¯ll think about it.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± The other girls cried out triumphantly, apparently all feeling that they were committed to this little conspiracy.

 Interlude III (Alpha Abraham Jacobs)

    Interlude III


    (Alpha Abraham Jacobs)


    Things were subtle for Jackson West Virginia¡¯s pack alpha, Abraham Jacobs. While he couldn¡¯t quite place his finger on why he suddenly felt as he did, he did feel a sudden need to call a giant pack meeting where every pack member would be in attendance.


    The thought was always something in his mind, as a strong pack was one that stayed together. Right now, there were pack members scattered throughout Jackson and the neighboring areas. Offices, officers, and power, those were the three main roles that everyone who was brought into the pack had to fit into.


    Of course, there was a problem, with Jerome being given the chance to expand the pack to newer members. This was something that was hard to stomach for the old Alpha, but unfortunately it seemed that many of his generation, the last generation of true pack members were now infertile. Abraham himself, and his brother Bruce, the pack¡¯s shaman, were two of the exceptions rather than the rules.


    This sudden surge in infertility caused many of the new decrees to be sent out, about looking for people who would be worthy of carrying on the pack¡¯s name.


    Still given all of this, he tried to let Jerome have a hand in at least choosing those people around him. In his mind, he still remembered the horror stories of the past, where his family had been hunted down like rabid animals in the forests. He didn¡¯t want that, which was why he had taken measures to ensure such situations didn¡¯t occur this time.


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    Diary entry 10 June 1423


    We were hunted again today. The villagers came at us with silver bullets, an act sanctioned by the church. I didn¡¯t even know silver could hurt so badly.


    Some pack members are claiming this to be an act of God. Looking back, I can see their reasoning. First it started with the weaker pack members being unable to bear children. This in turn led to our weaker hold on the seats of power that had protected us for so long. Now we repent and lay low, before we can attempt to regroup back into society.


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    The passage was short, but it spoke of many things. A major point of the passage was the way it seemed to mirror the current circumstances. Throughout history there have been a few times when for whatever reason the Lykanthropy virus does not spread to children, and instead produces a number of stillborn children.


    Over the years it has been determined that those that eventually cannot bear pack children are often considered to be weaker. That is they don¡¯t fully bond with their bestial side, and often retain more of their humanity than one would like in a warrior spouse.


    There are of course the few exceptions to the weaker pack members bearing children. First, it seems that the Lykanthropy virus is willing to give a set time for how long it can take hold in a particular family lineage. That is, those that are turned can always bear children with Lykanthropy, without any issues or defects, even if they choose to abandon the life and the faith. Likewise, their children are also given a free pass, with their children being born with the Lykanthropy virus in full effect. It is the grandchildren, or where the grandchildren should be that suffer from this, as the blessing of Lykanthropy will never extend past that point, unless the parent or grandparent fully commit to the lifestyle.


    As an Alpha, Abraham was well aware of these facts. Facts that are best kept hidden away from most other members of the pack.


    For his part, Abraham was ready to bring everyone into the life. He was even ready to potentially have himself outed as a shifter, if that meant that more of the next generation would be able to be conceived. As the Alpha, the act of inspiring others to commit to the lifestyle, to fully embrace their potential was on him.


    This was why he now felt the need to gather everyone into a large meeting place, where he could explain a few things. He needed to nurture the young, to get them to accept their new lives and to fully bond with the wolf, which meant having to hunt down and tame the wolf in each tier of advancement. A seemingly monumental task, if not done correctly.


    The only problem was, outside of war, the only real way to fully tame the wolf involved doing actions that society as a whole would likely look down upon. Yet, as a wolf, these were acts that were needed to succeed and thrive.


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    Local Hit and Run Traffic Accident Kills 63-Year-Old Grandmother.


    Seeing the headline pop up on his tracker, Abraham knew full well what happened, as his son fully spoke about indoctrinating the new kid into the pack fully.


    Hearing the youthful excitement about killing a member of the community at first set Abraham¡¯s blood on fire. Yet, after hearing his son¡¯s arguments, weak as they might be, Abraham couldn¡¯t help but understand where the boy was coming from.


    In fact, depending on how the new boy¡¯s spiritually awakening process went, Abraham might make this a new standard practice for allowing new members into the pack.


    Though first, he felt it only pertinent to allow current members of the pack a chance at redemption. A chance to save not only themselves, but their families, and the pack.


    As an Alpha, it was his duty to enlighten people about what being a pack member truly entailed.


    There was of course, only one real problem, and that was where could he gather so many members of the community in one place that would not seem suspicious.


    Then finally, he saw the another add, that seemed to just catch his attention.


    Curious about how your former Classmates are doing?


    One click will show you.


    While the words themselves weren¡¯t anything new, what was new was the way that a kid wearing Jackson High¡¯s uniform in front of the entrance to the football field was clearly visible. Seeing the image, he realized that the stadium would a perfect place for the pack meeting.


    ¡°No, not just a pack meeting, but all pack meetings.¡± Abraham said to himself, as he was still trying to convey what he wanted. Also, the wide-open state of the stadium and the football field would be perfect for the indoctrination processes that would needed to fully awaken the dormant power of the wolf within everyone.


    With his mind made up, he mentally went through a checklist of things he needed to do first.


    Brrringg.


    Then almost as if reading his mind, his brother chose that exact moment to call.


    ¡°Hello dear brother, I was just thinking of calling you.¡± Abraham answered, with a slight smile cresting his face.


    ¡°Well, hello to you too. Though I think we should talk,¡± Bruce began.


    Hearing the serious tone to his brother¡¯s words, caused a note of alarm to rise within him, as he knew full well the problems that often arise when something that Bruce put forward as a concern was not taken seriously.


    ¡°About?¡±


    ¡°You son, he ruined a second vehicle within a week, and this time it was done by crashing into a police vehicle.¡± Bruce answered, his voice clearly angry.


    Hearing that, Abraham mentally sighed, as he knew that the boy was both impetuous and had even resorted to using his authority as future alpha to take the vehicle from Amoni. While he had been in the process of trying to get his niece another vehicle, now he realized that he had to get not one but two new vehicles.


    Sigh.


    ¡°Perhaps you should explain this to me in detail,¡± Abraham began.


    ¡°Well it seems that your son and a girl were street racing. The only reason we know this is that the officer, Jinkens, had pulled out and began to initiate a stop, when you son who was losing the race plowed into the merging vehicle.¡± Bruce stated.


    With that a few things hit him, but the one that seemed to be most pertinent was, ¡°my son was losing a race?¡±


    ¡°Apparently by quite the margin.¡±


    Hmm.


    Hearing the sound of Abraham clearly thinking about this comment, Bruce continued.


    ¡°While Jerome didn¡¯t tell the officer who he was racing, just noting it as being a few girls. He later confided in me that it was the new girl, a member of the basketball team.¡±


    At that, Abraham just sighed.


    ¡°All of this for a girl.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear it, coming from you, this is nothing.¡± Bruce chided.


    Chuckle.


    ¡°Yeah, well I can see that.¡± Abraham replied.


    ¡°So what do you want me to do with your son and his friends?¡± Bruce asked.


    ¡°Are they out of jail?¡± Abraham asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Good then leave them. Part of being an Alpha is learning what to do when you have limited options. He had a vehicle this morning that he could use to get around in, and the fact that he doesn¡¯t is now on him.¡± Abraham responded.


    ¡°Right,¡± Bruce began and there was a slight pause as it seemed Bruce was contemplating how to say this next part. ¡°About the vehicles, one of those clearly was my daughter¡¯s.¡±


    Sigh.


    ¡°Yes, yes, I am aware. Let¡¯s see if we fix the one, and maybe find another that can be fixed into working condition.¡± Abraham began.


    ¡°Okay, got it, any particular place you have in mind for the repairs?¡± Bruce asked.


    ¡°Anywhere that is cheap.¡± Abraham answered.


    ¡°Got it, I¡¯ll take care of this.¡± Bruce replied.


    ¡°I know,¡± Abraham began, then pausing for a moment he responded, ¡°and thank you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome.¡±


    Click.


    Then, like that Abraham was left with a few more details to deal with. Fortunately, he had his brother to take care of the transportation issues, which meant that he would likely need to be in charge of trying to get a place big enough to support all the pack members that fell under his influence.


    ***


    Unbeknownst to both Bruce and Abraham, their search engines, browsers, and queries were all being inundated with tiny pop-up ads. Ads that were never paid for, and theoretically should never exist, but for some inexplicable reason, they always seemed to show certain subtle suggestions that led them to certain conclusions.


    This was why it came as little surprise that when Bruce searched for cheap automotive places near me, only one option appeared, featuring images of Phil¡¯s Rustbucket Garage.


    Initially, Bruce was against the add and was about to leave. As he moved his thumb to swipe away, he inadvertently hit the showcase option, which showed a variety of vehicles. At first there were old vehicles that were little more than rust and a frame. Then from there, the images showed a time progression on how the vehicles were slowly restored piece by piece, until finally they appeared to be in better condition than ones coming fresh off the lots. After seeing the changes, it was clear that this mechanic knew what he was doing.


    Next, all that mattered was the alleged price of such a custom fix.


    After that, Bruce looked at the location of the place, seeing that it was actually an old farmhouse that had been turned into a garage. At first, Bruce was about to scroll away, when he realized that given how far away the place was from all society, if they didn¡¯t like the agreed upon price, they could always strong arm the group into a more favorable price, after the work was done of course.


    With that, Bruce decided to at least check out the place and see what he could expect.

 Chapter 33 I Think We Broke Her

    Chapter 33


    I Think We Broke Her


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    It should have come as no surprise that the new girl had her own full size regulation court that she could practice on. That and the car showed Amoni that above anything else, the new girl Misha was spoiled. That is, until she met the grandfather who showed pictures of what the Mustang GT looked like when she first got it, how it was little more than scraps of metal that had to be buffered and molded into place before true work could be done.


    There were even pictures of a younger, but determined Misha working with different power tools to get different effects, that then slowly over time began to be molded into the shape and sleek design that the vehicle was now.


    ¡°She even custom made the doors, taking the regulation doors, then cutting out strips, and folding them inward to give it that wind swept appearance. All the paint, the trim, the weather strips, that was all Misha and her amazing attention to detail.¡± Phil said proudly as he gushed over his daughter. Or at least Amoni thought Misha was the daughter of the old man, only to realize that she was in fact the granddaughter. A fact that became extra weird when the real mother came home with some cop boyfriend.


    No, the man wasn¡¯t wearing a uniform, but he held himself the way cops do, upright and tight. Though he wasn¡¯t a local, that much was for sure, otherwise Amoni would have known him from one of her father¡¯s meetings. Her father made it a point to make sure to host multiple events and parties that celebrate the police, the firefighters, and health providers of the community. Someone that old would have surely come to at least one of those gatherings.


    After that, there was a clearly awkward tension that seemed to fall over the room, as Misha¡¯s mother, who looked like she could be an older sister asked.


    ¡°So, who are these people?¡±


    Just hearing the question caused Amoni to bristle slightly at the comment.


    ¡°These, are Misha¡¯s teammates for the High School Basketball team.¡± Phil answered in a cool measured response.


    There was a strained moment of tension, before the mother continued to press her odd ideology. ¡°Do you think that this is the time to be entertaining guests, Misha?¡±


    The mother changed tactics, going from speaking to the grandfather, to speaking to Misha as if she was a child.


    Misha tensed up, her neck and facial features clearly fighting down their first impulse to speak what she was thinking. Fortunately, Phil, the grandfather, used this moment to chime in.


    ¡°Of course, I do, in fact, it was I who asked Misha to invite her friends over today. Seeing as they are the reason why she was adamant about going back to school so early.¡± There was a momentary pause, before Phil then gave the killing blow. ¡°You would have been aware of this, had you opted to stay with us, versus spending the time in the arms of your boy-to¡­boyfriend there.¡±


    Phil caught himself, clearly about to say boy-toy or something else derogatory and then changed it to be boyfriend. Though at her age, the term boyfriend might also be derogatory. Then again, maybe not, Amoni did not know and all she wanted to do at the moment was to leave.


    Fortunately, Amoni was not the only one who was having similar feelings about leaving.


    ¡°Thank you for the drinks, Phil, but we should get back and practice.¡± J-Sweep said.


    ¡°Anytime Ms. Jasmine,¡± Phil said, giving a slight bow from his seated position.


    Hearing that, Amoni almost thought that J-Sweep would tear the old man¡¯s head off, which would only add more awkwardness to the otherwise tense situation. Yet, despite her concerns, all J-Sweep did was blush slightly at the statement.


    What? Why? Amoni thought to herself, looking from her teammate to the old man, only to then try to look and after a second, Amoni could sort of see it, that old fit man that still had muscles, looks, and a bit of refined culture to him.


    Honestly, given a second to take a closer look, it was clear that he did have a certain rugged charm to him that was hard to describe.


    ¡°Come on,¡± Misha said, her tone devoid of emotions, but it was clear that she was thinking something.


    ¡°Thank you Phil.¡± K-Bar said.


    ¡°Thank you, Ms. Kami.¡± Phil said, his voice hitting a deep baritone that sounded both ingenious and musical.


    ¡°It was a pleasure meeting you.¡± Two-Tone said.


    ¡°No, trust me Ms. Tamy, the pleasure was all mine.¡± Phil replied back.


    At that Amoni was taken aback as she had completely forgotten that Tamy was Two-Tone¡¯s first name. As she normally went by Tatiyana, her middle name, before everyone took to calling her Two Tone.


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Amoni was about to say something, but then thought better of it, as she too gave her goodbyes to Phil. ¡°Goodbye Phil, we should come back when you can tell us the embarrassing stories about Misha.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I would love any reason to meet with such fine young women as yourselves.¡±


    He actually said that in a way that didn¡¯t sound creepy. Amoni mused to herself, as she got up and followed the other girls to the court outside. This was their second time coming her, after having already gone through Coach Green¡¯s practice and workout sessions. In fact, all of them should be home now, but there was something about the way Misha kept pushing them that made them all want to try just that much harder.


    It was indescribable how Misha was able to push and pull them towards newer and better avenues of success.


    With five of them, the prudent way to play was to do two on two, with the person sitting out acting as ref.


    ¡°Two-Tone and K-Bar against Amoni and me?¡± Misha asked.


    ¡°Sounds good to me, I could use a break,¡± J-Sweep replied.


    That also was something off about Misha, or maybe it was Amoni projecting too much of her own thoughts towards the new girl on the way she would perceive her, as she didn¡¯t think Misha would want to choose her as a partner. Yet, here she was choosing to team up with her over The best Forwards on the team.


    ¡°Should be fun,¡± K-Bar replied, passing the ball to Misha who instantly inbound the pass to Amoni and like that the game had started.


    Rather than trash talking, the game, while extremely competitive, took on a more leisurely tone to the conversation.


    ¡°So, that¡¯s your grandfather?¡± K-Bar asked, when she was pressed up tightly, trying to both guard and get into the mind of Misha.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Misha replied.


    Of course, Misha was made of sterner stuff, as she just replied, while giving a quick stutter step right, before spinning left that K-Bar instantly bit on, also moving right. At which point it was a quick spin left and Misha was around and getting an open lay-up on the basket.


    Inbound to K-Bar. As she approached, Misha went straight to the full court press, halting the advancement of the ball as much as possible. That was an exhausting way to play, but it was effective, especially in small scrimmages like this, so long as you kept contain on the ball handler.


    ¡°So is he single?¡± K-Bar asked, her tone going slightly sultry as it was clear she was still trying to get into Misha¡¯s head with the obvious challenge.


    ¡°He is now.¡± Misha replied, and that response was enough for K-Bar¡¯s trash talking to backfire, as she paused. Nothing major, just an inattentive moment where she let the ball come up to her hand, versus dropping down to keep the rhythm of her dribble. That pause was enough for Misha, as she quickly poked her hand in and swatted the ball away.


    Amoni only saw the movement out of the corner of her eye, as one second they were moving the ball forward, and the next, Misha was sprinting past a still K-Bar who hadn¡¯t quite realized she lost the handle.


    Then Misha got the ball and a quick lay-up at the other end.


    Seeing her move, Amoni could only smile and thank the Goddess that she wasn¡¯t the one who looked stupid, this time.


    ¡°Come on K-Bar.¡± Two-Tone cried out as she went back, and this time she moved the ball up the court.


    ¡°So what do you mean by he is now?¡± K-Bar asked, clearly missing the clue that Coach Green had given them on Monday, the one about Misha having a death in the family.


    At that Amoni and Two-Tone both just stared at K-Bar who was no longer trash talking, and apparently just interested in either Misha or her Grandfather, or both.


    ¡°His wife, my grandmother, died in a car accident on Friday night.¡± Misha said coolly, her voice not showing any signs of pain or inflection.


    ¡°Oh, my god, I¡¯m so sorry.¡± K-Bar said.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡± Misha said, turning her head to scan everyone that was present.


    At that moment, when she scanned the court, Amoni heard the words and could only feel sadness for the girl. Their eyes locked for a moment, and for that one brief moment, it was clear that Misha was searching for something. There was a coldness to her gaze, one that sent shivers down Amoni¡¯s spine. It was almost as if Misha had expected to see something as she stared down Amoni, but for the life of her, Amoni couldn¡¯t understand why the sudden hostility was present in her gaze.


    Then just as quickly as the sudden tension was felt, it was over. Misha shifted her gaze and looked at everyone, including J-Sweep from the sides and seemed to relax slightly.


    ¡°You okay?¡± K-Bar asked.


    ¡°Yes, sorry I just¡­¡± Misha began, but then her words stopped as she seemed to lose focus for a second as her eyes seemed to scan right.


    Oddly enough, in the darkness of night that had begun to blanket the court, even with the dozen or so halogen lights that were installed to show the court in its entirety, Amoni almost swore that she saw something blue shining in Misha¡¯s eyes.


    Then just as quickly as the whole event happened, Misha quickly shook her head and then stared at everyone.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry to do this, but I might need to call it a day,¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Yeah, okay.¡± K-Bar and J-Sweep almost said in unison as they went over to comfort Misha.


    ¡°Ah, dang,¡± Two-Tone also hissed as she went over to comfort Misha.


    ¡°What?¡± Misha asked, suddenly confused by the way everyone was coming to her.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, I know we just met you and all, but you¡¯re pretty cool. If you need someone to talk to, just hit me up.¡± J-Sweep said.


    ¡°Yeah, me too.¡± K-Bar and Two-Tone added.


    Then like that, Amoni found herself standing alone on the court, before she too walked over making sure to provide her own condolences.


    ¡°Can you all wait here for a moment?¡± Misha asked, as she went into the house.


    This was good as it was clear that Phil, Misha¡¯s mother, and the boyfriend were all still in there having a heated discussion. With that, Amoni figured that Misha was just going to get her keys and head back out. However, she was surprised to see that Phil, not Misha, was the one who ultimately came out with the car keys dangling on his finger.


    ¡°Ho, ho. It is my lucky day.¡± Phil said, with a mirthful charm that was easy to accept. ¡°Not only do I get a chance to drive the GT, but I have been entrusted with getting you four fine ladies home safely.¡±


    And like that, their night with Misha was over.


    As they piled in, Amoni almost felt sad that she didn¡¯t at least get to say goodnight to the odd girl.


    ¡°Now, you all must excuse me, as I have been told I have a bit of a led foot.¡± Phil said jokingly as he fired up the GT, letting it purr for a moment, before he glided out the rocky driveway and finally onto the smooth roads.


    ¡°Is Misha okay?¡± K-Bar asked.


    ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s a big girl. Tougher than me, so she will be fine. Today just hit her kind of hard.¡± Phil replied, before changing the subject to more light-hearted commentary.


    ¡°So, which of you all are single, and more importantly, how long should I wait to make my move?¡± Phil asked, and instantly defused the awkward tension that had been building in the car.


    ¡°You are too much.¡± J-Sweep said, in a tone that was clearly flirty.


    Hearing the tone Amoni looked on at J-Sweep, with a bit of shock. And like that, the car ride home seemed to involve three pack members all vying for Phil¡¯s attention, all while Amoni looked on in horror, unable to look away from the scene.


    ***


    (Misha)


    The night had been going according to plan. She had already ruled out the four key team members as accomplices to the murder of her grandmother, and her quick scan proved that, especially the way all four had a look of shock. Well, some seemed to put together the pieces of comments made, but none seemed to have been directly involved, which was the key part that Misha was concerned about.


    Before she could act as if nothing happened, that is when she received a message to her mind that clearly came from some long dormant command post.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 90.5946%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reaper Operative, this is Fleet Command. Repeat, this is Fleet Command reaching out for activated Reaper Operative. Reply back¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And like that, Misha got the communications encryption and decryption keys that had eluded her and her leadership for so many years.


    ¡°It was in the genetic coding for the Reaper class, no wonder it was never found. As we never found a Reaper.¡± Misha thought to herself, as she gave a quick scan to see if anyone else received the same message.


    Then to her shock, Misha heard and felt the unthinkable.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 45.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">¡°Fleet Command, this is ReaperOne, I hear you loud and clear.¡±</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And like that, Misha realized that she not only was one of the few who could hear and communicate with the Command Fleet, but worse, she apparently was not the only one who could do so from her planet.

 Chapter 34 Communications

    Chapter 34


    Communications


    (Misha)


    Misha could feel it, the indescribable pulse and function that stood out in her mind. As the communications channel was activated, dormant parts of her mind and coding suddenly spun around, going from being in a junk-like dormant state, into a fully activated state.


    Tingling.


    There was an odd tingling sensation that began vibrating gently in her mind. It was odd, and yet enjoyable at the same time. For a moment, it felt like the first time she awakened her abilities as a Psycher. The first time she mentally connected her mind to a dormant piece of machinery, not a computer assisted piece of machinery, as that was simple. No, this was the ability to reach out and interact with dormant machines, machines that wanted to move, were designed to move but had never been told to move on their own before, until she came.


    That is the closest thing that could relate to this sudden awakening within her mind. For the longest time she had stared at the coding, assuming that it was either missing, incomplete, or that she needed to evolve further to awaken the coding.


    Now that she had been part of a beaconing response from the hive mind, the jumbled coding made sense. The coding itself was correct, it was just missing packets and chunks of data that were instrumental for complete functionality.


    Then as she was thinking about it, the organo-tech processes within her mind began to fire and light up, pulling energy from various storehouses within her body. Using the entire body, and fat reserves to make these initial communications.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 28.2162%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Awakening Baseline Neural Response.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that awakening, there were strings and lines of text that flowed through her mind, that she barely managed to focus on and understand. Most of the coding was meant to be hidden, but there were a few immediate functions that she noted.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 22.8108%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Reward System Activated.


    Kill System Activated.


    Upgrade System Activated.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And so the lines of coding went.


    Focusing intently on the Kill System portion of coding, Misha found as one might expect, the coding was designed as a way to neutralize her by effectively flooding her body with the same baseline chemicals that would spark a reward or upgrade, but at a dosage level that would be toxic to her body.


    This was good to note, as rewards and upgrades were apparently toxic to the body and required time between advancements.


    With the section of coding already present, Misha first tried to get rid of the Kill System, but seeing as it was hard coded into her organo-tech system, she realized that it would be better to lower the dosages of neural enhancements received to a less toxic level.


    A human smirk crested her lips, as she imagined an angry superior finding her and issuing the Kill Command, only to be shocked when the command just made her stronger instead.


    With the most pressing matter taken care of, she began scanning through the other lines of newly awakened coding that was being activated within her body.


    There were even coding options that made it so she would automatically gain more power every week or month. This seemed like a great option, but then she realized there was no way to account for toxicity ratings and levels with that rate of rapid advancement. Realizing the double-edged sword that such benefits offer, it would be easy to see most striving to improve too quickly, only to be struck down by their own hubris. In the end she opted to avoid making any other changes, until she could see the effects of over saturation within her body.


    Misha was so focused on changing the coding that would outright kill her, that she failed to notice that as time went on and her initial coding was completed, she began bristling with more power. Well, that isn¡¯t entirely true, she did notice a slight pull and tug of energy, but at the time she figured that staving off instant death by toxins was more important. Particularly as she didn¡¯t know if this coding would be made available to her in this format again.


    That said, inattention can prove to be costly. In this case doubly so, as only now did she realize that she had missed the bigger picture. Or at least the final awakening code that could ultimately be worse than being issued kill orders.


    Trembling.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Her entire body thrummed as neural receptors and electrons flowed in ways that Misha had never felt before. In a moment her body went from just mildly pulsing within her mind, to her entire body slowly awakening and coming online with new power, as she realized her body was now being turned into an intergalactic transceiver of sorts.


    WHOOM!


    For a moment, Misha could only stand still as she tried to understand what had just happened. Only after analyzing everything in totality did she realize that her body had effectively sent a burst of energy up to be received.


    Silence.


    There was a moment of silence, as Misha wondered if it was as bad as she thought. Maybe it would take longer to receive her packets? Or hopefully, better still, the packets might be misaligned and sent to a completely void section of space.


    These thoughts and more poured through her mind as she waited in her room, suddenly looking at the ceiling to see if there were any burn marks from her sudden release of power. Fortunately for her, she was in the attic and her ceiling was twelve feet tall, at least in the portion of the attic that she now stood in. Meaning that any bursts missed causing irreparable damage to the ceiling by inches at most.


    Relief.


    Just as Misha let out a sigh or relief, feeling that she had dodged a bullet, she felt a sudden wave of energy flash over her. Well, not just her, but the entire planet.


    Flicker.


    The lights in the room died, every form of electronics was momentarily disabled as a burst of energy coated the Earth and traveled into and through the planet, before disappearing on the other side. The impact of the blast was so intense that Misha found herself inadvertently collapsing to her knees as she could not withstand the immense pressure bearing down on her.


    Then to make matters worse, she saw the message that sent shivers down her spine.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 26.9189%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Beginning Registration Process.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That message was one that caused fear to register in her mind.


    Pulse.


    Misha first felt a build up of energy in her body but was too disoriented to disable the return beam before it left her body.


    In her mind¡¯s eye, she knew that her system data was being sent to the command fleet. Where they could no doubt see her statistics and monitor her progress.


    For a moment, Misha felt like her entire body was suddenly betraying her, that it was providing information about herself to the enemy against her will. In her mind she wondered if this was how captured enemies felt while under the intense gaze of the Tellers, those Psychers who specialized in mental manipulations and getting people to divulge their deepest secrets.


    Here, Misha felt much the same as she imagined those strapped down against the massive controls of a Teller would feel. Her body weakened as it ultimately was used to betray itself. Suddenly Misha realized how it was that Bakshee always evaded such detections, as their entire bodies were meant to share the information, not the minds. The concept was brilliant, and so elegantly done, in a way, Misha couldn¡¯t help but praise her hated enemies for such devious constructs. It was as if they knew of every strength that the universe had, including those wielded by the Psychers, and developed counters against them.


    Only now did Misha realize the true extent of the enemy she faced. An enemy that she had suddenly found herself assimilated to. No, not just assimilated into, but forced to give out her own information against her will.


    Yes, Misha could likely go into her coding and make it, so the information provided was either disabled, or modified in a way to protect Misha in the future, but the cat was already out of the bag as they say, here. Right now, Misha was actively giving up her vital information to the enemy.


    Then again if she truly wanted to pull off this role as a double agent, then she needed to fully immerse herself in this role. She needed to remain hidden in plain sight. At least that was what she told herself as she weighed the consequences of suddenly killing off the part of her coding and orano-tech materials that allowed her to respond to the enemy command fleet.


    In her mind, she also realized that if she could communicate with the command fleet via this pattern then one of two things were present. Either there were planetary listening devices present around the world that would amplify the signals she was transmitting and send them directly to the fleet at faster than light intervals, or some other form of hyper-relay.


    What was important to note was that if Misha could use her body to send and receive messages from the enemy fleet, then maybe, just maybe, she might be able to modify her message to be picked up by Psycher command as well.


    That thought, no, that hope was something that Misha held onto. While she had grown seemingly complacent in her role here, she did miss joining her mind to the hive, to be able to reach out and communicate with other Psychers freely.


    Suddenly, Misha felt very aware of just how lonely she ultimately was.


    For a moment, the weight of everything was too much. The loss of being able to communicate freely with her Psycher comrades who she spent millennia with. The loss of her agency of moving around without being noted by the enemy. And finally, the most crushing feat of all, the fact that her body¡¯s mortal grandmother died and never got a chance to experience the joy of a Psycher rebirth.


    Originally, she had thought of making it so that her grandfather would be remade into a Lykanthrope, at least to prolong his lifespan. Now she suddenly found herself wondering if he would be willing to join her in her quest as a Psycher?


    He did seem more than open to the idea of powers and abilities, almost seeming excited for witnessing the way Misha had managed to expand her own capabilities after millions of years of intense focus and evolution. Yet, there was a difference between being open and accepting of the idea that the supernatural exist, and another thing entirely to walk the path of a Psycher. The process would definitely be tough, and would likely mean the death of Phil, even if he succeeded in his trainings.


    Tears.


    Just the thought of losing Phil too suddenly filled Misha with a strange emotion that she had not felt in a long time, that of loss.


    Before Misha could get too lost in her own thoughts, she received a message that shook her to her core.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 61.6216%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Secondary Reaper Unit Identified and Assimilated Perfectly. Reassigning order of ranks.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 71.2432%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    ReaperOne, you are now ReaperTwo.


    Newly Identified Reaper, you are now hereby identified as ReaperOne.


    Mission Assigned: Meet ReaperTwo before next scheduled uplink.


    Time Remaining until next scheduled uplink, 9 Full Solar Cycles, 364 planetary rotations¡­


    Reward: One Full Upgrade, 1.0 Body upgrades.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that the connection ended, but for a moment, she saw the person she was supposed to meet, and for a second her heart stopped, as the face seemed familiar, but also foreign to her as well.


    Then another thought hit her, why ten years? Unless this was how long the Bakshee normally used as intervals to see how a planet was advancing? The more she thought about this, the more she became impressed with how long the Bakshee were willing to wait for their resources to ripen and mature, before fully assimilating them into the fleet.


    This was good, as it meant that Misha now had a glimpse of just how long she had to operate before the Bakshee overlords would come down to spot her. It also gave her ten years to identify just who this mysterious ReaperTwo was.


    Again, the face was familiar, but someone that likely blended into the background of her consciousness given how similar most human faces were, and given that there were over eight billion of these faces to sift through.


    A quick glance showed that the features of the face were feminine in nature, younger looking, attractive, and Misha was certain that she could see signs of the wielder taking benefits like Allure, and other cosmetic changes, but was not able to identify anything else about the person.


    For the moment, Misha opted to stop focusing on who the stranger was that she was supposed to meet up with, as she did have ten years to complete such a task.


    Instead, she decided to focus on the more immediate tasks, like the alien emotion that felt somehow so right within her mind, that of revenge for Nanna.

 Chapter 35 Breakdown

    Chapter 35


    Breakdown


    (Phil Tulley)


    Hip-hop music blasting.


    ¡°Yeah!¡± All four of Misha¡¯s teammates were being loud and obnoxious and truth be told, Phil was loving every minute of it. The teammates were nice. Not exactly the type of people that Phil would expect to be driving home on a random Tuesday night, but sometimes life throws curves at you.


    This week there had been a lot of curves thrown at Phil. Everything from the death of Julie, to finding out about his granddaughter, to now being forced to drive home four of Misha¡¯s rowdy friends.


    The whole experience was oddly therapeutic for Phil. Mainly because he was forced out of his comfort zone of wanting to slowly die, so that he could join his Julie.


    Of course, Misha but the nix to that, all but forcing him up to help her. Which was good, as he might have done well with raising his little Misha, but his daughter, Andrea, on the other hand was a piece of work.


    Phil knew he couldn¡¯t quit now, lest he force Misha to practically raise herself. Though she had been doing that for most of her life, at least that is how things seemed. As most of the time Phil found himself just watching her grow from an astoundingly brilliant little girl to the person she was today. Truth be told, Phil couldn¡¯t be prouder of his granddaughter, which was why taking time to get to know her friends was a worthwhile investment, that and the fact that their energy was infectious and something he desperately needed right now.


    They were making good time.


    Phil felt his heart beginning to panic as he instinctively realized he was getting close to the place. The one stretch of road where his Julie died.


    Rounding the turn, he got to the point where the set of trees were visible. The set of trees that caught Julie¡¯s car that had been sideswiped and sent flying off.


    The rest of the girls seemed to notice the change in Phil, as they grew quiet as well, suddenly turning their attention towards Phil.


    Now only the music playing its steady rhythmic beat, and the purr coming from Misha¡¯s car were the only noises that could be heard.


    Then just like that, the world changed.


    WOOOSHHH!


    A bright light that was brighter than the sun shot out from space, surrounded the planet and seemed to strike into and through the vehicle.


    Voonn.


    Then just like that the power seemed to be drained from the vehicle. The once brightly lit interior of the vehicle went dark, and suddenly Phil had to fight and wrestle with the steering wheel to turn left, and avoid impaling himself on the same two trees that took his wife.


    For a split second, Phil thought about letting go, of letting fate take him. Then his eyes caught the four girls that were in his care. Four friends that Misha had made, four friends that seemed by all accounts to be good girls, people that he wanted Misha to bond with. That was when Phil reached down and felt a surge of adrenaline spike in his body as he wrestled with the steering wheel and forced the wheels to turn left. The feat was a lot harder than he remembered it being when he was younger, back before all this power steering was a thing.


    Rotate, rotate, rotate.


    Then finally the still spinning wheels turned and began to slow down as the torque and pull of the engine was gone.


    ERRRRKKK!


    The car screeched and slid violently on the road, only after a few heart stopping minutes did the vehicle finally skid to a stop.


    Silence.


    Phil had somehow managed to keep his vehicle on his lane of the road, but barely. Just behind him, to his right were the two trees where Juile had her own life cut short. Now Phil found himself nearly at the same spot, and he swore to himself that he would never drive this path again. Of course, the minute he had that thought he instantly refused it, as he would never be able to see the spot where Julie died, if he did that.


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    Then just as Phil had the presence of mind to shift the dead vehicle into park. He felt the gears shift, and let out a sigh of relief once he knew the vehicle was safely secured.


    That is when the momentary lull around him began to fade. That is when he and the other passengers of the vehicle all began to move and speak, almost in unison.


    ¡°Oh my god, Mr. Phil, that was amazing.¡± Jasmine said.


    ¡°Yeah, thank you.¡± Kami added.


    ¡°Yeah, you saved us.¡± Tamy said.


    With that, Phil paused, waiting for his own heart rate to drop, then asked the obvious question.


    ¡°You girls okay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± They all responded almost in unison.


    Hearing that Phil could only smile and nod tiredly. The entire thing had been exhausting for Phil, but looking to his right, he saw Tamy looked shocked, then she turned to the shiny black object in her hand. A black object that could only be seen now thanks to the glow of the moonlight that seeped its way into the vehicle.


    ¡°Anyone got a signal, my phone is dead.¡± Tamy asked.


    ¡°What, yeah, mine too.¡± Kami added.


    ¡°Same.¡± Amoni and Jasmine both added.


    With that Phil already having his hand on his chest, felt around and then felt the semi-familiar shape of his phone.


    Breathing a sigh of relief, he was glad he remembered the crazy thing. Truth be told, the only reason he even had his own phone was so he could talk to Misha. Now he was happy that he had it, as it meant he could call for help.


    Suddenly a memory of how Julie likely needed to call for help from this very spot crossed his mind, but was instantly repressed as he pressed buttons and tried to get the blasted thing to come to life. However, the stupid thing had nearly a full charge a moment ago, and now it was dead when he needed it the most.


    ¡°What was that blast?¡±


    ¡°Was it some form of EMP?¡±


    ¡°Had to have been, right? I mean all our electronics are out.¡±


    The girls started talking rapidly. Phil wanted to correct them, stating that it couldn¡¯t possibly be an EMP, as what hit them came from space, or at least that is what the blast looked like.


    Phil finally, feeling relaxed enough to do more without pushing his already tired heart turned to face the girls. All of whom seemed to be desperate to turn on their phones and likely call for help. At least that is what Phil hoped the girls would do with their phones once they got reception.


    For his part, Phil reached down and groped around wildly, until he finally found the release for the hood.


    Clunk.


    Jump scare.


    With the hood coming loose, all four girls instantly jumped in their seats, not expecting the sudden sound. Seeing them, Phil only smiled and spoke.


    ¡°Sorry about that. Figured I¡¯d go out and try to see what happened.¡± Phil said, gesturing towards the hood.


    ¡°Okay, be safe out there.¡± Jasmine responded.


    Hearing her concern Phil could only smile, as he thought that these girls were good friends. With that he calmed down his adrenaline infused hands to slow down enough to click open his seat belt, and then left the vehicle.


    Feeling around blindly, he found latch holding the hood in place, then lifted up the hood, and realized that he was far too old to be seeing things in the dark. For a moment he looked for a light, only to realize that even his little pocket flashlight on his keyring was dead. He had nothing to help him see the vehicle.


    Frustrated, he ultimately closed the hood, realizing that he would either have to wait until morning to work on the car. Or what was more likely the case, he would need to get his car towed back to his house.


    Then fear struck him, as he realized this wasn¡¯t his car, but Misha¡¯s car.


    ¡°God, she¡¯s going to kill me.¡± Phil let out in a huff, as he got back into the vehicle.


    ¡°Who is?¡± Tamy asked.


    ¡°Misha, this is her car after all.¡± Phil added.


    ¡°What do we do now?¡± Amoni asked.


    Phil was about to say that if this lasts for too much longer they should all head back to the farm and wait, but at that exact moment the darkened interior of the car suddenly burst to light.


    There was a shocked silence that overtook everyone as they all paused to look at Phil. Well not Phil exactly, but at the sudden source of light that was coming from his pocket and adding some light to an otherwise impossibly dark night.


    ¡°What?¡± Everyone asked.


    There was a pause before the customized ring tone came through loud and clear.


    My Way by Frank Sinatra.


    Pausing, Phil felt his heart skip a beat, as he knew that tone. That tone was only meant for one person.


    Grabbing the phone, Phil quickly swiped at the giant green button to answer the call.


    ¡°Hello.¡±


    And like that, the most beautiful voice he had ever heard called out to him. That was the same voice that Julie had when she was younger, and now just hearing someone talking to him was a godsend.


    ¡°Misha!¡± The other girls in the car all called out in unison.


    ¡°Misha, you need to call for help. Your car broke down just past the bend where grandma¡¯s accident occurred.¡± Phil said.


    ¡°I know. But you have to realize that most everything is down right now.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°How is his phone even working?¡± Amoni asked, looking from the glowing light to her own chunk of dead plastic in her hands.


    Phil wanted to say that this was just what Misha did, but then he paused as even this seemed to be too much to explain away.


    ¡°Grandpa, can you put me on speaker and place this phone on the dashboard of the vehicle?¡± Misha asked, though her words were mostly commands more than anything.


    ¡°What? Why?¡± Tamy asked.


    Phil, remembering her odd abilities with knocking out drones, and having realized who, or rather what she was, didn¡¯t argue. Instead, he just did as she asked. Pushing the speakerphone button, and then placing the phone on the dashboard.


    ¡°Okay, I did as you asked.¡±


    Silence.


    Phil was in a car filled with four teenage girls, and only now did he realize how eerily silent they could all be, when gathered around looking at one distinct task.


    Phil gave a quick glance out of the corner of his eye to see that everyone was staring at the open phone.


    ¡°Okay, just leave it there for a moment.¡± Misha stated.


    Then with that, everyone looked on with silence.


    Click, click.


    After a few seconds, random noises could be heard sparking to life and moving throughout the vehicle.


    Everyone looked on like this was some prank. Phil could swear that Amoni was looking to the woods to see if people would come out trying to scare them, but nothing.


    Then the impossible happened.


    VRROOM!


    Suddenly the vehicle sparked to life. The interior lights came on, almost at the same time that the headlights also came back on. The car fully revved to life, the more it did, the more the interior lights began to glow brighter.


    There was the sudden sound of five sets of lungs breathing in deeply in sudden shock.


    Everyone just stared on in shock, not wanting to make a sound, lest this all come crashing down around them.


    ¡°All right, that should be enough for you to get going again. Keep the phone up here. Can you ask Two-Tone if she will hold the phone in place on the dashboard?¡± Misha¡¯s voice called out from the speakers.


    Nodding.


    Phil nodded, then realizing he likely needed to speak answered out loud. Then slightly turning to the girl he said, ¡°yeah, I¡¯ll ask her.¡±


    ¡°Okay, drive safely. You shouldn¡¯t have to worry about other drivers, but know that you might see other parked vehicles as well.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Phil said, and then clicking his seat belt back into place, he turned to the others. ¡°Ready to go home?¡±


    ¡°Yeah!¡± Amoni responded, a no-duh tone to her voice.


    Then like that, Phil began driving again, this time making sure to go slower, lest he stumble upon other stranded motorists.


    "Why don''t our phones work?" Kami asked, but Phil didn''t answer. Instead, he decided to focus on driving slowly and safely.


    Needless to say, despite the warning and safety measures, Phil was not ready for what he saw.

 Chapter 36 A Slight Leak

    Chapter 36


    A Slight Leak


    (Jerome Jacobs)


    The world was going crazy. First there was a bright flash of light, and then all the power went out.


    Silence.


    If Jerome had to describe the sensations, he was feeling it would be silence. His heightened hearing and senses hinted at how wrong the world suddenly was. These were senses that had been enhanced and multiplied over countless generations, until Jerome, one of the strongest wolves of his generation knew how intense his sensations were.


    Originally, he thought of his enhanced senses as a curse. As a burden that he and others like him would have to bear. He remembered being frightened of the slight groans the floorboards would make as people made their way throughout the house. He remembered having to be taught to focus past the constant humming and thrumming of computer equipment running idly in the background. He had to accept that some mechanical devices gave off slow and rhythmic ticks to keep alive and active.


    Now Jerome knew the exact opposite of that, what the world would sound like if his childhood wish was granted. However, this was not as he wanted, at least not any more, as what he wanted was peace of mind enough to gain the ability to focus through the constant buzzing of electronics. Now that he was older and used to the sounds, he couldn¡¯t help but wish for things to be back.


    Picking up his phone from his pocket, he saw that it was dead.


    Listening, he tried to hear, only to realize that his father and mother were at his Uncle¡¯s house for some big pack meeting. This meant that he was by himself.


    As time ticked by, Jerome found himself wondering just how long the power outage would last.


    With a quick glance around, it was clear that the entire neighborhood had been hit by the same power outage, as every other light in the area was out.


    Every light, traffic light, and all too early holiday decoration, everything was out.


    Pausing, he tried to listen for the sound of the vents coming on, only to realize that they wouldn¡¯t come on without electricity. It was this realization more than anything that caused a mild form of panic to settle in. Panic from having no airflow, panic from being stuck in a house that would not cycle its scents the way it was supposed to.


    Feeling suddenly stuck, he found himself opening his window to at least let some fresh air in. Though this too brought in more scents and sounds that spoke of futility. Mundane humans were coming out of their houses and complaining to each other. Cars that had been running apparently dropped dead on the spot. At best one or two people found themselves wrestling with their vehicles as they tried to steer their suddenly dead vehicles from crashing into random objects or locations. Thus quite a few cars were parked randomly in the street.


    At this moment, Jerome realized that he had one of two options available to him. First, he could go out and speak to the lowly mundanes that his family had taken refuge in hiding amongst, or he could try to go to sleep. As obviously meeting up with fellow pack mates was off the table at the moment.


    With that, Jerome in a semi-reluctance went and laid down on his bed, attempting to at least get a nap out of this situation.


    Yet, as he lay down he couldn¡¯t help but toss and turn as different thoughts filled his head. Thoughts on how to grow the pack, how to keep Alishia in check, and most importantly what he should do with his cousin. A cousin who clearly thought herself capable of fulfilling the role of shaman but didn¡¯t seem to have any forms of innovation. That was the thing, he wanted to not only found his own pack, but to have his pack be at the forefront of change. Yet, he didn¡¯t know what changes he wished to enact as he couldn¡¯t find any one definitive way forward. Which was something he felt his shaman should offer, but no one could say anything definitive about how the future would play out.


    Yet, despite his hesitations, and constantly twisting thoughts, and the fact that he felt strangely too hot from the lack of air flow and simultaneously too cold from the cool fall breeze coming in from the window, he managed to sleep.


    A hard groggy sleep that would only make you more tired once you awoke, but sleep nonetheless. Then it happened.


    Beeeep.


    Rumble-stop.


    The house came to life, then stopped.


    For a moment Jerome wondered if he had dreamed of the house suddenly coming to life, but was quickly broken out from that train of thought when he realized that he felt a slight breeze on his face.


    Yet, as soon as Jerome found his mind waking up to the sounds, he found that the house was once again silent.


    Jerome paused in bed, lying there and wondering if anything had happened. Had he dreamed it all?


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    From a quick focus of his heightened hearing to the outside world it was clear that electricity had not been turned on. As everything was still quiet.


    Then he heard it.


    Drip, drip, drip.


    Water dripping into a metal sink. One of the most annoying sounds that anyone could be forced to listen to. It was one of those sounds that was so faint that you felt you could almost focus around it, but so insistent that you knew that you couldn¡¯t stop hearing it if it kept up its persistent pace.


    Drip, drip, drip, drip.


    Now the droplets of water began to flow faster. It was this sudden change in tempo that caused Jerome to rise up with a deep sigh as he found himself walking through the dead and empty house, on his way to the kitchen.


    As he moved, he scanned everything with his heightened hearing, trying to see if anything electronic was alive. For a moment he swore that something had happened, that the power had come on at one point during his sleep, but was now debating that with himself.


    Still, there was one thing that Jerome was certain of, and that was that the faucet in the kitchen was leaking.


    Going down, he wondered how and why the water would still work, even with the power out. Then remembered how water was done on hydraulic power, and thus didn¡¯t really require anything to keep it going.


    Going to the sink, Jerome looked at the handle to the faucet and found it in the down, or closed position and just stared for a second, before going over to touch the faucet handle.


    Drip, drip.


    The water that was coming out slowed down, but was still pouring out.


    ¡°Gah.¡± Jerome hissed to himself as he pushed down harder.


    Drip, drip, drip.


    ¡°What the.¡± Jerome began, as the water was now pouring out faster than before.


    Angrily Jerome yanked on the handle, using all of his might, and crack.


    Splash.


    Water began spraying wildly from a slight crack in the faucet, right where the faucet meets the counter, the sudden yank and pressure of the water coming up caused a micro-fracture to form that was now spreading water everywhere.


    Gasp.


    Jerome found himself putting up his own hands to stop the water from spraying him directly in the face. At first, he tried to cover the leak, but that only kept the intense stream of water from flying out wildly and instead caused it to hit his hand.


    Panicking, Jerome tried to stop everything.


    Beep.


    Just as Jerome found himself wrestling with the water gushing from the faucet, he heard the microwave that was but four feet away flash and beep to life.


    ¡°What?¡± Jerome found himself confused as he suddenly turned his head towards the microwave, only to find that it was now dead.


    Splash!


    Jerome wanted to pause to question his senses as he could swear that he just saw the microwave come to life a moment ago, the fact that his eyes were still adjusting to the sudden burst of light was proof that the electricity had been on for at least a moment.


    Still, there were bigger issues at hand, like trying to stop the sudden spraying of water.


    Jerome found himself trying to wrestle with the pipes, covering the growing fissure with his hand, while reaching out to the towel drawer and trying to find something to wrap around the faucet, while he tried to fix this.


    Crack-fwoosh!


    Then as he was reaching, Jerome felt a sudden surge of water come up through the pipes, and slam into the faucet. There was so much force that the entire faucet bounced in his head for a moment.


    Beep.


    At that exact moment, the microwave beeped to life. Only the microwave, nothing else, not the fridge, not the dishwasher, nothing else, save for the microwave.


    This time Jerome saw numbers being displayed.


    The entire thing was too quick, and he found himself once again distracted by the microwave and failed to notice that the sudden surge of water pressure caused the faucet to completely break apart in his hands, causing metal to slice into his wet and exposed skin.


    ¡°AHHH!¡± Jerome cried out, instantly feeling the pain of deep lacerations in his hand. He looked down, but it was too dark to see how bad everything was.


    SPLOOOSHH!


    Water sprayed everywhere, wildly showering the kitchen.


    Jerome felt his own blood pooling in his hand, as the cuts were just that deep. He looked down, at just the right time to be able to see his hand.


    Beep.


    As the moment he looked down, is the same moment that the microwave once again beeped back to life.


    Rather than turning to see the microwave, he looked down to see his hand, only to find that he had a deep cut going the width of his hand.


    Yet, by this point water was spraying so wildly, that he felt a slight pool around his feet.


    Not wanting to get too much more water on the floor, Jerome remembered something about the water valves being underneath.


    He was about to do that, when he realized that he needed something for his hands.


    Working quickly, he once again reached for the towel drawer, pulled out a towel and wrapped it tightly against his hand, before diving under the sink, in a desperate attempt to find the shut off valve.


    Unfortunately, everything was too dark to see under the sink. That was, until the microwave once again peeped its displeasure.


    Beep, beep.


    The microwave once again peeped aggressively, but this was good, as it gave just enough light that Jerome could see the giant ovular metal knob that he had been trained to identify.


    Squeak, squeak.


    He twisted the valve shut, noting a distinct groaning coming from the pipes as he did so, but with each turn, the geyser of water that was erupting from the pipes slowly stopped, until finally nothing else came out.


    With a sigh of relief, Jerome found himself exhaling. Only to realize that he was now firmly in a thin pool of water that coated the entire kitchen floor.


    He was about to get out, as he was pondering people he could call to help, only to realize that the power was still out and that his phone was somehow dead.


    Beep, beep, beep.


    VRROOOMM!


    The microwave beeped again, but this time it began running as if it was trying to cook something that was already in there.


    With a start, Jerome got up and saw that the microwave was indeed moving, even the little table thing was spinning about, but nothing was in there.


    Then with a confused face, he saw that the timer was not dropping, despite flashing constantly as if it was about count down from 13.


    Well not 13, as it apparently had the 0 in front.


    013.


    013.


    013.


    Jerome kept looking at the counter, wondering why it of all appliances was working. He also wondered why there was no colon separating the minutes from the seconds. He saw all of these things, and then dismissed them, as he heard a strange grinding sound coming from inside the microwave.


    Grr.


    Then to his shock, he saw the white plastic lining that protected everything beginning to be impeded by an object that looked like a screw coming loose from the top.


    As the screw began to drop, bolts of electrical energy began to flash about.


    With sudden fear and panic, filling him. Jerome charged forward, grabbing the door of the microwave and forcefully ripping it open, expecting the automatic safety features of the microwave to kick in and to cause the microwave to stop sending out microwaves.


    Unfortunately, there was an apparent error in the design of this microwave, for rather than stopping, the pulse of energy increased, bouncing around the container, to the metal spike and right out sending a thousand megawatt blast into the water soaked Jerome, who was still standing in a faint pool of water.


    ZZZz-APP!


    The force and intensity of the blast didn¡¯t stop immediately, as the current kept going from the microwave. Even Jerome¡¯s increased vitals and health were no match for the sudden surge and near constant stream of energy that poured from the overtaxed microwave into Jerome, and then down and out his body that was acting as a conduit for the electricity that was now burning his insides to pieces.


    As he felt his muscles tighten into place, and felt the burn of electricity eroding his insides, the only thing he could see was the flashing numbers of the microwave.


    013.


    013.


    013.


    Only at the last moment of his life, did he realize that the blocky numbering system of the microwave made the 0 look really close to a capital D. Then with that one piece of the puzzle, Jerome finally understood the message that was being sent to him, but not the why.


    ***


    Down the street, in the following days, neighbors would note that for some reason the Jacobs had lights flashing at full blast on the morning of the power outage. Those that saw the lights assumed the Jacobs had somehow gotten their auxiliary generators online. Mr. Clements noted that he was about to head over and ask for help, but soon saw that the lights died out, and he assumed it meant that even the auxiliary generator had finally died like everything else.

 Chapter 37 Hastys Helpers

    Chapter 37


    Hasty''s Helpers


    (Misha Tulley)


    If Misha had to describe her current state of being right now, it would have to be exhaustion. With her newfound abilities, she had experienced something she never thought previously possible.


    Her mind, arguably her strongest weapon, honed and refined over countless cycles of death, rebirth, and refinement had finally met its limit. Or at least the limit that she found currently for herself.


    She had managed to direct, operate, and control machines from miles away. Just the thought of this type of capacity had been something she could only dream of in the past. Yet, now she was able to do so freely.


    Not only did she see it directly with her guiding of her grandfather and the pack members to safety. But she also managed to do it by enacting changes to Jerome¡¯s house. Everything had been taxing, from continually increasing the force that their house¡¯s sub-pump would use to forcefully push water into their pipes, to the way she made sure more than enough water was covering Jerome for his death, to just how much energy it took to eviscerate a Werewolf from the inside out. Everything had been taxing, but she had found her new limits in this body.


    Better still, aside from a few people, most of whom were already on her side, she did not give much of her true abilities away. She even managed to hide the majority of her abilities away from her grandfather. While he had seen and witnessed a lot, Misha had always held down her full capabilities a little bit. At first she thought it was tactical intelligence. Part of her mind telling her that she needed to make it so the enemy didn¡¯t truly know or understand her full capabilities. That was her initial mindset, but really the truth was that she was afraid. Afraid that her grandfather might instantly turn from being warm and accepting of her and her capabilities to frightened of her.


    The fact that she had been able to not only recharge, but repair a vehicle¡¯s engine from a phone, that was probably her greatest known achievement to date. It didn¡¯t hurt that she knew the vehicle in question inside and out and had built in her own redundant systems to ensure that it could be awoken just like she had. Yet, it was nothing compared to what she could do.


    One of the limits she found was that the energy linked to harvesting a body could not be transmitted through mediums. Though in this case, being able to harvest energy from a slain enemy was just partial curiosity at best. With the sudden arrival of the Bakshee signals, it was clear that her time of idly dwelling here and building up power was soon going to come to a close. That was why she started making her personal movements now.


    In her mind her attack against Jerome was perfect, as she had a clear alibi according to the form of this world, as she wasn¡¯t even in the same neighborhood, and she had simultaneously been on a call with her grandfather and teammates while the actual event began.


    Also, added to the whole fact was that she managed to exact revenge for grandma, well partial revenge. In her mind she knew that there were five confirmed people involved in the murder of her grandmother. Five people who were either there and didn¡¯t stop it from occurring, or worse encouraged the murder to happen.


    It had been a long time since Misha had done anything based solely on impulses, yet in this particular case she couldn¡¯t hold back.


    Again, this whole thing, the need for revenge for a biological ancestor, these were all foreign concepts that were being slowly engrained into her mind. As if her organic code was able to re-write most of her Psycher training in a matter of years.


    That was frightening in and of itself, as it meant that what took years and generations to build up could be slowly eroded if the vessel she chose. That her vessel was not perfect and devoid of the impulses that so much of her doctrine seemed to prohibit.


    In her mind she had a list of people that were involved with the case.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 22.9189%; background-color: rgba(194, 128, 28, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Jerome Jacobs: Male Alpha


    Alishia Silvers: Female Alpha


    Rodger Lee: Actual Murderer


    ???


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    ???


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    While she had her leads as to who the other two passengers were, she couldn¡¯t be certain of them, yet. There would be a time and place for their revenge as well, but it would take time.


    In her mind things were going well. Misha was blending in. She had made her first contact with the enemy and had been accepted in her role as the second reaper. Logically, she knew her first true test would be when she made contact with ReaperTwo, an entity that seemed to be familiar, but the reason why was unknown to Misha at this time. Just the unmistakable fact that she had somehow met or seen this person in some meaningful way. The fact that she somehow knew of ReaperTwo, but not who ReaperTwo was meant that they were likely what this world would call a celebrity. Someone important to something, somewhere, but not directly important to Misha. At least not important to Misha currently.


    Resting.


    Misha found that after putting so much of herself into her act for personal revenge, she was tired. While what she had done was not the full extent of her powers or capabilities it was far more than she had done and shown in a while. This meant that her mind was clearly drained from her operations.


    Yet, it had all been a success in that she now felt more capable than ever, as she had managed to use her abilities to traverse multiple mediums to achieve a desired effect. That effect was of course, the ability to direct change in a mechanical object dozens of miles away.


    Whoom.


    The electricity began to turn back on for the farmhouse and the surrounding areas. That had been the other taxing part of her whole operation, keeping the power grid offline while she made her move. She had the assistance of already having the main components for the world disabled thanks to what many are calculating as an intense solar flare. But the reason it had taken so much longer for power to get reconnected to Jackson West Virginia was not due to faulty wiring as some might believe. Rather it had been a test to prove Misha¡¯s full capabilities to herself. That was the true reason why Misha now found herself so exhausted and ready to pass out from the mental strain she had been through over the past few hours.


    While the power was slowly coming back online to many places, there were going to be a few issues that still needed to be addressed. Namely, what to do with all the vehicles that were now currently disabled in parking lots and highways across the world.


    Speaking of which, Misha mentally tried to reach out to find out where her grandfather was. A quick search showed that he was at the far part of town and finally on his way back.


    ¡°You still there pumpkin?¡± Phil asked.


    Hearing his voice, Misha could only smile slightly. ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Alright, well you sound tired. So long as you think this old pile of bolts will last me until I get home, I think I should let you sleep. Besides, it seems like the power is coming on here, so things should get better here shortly.¡± Phil said, speaking loud enough so that his voice could be heard by the phone that was automatically set to speaker.


    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha said, her voice filling with the fog of sleep and exhaustion. Misha had already closed her eyes, though her senses went far beyond the scope of just normal sight. Which was why, even in this nearly exhausted state she could almost feel the electrical currents coming to life around Phil, making his drive home that much safer, given the new sources of light.


    What she missed, or rather what her senses that were already slowly cutting themselves off from the rest of the world were the various billboards and signs that came to life as Phil began to leave the city portion of the county and head towards the backroads that ultimately led to his home.


    Had Misha been slightly more aware, she might not have missed the moment her grandfather passed by the almost iconic billboard of the famous singer endorsing a particular cola.


    ***


    (ReaperTwo)


    Shock.


    The entity noted as ReaperTwo sat in her plush leather armchair, thinking. She had been given a task, to find one random girl in ten years. Then hopefully after their meeting she would be able to regain her title as the actual ReaperOne.


    On the surface, such an act should be relatively easy, as by now everyone was well aware of ReaperTwo. She had after all sold out her concert tours within hours of announcing their opening. She had three diamond albums, and four others that went platinum. She was an international mogul and married to one of the most impressive athletes in the world, a three-time super bowl champion and winner of multiple MVPs. Of course, he would be the first to point out that most of his success came from being with the entity called ReaperTwo.


    Unfortunately, he would never know exactly how true of a statement that was, as his entire meteoric rise to power had been at the forceful guidance of ReaperTwo. His increase in power, athleticism, and coordination were all due to ReaperTwo¡¯s influence.


    Now everything seemed to be challenged by the arrival of this new reaper, one that ReaperTwo was apparently supposed to work and coordinate with.


    Taking a deep breath, ReaperTwo thought about her future and she would find this random girl. Then she paused, as she realized she was thinking this was backwards. Rather than trying to find a random girl from the world, why not let the girl come to her.


    Knock, knock.


    ¡°Ms. Hasty, now that power is back up are you ready for your board meeting?¡± Ms. Delaney asked, this was ReaperTwo¡¯s right hand woman and official task master.


    ¡°No,¡± ReaperTwo began, but then she had a moment to think about something else. ¡°Actually, wait. Put out the fact that I will be looking for a personal assistant in each city that we go to. Make it known that we will go to each city, interview fans and from each city I will choose one helper to come on stage, get front row tickets for their friends and family, and be my personal helper.¡±


    ¡°Okay?¡± Ms. Delaney began, taking notes and continuing. ¡°Anything else?¡±


    With that, ReaperTwo thought deeper about the mental image she had of the girl. The red hair and green eyes made her fairly unique, but looking for people like that at each city would cause problems. No, for the moment she would want to keep with certain facts that were undeniable. ¡°Yes, the helper should be between the ages of sixteen and twenty, and be willing to get water and enjoy a night of music.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Hasty¡¯s Helpers it is.¡± Ms. Delaney said.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s good, I like that.¡± ReaperTwo said excited about the name.


    ¡°That¡¯s why you keep me around. All right, I will put this out, and is there anything else?¡±


    ¡°No, though I think I need to be alone for a bit. Please clear my schedule for the afternoon.¡±


    ¡°On it.¡±


    Then just as quickly as she entered, Ms. Delaney left, leaving ReaperTwo to think about her future.


    ¡°The ball is now in your court. Let¡¯s see if you show yourself ReaperOne.¡±


    With that thought spoken out loud, ReaperTwo looked out at the bustling city below from her penthouse suite.


    ¡°Looks like it is about time to go back on tour again.¡± She said, as she let a smile come to her face, knowing that hosting a concert was the best way to meet and interact with the greatest demographics of workers, fighters, and rulers. ¡°We will meet up ReaperOne, and when we do, I will take back my title.¡±

 Epilogue

    Epilogue


    A million light years away, in a dying universe that mirrored the one that Misha now found herself transfixed in, developments were happening.


    Developments that would forever change the evolutionary track of the Psychers.


    The Psychers, once the universes¡¯ premier warriors, sages, and problem solvers had now been slowly ground to dust by the ravages of time and the Bakshee war machine.


    Worse, was the way that the Bakshee maneuvered behind the scenes. Constantly maneuvering and posturing for resources, public opinion, and moral platitudes.


    The Psycher Fleet had been decimated, in a slow unending war of attrition that ground the once indomitable war fleet to dust. Dust that was lost to time, and time that now and forever seemed to favor the Bakshee, rather than the seemingly immortal Psychers.


    There in the crumbling fragments of the Psycher¡¯s last flagship, the Psycher Matriarch saw true death coming for her.


    As fragments of her ships hull, and resurrection chambers flew past her body that refused to accept the final release of her last remaining pristine shell, she saw it. Inevitability.


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    She had fought off this exact moment for millennia, but now that it was upon her, she realized that despite her long life she still had regrets, wants, and desires.


    The Matriarch had seen the beginning of the Psychers, and now she would see their end.


    Not wanting to give in, to accept her fate, she still realized that her grudge against the Bakshee held higher sway over her now, than her feeble attempts to cling to life.


    With her last act of life, the Psycher Matriarch gave the ultimate sacrifice for her people, and with it, she all but condemned those that remained, those that had somehow managed to survive despite everything, she now gave them one final task.


    As the final fragments of her ship slowly got pulled into the gravitational well of the nearest star, the Matriarch could only marvel at the sheer audacity and lack of compassion for life that the Bakshee had. The Bakshee had committed everything to this final battle, a hundred battleships, a thousand cruisers, and no less than twenty flagships.


    Countless millions of lives lost, all to prove that the universe could if they tried hard enough unite together and destroy the Bakshee.


    The Matriarch wasn¡¯t alone in her inevitable descent into the gravity well of the sun, but for the first time in her life she felt truly alone, as she knew that even now parts of her psyche were slowly being ripped away the closer she got to the glowing star.


    At this point the Matriarch gave her final command to the survivors of her fleet.


    ¡°My children, I, your Matriarch release you from your previous vows, and ask that you only do one thing. Survive long enough to make the Bakshee pay for what they have done.¡±


    The Matriarch sent out her last command, infusing the last remnants of her full mental power and abilities into the transmission of that last command. Then she slowly sat and stared at the last form of beauty that she had only read about but had never fully witnessed herself. That of watching a star slowly dissolve and cause all the millions of particles around her to break apart into a series of highly condensed atoms, atoms that were broken down and burned away into smaller base components, until finally nothing remained of what originally had entered.


    Millions of light years away, in a universe that was separated by a layer of time as well as power, the pulse of a command was sent, only to be received by not one but two people who had somehow found refuge on the same discarded planet that was capable of bearing carbon-based life forms.

 Prelude II

    Prelude II


    The world slowly began to come back to its once former glory, as auxiliary power cells and grids from all over the world slowly fixed broken pieces and came back to life.


    During the time many deaths and accidents were reported and accounted for, multiple accidents on the highways where vehicles of all types felt catastrophic failures at the worst possible times. The damages caused by driverless vehicles were the absolute worst as they often ended up going in the direction they had last been pointing before their systems were completely disabled. Despite the vehicle not being controlled by a computer, perpetual motion played a pivotal role in what happened next, causing many vehicles to drive into other vehicles, buildings, or factories.


    Factories and assembly lines that had been in full operation saw minor damages, but most were able to be recovered with minimal activity as redundancies and resilient systems had been implemented in most of the factories, at least that was the case in the developed worlds. Many overseas factories suffered similar activities, but many were unable to accommodate for the problems caused by machinery that often didn¡¯t meet the safety standards of the east, as such production limitations were already noted and being accounted for.


    People were growing greedy with the idea of speculating on stocks. As such the world trade commission put a forty-eight hour hold on all stocks and exchanges while records were brought up, re-evaluated, and people prepared for the worst.


    Despite this, many already knew the outcome of what would happen to quite a few stocks, as companies that were completely devastated by the actions of the solar flare would be unable to recover in a month, let alone a forty-eight-hour window.


    This was why people who could prove they had shorted stocks before the crash were thanking their lucky stars, while others were cursing the day they trusted their investors to go in unstable business ventures.


    Throughout it all, multiple accounts seemed to have just enough capital in place, with multiple puts recorded in triplicate that once the market finally opened up, the owners of said money ventures would be rolling in funds.


    Oddly enough, there were at least two different profiteers that seemed to be ready to take advantage of the chaos and unreliability of records to take advantage of the chaos.


    There were only two, as Elijah Cummings could only identify two people who were still able to move about and operate, creating new transactions trails where none previously existed.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    While Elijah Cummings was impressed with the ability of the second investor who used multiple dummy accounts to create a trail of transaction logs and puts, he couldn¡¯t help but wonder how the person was able to do what they were doing.


    From his knowledge,  Elijah was the only person capable of doing such finite activities, yet this person was like a ghost. Their movements perfect, had it not been for the fact that Elijah himself had previously checked all the logs, and memorized the facts before they got to this point, that he would almost swear that these were legitimate transactions.


    Of course, they weren¡¯t, but if he tried to find proof of the fraudulent transactions then he would likely cause additional attention to be placed on his own shady transactions.


    ¡°Well played.¡± Was all Elijah could say, when he tried to find where the fraud transaction broker first began their activities, but to his surprise they did not in linear fashion. Instead, they just seemed to appear, make changes and then disappear like smoke in the cloud.


    Had he not felt a direct competition against this unknown person, Elijah would have wanted to sit down and give said person a beer. But he had other things to worry about at the moment, deeper things. While he had given way to the momentary distraction of putting out puts, he knew a deeper concern loomed, one that would determine what he would do with the rest of his time here.


    Pausing for a moment, Elijah mentally reached out for the doomsday weapon he had been constructing, one that would hopefully be able to disable all organo-tech processors. What he had was just a proto-type, but he felt that soon it would be ready for final production and once that happened, he would be able to release the pulsing transmitter, which would simultaneously kill all life that has steadily been infected with Bakshee electronics, and finally deliver justice for the Matriarch.


    Pulling out his drawer, he pulled up the long spherical device, and just stared at it, making a final few tweaks, before the internal components of the device sparked to life.


    The device itself was small, little more than the size of an egg, but what it represented was peace. Not just peace for the countless creatures of this planet that were all but destined to eventually become infected, but it also meant peace to the spirit of the Matriarch who died protecting the fleet.


    While Elijah knew that he was just a bit too late with his design, he knew that at the very least he could stop the cancerous spread of Bakshee corruption on this planet.


    Holding up the now completed device, Elijah just stared at it for a moment, then speaking to the device he asked. ¡°Are you ready?¡±


    Silence.


    With that Elijah just nodded, realizing that the internal pulsing energy of the device was enough to let him know that the weapon was in fact ready.


    Knock, knock.


    ¡°Mr. Cummings.¡± Sylvia, the handler that had been assigned to Elijah came in and without preamble asked. ¡°The boss is wondering if the device is ready?¡±


    Staring at the device, Elijah knew exactly what the device would be used for, it was after all why he was hired to create just such a device.


    ¡°It is,¡± Elijah said, then standing up he proceeded to follow Sylvia to the boss¡¯s office, where his lifetimes worth of work would finally be able to be used effectively.


    ¡°Is that it? The mini-nuke?¡± Sylvia asked, gesturing to the small egg-like device within his hands.


    ¡°It is, though calling it a nuke is a bit much.¡± Elijah replied back.


    Then just like that the two arrived at a large set of ornate doors, and Sylvia paused. Confusion, fear, and curiosity warring on her face in equal measures.


    ¡°Well, the boss will see you now.¡± Sylvia said, gesturing for Elijah to enter the ornate doors.


    Taking a deep breath, Elijah paused to regain his calm and then entered, ready to continue the war against the Bakshee in another way.

 Chapter 38 Mourning (Amoni Jacobs)

    Chapter 38


    Mourning


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    Thunderclap.


    The fact that it rained on the day of Jacob¡¯s funeral was almost too clich¨¦. It wasn¡¯t until Amoni realized how odd a thunderstorm in November was that Amoni began to truly realize what was happening.


    Amoni¡¯s awareness of the oddity started slowly.


    ¡°Looks like rain.¡± Bruce Jacobs, Amoni¡¯s father spoke idly to himself as they all prepared to get ready for today.


    Of course, Bruce would know the weather, he was a shaman after all. Part mystical, part practical, and always making sure to perform prevarication to its optimal standards.


    Prevarication, that was the true meaning of what it actually meant to be a shaman. To speak without ever giving out your true thoughts on a subject, once Amoni could do that, then supposedly she would be ready for the role of being a shaman.


    Yet, Amoni couldn¡¯t lie. First, she had an expressive face and eyes. Her eyes told almost exactly how she felt at any time about anyone or any given subject. She knew this about herself, and yet was unable to hide her thoughts fully from others. That was part of the rift between her and Jerome, at least at the end.


    Torrential downpour.


    Tears began to come to Amoni, and for the moment she was happy that she had the rain to mask her tears. She didn¡¯t want to appear weak, not in front of the pack, and definitely not in front of the current and possible future Alpha of the pack.


    Secretly she had been hoping for rain. In her mind she had wanted the world to look and feel as miserable outside as she did inside.


    When she awoke today, the day that they finally were putting Jerome into the ground, she felt the storm coming.


    ***


    ¡°No clouds, that¡¯s a good sign.¡± Iris, Amoni¡¯s mother began.


    Amoni remembered coming down the stairs and seeing her mother and father discussing the day down in the kitchen.


    Bruce began to nod his head looking outside, but then something about him changed as he stared at Amoni.


    ¡°Nope. I¡¯d say it looks like rain today. In fact, I do believe today will call for excessive rain. We should bring umbrellas.¡± Bruce said to Iris, while never taking his eyes away from Amoni.


    ***


    Remembering that moment now, Amoni wondered why her father had seemed so confident that it would in fact storm today.


    Granted it was what Amoni herself wanted, but how had her father been able to predict the rain.


    Downpour.


    The rain was so intense that it almost seemed to drown out all background noises. This too was a plus as it meant that Amoni didn¡¯t have to try to strain her werewolf hearing to listen in on the different conversations. She didn¡¯t have to take the moment to see how the pack was going, where people were pretending to place their confidences on who should be the next Alpha. Instead, Amoni could just stand here and wait for the moment to pass.


    That was the thing Amoni had noticed. If moments were too much to deal with all at once, all you had to do was wait it out.


    Things get too stressful from your no good cousin crashing his van, then stealing your car. A car you clearly traded, then crashing said car into a cop car. Only to die while out on bond while you are alone and left to the personal custody of your parents in quite possibly the oddest of deaths imaginable, death by broken microwave. Then to have to come out on a chilly autumn day, waiting in the rain to pay your respects to someone who in the last few months of their lives did everything they could to ruin any respect you had for them.


    Thunderclap!


    The deeper Amoni got into her thoughts, the stronger the storm seemed to get. Strangely enough, Amoni was the only one who did not flinch at the sudden discharge of lightning overhead.


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    ¡°I think we will call that for the sermon.¡± The pastor said, and then quickly made his way out from under the canopy that had been established for the final moments of mourning Jerome.


    Amoni herself just stood outside in the rain. Oddly enough, despite how cold the rain was, it seemed to feel good against her skin. The way the droplets fell and pooled around her. She could feel energy with each drop of rainwater that fell onto her skin. Almost as if the electricity of the clouds above left some of its lingering energy on the droplets of rainwater that fell and finally rested on Amoni¡¯s body.


    Amoni wasn¡¯t the only one who turned out for the funeral. Given how small the community was, or at least tried to be, it seemed like everyone showed up. All the kids from the basketball teams, boys and girls, the football players, and even a few baseball players all showed up to pay their respects to their fallen classmate.


    Alishia was here, under the canopy and surrounded by a gaggle of male suitors all who were already striving to take on the position as next pack Alpha. Looking at the power play going on, Amoni couldn¡¯t help but feel even more anger rising up, as she saw the dynamics that were working.


    Alishia sat under the canopy, which as the last girlfriend and Alpha female of the pack, she had earned. Now that Jerome the only person with more pull over the pack than Alishia was gone, it was clear that anyone who managed to become her partner would invariably be considered the next male Alpha by default. Thus, everyone tried their best to get not only a seat next to Alishia, but around her as well.


    Chief among those around her was none other than Rodger, the guy Alishia cheated on Jerome with. A guy who was little more than a bootlicker in Amoni¡¯s eyes, but that was just her opinion.


    But now with the threat of lightning even Alishia and her entourage already got up to leave, going past Amoni on their way out to their cars and to the protection said vehicles provided.


    Amoni watched them go, never going under the tent as she was still angry with Jerome. No, she realized that she was angry with herself for never making peace with Jerome before he died. They died with tension, her last words to him were not too pleasant, particularly after he destroyed two vehicles. In fact, thanks to her mocking texts she had even been blocked from his number.


    Remembering all these small details, Amoni realized that she would never be able to apologize for anything she said or did. Worse, he would never be able to apologize back. It was almost like he would now be able to go to his grave knowing that he didn¡¯t have to even apologize for anything he did.


    Crackle.


    The deeper Amoni got lost into her thoughts, the harder the storm began to roar its discontent with the world. Yet, to Amoni the storm was a welcome reprieve and distraction to the melancholy that was now befalling her.


    By now everyone had left, even the grandparents were gone, as they were among the first to be ushered out by Abraham and Bruce both.


    This was how Amoni found herself standing alone in the rain.


    Firm hand.


    Just as Amoni was getting lost in her own thoughts, she felt a firm hand grasp her shoulder.


    ¡°Calm down,¡± Bruce, her father, whispered into her ears. By his expression, it was clear that he had taken grandma to safety and then come back for her.


    ¡°I, I am.¡± Amoni began to say, but as she turned to face Bruce she saw something in his eyes. There was a faint blue glow of power in those eyes. Staring, Amoni felt her concentration break, as something deep in the back of her mind seemed to snap. Then just as quickly as the storm clouds seemed to arrive, they began breaking up.


    Rumble.


    The storm gave one last meek discharge of its remaining energy. The flash was weak in comparison to what had happened, and seemed to only go from one cloud to another, not fulling coming down and touching the ground as the others had.


    Drizzle.


    With that, the torrential downpour that had been going nonstop moments ago began to slow to a drizzle, before slowly tapering off in a matter of minutes.


    Amoni paused, realizing everything that was happening with the storm. Somehow feeling the fact that now that her concentration was severed, now that the string of mental thoughts that had been tethering her to something far greater than before was gone, the storm that had been a welcome reprieve for Amoni also began to break up.


    At first Amoni wanted to say something. Seeing the look in her father¡¯s eyes it was clear that he suspected Amoni had something to do with the storm. At first Amoni wanted to protest, to state that there was no way she could have controlled the storm. But now that it was over and now that she no longer felt invigorated by the constant downpour, Amoni suddenly felt drained.


    Sunshine.


    A ray of light burst through the clouds and seemed to shine brightly on Amoni and her father.


    Once the ray of light began to shine, Bruce gave a simple nod of his head. Then lowering his umbrella, continued to stare at Amoni.


    There were unspoken words in that stare. A stare that spoke both volumes, and offered countless insights, if Amoni could but reach out and recognize them.


    Amoni paused, trying to comprehend what was being said through subtext. What was the idea that Bruce was now trying to convey to her. Judging by the thinly veiled smile, all but wishing to break out from his stoic face, Amoni knew it was something good. Either a good joke, or something that would make him immensely proud. Seeing as this was a funeral for his nephew, this was clearly not the moment for a joke. Which meant that this was something that would make him proud, but what?


    Then suddenly tiny details of the day came back to her. The way Bruce knew for a fact that it would be rain. After that was the fact that the rain seemed to cause everyone else to feel cold but managed to make Amoni feel alive inside. Even stranger was the way the storm seemed to break the moment her concentration broke. How she felt immediately weak and tired after Bruce awoke her from her thoughts.


    Now there was the fact that with the rain stopping, Amoni was glad that the sun began to shine. At this last realization, Amoni realized that she felt something. Staring back into her father¡¯s eyes that still seemed to glow blue, Amoni paused and asked. ¡°Did I?¡±


    Nodding.


    Bruce just nodded his head, as a proud smile finally crested his lips. This moment, right here, where her father smiled brightly at her, this made the whole terrible day worth it for her.


    Then trembling, Amoni began to pause as she realized exactly what this all meant.


    ¡°Wait, that means that I¡­¡± Amoni trailed off not wanting to say anything. Even to herself the words sounded farfetched.


    Nodding.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Bruce said, still not talking and letting Amoni come to the conclusion on her own. A conclusion that was both obvious and frightening all at the same time.


    Relief, fear, exhilaration.


    Many emotions flooded through Amoni all at once as her mind tried to process everything that had happened and was happening to her.


    ¡°I, I awoke?¡± Amoni asked.


    ¡°You have always been awake. You have just now learned to accept yourself and your position. Now you can finally see your place in the pack.¡± Bruce began, letting the words sink in. ¡°This is good as the new pack will need you more than ever before.¡±


    With that Amoni¡¯s mind began to spin with new concepts and ideas. She had always been awakened, but she just now learned to accept her position in the pack? That sounded probable, but also not, as she had never felt this way before. At least not until recently, not until meeting her.


    Then almost as if summoned by the thought, Amoni saw a flash of red out of the corner of her eye. Turning Amoni saw a tall pale skinned girl with bright red hair wearing a drenched black dress just staring down at a tombstone.


    In her mind, she realized that the girl was either here mourning, or had joined in the burial of Jerome and then broken away to this other grave marker. In her mind, she knew exactly who the person was, as it was the person she had just been thinking about.


    ¡°Ah, yes. I was meaning to ask you about her.¡± Bruce began, staring over at the red haired beauty that looked tragically beautiful in setting and regalia. ¡°She is on your basketball team right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Amoni began.


    There was clearly a question that was waiting to be asked. And while Amoni felt she was ready to handle most questions, she did not see the question that came next coming. Not in a hundred years.


    ¡°What are your thoughts on her joining the pack?¡±

 Chapter 39 Status Change (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 39


    Status Change


    (Misha Tulley)


    The past two weeks were rather chaotic for everyone around the world, not just the residents of Jackson West Virginia. As the solar flare that ripped through the planet and destroyed, disabled, or deactivated all electronic devices was still being dealt with.


    Misha thought that right about now would be a good time to pose the idea of crystalline power generators, they were more efficient, more resilient, and most importantly they would be mostly immune to the greater communications of the noble spacefaring races.


    Hidden amongst the chaos that was the world collectively being thrown back into the Victorian Era of this planet, if only for a few days. Still it proved that the planet was not resilient enough to withstand true solar powered communications.


    Bright light.


    Worst of all was the fact that in her room, immediately after the power went out initially, Misha had seen the signs she had been hoping for. A simple crystalline receiver that to anyone not familiar with Psycher technology would assume was little more than a crystal being held in place by invisible plastic spikes.


    Misha did have the plastic spikes in place, but that was to keep everyone else from realizing that the crystal would actually float freely if not acted upon by external forces.


    For now, the crystal just glowed brightly with the traces of a stored message deep within.


    When she first tried to access the message, she was flat out refused entry. For a time, she wondered if she had somehow created the crystal structure incorrectly. She was after all a maintainer of equipment and not a developer or communications expert, as would be more familiar with designing the message relay system.


    However, being a lead engineer of a section, it became routine to know how the wiring of the communication crystals worked, and most importantly how to fix them to relay messages to the command deck promptly. As such, while she had never been given express permission to learn how to fix the communication nodes, it was something she was very familiar with by this point.


    That was why she was fairly positive that she had created the crystal relay and collection system properly. Especially as she got a very unique message.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 12.8649%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Access Denied.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Of course, the message was actually depicted in Psycher Runes, and formed clearly on the surface of the crystal in glowing brilliance. There was even the section where Misha was to enter in her fleet credentials. She did, but each time she was met with the same message.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 12.8649%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Access Denied.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    A day after receiving such a message, Misha began changing tactics, cycling through the known login prompts of the others from first her section. She started high, and then worked her way down the line, until she got to Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu¡¯s codes. He was a Psycher who went missing the mission before her final death, for whatever reason his codes were still seen as valid. He was also the head cook for the maintainer¡¯s dining hall.


    As the head maintainer, Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu often relied on Misha to fix his problems. Technically he should have been maintained by another group, but there was always a weird dichotomy between the sections. One that only seemed to make more and more sense as to why, now.


    Only upon using Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu¡¯s codes was Misha finally able to see the message being sent by the Matriarch.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 12.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Access Granted.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that granting of permissions, Misha was able to see the message to the fleet. That was when she saw the universal release code.


    Seeing the code, Misha realized that with this, her last few restraints to the fleet would be removed.


    For a few moments she just sat there in quiet contemplation and meditation. For millennia she had been bound to the greater will of the fleet, but was that truly a bad thing? Yes, she had been pigeonholed into one position, but she had done exceptionally well with that position, and been rewarded for her efforts. Or so she had thought.


    Yet, once she took the release code, and applied it to her mental psyche, she felt parts of her mind unravel. As the unwrapping began, she almost felt naked, as she felt her mind able to open up and stretch. Only now realizing that she had restraints set in place.


    Restraints that forced her to devote herself only towards the improved maintenance of the Psycher fleet. They also tried to slow down her innovative thoughts, at least that was what Misha internally classified the next set of codes that were released. For a moment she wondered why such commands were presented, then she remembered countless meetings about needing to work with what we had, and to not focus on new innovations.


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    There were also a few times when she overhead the thoughts of others complaining about how the maintenance workers were trying to rise above their station.


    With everything being for the fleet, Misha was often able to disregard these thoughts as they were not pertinent to her or her crew¡¯s role in the fleet.


    Everything had been perfect, right? At least that was what Misha thought, now it almost frightened her the fact that she couldn¡¯t see how bad everything was for her, compared to the others of the fleet. She had been forced to eat in the maintenance dining room, which was easily the worst one of the fleet. Only now, with her mental restraints being removed, did she truly begin to understand something.


    This same fact was taught to her in the history of the world she was currently residing in, as well. Namely that she was at best a second-class citizen and at worst, she was what some might consider a lesser being among the ship¡¯s occupants.


    Silence.


    Now that the restraints had been lifted and Misha was finally able to make certain connections in logic that were always denied her, she began to think and prioritize different objectives.


    Her last orders from the Matriarch had been to continue to fight against the Bakshee, but they were no more compelling to her now than those of her body¡¯s biological mother. Yes, she would listen to them and likely try to follow them so long as they were reasonable and made sense. But the first time they seemed to be lacking in consistency or relevance to her current goals, she would dismiss them entirely.


    Logically, the command after being set free made no sense.


    This was what Misha was pondering when she realized that there was still a larger data component to the crystal, implying that there was a rather large data source within the code that was sent.


    Looking at the coding Misha tried to access it, but realized that by trying to access it all at once, she would likely break the weak repository crystal that she had created. While the crystal was large enough to capture the transmission burst, it was not robust enough to display all the information that would be pertinent to understanding the device.


    Mentally, Misha saw the data set as a giant puzzle, one that could be moved and maneuvered slightly, in order to reveal a portion of data. With that, she first tested things she knew for a fact, however, the details she gained began to cause her to question everything.


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    Ship Maintenance Diagram ¨C Layout


    Commander¡¯s quarters adjacent to the Command deck.


    Communication, Combatants, and researchers quarters adjacent to the mid-decks.


    Maintenance bays, engine rooms, and degraded dining areas at the lower sections of the fleet.


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    Only after having the ship¡¯s layout displayed graphically did Misha begin to notice a few things. Things that she took for granted as the obvious while she was on the fleet, but now all seemed to be glaring in bias against the maintainers. First of all, no sleep facilities were needed, instead what could have been sleep rooms were converted into resurrection chambers. While Misha had glad at the time that she was afforded the luxury of resurrection, she now saw it in a different light, that she was designed to die, resurrect, work herself to death, and resurrect once more.


    Mentally, Misha had been at least partially aware of the other decks and that members were granted quarters. Only now, seeing the disparity in accommodations did the true existence of her status in the fleet begin to hit her.


    Calm.


    Misha found herself trying to take advantage of the spiritual calming techniques that all Psychers were taught, this helped her many times regain composure and continue to press on despite how bad situations became.


    Now Misha used those same trainings that helped her adapt to wartime conditions and used them to help her slow down her racing mind and begin to compartmentalize what had happened.


    She had been brainwashed, that much was clear. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that everyone had been brainwashed by the matriarch. The Matriarch had captains that were granted a portion of her benevolence and authority, that authority was then used to run the different ships of the fleet as efficiently as possible. At least that was what Misha had always expected to be the case, but now she could not truly comprehend what it had all meant.


    Pausing for a moment, Misha gathered herself, took a deep breath and began looking at the statuses for those people around her. These were the people that she worked with tirelessly for centuries, building a reputation with each, so they could carry out their work as quickly and efficiently as possible.


    The first one she searched for was her second in command.


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    <td style="width: 100%">


    Name: Ulu-No-Ma-Sak-Fu


    Current Status: Deceased


    Position: Maintainer


    Classification: Lesser Evolved Species (Expendable)


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    Seeing the data¡¯s recollection of her second in command, Misha then decided to see what the status of the chef that was actually allowed to access this data was given.


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    Name: Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu


    Current Status: Alive (Logged in) ¨C Just updated from deceased


    Position: Chef for Lesser Evolved Species


    Classification: Middle Evolved (Upgradable)


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    Seeing that message, Misha realized why she had been denied access to the data and the codes. At least she thought she knew. But to have the restraints removed from her mind so she could begin to truly understand the bias that had surrounded the fleet and operations, it made her sick.


    To her, she had never been more than a useful tool who was capable of making it so the commanders of her ship could go out, expand the territory of the Psycher, while always remaining onboard the vessels.


    At the time she had been happy with the arrangement as she and the others often felt apprehension about leaving the ship, or their well-maintained maintenance areas. Yet now that the layers of coding directly into her mind were being released, and she could mentally feel the areas where these commands once resided, she wondered how much of her xenophobia was natural and how much was produced by constant reinforcement from her indoctrinations.


    Then she had probably the most heretical of all thoughts. Maybe the Bakshee were right in their mistrust of the Psychers?


    Just having the thought caused her to flinch as if she were punched. As she paused, she realized that this was often where she would inadvertently feel an electrical shock telling her she was wrong, but that didn¡¯t happen.


    Instead, she only found yet more validation that her mental conditioning was not meant to make her the strongest version of herself, but the strongest version of herself that would work tirelessly for the fleet. With that distinction in mind, Misha felt something rattle loose in her mind. Or maybe it was just her mind slowly beginning to expand into areas that had been forbidden for centuries.


    Then finally, she realized that she needed to do the most heretical thing of all, namely she needed to find out truly what the fleet thought of her. She had done so for her second in command, but that was acceptable as he was a subordinate. One was never supposed to search their own status in the fleet. At least that was what the lingering commands in her mind told her.


    She felt those commands, commands that had been burned into her mind and body with lifetimes of negative reinforcements, and then decided to push on.


    Then taking a deep breath, Misha stilled her mind, as she prepared for what she would do next. Then not feeling any signs of retaliation, she relaxed a little as she entered her own name into the dataset to see what the fleet actually thought about her all this time.


    Loading¡­

 Chapter 40 Repairs

    Chapter 40


    Repairs


    (Two Days Later)


    Darren Hallsprings


    To say that Darren was devastated by the power outage that ravaged the world would be an understatement. For over two weeks his entire life, as he knew it, was over. No online stalking, no viewing the wonders of the world through the safety of his room from his own laptop and drone monitor feed, and worst of all, he had no clue what others thought of his statements about supernatural entities living among them.


    When he was able to talk to others online, he felt at home, that he could find at least one other person in the over eight billion online users who would take a moment to acknowledge him as a human being.


    Granted, he was well aware of the fact that most of his reasons for not being acknowledged by others of his age was due to his own inadequacies. Social anxiety was tough for Darren to deal with on a normal day where he could hide himself in the sanctity of cyberspace, all while trying to appear as a productive member of society. Now being forced to go out and actually immerse himself in society was grading on him in ways he did not know existed.


    Knock, knock.


    His mother was at the door. Darren knew it was his mother due to the gentle sounding of the wrapping of her knuckles. It almost sounded like she desperately wanted to interrupt whatever Darren was working on at the moment, but to do so in the least obtrusive way possible. A way of acting that was completely different from his father who most often just open the door and barge in, or do the knock once and immediately enter.


    The fact that there was also a moment of pause also let Darren know that his mother wanted something from him.


    ¡°Yes?¡± Darren finally asked, wishing that he could listen to his music or anything really, but all of his electronics had been fried during the blast. Power had just gotten back to their neighborhood last week, but that did little to comfort him as it would still be a while before they could get a new functional router. And then he would need a computer and other equipment as well. Even his phone would need to be replaced, his life was truly dead. Along with the world around him.


    ¡°Dear, good news.¡± His mother began speaking. Darren thought about trying to stop her before she got started, but honestly there was nothing he could do, as there was no way he could fake doing school work, as school had been cancelled for the week while everything was getting brought back online.


    Raising an eyebrow and not sighing loudly was about all Darren could do at the moment, now that his mother had invaded his personal sanctum and saw him staring at the open laptop, the obsidian black screen of his phone, and the way his UAV and charger just sat on the charger.


    ¡°Oh good, you¡¯re not busy.¡± She teased.


    Eye roll.


    This time Darren couldn¡¯t hold back the involuntary reaction.


    ¡°What is it, ma?¡±


    ¡°I just heard from the Waltons next door that there is a local garage that is open to the public and fixing anything electronic. Just ten-dollars cash per item fixed, you take it in, no questions asked. Ten minutes later you get to test out your equipment and boom it is as good as new.¡±


    ¡°What? How is that possible?¡± Darren asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but look what I found?¡± Ms. Hallsprings said, holding up a crisp bill with the old guy who was never a president on the cover.


    ¡°Wait? How can we get there?¡±


    ¡°In my car.¡±


    ¡°When did you get it fixed?¡±


    ¡°Yesterday, at the same place where we are going today. So come on grab the computer, your electronic gizmos and my router. I was told I needed to bring the router if we were going to get the internet back up.¡± Ms. Hallsprings said, then before Darren could protest, she left.


    Darren was left dumbfounded for a moment, before he got out a bug out bag and then quickly began taking each and every item of note with him. At ten dollars a piece, plus the router, that set him at nine, no likely eight or less items. By the end, Darren cut it down to the basics, his laptop computer, his phone, his e-reader, his UAV drone, his blue tooth speakers and headphones. Yes, that would be enough.


    Then grabbing the router, he also helped his mother grab her computer and his father¡¯s to also be fixed. Then with that, and the phones, he figured they were at everything.


    Only once they were on the road, did Darren pause to hear the car.


    ¡°Hey, is the air conditioning running?¡± Darren found himself asking.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that wonderful, the people that fixed the car are really magic with all things mechanical.¡± At least that is what old man Tulley says about his granddaughter.


    ¡°Granddaughter?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, a cute little thing. I think she is about your age.¡±


    ¡°Wait, this isn¡¯t one of your attempts to try to set me up with someone, is it mom?¡±


    ¡°What? Why would I ever think about setting you up with someone who is smart, pretty, intelligent, has a set of skills that can survive the apocalypse, and from all accounts is incredibly talented. No, if I tried to hook her up with you, I think you would just be dead weight.¡± Ms. Hallsprings said in her faux-ironic tone.


    Hearing her speak, Darren could only sigh to himself as he realized this would be a rather long day. If everything went well, hopefully there would be no chance that his mother could do anything to embarrass him. For Darren knew that despite his mother¡¯s protests, she would try to either drop not so subtle hints to either the girl in question, or to Darren himself about making a move.


    That was his mother¡¯s way of course, as she always had that extroverted tendency, but part of why Darren felt so insecure is by how hard his mother pushed him, or at least tried to push him out of his comfort zone.


    ¡°Oh look, there it is.¡± Ms. Hallsprings said, pointing up ahead to the long line of cars that were waiting to either enter or leave the property.


    Only after seeing the location that all the cars were going did the area begin to seem familiar, but Darren for the life of him couldn¡¯t remember exactly why the place looked familiar.


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    ¡°What is this, a remake of the Shining?¡± Darren asked, suddenly feeling extremely creeped out.


    ¡°The Shining was about a man with alcoholism being snowed into a hotel that didn¡¯t have any guests. This would likely be the setting for The Ring, or some other edgy cult horror movie, where everyone dies horribly by going to the shed. Oh look, there¡¯s one right over there.¡± Ms. Hallsprings replied, the pointed to the giant converted cow shed that now had a giant sign saying Phil¡¯s Rustbucket Garage in giant neon letters.


    ¡°Not helping mom.¡±


    With that his mother just shrugged her shoulders, ¡°nothing I say ever does.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t until Darren saw the sign that suddenly everything began to make sense about why the whole place looked so familiar. Of course, he had seen the place before, but when he had it had been from a lot higher altitude, and he had only managed to get the edge of the fields here.


    Cold sweat.


    Suddenly Darren remembered his last time here, where he biked in through the corn fields and found his drone at the center of a crop circle. Then he remembered being scarred off by the giant shape.


    Closing his eyes, he could even see the girl standing in the center of a giant circular ring of fire, then he remembered the bright flash of light, from when she looked up, saw the drone and the caused the drone to drop to the ground.


    With that realization, it was clear why this was the only spot where people could get their items fixed. The girl had apparently knocked out his drone with her mind. At least that is what Darren could think up.


    Aliens.


    That was the other word that came to mind. An extraterrestrial being who could create crop circles of fire around themselves, while knocking out mundane aircraft from the sky with a glance, and were now seen as a sort of messiah for repair work when the world came to an end.


    Knock, knock.


    Darren jumped out of his skin at the sound of someone knocking on his window. Rolling down the window, Darren was surprised to see ¡°Michelle?¡±


    With that the girl paused, and then tilted her head to the side as she looked at Darren. ¡°Yeah, do I know you?¡±


    ¡°Maybe, we are in French three together.¡±


    At that, the girl seemed to have a look of recognition on her eyes. ¡°Yeah, the weird kid in the corner, Dave right?¡±


    ¡°Darren.¡±


    ¡°Oh, right. Well, welcome to the women¡¯s basketball team¡¯s fundraiser. All funds donated today will go towards helping the high school women¡¯s basketball team.¡± Michelle said, holding up a clear container with a cut out hole in the top.


    ¡°Well hand this to the nice girl.¡± Ms. Hallsprings said, nudging Darren and giving him a quick wink once he looked at her.


    ¡°Right,¡± Darren replied taking the bill and unceremoniously shoving it into the container.


    ¡°All right, that is for ten items.¡± Michelle said, pulling out a packet of stickers, and placing ten on a post-it note that were then given to Darren. ¡°Just give that to Jasmine when it is your turn and hand over the items that you want to have working.¡±


    With that, Michelle pointed forward to see a girl guiding cars into the garage with bags of electronic equipment that were then taken out of the vehicle, taken to another working bay, where lights would flash every so often, only for the items to be returned a few minutes later apparently in working order.


    As the two watched, it was clear that the entire basketball team was involved in the operation. Two were going out getting donations, two were in the garage bay either staying with the driver or helping with the electronic devices. Then seemingly two others would take the electronic devices back.


    No, that wasn¡¯t true, there must have been a rotation of some kind. As the two that were working the line were replaced every so often by others who came from the garage. The two working the line for donations would go back, to the bay take items then seemingly disappear, while another girl would come back with ¡®fixed¡¯ items.


    ¡°Honestly, seeing how hard these girls are working, I don¡¯t mind supporting this team. A lot better than having to buy fatty bars.¡± Ms. Hallsprings said.


    ¡°Hey, I like those fatty bars.¡± Darren protested, and he meant it. As those were one of the few times when candies were allowed in the house, when teams would come to sell different products to raise money for their different organizations.


    ¡°Well, what would you rather have fatty bars, or working electronics?¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t I have both?¡±


    ¡°Apparently not.¡± Mother replied, gesturing to the services before them.


    Finally, it was their car¡¯s turn. With that a girl that Darren only knew as Two-Tone waved the car forward, and then getting them into the bay gestured for them to stop. At which point, the large girl came to the side window.


    ¡°Tickets?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡­¡± was all Darren could say, before his mother reached into his hands, pulling out the now worn post-it note with cat stickers and handed it to Two-Tone, reaching over Darren to do so.


    ¡°Sorry, my son has a hard time talking to pretty girls, it¡¯s a phase.¡±


    ¡°Mom.¡±


    Chuckle.


    With that Two-Tone laughed.


    ¡°Thank you for your donation today. As part of our effort to give back, we are willing to work on ten electronic items that are all smaller than a briefcase.¡± Two-Tone said in a voice that sounded like she had made this same speech countless times.


    ¡°They are in the backseat, Darren why don¡¯t you help the nice lady get them?¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Darren responded, now thoroughly embarrassed from this whole operation. Getting out, he noticed how Two-Tone easily side-stepped the opening door and managed to be at the exact right spot to help carry the two backpacks that held all ten items. Given the items and their weight Darren had a hard time lifting one, but Two-Tone managed to lift both like they were nothing.


    Seeing the display, Darren¡¯s eyes bulged out slightly, before he managed to regain himself. With that he watched as Two-Tone carried the bags to the back, while another girl came out and asked, ¡°can you please get back into your vehicle? This is for your own safety.¡±


    ¡°Uh, right.¡± Darren said, embarrassed.


    ¡°Excuse me ma¡¯am.¡± Ms. Hallsprings began.


    Hearing his mother call Amoni, the star of the basketball team ma¡¯am was embarrassing, well nothing more than what he had been subjected to so far, but it was getting up there.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Is this still the Tulley¡¯s?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is.¡±


    ¡°Oh, is it Mr. Phil who is back there?¡± Darren¡¯s mother asked.


    ¡°No, it is his granddaughter, Misha.¡± Amoni answered.


    ¡°Huh.¡± Was all Ms. Hallsprings could say, before another girl came out with the bags.


    ¡°Here you go, please take a moment to check everything.¡± Another girl that Darren thought was named Heather, spoke.


    ¡°Oh, my phone, it actually works.¡± Ms. Hallsprings said, a note of joy filling her words. Darren would almost be embarrassed had he not had nearly the exact same response himself from seeing his phone once again connect to the internet. Of course, most of the internet sites he wanted to go to were still down, but he could get there.


    ¡°Yes, all of these should be in working order. If there are any questions you can always bring them back, but for now, can I ask that you pull forward over there, towards K-Bar and thoroughly check out your equipment before leaving.¡± Amoni said, gesturing to yet another member of the team who was standing in front of spots that seemed to be in front of a fully functional basketball court.


    ¡°I did not know that they had such a place here.¡± Darren¡¯s mother said, as she pulled forward to the spot.


    ¡°Neither did I.¡± Darren said, then paused as he remembered seeing aerial surveillance from Google maps that showed the basketball court. Of course, Darren wanted to avoid making that clarification as it might show that he had been cyber stalking Misha or that he had at least attempted to do so, attempted and failed.


    Pulling out his laptop Darren fired it up and was relieved to see that it quickly came to life and showed the loading background.


    Just seeing the loading image was enough to cause Darren to get excited as this was a lot further than it had ever gotten in its boot sequence recently.


    Then while his computer was loading, he paused to see his pride and joy, with a smile that he was unable to hide, he found the UAV and watched it spark to life.


    Knock, knock.


    With that Darren found his heart pounding in his chest for the second time in less than an hour as he saw a tall figure standing over the side of his window.


    Before Darren could react, his window started to roll down on its own, thanks to his mother¡¯s controls.


    ¡°That looks mighty familiar.¡± A male voice called out, and with a start, Darren realized who the voice belonged to, as it was the same voice from his nightmares. The same voice that called out to him when he went to get this very UAV from this same set of fields.


    Gulp.


    Darren felt a lump form in his throat, as he tried to come up with a random excuse, but couldn¡¯t. Fortunately, his mother came to save him.


    ¡°Mr. Tulley, is that you?¡±


    ¡°Yes, though someone as pretty as you can just call me Phil.¡± The old man said.


    Is he hitting on my mother? Darren thought to himself as he turned from the old man to his mother and then back.


    ¡°Oh Phil, you never change. I¡¯m Dana, Dana Hallsprings, well you would have known me as Dana Agnew back when I went to school with Andrea.¡±


    Pausing, the old man stared at his mother for a moment, then paused as recognition filled his face.


    ¡°Blah-blah-blah?¡± Phil asked.


    Chuckle.


    ¡°You do remember.¡± His mother, Dana, said, as she quickly unbuckled her seatbelt then went out to hug the old man.


    At that Darren really didn¡¯t want to get involved in the acts of his mother, but couldn¡¯t help but hear her say somethings that were sort of confusing.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry to hear about Julie.¡±


    With that there were a few more words that were said a lot quieter, but all Darren could do was run through all the electronic devices and check to make sure they were all up and operational. He went through all of his items first, even logging in to make sure no data had been lost. Especially as he had been in the middle of an assignment when the power went out.


    Once he was certain everything was roughly the same way as before the solar flare, he checked his mother and father¡¯s computers all to find that they too were fine.


    Click.


    By the time he was done, his mother climbed back into the car, a few tear streaks easily seen on her face. Seeing her in this state, Darren didn¡¯t know what to say. Fortunately, his mother took over the conversation in her normal fashion, by avoiding talking about anything awkward, like why she was crying.


    ¡°Right, so are you happy with everything?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, everything works.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± Dana said, nodding to herself, before putting her laptop back in her bag and then taking a deep calming breath looked behind her and began driving away.


    Silence.


    Not that Darren wanted to talk to his mother, but being in a car with her when she was normally the center of everything social seemed to hit Darren harder than he had expected, so finally he broke down and asked.


    ¡°Everything okay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Darren paused, waiting for more, then realizing that nothing else was coming, he could only wonder what the old man had told her that caused her to appear so flustered. For a moment, he wondered if the old man spoke about his spying on them, and what he saw the weeks before the solar flare. He thought about that, then decided to keep quiet as stalking was a serious offense.


    With that the two just had an awkward ride home, before they got back and his mother went to her room, while Darren went about setting up the router and other electronic devices around the house.


    On the one hand he was happy to get everything back, but now with his mother in her mood, the house seemed a lot more depressing than ever.

 Chapter 41 Movement (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 41


    Movement


    (Misha Tulley)


    ¡°This just in. A major outbreak of unknown origins has just been released in Hong Kong, London, D.C., and Los Angelas. With so many major cities hit all at once, leaders are thinking this is another super-virus outbreak. For now, the government has instituted an emergency shutdown to quell the outbreak. At this time everyone is advised to stay at home and not leave for any purposes, unless it is an emergency.¡± The News broadcaster stated, bringing to life news that broke through every major streaming application and social media platform at the same time. Not that many were able to see the message, as at this point the idea of accessing Social Media platforms was considered a luxury that most were unable to take advantage of. Especially with the way everything was going in the world.


    Misha watched as Phil, her grandfather, just listened to the News and paused as she saw what she thought was yet another piece of Phil¡¯s resolve slowly fade away.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what the world is coming to.¡± Phil said.


    Misha nodded, realizing that Phil was at that point where he just needed to vent a bit, before things got too sporadic in his mind.


    Phil realizing that Misha as usual wasn¡¯t going to speak her mind, was both happy with her and flustered at the fact that he couldn¡¯t rant to her properly. In Phil¡¯s mind, the process should be, he complains, Misha asks why, and then he could go on a whole tirade about why the world sucks. Yet, Misha was far too clever to fall for such an event. As such, he was now forced to deal with the fact that he was going to have to put into words what still made no sense to him.


    Finally, after a few moments, Phil just took a deep breath and finally let it out.


    ¡°You are doing a good thing by helping out the community while raising money for your team. Your grandmother would have been proud of you. Hell, I¡¯m proud of you, but I know you already know that.¡± Phil said, his words filled with love.


    Hearing that Misha smiled brightly, and actually meant it, when she did smile.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m going to let you get lost in your thoughts. I can see you are distracted.¡± Phil said, before leaving.


    Misha wanted to stop him, to protest, but then realized she had been distant with her own thoughts. Recent events had played a major role in that, but she now realized that her being distracted was obvious to more than just her, as it now impacted her relationship with Phil, something that might not have bothered her as much, if at all, two months ago.


    Yet, Misha had a very good reason for her recent distractions, one that she still didn¡¯t quite know how to explain to anyone, even Phil.


    The problem begins with the fact that when your mind can go anywhere, touch anything on a widely connected planet, sometimes the noise that is produced from a baby planet such as Earth is overwhelming. This was the great thing about the solar burst event, or at least that is what everyone on Earth is calling the event that brought communications back to basics for a while.


    Only once all the noise was down was Misha allowed the chance to pause and think about everything, to slowly build up her tolerance to the world noise that to a Psycher looked and felt like a baby constantly crying for attention.


    Now with everything slowly getting brought back online, Misha was slowly able to regain a sense of balance with her connection to the world. The closest equivalent that Misha could come up with was, this was akin to getting into a scorching hot bath, after a certain point it wasn¡¯t that hot. That is how Misha now felt given everything that was going on around her.


    This time as things came online, she was far more prepared and capable of dealing with the noise that everything gave off. So many open channels all screaming their secrets, so many different information networks that had data some would kill for, just sitting openly in unprotected vaults. Or at least that is the way the data felt to a Psycher like Misha, and Misha wasn¡¯t even an infiltration expert, she was just a maintainer, one of the lower dregs of the fleet, apparently.


    Given the information, Misha was still having a hard time adapting to her own classification and in fact her own workaround. In a way, she had stolen her freedom. She had found keys to a mental prison she and all other Psychers had willingly submitted to and was only now experiencing the full effects of being free. Though, she also realized that in her last death and subsequent resurrection into this vessel that she lost something. At the time she thought it was something important, but looking back on things, that part of her psyche that she lost might have been the very lock that kept her confined to her predetermined existence as a maintainer.


    With the last few constricting bands removed from her consciousness, she could now think and feel more clearly, though the difference wasn¡¯t as pronounced as she would have thought such a revelation would be. Honestly, the fact that it didn¡¯t quite bother her was more of a revelation than anything. Though maybe her controls were waning for a while, as the original her, the recruit who first joined the fleet¡¯s maintainer core would have never gone through and shared access codes and controls with anyone. Especially not someone from another group of workers, yet in war time it had made the most sense for her to be able to work quickly and effectively fixing an issue, before it got too big during a war time situation.


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    That¡¯s what she had referred to the change, the War Protocol, which meant that in war as long as everyone survived, any sin, like the sharing of passwords, could be forgiven. Particularly if there was a good logical reason for the sharing. Also, with chef Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu knowing that they could and likely should change their password after the mission. At first, they did change their password, but then invariably things went bad again, causing the need for yet another password update, which then ultimately led to another time when work was missed due to protocols.


    After a certain number of password resets, Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu just kept their password and logins the same, knowing that it would be easier this way in the future. If Psycher¡¯s don¡¯t eat they die, and if the engineers especially don¡¯t eat, then eventually the whole ship will cease operations and be a drifting target in space.


    Ultimately, Misha realized that the first person to break from everything was likely Ulu-thin-lu-Mo-Sar-in-Nu, or his commands were such that the prioritization of maintaining sole access to his accounts was not as much of a priority as his major components of his position as a Chef for the Lesser Evolved Species.


    All of these thoughts and more went through her mind as she took in her seemingly unremarkable record for the fleet.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 48%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Name: Mala-Su


    Current Status: Deceased (No more resurrection vessels allocated)


    Position: Maintainer


    Classification: Lesser Evolved (Unupgradable)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That was it, nothing about her five hundred years of service as a Chief Maintainer, nothing about her heroics with putting out countless fires that would have destroyed the ship. Nothing about how smoothly the ship sailed under her touch, just her name, position, and what the fleet truly thought of her.


    Misha almost wished it hurt, but all she felt was a slight numb sensation to everything. Almost as if everything was happening far away from her, and she was only able to get faint messages of everything.


    This was why she threw herself into projects, like fixing the electronics of everyone in the community. Not that she needed money, if she truly needed money there were more than enough ways for her to manipulate the stock market by falsifying records. Records like those being created by at least two other operators who were so sloppy with their work that Misha would find it hard to believe if the inhabitants of this world didn¡¯t identify issues with the noted transactions.


    The community project of giving back to the community was also being done for an alternative  reason as well, namely Misha wanted to find more evidence about who the two other people in the van were, when her grandmother was killed.


    Already, Misha knew that both Rodger and Alishia had been in the van at the time of her grandmother''s death. She had also learned about two other key details, thanks to her working with the electronic devices. First, she learned the name, or at least the pseudonym of one of the passengers, a girl who goes by the name of Tricksy. A girl that Misha tracked as being part of the neighboring high school, whose real name is Tricia Reynolds.


    The other key fact that Misha had discovered was the fact that Rodger was the one who actually killed her grandmother. While Jerome had been the driver who ultimately started the whole chain of events, it was Rodger who ultimately made the final blow that forever took away any chance that her grandmother had at living.


    To Misha this meant that the fate in store for Rodger would have to be the most violent. That he would need to feel the pain and anguish in his very soul, pain so profound that he would pause and hesitate when offered the chance at rebirth. That was the pain that only a Psycher could inflict, and something that Misha knew she would need to prepare for, if she wanted to make sure justice was served.


    For now, she decided to take her time, to set everything up, so that ultimately justice would be served.


    Besides currently Misha realized that she was not alone here. That there were not one but two other Psychers running wild on the planet. At first, she felt it would have been part of her directive to go out and facilitate communications with the two of them, to offer up her services.


    But it was that last part that caused her to pause and hesitate for the moment. Even feeling the lingering impulse to make contact, and to supplicate herself made her inwardly cringe. That was the old Misha, no that was never Misha, that was the now deceased Mala-Su, someone similar to but entirely different from Misha Tulley.


    Also, having just watched the two in action on the electronic backbone of the planet, it was clear that both were up to something. One was in communications with an organization who at best could be described as terrorists. That one was already putting their status as a munitions expert to good use.


    As for the second one, they were far more covert in their overarching goals. While it was clear that they wanted to make a lot of money quickly, figuring out their intentions was a lot tougher to ultimately deduce. For now, Misha decided to sit back and wait, and continue to evolve the strength of this form she had been given by improving her status as a Reaper. With so many people coming through, finding and resetting all of those infected with Bakshee variants became a game to Misha.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 35.1351%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    Improved Harvesting (2)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 14.9 / 14.9 (Max)


    Dexterity: 20 / 20 (Max)


    Agility: 20 / 20 (Max)


    Stamina: 14.9 / 14.9 (Max)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With all of Misha¡¯s Attributes maxed out, she had one of two options. The first was that she could jump up to Tier II of her Alternate-1 Speed Build, or she could expand outwards and become adept at many things that the other branches offer. Things that would no doubt detract from her mission objective of becoming the best Reaper possible.


    In her mind, Misha wondered if this is what happened to the original ReaperOne, they clearly had more time and were no doubt more powerful than her. So logically to Misha, the only reason for the downgraded ranking was that they saw the old ReaperOne, who has since been downgraded to ReaperTwo branched out, thereby diluting their overall capabilities as a Reaper.


    While this was only a theory, it was the best theory that Misha had about why there was a sudden status change.


    With everything finally laid out before her, Misha paused realizing that if she pushed forward worried about her status as a Reaper, then she would be playing the exact same political maneuvering games with the Bakshee that she had while as a Psycher.


    Looking back, she wondered if she had somehow failed some inherent or implied tasks for the Bakshee that made her a second-class citizen, one who was considered expendable in the event of a complete loss of the ship.


    Realizing the ramifications of her future likely lay within this next choice of where she would grow, either out and gain more abilities from the other Bakshee classes, that of the Warrior, Worker, or the Rulers, or would she expand up and ultimately see what lay in wait for her as a Tier II Reaper.


    Pausing for only a moment, Misha analyzed all the data presented to her, twice, then made her decision.

 Chapter 42 Conflicting Interests (Darcy Renolds)

    Chapter 42


    Conflicting Interests


    (Darcy Renolds)


    ¡°The only good thing about the world collapsing in on itself was the fact that I didn¡¯t have to go to school. Now it seems that everyone¡¯s first fear is truly coming true, having to go back and finish high school, while trying to recover from the apocalypse.¡± James Rider, Darcy¡¯s best friend and former crush stated.


    Darcy clearly listed James as a former crush as he had his chance with her, but he never took the hints for what they were. For years Darcy waited patiently, slowly pushing away all other girls from James¡¯ sphere of influence until it was just the two of them. That is when trouble came in the form of a long red-haired beauty that was just James¡¯s type. The only problem was that after looking at her, Darcy realized two key things upon seeing her.


    First, Darcy realized that if James did go for the red head, and he always went for the red head, it was sort of his thing. Dying upon the hill of dyed hair bimbos. That was why Darcy made sure to enact her sphere of dispersion again. Basically, draw attention to the girl who was clearly out of James¡¯s league in the first place, call dibs, and make it so James knew that by going after her their friendship would be ruined.


    It was a perfect plan.


    With one maneuver, Darcy had made it so James could only look but not touch the clear object of his future infatuation. All Darcy had to do in this case was get close, make it look like there was a relationship between her and the new girl, then make it so that James would be forced to go to her for details. This way she had him anyway she wanted. If he finally came to his senses and realized that he had lost out, he would declare his love for her right there. Thus, forcing Darcy to choose between the new love that burned with unbridled intensity, and James. Which Darcy of course would have played up to make sure James realized how good of a catch Darcy was, and that he almost lost out on her.


    There was also the alternate, which Darcy was also prepared for. The part where James loses his ever loving mind and asks Darcy to act as a go between with the new girl, which Darcy would instantly shoot down with contempt stating how could he ask her to make it so her girlfriend would go out with her best friend. Even explaining it would be enough to make James grovel at her feet, and hopefully lead him back to route number one, where he realizes what he has had in front of him the entire time.


    This was all the plan that Darcy had concocted in her mind the first time she saw the tall beauty and made one critical assumption. Namely, Darcy had assumed that the girl was not intelligent, at least not as intelligent as her, and few could be. Yet, just seeing the new girl in action caused something to change within Darcy. The more she watched, the more she realized the new girl really had everything. The new girl was tall, beautiful, athletic, which of course only added to her beauty, but beyond all that, she insanely intelligent. All of these discoveries of course led Darcy to her second key item she had discovered.


    Secondly, Darcy realized that she was now and truly infatuated with the new girl. Actually, now that her feelings had evolved from just being yet another person to slowly keep away from James¡¯s sphere of influence, Darcy now started to realize that like James, she would now have to start referring to the new girl by her actual name.


    Misha Tulley.


    That was the name that Darcy scribbled into her background design for her school tablet.


    ¡°You put your girlfriend¡¯s name on your school tablet¡¯s background?¡± James asked, looking over Darcy¡¯s shoulder in their morning class.


    ¡°Future girlfriend, but yes.¡± Darcy admitted. She had done similar things in the past, made the name of her current conquest to keep away from James readily apparent in her tablet.


    ¡°Well, looks like you moved a bit too late.¡± James said, a half-smile on his face as he delivered what he knew would be bad news.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Darcy asked, suddenly confused by the way this whole subject had gone.


    ¡°Rumor has it, that Rodger has been seen with your girl.¡± James shot back.


    Heartbreak.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°What? This can¡¯t be? She hates him.¡± Darcy replied.


    ¡°Hates him? How do you know? You don¡¯t even talk to her.¡± James shot back.


    ¡°I know because I¡¯ve seen the way she looks at him. Whenever she sees him, she has that weird intensity that she only has when she is focused, like when she has the ball and is going to drive for the basket.¡± Darcy explained.


    ¡°You watch her practice?¡±


    ¡°Well, yeah.¡± Darcy began, but quickly realized how this might look, so she quickly changed tactics and tried to divert attention from the fact that what she was doing might be considered stalker-like behavior. ¡°What, you don¡¯t think women¡¯s sports are worth watching? I¡¯ll have you know¡­¡±


    ¡°Whoa there, I never said anything about women¡¯s sports.¡± James began, then composing himself a bit, he continued, ¡°I don¡¯t know. I guess I just didn¡¯t think you actually cared about her.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Well, normally when you claim a girl you just have a fake crush type thing going on, then invariably find something wrong about them that you explain in detail to me. Then we move on, this time, well, this time it¡¯s different.¡±


    With that Darcy realized that he accurately explained her master plan of Divide and Conquer down to a few short statements. The fact that he had noted this so easily spoke to the fact that at some level he must have been aware of her ultimate plans of just ruining any future prospect before they could begin. But this time, even James had noticed the deviation from script, the fact that Darcy despite her best efforts had fallen for the red-haired giant with smoldering intense green eyes and toned muscles that shown through, even through denim. For a moment, Darcy wondered if that was her problem all along, why James never took this ploy so seriously, as Darcy had always held back, she never fully committed to the new relationship, knowing that her heart had always belonged to James. That somehow James had always seemed to know this about her, but now that her true opinions had changed and there were no problems with Misha that Darcy could see, at least not on a superficial level, James had noticed that Darcy had finally moved on.


    For a moment, Darcy paused, and realized that this was her chance. Pausing, she looked up and locked gazes with James who was now sitting next to her. Darcy even noticed how James¡¯s eyes seemed to scan her body, noticing how his eyes even stayed on her chest area for longer than normal. In the past this would have been something that Darcy would have flaunted, even adjusting her posture slightly to accentuate the look, but now she felt nothing from the glance. In fact, after feeling the lingering effects of the gazes on her, Darcy felt somewhat disgusted by James, which only seemed to push him further into the so-not-boyfriend material category.


    And like that, with that revelation that her long term infatuation with James Rider, hunk of the cyber geeks was well and truly over. Looking at him, she realized that she still wanted to be friends with the boy, but nothing more. Which again, only added yet more points to the strange amazonian goddess who managed to break his unwitting hold over her heart.


    Seeing that James was lost in the conversation, first waiting for her to respond, then apparently stuck in a glance loop of her body, Darcy spoke up.


    ¡°Well this time I mean it, Misha Tulley will be mine.¡± Darcy stated, drawing James¡¯s full attention back to her face.


    ¡°Well, you better move quickly. Not only is she apparently putting the moves on Rodger, but apparently this has caused animosity between her and Alishia¡¯s faction.¡±


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t Alishia with Jerome?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but he died, remember?¡±


    ¡°Right, but he died what, last week? And she has already moved on?¡± Darcy tried to understand, these new details that James was providing.


    ¡°Yes, but apparently, she and Rodger had been cheating behind Jerome¡¯s back the whole time. Now that Jerome is dead, those two have upped their game. Well, apparently Rodger¡¯s game was always upped, as he got Alishia to cheat, and now he apparently has Misha going for him. It¡¯s so hot.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re disgusting.¡± Darcy said, and meant it, feeling like she was just now seeing James for who he really was.


    ¡°What, if this was a girl getting two guys you would be all for it. Now that it is one guy getting the attention of two girls that is too much?¡± James quipped back.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not that¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh it get it,¡± James said, then paused as he realized just what he was about to say.


    ¡°What?¡± Darcy asked, suddenly confused by the sudden change on James¡¯s face.


    ¡°I get it,¡± James began stating in a somewhat depressed tone, ¡°it¡¯s disgusting to you, because you actually like her, and she chose someone else. Someone who was already taken.¡±


    With that James slumped his shoulders, and then decided to leave. A look of pain and sadness filled his face as he began to leave.


    ¡°Wait, what?¡± Darcy asked, trying to make sense of why James suddenly looked so lost.


    Hearing that, James put on his fake smile, the one that only seemed to work on the left side of his face and said. ¡°I understand what you are going through. Once you are done, I will be here to talk to you.¡±


    Then just like that James left, while Darcy tried to understand the intricacies of a male mind and once again found that nothing made any sense.


    Darcy paused, watching James go to his desk, pull out his books and prepare for class. Seeing him, Darcy too followed suit, but while she pretended to take notes, her mind was elsewhere trying to piece together everything.


    First, Darcy needed to know a few things. Namely, why did everyone think, that Misha had feelings for Rodger, when clearly she despised the creatin. That much Darcy was a hundred percent certain of, that Misha Tulley hated Rodger. But if these rumors were true, then why would she get close to him? Did he have blackmail over her? Was that it? There was some sort of secret that he had?


    Thinking on it, there was not much that was known about the girl, at least not by many fellow students. Fortunately, Darcy was enthusiastic about her searches, going out to find that Misha worked at the Rustbucket Garage with her grandfather. That despite the death of their grandmother the week before the solar flare that started the non-zombie apocalypse. Yes, that was it, the grandmother had passed away, Darcy remembered as she did not see the red-head for a day before she found out the news. Darcy had wanted to go to the funeral, but then the world collapsed and only now things were finally starting to get better.


    Yes, this had something to do with the grandmother, of that Darcy was certain. Maybe Rodger had some blackmail material about the grandmother, maybe she had been on her way from a lover¡¯s tryst, as the rumors said? Unfortunately, before she could go down this line of thinking, her thoughts were interrupted by the Teacher coming in.


    ¡°Hello class, and welcome back.¡±


    Silence.


    Hearing the silence, the teacher continued, ¡°I know. Here it was my first apocalypse, I panicked just like most of you did, but I didn¡¯t even get to see one zombie. How lame, am I right?¡±


    Slight chuckles.


    ¡°Yeah, you gotta work with me a bit here. Or else this day will be exceptionally long¡­¡±


    And so Darcy¡¯s first day back at school began, this time it looked like the power would actually stay on for the whole day, unfortunately.

 Chapter 43 Tier II (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 43


    Tier II


    (Misha Tulley)


    The changes of going from Tier I to Tier II were sadly lacking in Misha¡¯s perspective. In fact, immediately after the change Misha wondered if her class was truly broken. Thinking back, she remembered the bare bones architecture of the code that infused with her body.


    Just looking at where she was immediately after the transition to Tier II, there were only two noticeable changes that occurred. The first was that the maximum for her attributes had all increased. Two for Strength and Endurance, and five for Dexterity and Agility. The only other change was that she had a new line that read Harvested Slot, but that slot was grayed out and left empty.


    That was everything that immediately changed after the transition.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 30.7027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier -II


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    Improved Harvesting (2)


    Harvested Slot: N/A


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 14.9 / 16.9


    Dexterity: 20 / 25


    Agility: 20 / 25


    Stamina: 14.9 / 16.9


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    To make matters worse, the options to buy and steal characteristics from other classes was missing. For a moment, she thought she had made the wrong choice.


    Immediately after the choice, Misha found herself doubting the choice, there was no overwhelming surge of power. No immediate surge in abilities, just a profound emptiness that seemed to permeate her body.


    That was of course, until she met with and interacted with other awakened members who were Tier II.


    And there were a lot of Tier II individuals.


    That was the problem, only after reaching Tier II could Misha begin to actually interact with Tier II awakened individuals. When she had tried to interact with Jerome, she found that her powers of harvesting were negated.


    At the time there were still a number of variables to consider as to why she wasn¡¯t able to harvest from Jerome. There were also plenty of Tier I individuals to harvest and improve herself from, which made her put other factors on hold until she had a better understanding of what was happening around her.


    Once she reached Tier II, Misha saw her first Tier III person. This was of course, her Computer Science teacher. While Misha had known the teacher to be a Tier III Worker class, Misha now realized that most of that understanding was from her Psycher abilities. Now that she was a Tier II Reaper, she could see more of the world around her. As her controls were apparently given more access to records. As this time when she saw Ms. Philips, her Computer Science teacher, more information became available.


    The name was in red, likely a note that she was a Tier III and outside of Misha¡¯s ability to reap successfully, but her characteristics were made available for Misha to see.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 72.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Worker Class ¨C Tier III ¨C below threshold standards.


    Ability Bonuses: Enhanced Comprehension Speed (1), Increased Endurance (2), Commanding Voice (5)


    Total Reapable energy (7*)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Yes, it seemed that while the teacher was out of her current capabilities, her low threshold rating was dangled as a huge incentive piece for Misha to Tier up quickly so she could gain the benefits from reaping.


    In her mind, Misha mentally remembered the initial menu options she had been given, one that showed and even offered all of the advanced abilities of each class that could be reaped from.


    Looking back, it was clear that those options were a trap. Remembering the transmission burst, the one that set the whole world back to no infrastructure for two weeks, Misha remembered the messages to ReaperTwo, the person who had formerly been known as ReaperOne, a distinction that was now Misha¡¯s and Misha¡¯s alone.


    Thinking back, Misha wondered if the older reaper had messed up to cause the obvious reduction in ranks. Now that she was a Tier II, Misha began to understand some of the more subtle nuances of her class. The entire class was a test.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Now that she was in Tier II, all of the amazing abilities that each class offered were now grayed out and unavailable to her. Yet, now when she scanned different awakened beings on the planet, she saw that a few of them, like her teacher had abilities available to them.


    From what Misha could tell, the abilities seemed to balanced in that for each Tier, a person could only get one ability per Tier. While no other Reaper abilities had been made available to her, she now began to see her new slot as a way to balance the scales.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 18.5946%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Harvesting Slot: N/A</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    While the slot was by default grayed out, she did notice that it became alive and active when she got near people who had abilities. Even seeing Ms. Philips caused the slot to go from a muted gray to a deep red indicating that Misha was incapable of doing anything with what she saw. In particular, Misha saw the names of the different abilities temporarily fill the Harvesting Slot, only to be highlighted with bold red text.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 73.6216%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Harvesting Slot: Enhanced Comprehension Speed (1)*, Increased Endurance (2)*, Commanding Voice (5)*</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Though that in and of itself was enough, as Misha took this to mean that she could in time reap these abilities from the teacher, but just not at this time. Given their difference in Tier ratings, Misha figured that by her reaching Tier III, she would be able to reap Ms. Philips.


    Yet, this was only a hypothesis at this time.


    What she needed was a test sample. Someone to test out her thoughts on. That of course, was when she happened to finally see Alishia Stone and the way the system noted her.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Warrior Class ¨C Tier II ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    Ability Bonuses: Alpha (5), Increased Durability (1), Danger Sense (3)


    Total Reapable energy (4)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    This time, the Abilities that Alishia showed all glowed with green text in Misha¡¯s Harvesting Slot. This was when Misha began to devise a plan, one that would break Alishia down to the bare bones. Misha¡¯s goal was not just kill Alishia as death would be far too quick, too simple.


    No, Misha wanted to first make Alishia suffer for her transgressions. From her digital spying on Alishia, it was clear that Alishia had killed more than just her grandmother. In fact, Misha guessed that Alishia got at least one Ability for each person that she killed.


    Looking deeper into the subroutines, it was clear that the reason why Misha had not been given the option to be noted as an Alpha for the warriors, was due to the fact that she had not killed anyone since she fully integrated with the system. Even now her killing of Jerome was not registered by the system as she was too far away from the death and was therefore unable to have the energy released from the kill be close enough to affect her body¡¯s records.


    Thinking back, Misha understood that this was likely what others meant by murder tarnishing the soul. The death of another would have far reaching ramifications and could no doubt be recorded somewhere in the genetic coding of the organo-tech that infused the body of every living creature and plant on this planet. While people, recordings, and history got the underlying cause of the difference they felt after killing someone wrong, the end result was the same. Namely, the records would change and offer new capabilities to users, only to find that they more often than not had not been assigned a class.


    Again, there would need to be more scientific studies on this thought process, but Misha did feel that this was the way things were going.


    Just being close to Alishia, Misha could tell that she had blood on her hands, either directly or indirectly, which was likely also part of why she was able to achieve the Alpha ability. This meant that not only could she kill, but she could get others to kill for her as well.


    Inwardly, this made Misha sick.


    Yes, she had been at war for thousands of years, and had been part of the maintenance crews during many battles. But there is a difference in fighting other warriors who are ready for battle. Hell, Misha would even accept a fellow warrior being stabbed in their sleep, or when their guard was down, thinking themselves safe. But it was one thing to go after warriors, and another thing to go after civilians, or in this case people that had not been assigned a class.


    This would be Misha¡¯s proverbial line in the sand. In her mind, she focused her will and then set out an important ground rule that she would use to define herself and her role as a reaper.


    If an awakened kills a non-awakened I will destroy them.


    The moment she had that thought, and confirmed it in her soul, Misha was met with a new system message.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 82.3784%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Conviction of Will Confirmed. Moral justification accepted and approved. ReaperOne is now capable of advancing to Tier III when they see fit.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the message, Misha¡¯s eyes went wide as she realized that she passed yet another test of this odd class. This time she apparently passed a morality clause.


    For a moment, Misha thought about advancing, of taking the quick and easy route. She thought about it, and then decided not to as she remembered all of the markings that the system had assigned automatically to the different awakened people she had met so far. That of either being below, or meeting the minimum standards, neither of which category seemed appealing to Misha, which was why she wanted to make sure she was at her peak condition before advancing.


    In her mind, she was still on Psycher time, meaning she had lifetimes to perfect her craft and herself. This time was going to be no different, as she was going to find a way to perfect herself through each iteration. The fact that she already could Tier up if needed was just a mental release that she needed, as it meant she was in control of her own pace and speed of advancement.


    But for now, Misha did not feel complete with herself and what she was currently capable of, which was why she acknowledged the message block letting her know that she could advance, but then proceeded not to.


    With the hard part out of the way, now all Misha had to do was focus on advancing herself as quickly as possible, which is how she set her sights on Alishia, the first target of her destruction, and the first person that Misha would focus understanding her new capabilities on would be Alishia.


    At first, Misha didn¡¯t quite know how to approach the girl, especially with the fact that she had Danger Sense, a power that Misha didn¡¯t know that much about. While Misha felt it likely gave insight into immediate danger, she knew that there were likely limits to its usefulness. Limits that she intended to find out on her own.


    Thinking about the ability, Misha realized that the best way to blindside someone with a Danger Sense, would be to come at them sideways. No, make it so they came to you. The only problem was, how could she do this?


    How could she force Alishia to come to her, where she could reap from her Tier II capabilities?


    Then just as she was having this own internal thoughts, fate seemed to provide the answer that she had been desperately needing.


    ¡°Hey babe,¡± Rodger said, his words instantly causing a chill of anger to rush down Misha¡¯s spine. Turning to the voice of the actual killer of her grandmother, Misha fought to drive down her emotions. Using the meditation skills that had been ingrained into every fiber of her psychic being, Misha kept herself calm and in control, despite the rage that was welling up inside of her.


    Turning around, she saw the complete look of hope and desire that filled Rodger¡¯s lustful gaze. Instantly, Misha felt a sense of revulsion run down her spine. Revulsion that she quickly squashed as her mind processed recent messages sent between Alishia and Tricksy, ones where Tricksy asked if she could try Rodger, only to be shot down by Alishia who was putting up a fake month of mourning over Jerome.


    Remembering those messages, and the way Alishia unequivocally claimed Rodger as her next Alpha, Misha smiled as a plan for revenge against both Rodger and Alishia began to form in her mind.


    With her new course set, she replied, ¡°hello.¡±

 Chapter 44 Everything (Alishia Stone)

    Chapter 44


    Everything


    (Alishia Stone)


    Sometimes people can¡¯t seem to take a hint. At least that is what Alishia thought of the new girl who was clearly marking territories that were beyond her abilities to even comprehend.


    It all started with the fact that Rodger couldn¡¯t keep his eyes off of the new girl. Apparently, Rodger had a thing for redheads, that or for the tall athletic type, or maybe it was the way her face was seemingly perfectly symmetrical with itself. Regardless of the reason he could never keep his eyes away from the new girl.


    At first Alishia didn¡¯t mind this, as she thought it would just be a passing phase. A minor blip in the course of things that were to come. Of course, at that point in time, Alishia had to play her cards right, as she was supposed to be in a committed relationship with Jerome, the pack alpha.


    For a time, Alishia owed everything to Jerome and his parents, the parents especially, as they showed her what it meant to be an Alpha. She learned so much, found so many different ways to improve herself, areas and facets of power to focus on.


    What she learned was shocking, in that only Alpha¡¯s could produce Alphas. Meaning that if you wanted to become an Alpha there were two main ways. The first was that you were just so dominant that other pack members would naturally heel to your every command and fall in line. This was not Alishia, at least not at first.


    Instead, Alishia was what was referred to as a Beta-Alpha, one who had to be guided. One who did not inherently know the path to walk to be an Alpha.


    At first, Alishia felt that she was inferior to Jerome, as he was clearly the latter type. As everything Jerome did seemed like it was destined for him to lead. Little did Alishia know that this was all an act, that all of those childhood moments when Alishia saw Jerome seemingly waltz his way through being an Alpha was all scripted, all designed by his parents who all but forced him to walk the path of dominance.


    When Alishia first saw Jerome she had been naturally attracted to him, and had felt blessed by Gaia herself when he reciprocated those feelings. Only after years of subjugating herself to Jerome did the mystique of Jerome eventually fade away. Then those feelings completely crumbled away when the mystique of his status was revealed, that was when the blinders were removed and she began to see Jerome for the egotistical megalomaniac that he truly was.


    Granted being a megalomaniac was part of what being an Alpha was, at least as far as Alishia could tell. Just walking the path made it so one invariably walked the fine line between being a sociopath and being a benevolent leader. The sociopath came from the fact that Werewolves were just born more violently than others, that in order to get an unruly Werewolf to fall in line, one needed to be violent in their approach to dominance. Leave no doubt in the mind of the challenger, nor those who witnessed the challenge of what would remain if a challenge was rendered and failed. That was the way of the wolf, and Alishia had learned to exert her control over the other females, practicing her own form of vicious brutality in the meantime.


    In fact, Alishia had been on top for so long, having bullied and brought each and every possible adversary to heel before they even became a problem, that she was almost blindsided by the contempt the new girl had for her.


    The fact that it was nothing but contempt was clearly present. Everything the new girl did seemed to be done solely for the fact that she wanted to annoy Alishia.


    Alishia had her servitors watch the new girl, seeing how she would give Rodger absolutely no attention. Then the moment Alishia got within eyesight, the new girl would look up from whatever she was doing, find Alisha, make direct eye contact then smirk slightly as she would proceed to make her move on Rodger.


    Seeing the new girl make a move on her man, someone who she clearly claimed as her own so brazenly set a fire deep down inside Alishia.


    Grr.


    Alishia growled, actually growled at the idea of someone claiming her property, and that is what Rodger was, property. He had not elevated himself to the ranks of werewolf nobility, he didn¡¯t have that it factor that would make him a true leader amongst the pack. In fact, as far as Alishia was aware, unless she put in a word for him shortly, his candidacy to be groomed as a future Alpha would not be accepted. Given his age, the fact that he was a new addition to the pack, and a myriad of other factors and it would be nearly impossible for him to be considered for the position of Alpha here shortly. Which meant that he would forever be a pawn, or a guard at best. Yet, Alishia for some reason wanted something more from Rodger, as she felt a deep intrinsic connection to Rodger that was nearly impossible to explain. She had for some reason always liked Rodger, and yet she never acted on her feelings.


    Well part of that was clearly Jerome, as Jerome was an obsessively controlling dictator, with a Napoleon complex in a nearly seven-foot frame.


    The only good thing about Jerome was that his family had accepted his choice and showed Alishia the path to becoming an Alpha. Then when he died, Alishia felt like fate had finally given her a chance to be free.


    Is it sad that she had to pretend cry at her former boyfriend¡¯s funeral? Fortunately, the rain helped, as it gave her cover for the fact that her tears were dry.


    Tingle.


    Those thoughts and more flashed through her mind, as she realized how much she had given up. How much of her life had been taken away by the monster that was Jerome. Then she was abruptly pulled out of her own musings when she got within fifteen feet of the new girl and her Rodger.


    As she approached, she felt an all-consuming surge of fear, as if she was suddenly next to a higher ranked Alpha.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Pausing, Alishia looked to the source of the surge of power but was shocked when all she found was the new girl.


    For a moment she paused, taking in everything that her body was trying to tell her. There were environmental factors around that all but seemed to scream danger. In that moment, she contemplated pausing, on holding back and trying to figure out why her senses that normally never led her wrong were suddenly screaming at her to be weary. She heard those alarms and then disregarded them as she felt her emotions take over.


    Glance.


    The new girl seemed to feel Alishia¡¯s presence, just the same way that she now felt that she was within an odd barrier of force. A barrier that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to rise up.


    Their eyes locked for the second time, then Alishia watched as the stoic face of the new girl twisted into that of a patronizing smile.


    Rage.


    Alishia had always had anger issues, which were only heightened when she first became a werewolf, and only more so after she became an Alpha, a leader who was designed to be able to resolve conflicts before they could spiral out of hand. Right now, Alishia realized the conflict, this new girl who had nothing to do with the pack, other than being an acquaintance for many was now not only firmly entrenched in her pack, but blatantly stealing her things.


    In her mind, she knew that a vote would soon be held, one where she would be asked to join the pack. If that happened, Alishia knew deep down that this would be the end of her. That this new girl was a natural Alpha, not a Beta-Alpha like her, but someone who clearly knew what it meant to lead. She had that power and charisma that would make other pack members fall in line automatically.


    Her mind made these connections instantly, Alishia saw this new girl for the true threat that she was and would be. The fact that she was not only a threat now, but that she would continue to be a threat in the future.


    That was partly why she felt her control over her wolf let go, her mind saw this girl as a threat, so she reacted in kind. What happened next was not something that Alishia would be proud of. First, if the true extent of what she had done, or what she attempted to do in a school, in front of so many witnesses, she could have been charged with heresy. By destroying the key fundamentals that have let the shifters survive comfortably in human society. Being in plain sight, while showing that there is no true threat, even though there is a wolf in sheep¡¯s clothing standing defiantly besides you.


    Rippp.


    The long sleeves of Alishia¡¯s shirt became tight and then began to rip apart as her arm began to expand and tear apart the stitching as her body began to change on its own. Even her Lycra sweat pants began to bulge and flex under the strain that her leg muscles were now building up. They were close, meaning that Alishia didn¡¯t have enough time to get to her full speed, but she did have size, strength, and momentum on her side. At least that was what she thought when she first began.


    ¡°Stop.¡± The new girl called out, almost calmly. Alishia saw the new girl raise her palm up in a halting gesture.


    Alishia¡¯s reflexes were so heightened from the adrenaline pumping within her body, that she could all but see time slow down around her, which was how she noticed the sudden surge of energy. Her eyes caught the build up of electrical energy that seemed to course through the new girl¡¯s body, up her arm and focus into her hand. A hand that blasted a bolt of bright blue electricity from six inches away.


    ZZAAPPP!


    Then she felt the jolt of energy surge through her body, locking her body into place, causing her to be unable to move.


    Smack.


    Alishia felt the outstretched hand smack into her forehead, something she had been planning to avoid, before her body was locked into place by the torrent of electricity that had coursed through her body.


    There was a slight pause, before the world sped up on her. Suddenly her senses that had been taking in the world and providing it to her in extensive details began to fade, as she felt her still stiff body fall due to the awkward position she had been in when the jolt hit her, one foot up, leaning forward, while her arms were outstretched in an attempt to slash and claw at the defenseless girl. At least, that was what Alishia had thought at the beginning, that this girl was defenseless, as nothing was more powerful than a wolf, or so she had been told.


    Thud.


    The minute Alishia¡¯s body collapsed to the ground, was the moment she felt her body begin to recoil slightly in on itself. Her over charged muscles that had been threatening to rip out of her shirt were shrinking back to their normal size. Her sweatpants that had been near to bursting were suddenly much looser around her legs.


    Worst of all, she felt that the source of her power, her inner wolf had been silenced.


    ¡°Oh look at that, you must have slipped and caused an electrical discharge from you slide. Are you okay?¡± The voice of the new girl called out, as first one set, then two sets of hands grabbed Alishia and pulled her to her feet.


    Alishia would have fought back, in fact she tried, but her muscles were still too sore.


    Only after a second did Alishia finally regain control over her body enough to move on her own. Then once she felt in control again, she paused and stared at the new girl. Looking at her, she saw the girl smile widely with her white teeth gleaming. It was a challenge smile, at least that was what Alishia took the smile as, what else could she take it as.


    Inwardly, Alishia reached for her well of rage, the source of her power that she had been able to call upon ever since she had first managed to change on her own as a little girl. She reached, but only found nothing.


    At that, Alishia paused, as sudden fear filled her as she reached up with her arm to feel her chest, to find that it was there. Her mind only half recognizing the cool breeze being generated from air flowing into her now torn sleeve.


    ¡°You okay? You don¡¯t look so good.¡± The new girl asked, though Alishia again could only hear mocking undertones.


    ¡°Yeah, you okay?¡± Rodger asked, and with his words a new fire was lit within Alishia as she realized that he was the source of all of this. That he didn¡¯t realize that this new girl was playing him, well playing her by using him, that everything that just happened could have been avoided.


    ¡°Fine.¡± Was all Alishia managed to say, as she ripped her arms free from Rodger who was still holding her. However the task of pulling her arm free was a lot tougher than she had expected, only now did Alishia realize just how weak she truly felt.


    ¡°What? Okay?¡± Rodger said, staring at Alishia for a moment, then turning back to the new girl he said. ¡°I, I need to go.¡±


    With that Rodger came to stand beside Alishia who was only now able to work her way through the crowd of students who had all gathered to watch the spectacle. To her surprise, the other girls got a lot closer than she was used to, it was a minor thing, but something that stuck out to her. Normally the mundane students would know to steer clear of her, to make room for her, but not anymore. Not today.


    This whole ordeal had given Alishia a lot to think about, but ultimately she knew that it was all the fault of that new girl, somehow, someway.


    Just when Alishia was fifteen feet away, she felt the slight tingle against her skin release as she was suddenly free of that slightly unnerving feeling that had been plaguing her since she got close to the new girl. At that, Alishia felt her body relax a little, as at least she no longer felt that her body was warning her of an immanent threat. That was until the new girl called out and said mockingly.


    ¡°Watch your step.¡±


    Alishia paused and turned back to stare at the new girl. This was a little harder than she expected, as one or two students had moved in their line of sight. Again, this too was something that normally never happened as most would move out of the way. Yet, after a second, the students seemed to move out of the way of the new girl, that was when their eyes met, and she saw the same condescending smile form on her lips as she waved goodbye.


    Their eyes locked, and Alishia waited for the girl to back down, to look away first, but she didn¡¯t. This too just added even more to the complex lairs of disgust she felt for this new girl. In the past she would have stared out of a matter of principle, making the new girl back down. Maybe even taking a step forward to force an early submission, but at this moment Alishia felt oddly vulnerable, as if the layer of invincibility that had surrounded her and protected her for years was suddenly stripped away.


    Realizing the girl wasn¡¯t going to back down, and too many people were around, Alishia did the unthinkable, she backed down first. Lowering her gaze for a fraction of a second, before turning around and striding away as quickly as possible.


    This time, Alishia knew it was over.


    Until she heard one last quip come from the new girl in that same mocking tone she always seemed to use while talking to Alishia.


    ¡°I¡¯ll check on you later.¡±


    Something about that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to rise. That was a threat, at least her mind perceived it to be a threat, turning around she looked to try to find the girl, to see if there was anything she could add to this being a threat, but the girl was already gone, lost in a see of students who waited far too long in the hallways and were now hurrying to get to their classes on time.


    Alishia looked, but realized that the new girl likely went down the science hallway and was thus now out of sight.


    Only after everything was over, and the threat was gone did Alishia manage to let out a breath of relief. Unfortunately, she forgot that someone was there watching her this entire time, someone who would now see her as vulnerable. Worst of all, this man was a member of her pack.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Rodger asked.

 Chapter 45 Growing Pains and Endorphins (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 45


    Growing Pains and Endorphins


    (Misha Tulley)


    Misha felt alive after her most recent reaping. The power gained from resetting a Tier II to nothing was euphoric to say the least. Endorphins and enzymes never meant to exist in the circulatory system were activated and released at once.


    Ultimately, Misha knew that this was a mark of her organo-tech, a component meant to induce future compliance. It was a marker and she hated every aspect of it.


    Tremble.


    Her body pulsed with pleasures and sensations that made her feel how drugs might feel, if drugs were tailor made for her individual body. She both hated and found that to her shame she also loved every moment of it. Worse, she couldn¡¯t stop future attacks, and that is what she was now thinking of this system, an attack. It forced compliance and made it so rewards and likely punishments would be rendered automatically.


    Worse, the coding for the rewards and likely punishments were hardcoded into the baseline of the organo-tech itself, and additionally, it seemed that humanity had been specifically engineered to be fully compatible with the organo-tech, meaning what?


    Well for starters, it meant that Misha had to suffer through this, which she did. Even momentarily giving up on driving a wedge between Rodger and Alishia in order to get out of school and get to the safety of her vehicle.


    The world went by in a blur, as she tried to make her way out of the school unnoticed.


    As she approached the exit, the guards on staff all stopped to look at her. Thinking quickly, Misha grunted in pain. She could either do one of two things try to stay, or leave for the day?


    She wanted to leave, though today was the first day back at practice. Seeing as basketball was one of the few things she actually liked doing, a team task that had nothing to do with Psychers or Bakshee, she found that really enjoyed it for the distraction that it was.


    ¡°I forgot my book in my car.¡± Misha said, pointing to her car and trying to let Ms. Holly, the security guard on duty see that she was going right there. Ms. Holly was one of the guards who would often see the different team members leaving school for the day, as such she instantly recognized Misha. Not that it was hard to miss a tall amazonian red head that was over six foot tall.


    ¡°You okay, you don¡¯t look that good?¡± Ms. Holly asked, taking one look at Misha and realizing that something was not right.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, I just need a moment.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Yeah, do you need to go to the nurse?¡±


    With that Misha just shook her head, ¡°no, I don¡¯t want to miss practice.¡±


    Ms. Holly just nodded in understanding. ¡°Well come right back, class is about to start.¡±


    Misha just nodded, still battling the effects of the sensations within her body. Mentally, Misha knew that the reason why this was going so poorly for her was due to the fact that she was trying to resist the effects of the chemicals being released into her body.


    By now Misha could feel a slight little hole that separated her main consciousness from the part of her mind that interacted with her body.


    Mentally, she went through the process of how the drug worked, it was created in different parts of the body, the adrenaline gland was the biggest contributor to the cocktail, but there were other sources that contributed minor portions as well that ultimately got fed through her bloodstream to her pancreas which rather than breaking down the chemicals created an amplifying effect based on their own enzymes that were released after processing a particular set of enzymes from the brain.


    In her mind, that was the issue, the initial catalyst for why everything was so off.


    Getting into her vehicle, she noticed that the seat was just too close, that her legs banged against the steering wheel at this angle. Not really thinking much of it, Misha moved her seat back as she all but collapsed onto the steering wheel and tried to fight through the drug induced haze to be able to function properly any time soon.


    As she fought through the impulses that were being forced upon her Misha let out an all too familiar curse against the Bakshee. ¡°Hedonists.¡±


    Then pausing, Misha realized that this contempt was now pointless. Her side had lost.


    Worst of all, she only now realized that the Psychers would have likely been far happier to be able to exist without her assistance at all. With the Bakshee, there was a system where everyone could succeed, so long as certain goals and milestones were met. Then you were to be rewarded with forced evolutions and forced emotional states.


    While the Psychers assumed that advancement would be done at a personal level while maintaining the integrity of the fleet.


    Seemingly minor differences, but one clearly won a war of attrition due to their ability to churn out newer and more advanced bodies, while the other went for consistently proven incremental increases. Of the two, Misha was still at a loss for which one was better.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Though right now, with the world spinning wildly about her, Misha realized that she absolutely hated this feeling of not being in control over her own body. Which was why she went about forcing her body to be altered slightly.


    Part of the early Psycher training is the ability to first ignore bodily impulses, like the need for sleep, the pangs of hunger and thirst. A Psycher must first learn to recognize where those parts of the body are that generate such heavy responses, and then remove them completely. Only then is a Psycher allowed access to the meal halls, only then is a Psycher allowed to go to the water fountains whenever they wish, once they realize the difference between needing to go and merely wanting to go due to base instincts.


    Yeah, looking back the practice was rather vulgar, she could see that now. But that training did provide one important piece of training that Misha was now aware of, and that she was currently going to use was her ability to find key components of different organs that released enzymes or processed enzymes and disable them.


    In this particular case the enzymes that her body produced were set at a standard rate, while the receptors in her pancreas that had the euphoric reaction to the stimuli were designed to slowly degrade over time, causing less and less of a reaction, while ultimately forcing Misha to work two and three times as hard to get to this initial state. Which would of course degrade the receptor even faster, making it so Misha would constantly be chasing that next high. It would be an ingenious plan to force compliance, had Misha not utterly hated the idea of not being in control over her own body and impulses.


    That was why, Misha found that the easiest way to deal with this whole situation and to keep it from happening again, was to completely burn out the receptor portion of her pancreas. Without this component, no matter how much of these euphoric toxins Misha had released, her body would not react.


    The only problem was, that Misha at first was at a loss on how to get rid of the component, before realizing the answer to her Bakshee problem was of course to use her now Innate Psycher capabilities.


    Zzap.


    Focusing internally, Misha created an intense but miniscule burst of electricity that specifically targeted the receptor node and then released.


    Gah.


    Despite being fully aware of what was going to happen, Misha still felt her body double over in pain, as she found herself jerking forward, until her head rested firmly against the steering wheel.


    HONK!


    Startled by the sound, Misha quickly bent back. Then wanting to make sure she got the receptor the first time, she charged up, focused and released a second controlled burst of electrical energy directly into her own body.


    ZZZZAP!


    This time it was a lot more, as she didn¡¯t want to have to resort to this form of self-torture again.


    Gasp.


    Finally, after a long minute of pain, Misha felt the strain on her body ease up, as she began to be able to breathe slowly at first. Then finally she felt the pain and the disorientation due to her forced high fade away at roughly the same time.


    Clarity.


    Finally, the fog that had covered Misha¡¯s mind began to dissipate slowly. It wasn¡¯t enough, but it was just enough that she could look at what she gained from her recent harvesting of Alishia.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 70.3784%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Alternate-1 Reaper System Activated.


    Conditions met, reset Tier 2 Warrior Alishia Stone to Tier 0. All Warrior Attributes were condensed to their base level to ensure optimal growth pattern initiated.


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Harvested Ability: Danger Sense (3)</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Remaining energy absorbed by Alternate-1 Reaper System.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Points remaining: 0.8.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With Misha¡¯s double growth and speed rating the effects of her harvesting were nearly a full point for resetting Alishia back to Tier 0. Logically, this meant that even more increases could be expected if she continued to advance upwards as a reaper.


    Misha also managed to steal Alishia¡¯s Danger Sense, the reason for this was that she wanted Alishia to drop her guard some, which would make eliminating her that much easier. Interestingly enough, Misha found that she could exchange Danger Sense, for 1.5 points needed for any other Ability that she wished to purchase. Of course that new Ability would have to go in her Harvested Slot if it was not a true Reaper ability, but something to consider for the future.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 42.4865%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier -II


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    Improved Harvesting (2)


    Harvested Slot: Danger Sense (3)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Upgrade Points remaining: 0.8.


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 14.9 / 16.9


    Dexterity: 20 / 25


    Agility: 20 / 25


    Stamina: 14.9 / 16.9


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Pausing for a moment, Misha realized that with this accelerated growth rate, she could now cross the fifteen point threshold for both Strength and Stamina, while also making sure that her two primary Attributes of Dexterity and Agility still received the majority of her increases.


    Pausing for a moment, she resolved to do just that. One tenth of a point into Strength and Stamina, with three tenths of a point going to Dexterity and Agility.


    The effects were felt instantaneously.


    As pain coursed through Misha¡¯s body, forcing her body to move and stretch in ways she never thought possible.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 23.3514%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 15.0 / 16.9


    Dexterity: 20.3 / 25


    Agility: 20.3 / 25


    Stamina: 15.0 / 16.9


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    This time, she felt her body grow and stretch. Her pants that had been down to the tops of her shoes, now showed an inch of her ankles. Her shirt that had been comfortably able to cover her torso now showed the slightest traces of her stomach. Worse, everything seemed to be just that much tighter.


    Once again, Misha found that her legs were pressed tightly against the steering wheel. This time she lowered her seat as low as it would go, only to find that there was nowhere left for her to go and she still felt tight against the wheel.


    Her body was growing and adapting.


    While the changes she now felt were not the same as when she crossed the fifteen-point threshold for Dexterity and Agility, there was no new modifier indicated for her build, she was still a Speed and Accuracy build, she felt that this description no longer suited her. At least not as well as it used to.


    Finally, after what felt like hours, Misha was able to calm her mind enough to realize that the worst was over. The pains she felt from not being in control and forcing her mind to fight through the fog of hedonistic ecstasy was finally erased. Her situation was helped out greatly by both her immediate pains from providing self directed electrocution and her growth pains associated with hitting an evolutionary barrier, perhaps multiple as the twenty-point threshold was also a barrier of some kind, but the effects of crossing that barrier were not readily apparent, save for a few tingling sensations in her hands that now that she looked also seemed to have grown slightly from the changes.


    Still she felt she had spent enough time in her car. Getting up, she grabbed a book she had actually forgotten to bring in with her, and decided to leave and exit her vehicle. A task that was now just that much harder to accomplish given her size and shape.


    As she walked back, Misha saw Ms. Holly there with a note of concern on her face.


    ¡°Are you okay?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine now.¡± Misha replied.


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll write you a pass for class since you are already late, but don¡¯t let this become a habit.¡± Ms. Holly said, quickly filling out the eForm that could be transferred to any teacher.


    ¡°I won¡¯t.¡± Misha said, glad that she didn¡¯t have to forge one on her own.


    Then with that Misha left, missing the look of respect that Ms. Holly was giving her as she left the office.


    ¡°What was that?¡± Ms. Baker asked.


    ¡°That was a girl who is going through a very bad period and will still go through the day to make it through practice.¡± Ms. Holly said, then making a mental note, she made sure to tell Coach Green about this incident as well. Just to make sure she went a little easier on the girl.


    ¡°Oh yeah, the new girl. I heard she made the team. Is she any good?¡±


    ¡°From what I hear yeah, but we will find out this weekend.¡±


    ¡°Our first game?¡±


    ¡°I know, while we were down for two weeks, the season remained the same.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s good, otherwise they might have had to cut into the holiday season.¡±


    ¡°Yeah I think that¡¯s why all the coaches decided to keep the schedule the same.¡±

 Chapter 46 Tautology (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 46


    Tautology


    (Misha Tulley)


    Odd.


    That was what Misha first thought about when she was asked for her plans after the first game in Parkersburg. Not so much the fact that people would make plans after the game, but the fact that there seemed to be just one plan that everyone had for after the game.


    Namely everyone wanted to go spend the weekend in Pittsburg, to see if they can be a Hasty Helper where they would get backstage passes to the concert to see Hasty herself on stage.


    ¡°Hey Misha,¡± J-Sweep said, greeting Misha in the hallways. This was odd, while J-Sweep was not opposed to speaking to Misha in the hallways, Misha knew for a fact that J-Sweep had a class in the language hallway, which was on the complete opposite end of the building than where they both were now, near the science wing.


    ¡°Hello.¡± Misha said, noting that J-Sweep looked a bit flustered almost as if she had run to find her. Which given where she was now and where she was supposed to be, this was not too much of a leap of logic to make.


    ¡°Hey, you are driving down to the game on Friday, right?¡± J-Sweep asked, her words coming out rushed as she tried to breathe in deeply.


    ¡°I could, I take it you would want a ride?¡± Misha asked, figuring this would be what the string of the conversation was ultimately going towards.


    ¡°No, well yes. I would love a ride to the game. But our question is what would you do after the game?¡± J-Sweep asked.


    ¡°I would go home, but I take it you all have a different idea in mind?¡±


    ¡°Yes. See we were wondering if we could convince you to go with us to Pittsburgh immediately after the game.¡±


    ¡°Any reason why?¡± Misha asked confused by the statement.


    At that J-Sweep paused, then looked at Misha with a bit of confusion in her face.


    ¡°Good one,¡± J-Sweep said, then after pausing for a moment, she stared at Misha and realized. ¡°Oh wait, you don¡¯t know do you.¡±


    ¡°Clearly not.¡±


    ¡°Well, this weekend Hasty will be playing in Pittsburgh. It is our goal to go out after the game and got to PNC Park to see if we can become one of Hasty¡¯s Helpers, where us and up to five friends can go backstage and help out with the concert. Then we can watch her live from backstage.¡± J-Sweep said.


    ¡°Okay, and who is Hasty?¡±


    At that, J-Sweep just stared at Misha, wondering what the heck was happening to her.


    ¡°Come on you too?¡± J-Sweep asked.


    ¡°Me what?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me, you don¡¯t like Hasty? I tried to go with the other girls, but none of them even like Hasty. Please, take me to Pittsburgh and back? I¡¯ll pay for gas and a hotel if needed.¡± J-Sweep said.


    Pausing for a moment, Misha almost dismissed the idea outright. Then realized that there might be something to going to a larger city and seeing just how many Bakshee infected people live there.


    ¡°I take it since we are going to a baseball field that a lot of people will be there?¡± Misha asked, mentally running calculations, as she realized that with her recent advancement to Tier II, the number of people she could harvest each day had risen from four to eight. Additionally, with so many people there, the odds of running into more Tier II people would be a lot easier, than just finding Alishia out here.


    Hearing the question, J-Sweep inwardly winced as she realized that Misha might not be into visiting as many people.


    ¡°Yeah, quite a few hundred people actually. Will that be a problem?¡± J-Sweep asked, grimacing at the thought of this being a deal breaker, but to her surprise, Misha just shrugged off the question.


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    ¡°No, that should be fine.¡± Misha said, realizing that with a few hundred odds were that at least eight would meet her criteria for reaping.


    ¡°Oh, really? Thank you.¡± J-Sweep said. Then paused, ¡°don¡¯t you need to ask your parents or something?¡±


    Hearing that Misha paused. Knowing that it might seem harsh to say that her mother all but abandoned her and Phil for her new boyfriend as a way of dealing with her grief. Meaning it has just been her and Phil mostly, with her mother running in and out every so often to get a random item. This just meant Phil would be the problem, but then looking at J-Sweep and remembering the way he really liked J-Sweep, or Jasmine as he kept calling her, Misha realized this could be doable.


    ¡°I might need you to ask Phil if I can go, but I¡¯m sure if you put on the charm we can go.¡± Misha stated.


    ¡°You call your grandfather by his name?¡±


    Hearing that Misha paused, then realized she had. ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that weird?¡±


    Misha heard the words and analyzed them. Before shaking her head. ¡°Not when he is also my boss.¡±


    J-Sweep heard that, then remembered the garage where she worked after school and then could only nod to herself.


    ¡°Okay, so you are in?¡± J-Sweep asked.


    ¡°After you convince Phil, then yes.¡±


    Hearing that, J-Sweep thought about it for a moment then nodded. ¡°Can I come over to your house after practice?¡±


    ¡°Sure, but we will also need to practice one-on-one in the courts.¡± Misha pressed.


    ¡°Gah, fine.¡±


    With that Misha nodded.


    Awkward pause.


    With that J-Sweep just stared at Misha, until Misha pointed out, ¡°aren¡¯t you going to be late for class?¡±


    With that J-Sweep had a look of surprise on her face, before she nodded, ¡°yes.¡±


    Then turning J-Sweep sprinted out of the hallway just as quickly as she arrived.


    With that out of the way, Misha made her way to computer class. As she got in, she could tell that Darcy was already up to something as she seemed to be squirming in her seat.


    ¡°Hey Misha, I couldn¡¯t help but hear you and J-Sweep talking in the hallway. Are you going to see Hasty this weekend after the game?¡± Darcy asked, all but brimming with nervous energy.


    ¡°Possibly.¡±


    ¡°That is so cool. Would you mind if I tagged along?¡± Darcy asked.


    Misha just shrugged her shoulders not seeing the issue, her car could seat five. Her ride the other day proved this, as she and the starters for the team all managed to fit in, even Two-Tone.


    ¡°I do have some tickets to Saturday¡¯s performance.¡±


    Hearing that, Misha¡¯s eyes grew wide, as she could only imagine how many options she would have on Saturday for reaching her harvesting limit if she was actually able to go to the sold out concert.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll tell J-Sweep, but I don¡¯t see this being a problem.¡± Misha replied.


    ¡°Hey are you two going to the Hasty concert?¡± James cut in.


    ¡°We are, and it is going to be a girl¡¯s night out. No boys.¡± Darcy shot back quickly, dashing any hopes that James might have had about inviting himself to join in.


    ¡°Okay, okay, just asking.¡± James asked, before wheeling his rolling chair back to his computer desk and starting on the work. Darcy glared at James the entire way back, then once he was gone, her face instantly changed as a smile filled her face.


    ¡°Have you grown?¡± Darcy asked.


    With that Misha paused, wondering how she knew, then she remembered the slight changes she herself had noticed. Changes that were still more pronounced by the way her clothes showed more skin than she normally would have.


    ¡°A bit.¡± Misha replied.


    ¡°We can go clothes shopping while we are out.¡± Darcy stated, and Misha was about to ask what she was talking about, when Ms. Philips cut in and ended the conversation immediately.


    ¡°Enough talking, more doing.¡± Ms. Philips chided.


    Then like that Misha and Darcy also went back to work. Though as she did, Misha could feel the gaze of Darcy on her when it was clear that Misha was not looking in her direction. It was slightly unnerving, but then Misha noticed how Darcy would stare for a few seconds and then giggle to herself before focusing on her assignment again for a few minutes, only for the odd cycle to continue.


    Odd, was all Misha could think about for this whole set of circumstances that had her making not just one but two semi-promises to fellow classmates.


    It was strange, her relationship with J-Sweep was almost forced upon her due to her need to infiltrate the Bakshee. But now there was a bit more to the whole nuance, as there was no more war. In fact, if anything Misha now found herself so entrenched behind enemy lines that she was easily counted as one of the enemy, in a war that was officially over.


    But making friends with Darcy, a civilian, or one who has not been currently infected, this was a change and one that Misha felt was better for her. If she was to break out of the mold of war and Psycher and Bakshee dogma, she would need to branch out and experience more of the world. Maybe this whole going to see Hasty in concert wasn¡¯t a terrible idea either. Now it was her chance to see and experience the world. To try new things and see what she actually liked versus doing what she was always told to do.


    In a way, this marked her first true step towards finding her own independence.


    After class was over, Misha had almost forgotten about the whole incident. Only once Darcy went out of her way, smiling brightly at her did Misha realize that something was slightly off.


    ¡°Bye, see you on Friday.¡± Darcy said giddily.


    ¡°Wait,¡± Misha said, cutting off Darcy who was about to leave.


    ¡°What?¡± Darcy asked, her suddenly good mood changing as she wondered if Misha no longer wanted to go.


    Fortunately, her wildly fluctuating emotions were quickly readjusted, when she was asked.


    ¡°How are you going to get to the game and the concert?¡±


    ***


    (Elijah Cummings)


    Elijah had waited and followed all the trends, easily placing his biological canisters in places that were sure to be easily traveled and more importantly, places that would be at the epicenter for Bakshee contaminated hosts.


    He planned everything, going on a business trip around the world, one that was fully funded by his employer who was interested in causing as much devastation as possible.


    Elijah on the other hand was limited in his approach, merely wanting to rid the world of the Bakshee corruption. He heard the commands of the great mother, and he would obey, fighting on just as she commanded with her dying thoughts.


    Having set everything up in Europe and Aisa, Elijah was now on his way west, aboard a first-class flight from Heathrow to Reagan International, once he landed he would set up a few components before flying out on the red eye flight to Pittsburg.


    It was going to be a busy next couple of days, but everything would be worth it, once the full grandeur of his plans were fully revealed. Sadly, he and the one other Psycher would be the only ones to truly witness how masterful his plans of revenge ultimately were.


    He was still trying to make contact with the other Psycher, but they seem to be distancing themselves. While it was clear that they were clearly aware of his presence and actions, they seemed to make no attempts, to help, hinder, or engage with him.


    The whole thing seemed odd.


    Elijah was lonely, now more than ever. Especially after his connection to the great mother was removed. He had hoped to have some form of connections with the other Psycher, perhaps just to know that he had backup or support if things went sideways, but he knew better. That was not the true Psycher way.


    While everyone was supposed to be unified, there was strong competition to prove yourself. Lest you get demoted down to the maintenance bays of the ships, forever lost to the grind of irrelevance.


    Taking a breath, Elijah was thankful for this opportunity where he could still prove himself to his cause, even though the mission was lost.

 Chapter 47 Flickering Lights And Sights

    Chapter 47


    Flickering Lights And Sights


    (Alishia Stone)


    Alishia didn¡¯t know if it was her heightened senses, her lack of heightened senses or the fact that the wolf that had previously been so dominant within her was now silent.


    Worse was the fact that things were odd.


    Little things, things that individually meant nothing, but over time added up to great things.


    The first thing that went wrong was her alarm clock on her phone, it went off constantly.


    2AM- Alarm


    3:03 AM - Alarm


    3:47 AM ¨C A Louder Alarm


    And so on it went. Random times, random intervals.


    Yet, every time she checked the alarm that she set for herself, there it was. The time she set for school, 6:15 AM.


    This last time was the worst, as her alarm wouldn¡¯t go off until she entered the passcode. This had never happened before. Worse, her screen lock cover had changed, going from a picture of her and Rodger, to a picture of some old woman.


    The woman seemed oddly familiar, but only in the way everything seems familiar in a mind still half-asleep kind of way.


    Then when the screen opened and she could see the alarm, the alarm was in a new image. This one too was of the same woman, but now Alishia realized why this woman seemed so familiar, as it was the woman from the van. The woman that her Rodger killed to fully awaken his talents.


    Worst of all, the screen seemed to be tracking her finger. For as her finger hovered over the screen, a knife appeared where her finger would be, if she was touching the screen, like some horror writer¡¯s version of a mouse pointer. Then when she pressed the ¡®Dismiss¡¯ button for the alarm to turn off, rather than the alarm turning off, the woman flinched and moved.


    ¡°Oww.¡±


    ¡°Stop.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re hurting me.¡±


    ¡°Please stop, I beg you.¡±


    The woman¡¯s voice cried out each time she stabbed her with her knife pointer. Worse, the image slowly changed, with each stab of her finger, more and more blood appeared on the image of the woman.


    The worst part was, that was the woman¡¯s voice. Alishia had heard the woman groan and cry out in pain, so she knew what the woman sounded like, at least mostly. And that was definitely the woman¡¯s voice.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡± Alishia finally screamed, seeing the woman¡¯s dead body bleed out more and more as she cried for pain. That¡¯s when Alishia did something she never thoughts she would do, she threw her phone hoping that it would break.


    Crack.


    The phone flew across the room, striking the wall, snapping in half, while also leaving a phone sized dent in the wall. After that, the phone fell limply to the ground, where the glowing screen died, followed a second later by the last remnants of sound that came from the device.


    Alishia watched in horror as the phone she loved lay broken in a clump on the floor. Then taking in a deep breath to calm herself, she tried to dismiss the thoughts that had been plaguing her, through her dreams.


    Only now that she was fully awake, did she realize what it was. It was all a bad dream, but why now? Why her? From all the people that Alishia had been around when they died, why her? She wasn¡¯t even the one that killed her? The others, she could possibly understand her mind coming out and protesting, but why her?


    ¡°I didn¡¯t even kill her.¡± Alishia called out to no one in particular, as she tried to calm herself down so she could go back to sleep.


    Click.


    Then just before she could, her MP3 player turned on as if by itself and began playing a hit song that Alishia hadn¡¯t listened to in years.


    Hasty¡¯s: You Were There.


    ¡°All this time I looked for you to find me.


    You act like I was a million miles away from anyone or anywhere.


    Yet, despite all your protestations you could see.


    I was always right here, while you were just over there.¡±


    ¡°What the?¡± Alishia began fully getting up out of her bed, going over to her desk to get her MP3 player, before managing to turn it off. Even though she turned it off, the final bars of the chorus completed before the device would fully cut out.


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    Then breathing heavily, Alishia wondered what time it actually was. For a moment she reflexively thought of her phone, only to realize that it was broken in pieces on the floor.


    Pausing for a moment Alishia wondered if she could call out due to cramps, but then remembered today was Friday and her last day to try to win back Rodger and to keep him from going to the away game, with her.


    After sneaking downstairs and seeing the clock on the microwave, Alishia rested a little bit as it was only 013. Then blinking to herself, she re-looked at the microwave to see that it said 4:13.


    Pausing for a moment, she realized that stress of high school life was getting to her and that she needed to take a moment to calm herself. She could wake up two hours early and just stay up, or she could try to go back to bed now and regain as much sleep as possible from those remaining two hours.


    With a begrudging sigh, Alishia went back up to bed to try to get any form of rest from those remaining two hours, only to find her next few hours of sleep to be tough to achieve. For every time she closed her eyes, she saw the image of her knife pointer stabbing the old woman repeatedly over and over, while she tried to aim for a seemingly moving ¡®Dismiss¡¯ button.


    Gasp.


    With a gasp, she shot up to look out across her room only to see the black flecks of her broken phone lying in a clump on the floor.


    She was asleep for only a moment, when her normal alarm of the local news went off, loudly waking her from her slumber.


    ¡°I regret to inform you that we have now had our first confirmed case of the Bakshee-1 super plague hit America. This is a plague that so far has only seemed to target the rich, wealthy, or professional and semi-professional athletes.¡± Tracy Uker states, as her voice seamlessly read the biggest news story of the day.


    ¡°According to researchers, an estimated one third of the world''s population is vulnerable to this disease. So far there is no known cure, and¡­¡± The voice went on, but by now Alishia was awake so she did what she always did, she reached out and tried to turn off her phone.


    Tap, touch, swipe.


    She reached out and then grew more and more alarmed by the fact that she couldn¡¯t find her phone. Suddenly she lurched up in the bed, looking for her precious phone, only to then realize that the sound was coming from the far end of the room.


    Sitting up, Alishia looked on in horror to see that her phone was still laying in bent and broken parts on the ground, but somehow still able to keep working.


    Getting up, she walked over to the pile of parts, only to see that her throw while tough had only caused the back cover to snap off, along with the battery. Seeing the three pieces, Alishia wondered how the phone was still working without a battery in it.


    Then picking up the Alishia felt her chest tighten as she saw the image of the locked screen. Once again it was a picture of the old woman, this time the same woman spoke.


    ¡°Now you know better than to be mean to others.¡± The woman said somewhat scornfully, as if scolding a little kid who had done something wrong. Something along the lines of getting into a fight or an argument with another child. Yet, hearing her speak, Alishia couldn¡¯t help but feel that the words were directed towards her.


    Tap.


    Alishia tapped the screen, trying to get it to stop showing the old woman, but again she saw it. The knife mouse pointer seemed to perfectly follow the movement of her finger, even if she wasn¡¯t touching the screen.


    Unlocking her phone, she then saw the same bloody image of the woman, just as she left her. Six stab wounds all around her neck and body, from each of Alishia¡¯s attempts to hit the moving ¡®Dismiss¡¯ button earlier.


    Looking at the screen and the blood that seemed to be pouring out of the image, Alishia couldn¡¯t help but feel a bit of fear rise up in her, as she knew blood. She knew what it looked like when someone was stabbed, or in her case, when claws were used to swipe open strips of flesh in an opponent.


    She saw this and realized that it looked almost like a very graphic video game, but there was something unnervingly real about the image and actions.


    This time, with a slightly trembling finger she reached out, watching as the dagger pointer noticing her hesitation also trembled, darting about from side to side, only to settle back down in the center of the screen a second later.


    Pausing, Alishia focused, not wanting to inadvertently stab the poor woman again with her shifting knife pointer. Then as a tear rolled down her eye, she reached out, and managed to actually hit the dismiss button.


    The news lady who had still been going on about the ¡®Bakshee-1¡¯ virus finally stopped, as the alarm feature had been disabled.


    After that, the screen went black, and Alishia let out a long sigh of relief. Then staring at the phone, she paused wondering, ¡°what just happened?¡±


    Unfortunately for Alishia, her bad day was only just beginning.


    ***


    (ReaperTwo)


    The moment Hasty¡¯s plane landed back on her home soil she felt it, a strange form of connection to the earth that she missed in other countries. While she would never consider herself to be truly spiritual, or a nature nut, she did feel much more connection to the world and elements around her. Especially after she purchased all of the primary elemental affinities, followed by the twice as expensive joint elemental affinities like Lightning, Ice, Metal, and of course her newest additional power Light.


    Hasty had even learned to incorporate certain aspects of her powers into her shows. The more she adds, the more supernatural beings are of course attracted to her performances.


    There was of course one alarming problem with her growth, namely that she had never learn to reap from anyone higher than a Tier I. In fact, she had been at this for so long that many of her fans that began as Tier 0 and Tier Is were now past her in terms of what she could gain from them.


    Fortunately, those fans were now having kids who grew up with the same sets of powers, but they were so weak in comparison to what Hasty wanted.


    Worst of all, she was nearing the end of her seemingly endless catalog of powers available to her. Her once endless stream of power seemed to be coming to a standstill.


    Yet, that was okay, she was finally back home. In her home city of Pittsburgh, where she felt the greatest connection to the world as a whole.


    ¡°Hasty,¡± Ms. Delaney, Hasty¡¯s personal assistant said, pulling Hasty from her mental thoughts.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Just so you know, there is going to be a quarantine on us, as we are scanned for any signs or traces of ¡®Bakshee-1¡¯ before we are allowed off the plane.¡± Ms. Delaney noted.


    ¡°Is it already here?¡± Hasty found herself asking.


    ¡°No, not here, but there was one noted case in New York, which is where you just performed. Out of an abundance of caution they are stopping the plane and putting us under observation for an hour, while they run some scans on us.¡±


    Hearing that Hasty could only nod, as once again her Danger Sense paid off, alerting her to impending danger if she stayed on her old European tour. Instead, she decided to leave early and begin a new leg of her tour in states, before heading back after the European countries were done with their imposed lock down.


    Still the longer she waited, the more she felt a slight surge of fear growing within her, as she could almost feel the source of danger growing closer with each passing moment.


    Realizing she had nothing else to do with her time than meditate, she decided to focus her mind inward, as she focused on using one of her harder to direct powers, Oracular Sense.


    If she closed her eyes tightly enough she could almost make out the form of a male. This her Oracular Sense told her was the source of the plague that she would need to face at some point.


    Then using the same Oracular Sense, Hasty could almost see the outline of a tall youthful female that her instincts told her was the one she was directed at meeting. The one who had assumed her role as lead Reaper, something Hasty originally disliked, but now that she has had time to reflect, it was clear that Hasty was stuck. That she for whatever reason had not found a way to evolve and was now lock out of any form of advancement.


    One thing Hasty hoped was that by meeting this new Reaper, she might be able to get new perspectives on how to increase her Tier rating. There must be a way for her to evolve, but for the life of her, she couldn¡¯t figure out how.


    For now, it was all she could do to take time looking for this other Reaper, and trying to reach out.


    Then as Hasty focused her mind, she saw the faintest twinges of bright red hair that was long. She noticed strong muscles, abnormally strong muscles for a female that was not a werewolf. Then she thought she saw the faintest traces of a porcelain soft face.


    Just as her mind started to form a clearer picture of the person she was going to make contact with, her meditation was interrupted.


    ¡°Ms. Hasty, we are able to leave now.¡± Ms. Delaney stated, shattering the image of the tall slender woman that was filling Hasty¡¯s mind.


    Gasp.


    As she was pulled out from her meditative state, Hasty found herself breathing in deeply as she had been so close.


    The fact that she felt the closest to this target while here was a good sign, as it meant that she was finally close to finding out who exactly this person was.


    Now more than ever she felt she had something to go from, tall, athletic build with red hair, likely a teenager or maybe early twenties. But young face. That was going to be what Hasty told her guards to be on the look out for when they got to the meet and greet to find her helper in Pittsburgh.


    Finally, Hasty felt that by finding this new Reaper, she would finally be given the ability to advance to the second Tier of her class and unlock truly powerful abilities. It was now only a matter of time.

 Chapter 48 Putting the Pieces Together

    Chapter 48


    Putting the Pieces Together


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    Exhale.


    If Amoni had to describe her current state right now, it would be frustrated. No, that wouldn¡¯t be the word, obsolete? Maybe. Completely replaced? Definitely, though that still didn¡¯t fully express how she felt right now.


    For months, no for years, as far back as Amoni could remember, she always excelled at two things, school and basketball. Everything else was just supplementary to those two things. She gave up boys to study and to become a better future shaman, just as her father instructed. She also was great at basketball, the ultimate team sport for someone as talented as her.


    Yet today, Coach Green took her to the side and all but sucker punched her, with her decision.


    ¡°Hey, I just wanted you to know that tomorrow Misha will start, and you will come off the bench.¡±


    The words came like the long awaited but unexpected conclusion to a historical fiction. One where you know going into it what to expect, but are somehow still surprised by the inevitable outcome that happens.


    Amoni knew this was coming, the writing was written on the wall, she wasn¡¯t the best player on the team, not even the best at her chosen position. In fact, the only person skill wise who she felt better than was K-Bar and Michelle, but both had her in terms of height and understanding the position they were playing.


    Yet it still stung when she heard that two non-pack members were going to get the start over her, a pack leader.


    Though admittedly, her inner wolf had been quiet ever since the day she threw hands with Misha. Even before she threw hands, she knew she was losing the drive, her spark that made her that much better than everyone else.


    It was that spark that she used to continue to fuel her desire to be better, to be more.


    At first, she thought that the new girl was lucky, gifted skills and abilities that placed her far above everyone else. Yet that was clearly not the case.


    After seeing her home, and the basketball courts that her grandfather had built for her, she felt jealous. But then she realized that, despite never playing against anyone, she still practiced and pushed herself, even when no one was watching she pushed herself. Something that Amoni could now see that she did, but not to the same constant level of intensity that Misha did.


    In comparison, with her god given skill and the innate power of the wolf, it should have been nothing for her to maintain her dominance over not one but two different civilians on the team. Civilians, people that had never been blessed by the great mother to be chosen as her protectors, that is who she lost her position to.


    Yet, after seeing both of them in action Amoni couldn¡¯t argue the logic. She was tall, but not taller than Michelle or K-Bar. She was fast, but never worked to improve herself. Instead, all she found was that recently her speed and strength had been failing her the more she fell behind those who had overtaken her.


    Worst of all, she wanted to hate this person, this leech that dared to interpose herself on her territory. Yet, despite everything, she couldn¡¯t bring herself to hate the new girl.


    Instead, all she could do was realize that if she wanted to stay on the team she needed to work twice as hard to just catch up.


    ¡°Okay,¡± was all Amoni could reply, that was all her pride and tightening chest would allow.


    What else was there to say.


    For too long she had it easy, she had things handed to her. Things that she accepted without sacrifice or strife, and now she was paying for that perceived decadence.


    More words were said, but they were all meaningless and repetitive words meant to express the things that Amoni already understood. Each time her coach was done talking, all she could reply with was ¡°okay.¡±


    Finally, the whole event was over, and Amoni was left on her own.


    By now everyone had already left. Practice was over, and if she was to get a ride it would have been with the new girl as her cousin wrecked both vehicles.


    Just thinking about her cousin and how his life had been cut short only caused more ire to well up inside Amoni.


    Yet even her cousin was getting passed by others, whether he realized it or not. Rodger was already being picked by Alishia to take his place by her side. Also, Alishia was clearly going to take over the spot of pack Alpha. At least that was her clear goal until she too ran into the immovable mountain that was Misha.


    Thinking of their altercation, where Alishia clearly lost everything, her spark her wolf, just as Amoni had, Amoni couldn¡¯t help but laugh.


    Having lived through it herself, she knew what to expect. She knew what Alishia was going through, especially with the fact that she left school early yesterday and has not dared to show her face since. Amoni at least had the excuse that she was expelled from the team for the next few days, Alishia didn¡¯t even have that.


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    Thinking back on it, Amoni was glad that things hadn¡¯t gone as bad for her as they had for Alishia. Then she realized something was wrong with this thought process. These were still the thoughts of complacency that got her here in the first place. Being satisfied with not being last, not having the worst course of events happen to her was not what she wanted.


    That¡¯s when she thought about Misha, how she had gone through so much. Being the outsider who forced her way into the team that clearly didn¡¯t want her, where her only friend was Michelle, originally. Then losing her grandmother to a car accident. Then how her mother practically abandoned her to be with her grandfather, yet she never complained about anything.


    Like a machine, she pushed on, even using these events as motivation to push herself just that much harder.


    Amoni cold see that drive and determination with just how much faster Misha was getting, seeming to use the motivation of everything that was going wrong with her life as fuel to strive beyond everything.


    With these thoughts, something finally snapped in Amoni¡¯s mind.


    At that moment, she made a mental note to herself, that she would never be passed so easily again. That she would never just accept that she had the worst, or others had worse conditions than her. Instead, she too would use every moment as an incentive to push that much harder, to strive that much further. This was her only way to make it back to the top.


    Yes, she knew that eventually she would meet someone who was bigger, stronger, faster, or smarter than her, but she would never let others overtake her due to a lack of trying on her part.


    Tingle.


    The moment she made this pact with herself was the moment something clicked alive in her mind. Suddenly the wolf that had been beaten and silenced for so long, came alive and howled with pent up rage and fury.


    Her wolf was not angry at those who push themselves past her, but rather she was mad at herself for allowing others to pass her by.


    Filled with a new sense of determination, Amoni decided that from today onward she would push herself constantly, never accepting her position as a given.


    As Amoni began her long walk home, a primal sense of joy filled her. Normally she would hate the long ten mile walk home, but this time, she felt alive as her newly awakened and recharged wolf sprung to life within her mind, filling her with energy that she had not felt since her first awakening.


    Clop, clop.


    Before she even realized it, her feet were moving and pumping as her strides began to stretch out longer and faster, until finally she was running full speed.


    The cool autumn wind began to blow into her hair, which was good as she was already feeling a deep burning within her as her wolf threatened to burn her alive from the inside out if she dared to do anything other than push herself to the limit.


    Crackle.


    A bolt of lightning called out, letting everyone know that soon an intense storm cloud would be over the area.


    Yet, despite the call of the storm, Amoni could only smile brightly as she felt her mind connecting with the storm. If she but pushed her mind into the storm she could reach it, she could control it, but her mind had to be in the near Zen like state that only comes from running.


    Realizing that in order for her to truly become one and commune with nature she needed to run, Amoni did just that.


    Thunderclap-downpour.


    The echo of lightning quickly caught up to her overtaking her, followed closely by heavy rain. Rain that while soaking her clothes did nothing to affect her. Nothing to affect her mood, as nothing could change her mindset, not now, not while she was here.


    This was her breakthrough.


    Now she began to feel the full power of nature. This was the moment she had waited her entire life to experience. Before this point, before today, she would have run straight to her father to tell him of her success, to tell him of how the storm made her feel. Yet, now that she finally felt the connection, she decided to keep her thoughts to herself.


    This was not something that needed to be said. There was nothing to brag about, she just was, same as the weather around her. She could feel the storm calling to her, reaching out and slowly adapting to her emotional state.


    When she first began her emotions were violent and chaotic, a whirling vortex of doubt. But now they had settled, she was calmer, more resolute in her conviction to push herself harder and further than she had ever gone before.


    The closer she got to her house, the more the intense energy of the storm began to wane, until finally she found herself home, just as the storm finally ended.


    Smiling, a nearly drenched Amoni found herself walking up the steps to her house. For a moment she thought about entering, but then decided better as she went around back, and found a clean spot of dirt well away from everyone and sat down and let her mind meld with the earth below her.


    The moment she let her mind relax, was the moment she felt the world call out to her, welcoming her.


    Welcome Shaman: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth elements unlocked.


    Feeling the message more than anything, Amoni knew that she would not let this second chance pass her by to be the best version of herself she could be.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    For weeks Misha had been lost, of the five who had been in the van when her grandmother was killed, only four remained active. Only four actively spoke about the actions taken that night amongst each other.


    This was concerning for Misha, the lack of communications meant a lot of possible variables that she had a hard time calculating. With the complete silence and discipline it meant that either the person was a complete sociopath, someone who felt no remorse for their actions and thus felt no need to talk out the experience with others. Or it could mean that this person was the one with the least amount of an electronic footprint to track.


    In either case, the truth was clear, that the fifth person would be tough to find and link to this whole murder.


    Still, she was fairly certain that she broke the code.


    She tried to place the fifth person from among her peers. What she didn¡¯t originally take into account was the fact that there might have been an elder along to sanction the actions.


    That was Misha¡¯s fault and something that caused her weeks of downtime for this process. Now that she had broken her own preconceived biases the whole plot and treason seemed to make more sense. All that was left was find enough information for her to indict and she would move ahead with her punishment, just as she was for all the others.


    ***


    (Alpha Abraham Jacobs)


    Abe sat at his personal throne, his long muscular fingers pounding irritated against his mahogany desk that served as his pulpit from which he ruled over his empire.


    His fingers danced and fluttered, creating a rhythmic noise that one could almost imagine being the makings of a piano masterpiece, had the instrument been slightly different. Yet, this was not a musical number that Abe was mimicking. In fact, if anyone had chosen that moment to see Abe¡¯s face, rare and raw from having to wait impatiently, they would have seen the true depths of anger an Alpha can bear.


    The reason for Abe¡¯s ire was simple. Well actually not so simple, first there were financial problems, which are always painful and taxing on the soul. It appeared that money was being stolen from the pack¡¯s account, but there were no traces as to who took the money, whether it was just transferred to alternate accounts, or if it had been in fact stolen.


    Normally Abe would have set Bruce on this task, but something caused him to pause to hesitate with trusting his brother.


    There had been a tension between the two, a rift ever since the death of Abe¡¯s son.


    At first Abe thought that his brother was giving him space to mourn, but now he had seen movements in the shadows. Now that he wasn¡¯t so blinded by how important his son had been to him, he could see things.


    Well that wasn¡¯t entirely true. Truthfully he had always seen the shadows, but at the time he had trusted others to take care of the shadows. Now Abe was beginning to wonder if his trust in those who had always protected him against the shadows had been misplaced?


    No, it hadn¡¯t always been like this, there was a time when Abe knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he could trust those who he placed to watch the shadows. Now however, things had changed. As he grew older, he grew less trusting, less accepting of turning a blind eye to corruption. Yet, he had let it all slide until now.


    Tap, tap.


    The sound of someone knocking on his chamber door echoed in the large office room. With that the incessant tapping of Abe¡¯s fingers stopped, as he straightened up. Going from annoyed thinker to hyper focused predator in less than a second.


    ¡°Come in, brother.¡± Abe said, hoping that the words would illicit a slight reaction from the man who had always been and would still be his brother, even after death. Though Abe now wondered how his dear brother would meet death.


    If the words had any impact on the soul of Bruce, Abe could not tell, as the man just calmly entered the room and made his way casually to stand in front of Abe.


    Once there, standing right in front of him, Abe noticed as his brother locked gazes with him, neither looking away, nor blinking. A direct provocation if Abe had ever seen one.


    There was a time when Abe would have loved this type of challenge, of finding someone who would openly challenge him. Yet, now he couldn¡¯t help but wonder if he let this grow too far, as now he needed to take control of the situation, to at least level set expectations.


    ¡°It seems that we have quite a bit to talk about,¡± Abe began.


    ¡°Perhaps we do.¡± Bruce, the pack shaman stated.


    And like that the tension that had been building in the room crystallized into a tangible mass that added weight to everything.

 Chapter 49 Driving Arrangements (Frank Grimes)

    Chapter 49


    Driving Arrangements


    (Frank Grimes)


    Honestly, Frank couldn¡¯t tell if it was a good thing or not to be asked to drive Misha, his girlfriend¡¯s daughter¡¯s car to the game. At first, he was hesitant to drive the vehicle, as getting into a car owned and operated by a teenager was always asking for trouble.


    Frank remembered his youth, where his car was filled with food wrappers, random stains, and of course it had its own quirks. Quirks derived from improper driving, not allowing the engine enough time to accurately switch between gears, not allowing enough time for the engine to rev up to the needed gear before switching, all minor things that would grind and break a vehicle.


    Thus when Frank was given the chance to drive the Mustang GT, he felt that there was going to be something to the car that would cause an inexperienced driver to falter.


    Yet, the car was smooth.


    The gears shifted cleanly, even though it had a clutch, it was open and forgiving. In fact, if Frank didn¡¯t know any better, he would have assumed that the car was shifting and driving on his own, and only letting Frank pretend to remember how to drive a manual transmission.


    Andrea, his girlfriend, drove behind him in Frank¡¯s car.


    Now that he was actually on the road and seeing how a well maintained vehicle worked and operated, he felt more concern about Andrea¡¯s driving than his own. In fact, he felt he almost needed to bring in the vehicle to Misha¡¯s shop again. If only to gauge her acceptance of him, as two weeks without power, let him realize just how important Andrea had become to him.


    At first, he was drawn here by the unexpected nature of a case that he couldn¡¯t mentally close. A case that kept calling to him, speaking of aliens and extra-terrestrial magic.


    Of course, he knew then just as he knew now that it was not actually going to happen. That such occurrences didn¡¯t happen, but he still felt compelled to solve the case.


    Now almost ten years later, he was certain that he had solved the case, as the girl Misha, had to be the girl from the reports. The one that mysteriously disappeared all those years ago.


    While this story lacked all the glitz and glamor of alien encounters, and possible supernatural elements, Frank was happy that he followed the case. Even happier as he has begun to think that the true reason this case was so appealing to him all those years ago, was that he was meant to meet Andrea.


    Andrea, where to begin with her. She is definitely not going to be nominated for mother of the year. Nor daughter of the year, as the death of her mother hit her so hard that she almost broke down entirely. Added to that was the fact that Andrea showed all the signs of an addict. Classic co-dependency, classic signs that she would and could become an alcoholic or worse to mask her suffering.


    Frank had kept a close eye on her, trying to keep her from doing something stupid. Something that Frank would himself not be able to forgive as a former cop. Then the day that he was certain that Andrea would break, the day when he knew that Andrea would try to find illegal substances to help mask her overwhelming pain, that is the day that a miracle happened.


    Andrea had left early in the morning, no letter, no notice of where she went. She was just gone.


    Then the world went dark.


    That¡¯s when Frank waited in the apartment. Well at first he tried to go around searching the city in his car. He looked for her in all the usual haunts, the salon, the food market, anywhere he could think of, but she was not there.


    Then after the world went dark, he went back to his apartment and just waited. There after a few long agonizing hours, he finally heard the rustling of keys scraping against a hole.


    When Andrea came stumbling into the apartment, hair disheveled and clothes clearly covered in grime Frank was the happiest he had ever been to see her.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± was all Andrea got out, before Frank was to her and covering her in his embrace.


    ¡°Did you?¡± Frank asked, and there was a lot in that question. There were a lot of things that could have been covered in that question, everything from infidelity to drug use, to worse.


    ¡°No,¡± Andrea said shaking her head. Then slightly trembling she added, ¡°I was about to. I was about to make the worst mistakes of my life. But then as I was walking to the spot, the power went out.  I should have turned back, right then. In fact, I wanted to, but I was already so close that I decided to try anyways. I went to the spot, but apparently they were gone when I got there.¡±


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    Hearing that Frank let out a sigh of relief.


    ¡°It was only after an hour of being there that I realized how low my life was. How I was this close to losing everything. Here I had the best man in the world, and I was about to lose him. I, I don¡¯t know if you believe in the supernatural, but I have to believe that my mother was there looking out for me. Causing the statewide blackout, otherwise I would never be able to return to you. Here.¡±


    She was almost incoherent by the end, just mindless ramblings, as tears filled her.


    Frank cradled her close, then gently searched her arms. Stroking them for warmth, but really, he was checking her for any puncture wounds. Having not felt any, Frank let out the last tension that was filling him.


    It had been close, too close. His morals and ethics would have all but forced him to stay with Andrea long enough for her to get sober, but he would never be able to stay with a user. But fortunately, the end of the world came, and he and Andrea were that much stronger for having survived it together.


    Two weeks of foraging in a post-apocalyptic world showed him that Andrea was someone he wouldn¡¯t mind staying with. For him, those two weeks felt like two months at the very least for most relationships he had ever been in, as he was forced to be by her side that entire time. And despite the random eccentricity that she had, now Frank couldn¡¯t imagine spending his time with anyone else.


    The fact that her daughter came the next day with Phil to fix their car, and help work the electricity in their stuffy apartment building was also a plus. Once again seeing the entire housing unit go from not having any power or electricity to being one of the first buildings up and operational was alarming for Frank, but he just chalked it up to Misha¡¯s mechanical genius.


    That was when Frank made another astonishing revelation about himself. While he knew that Misha already had a great male role model in her life with her grandfather Phil, he realized then and there that he would be proud if one day Misha could call him dad.


    At first, he thought that Misha all but hated him. Only to then find out that she had asked him specifically to drive her vehicle to the basketball game, as Misha and her other teammates had to ride the team bus to her game. Though they would then be free to get alternate modes of travel from the game.


    Apparently, Misha and her friends were going to leave directly from the game and drive to Pittsburgh in order to try to see a Hasty concert.


    When Frank first heard this, he almost stepped in as a fill in parent. Misha was too young, at least that was his first thought. Even Andrea thought so, but then Andrea was one of the first to submit, when Phil told her his thoughts on the whole issue.


    ¡°Misha is far more mature than you or I could ever hope to be. The fact that she has this chance, to go out and make memories with new friends is exactly what we hoped for when we let her go to public schools. She needs this, in fact we need her to do this, for even if she fails she will still need the experience of knowing what trouble is in the future. Had this been you, or some other teen I would completely shut this down and not hear of it. But again, this is Misha, and she has earned this chance to see what being an adult is truly like.¡± Phil¡¯s sharp words cut through Andrea, causing her to wince.


    No doubt Andrea had flashbacks of a few weeks ago, when she herself almost failed at being an adult, while being of age, showing that age was not a determining factor in terms of success.


    Normally Frank would steer well away from such topics, but it was clear that Phil thought Andrea should not have a say in this particular topic, especially with how she had all but abandoned Misha over the past few weeks.


    This was when Frank tried to add his own thoughts to the process, ¡°for what its worth, I agree with this.¡±


    With that Andrea glared at Frank, tears forming in her eyes as Frank could almost read the betrayal clearly etched in her features. Seeing her, Frank instantly raised his hands up in a defensive gesture.


    ¡°Hear me out. Misha has been through just as much as you have. From what I can tell your mother was just as much of an influence on her as she was on you.¡± Frank began, and as he spoke, he could see his words having an impact on Andrea, as her features began to relax ever so slightly. This was good, and gave Frank the courage to continue with his thoughts.


    ¡°Honestly, from everything I¡¯ve heard about Misha, she likely needs this chance to get out and away from everything as much as us, if not more than we do. I mean she is almost too perfect as a teenager, no drama, no moping around, no bad attitudes. And that was before the death of her grandmother, after which you mostly abandoned her.¡± At that Andrea really crumpled in, as the weight of his words hit her. It was a low blow, but one that needed to be said, if Frank was going to help Andrea avoid causing an even greater rift between her and Misha.


    ¡°That¡¯s why she likely needs this chance to go out and experience the real world. Her friend apparently has the tickets to the concert, all Misha is doing is driving. Honestly, I don¡¯t see a reason why she shouldn¡¯t go. The more I think about it, the more forcing her to stay at home away from everyone will only cause her to be surrounded by bad memories. Particularly if she knows that here friends are out experiencing the world without her.¡± Frank said.


    Vroom.


    Those were Frank¡¯s thoughts as he drove Misha¡¯s car to the game. Odd how so many memories would come to him as he drove.


    Fortunately, his words struck home, as Andrea eventually relented in her protests. Given that she was the only one protesting the outing, Frank could only see it going poorly for their relationship. Something that Andrea reluctantly agreed to later on, though he was hoping that eventually their nightlife would continue to where it was during the apocalypse.


    ***


    As Frank finally arrived at the venue, he was surprised to see that the event was almost sold out. Apparently being one of the first post-apocalyptic school sporting events caused the school to host a Female Basketball game at the same time that the school hosted a Football game. This caused a slight overflow of parking, forcing Frank to park on a grass field off the parking lot.


    Holding the keys, Frank remembered the instructions, but then wondered if they were real. Just lock the doors and hide the key under the seat as if this were some form of car rental return place.


    Yet, Frank did as expected, placing the keys under the seat. Trying to make it seem like he was just adjusting the seat to be further back.


    Getting out, Frank tested the two doors, finding them both locked and hoped that Misha remembered to take her spare key with her.


    Then Frank left and joined Andrea as he went to see his first high school basketball game that he had attended since he left high school.


    Joining Andrea, he felt a slight bulge in his breast pocket over his heart.


    It was too fast, he knew it, in fact everything about his relationship with Andrea told him he needed to slow down, but he was at that point and stage in his life when he knew a good thing when he saw it.


    The adversity and strength that Andrea showed since her mother¡¯s death, the kindness and humility she bestowed him, a stranger, all spoke to how amazing of a person that Andrea was.


    Frank had always had the ring with him, ready to give to the one.


    In fact, Frank was sort of surprised he kept it for his journey to this point. Then when he found it amongst his things that he started to unpack in his new apartment, he couldn¡¯t help but wonder if this was also fate that showed it to him.


    He found it, on the night that Andrea came back to him, on the night when she almost succumbed to temptation.


    At the time Andrea swore she heard her mother¡¯s ghost talking to her, telling her to turn back. Having heard it, Frank was almost going to comment that there is no such thing as ghosts, but then realized that he too had his own quirks with looking for aliens. By comparison ghosts were not too far of a stretch.


    Thus, he kept the ring with him, wondering if it was fate that he found the old engagement ring for his now ex, on the same night that Andrea turned away from temptation.


    Regardless, he was certain of one thing, that he truly wanted Andrea to be by his side for the foreseeable future.


    ¡°You got everything?¡± Andrea asked.


    Quickly patting his pocket for extra reassurance, Frank replied ¡°yes, now that I have you. I have everything I need.¡±


    ¡°Careful with talk like that, we might not make it to the game.¡± Andrea replied, a sharp smile filling her lips.


    Then Frank felt pressure in a new way he never thought possible. As he entered a girls basketball game to cheer on his girlfriend¡¯s teenage daughter. With the expectation that he now wanted to impress her to help this transition go smoothly. The fact that he managed to drive her car here safely was a good step, though he knew it was just one of many that would come.

 Chapter 50 Visitation Dreams (Andrea Tulley)

    Chapter 50


    Visitation Dreams


    (Andrea Tulley)


    The mind is a truly remarkable organ, capable of inspiring people to new and greater heights. It is also capable of helping to mask the pain that people feel by the death of a loved one by simply pretending that the loved one is still there, still talking to you.


    For days after the death of her mother, Andrea was numb. She felt nothing, just hollow and empty where the image of her mother should be.


    During that time, she had checked out of reality. In fact, had it not been for Frank, Andrea was fairly certain that she would not have eaten or drunk anything.


    So it was, a mother grieving the loss of her own mother, and in so doing abandoning her own daughter in the process.


    That¡¯s why on the third night, things changed.


    For that was the first night that Andrea saw her mother.


    A ghost.


    Apparently, this is not too uncommon of an event to befall people who are grieving the loss of a loved one. In Andrea¡¯s case, this dream seemed all too real. The reason why this dream above all others seemed too real was the fact that Andrea heard her mother say and do things that she never had in life.


    ¡°You must stop this,¡± the voice of mother Julie rang out in her mind.


    Of course, the voice belonged to her dead mother. A mother that they were in the process of trying to bury. Well other people were worrying about burying her, for Andrea, it was all she could do to get up and go through the motions of life.


    ¡°STOP!¡±


    Her mother shouted with such force and zeal that even upon waking from her dream induced state she could still feel the presence of her mother.


    A faint scent of honey and sunlight lingered in the air. That was the only reference to the fact that her mother had been there, these were the scents that drew Andrea most vividly to her mother. So it is only logical now that her mind would pull up those scents to associate with imagining the presence of her mother. At least, that was what Andrea had pulled together later on, after the visits became more real. More unbelievable.


    At first the words from her mother were known, simple warnings mirroring those same words that Frank was using.


    ¡°Stop this self-loathing and listen.¡±


    Andrea of course did not listen, or at least she tried to pretend that she wasn¡¯t capable of listening. Her mother was a ghost after all.


    ¡°I know you can see and hear me. You are of the kind.¡±


    Hearing that, Andrea felt her heartbeat faster.


    Badump, badump.


    Hearing the words, Andrea felt a whole string of emotions come to her. Exhilaration for finally being recognized by her mother, anger that her mother only recognized her now after her death, and most importantly she felt empty as the recognition was now meaningless.


    ¡°I knew it.¡± Andrea shouted, turning around and pointing at the now scared visceral image of her grandmother.


    ¡°Knew what?¡± Frank called out from the other room.


    ¡°Nothing, just remembering something.¡± Andrea said, her mind feeling like it was close to being at the breaking point.


    ¡°Oh dear, I didn¡¯t know. You have to believe me, I didn¡¯t know you could actually see. Not until now.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s!¡± Julie yelled, then catching herself to look out the room to where Frank¡¯s voice had come from, she calmed herself and hissed, ¡°that¡¯s bullshit, and you know it.¡±


    ¡°Language!¡± Julie hissed back in the same terse tone.


    Hearing that, Andrea could only chuckle at the act. That was so like her mother, to go pull the wool over your eyes for years, lie to you, deceive you, then when you show anger at how you were treated, she had the audacity to cry foul at your use of language.


    ¡°I told you. I friggin¡¯ told you that I could see ghosts, just like you and aunt Wendy, but you both swore that I was just making it up.¡±


    ¡°Dear, but that¡¯s the thing. You couldn¡¯t. At least you couldn¡¯t when we had controlled tests. We tried, on multiple occasions to get you to see. We would send you into the other room when Uncle Chester was around, and you never saw him.¡±


    ¡°Uncle Chester? Didn¡¯t he die when I was three?¡±


    ¡°He did, and he was the ghost that helped guide both me and aunt Wendy in the way.¡±


    ¡°Okay, well now that you know I have the sight, what do you want from me? Got any great wisdom from the beyond?¡± Andrea posed, somewhat jokingly, trying to get over just how tense and awkward this whole situation had become.


    Hearing that Julie¡¯s body posture changed. It was subtle, her stance tightened up, her body became more erect. While she had been calm and casual a moment ago, it was clear that Julie was preparing to tell her something that she wouldn¡¯t like to hear.


    This was the same posture she took when she told Andrea in no uncertain terms that James was no good and would leave her at the first sign of trouble. It was also the same stance and posture she took when there was something particularly stressful that she needed to address, rather than leaving it to Phil.


    Seeing the shift in her posture, Andrea realized that she wasn¡¯t going to like what she heard next.


    ¡°As a matter of fact, I do, though I don¡¯t think you are ready to hear it.¡±


    ¡°What, do you want me to just break down and cry? Beg you to tell me?¡± Andrea asked, tears forming in her eyes as she realized that even in death her mother didn¡¯t think she was good enough. ¡°It¡¯s because I¡¯m not good enough, not like my successful brothers or sister, I was the one that had to come back. I tried and I failed, just as you predicted. As you all but bragged about.¡±


    With that tears began to fall, as the mental connection Andrea had a moment ago was now shattered, and the solid image of her mother began to shatter and break apart.


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    That was the first meeting.


    Then as time went on, the images and messages from her mother became more frequent and erratic.


    ¡°Look I¡¯m sorry, but you must stop this. There is something you need to hear, but you aren¡¯t ready for it, at least not yet.¡± Julie¡¯s ghost pleaded with Andrea.


    At this point, Andrea just went deeper into herself. Choosing to ignore her mother, though it became harder and harder to do so, as the more distraught she became, the more her mother¡¯s words seemed to resonate with her mind.


    ¡°You have had an awakening. What you experienced before was a partial awakening, which was why you only saw or heard voices from time to time. I know that now, and I apologize for writing you off. I thought the gift ended with me, but I know it continues on in the line.¡±


    Her mother kept talking to her, calling out to her.


    By the end Andrea was so tired, and exhausted from everything that all she wanted to do was sleep. To avoid everything and to be able to rest contentedly.


    The only problem was, that in her dreams, Andrea saw her mother in even more clarity. Her mother almost seemed to be alive in her dreams.


    ¡°If you stop fighting, this will go a lot easier.¡±


    Finally, after a long time, of this, Andrea finally shot back, ¡°fine, if it will get you to leave me alone so I can at least sleep in peace, then I¡¯ll listen.¡±


    Hearing that Julie nodded in agreement, as if she had expected this course of action to be the final outcome. It was both annoying and reminiscent as a thing that her mother would do, where she would grind you down slowly, until you finally saw things her way.


    ¡°First I need to tell you something. Our planet, mother Gia is at war with an alien parasite. She is dying, slowly being worn away¡­¡±


    Sigh.


    With this, Andrea remembered that new-wavy hippy talk that her mother was famous for expounding on. Part of why she married a farmer, as it was her way of feeling like she was part of nature.


    ¡°You must admit this, that you can feel it, the world is crying out for you. I can see it¡¯s connection with you. Just as you should finally be able to see and feel it.¡± Julie noted.


    Andrea wanted to scoff at the idea, but looking back, she couldn¡¯t refute the claim. She did feel a deeper connection with the world around her. All around she could feel the faint micro-buzzes of electrical impulses and the like that now made up the world. A world that seemed to be slowly dying, or at least a world that seemed to slowly lose a hint of its magic by the further expanses of science.


    ¡°Yes,¡± was all Andrea could answer.


    With that, Julie nodded and continued.


    ¡°Now this next part might hurt, but you need to listen to it all, before I tell it to you.¡± With that Julie stopped talking, her face taking on a serious expression that might otherwise seem comical had it not been for the fact that this was a dream.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Andrea replied, realizing that her mother wouldn¡¯t continue this odd conversation in her dream, unless she replied in the affirmative.


    Pausing, Julie stared at Andrea, then finally after a moment she nodded to herself and began talking.


    ¡°The world is dying, for years it didn¡¯t know how to continue to fight back. Until it realized that She was not alone. That there were others who fought against the oppressors.¡±


    Hearing this, Andrea could only sigh, as her mother went full on fanatic on her.


    ¡°Those who would stand against the oppressors fought a long losing war. But they are all fighters, each and every one of them. Your daughter is such a fighter.¡±


    Tears.


    At that Andrea could only cry. Here she was, having a dream with her dead mother, one where she could have all the questions answered. One where she finally hoped to be able to gain closure, to be able to live at peace with the passing of her mother. And what does her mother do but take the knife and twist it. Yes, Andrea loved her daughter. She loved Misha, there was no doubt in her mind that she loved her daughter.


    Yet, here she was being told that the only reason her mother would even bother to talk to her now was that her daughter, who was a million times smarter than her, more talented than her, and had the world at her beck and call was chosen.


    Honestly, that was the one thing that Andrea could not refute. Her daughter had been chosen, blessed with brilliance from birth and given a body and mind that were beyond compare.


    With that, Andrea tried to turn away, tried to wake up.


    ¡°Now wait! You said that if I told you, you would listen to everything, Andrea Marie Tulley.¡± While her mother didn¡¯t yell, her words still cut straight through Andrea¡¯s very soul.


    ¡°Fine, then continue.¡± Andrea shot back, momentarily stopping herself from this.


    Pausing for only a second, Julie gave another imperceptible nod of her head and continued. ¡°There are three others, but so far, the best hope is your daughter. She is going to need you now more than ever. She has been corrupted by the invader but has not fully succumbed to its ways. You need to be there, to guide her, to help her fight back against the ancient enemy of worlds.¡±


    ¡°Ancient enemy of worlds?¡± Andrea asked, even to her this was one of those things that seemed incongruous enough to fully cause her mind to awaken, even from a deep slumber.


    Then like that, the dream ended. Her dream of her conversation with her mother was still present, still tangible, but fleeting away quickly the way that dreams do on morning winds.


    Opening her eyes, Andrea felt weak and pathetic.


    She felt weak because she was not the chosen one, that even in her dreams, her dreams chose her daughter. Then she felt pathetic for being jealous of her own daughter, of the clear future she held that seemed to glow brighter than her destiny ever could. Misha was born for greater things, Andrea knew that ever since she began placing copper wiring into a bike helmet to be able to walk around freely. Then there was the way she had to wrap her hands in gloves with metal strips as well to allow her even more freedom of movement as well and that caused even more memories to appear in her mind.


    ¡°Will you?¡± Julie asked, her voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere all at once.


    It was an open ended question, but one that Andrea instinctively knew what the question was meant for. Would she be there for her daughter, to help guide her in the ancient ways of the world.


    Yet it was too much, it was all too much.


    That night, she went walking.


    There was no destination, not really, not at first.


    Then finally she found herself going to the much shadier parts of town.


    ¡°Turn around, it¡¯s not safe here.¡± Julie pressed.


    ¡°What, lest I go and ruin my chance to help out Misha?¡±


    ¡°She is your daughter.¡±


    ¡°No, she¡¯s not, she¡¯s some alien super weapon chosen by the world. Clearly, she has enough help already.¡± Andrea hissed, by now the destination that she would go was becoming clear in her mind. Everything from the drawn curtains to the spray-painted walls denoting this area was not safe for normal people.


    It was the seedier section of town, the stretch of roads that everyone knew to steer clear of. Well, everyone that wanted to avoid such a lifestyle would avoid.


    Andrea too had avoided this place, for all of her life. Yet, right now, she could almost feel the call of this place.


    ¡°Don¡¯t, if you take this, then your connection to the world will be gone. Your birthright will be forfeited.¡±


    ¡°Maybe I don¡¯t want to constantly hear my dead mother nagging me from the grave.¡± Andrea shot back.


    That was when Julie paused in her hovering. No longer choosing to float by Andrea¡¯s side.


    Seeing it, Andrea realized that this was it, that her mother was correct. If she took something here, then her connection to the world would end. That all this pressure to be good, to support her daughter would be over, she would never have to worry about her mother saying the only good thing she ever did in her life was to have Misha. She would be free of such burdens. Better still, if it was good enough, she might even feel great at having the burdens of the world lifted from her shoulders, if only momentarily.


    That was the final straw needed to push her forward, to make her change her life.


    By doing this, she was certain that she would lose everything, her life, her job, her boyfriend, her connection with her daughter, and most importantly she would lose the pressure that constantly told her that even with her best efforts, she wasn¡¯t good enough.


    Then a miracle happened. Or at least what Andrea would later call a miracle.


    For a moment, the enemy of the world, the unseen and unknown devourer of planets showed its head.


    Whoosh!


    The power went out, for a moment all the electromagnetic buzz and electricity of the world stopped pumping, and for a moment Andrea felt her mind fully connect with the world.


    She saw everything, or so thought.


    She saw the dinosaurs roaming the world, life growing and evolving freely. Then she felt the impact of the great asteroid, the way the world slowly began to rot and wither from the impact, and the subsequent dispersal of planet changing parasites.


    Andrea felt the way the world felt itself slowly rotting away, as the planet¡¯s connection to its children was slowly altered into a form that was horrific and unknown to mother Gia.


    Then she felt and saw how the same thing happened to her daughter on her class field trip. Andrea saw and felt the horror that her daughter had, and then felt pride at the way she was able to fight it off. Yes, unlike every other being that had been exposed to the corruption, her daughter was the lone survivor. Even after it forced its way into her body, she still fought and resisted, instead forcing the taint to move to her will.


    Seeing her daughter, more memories of the planet were shown.


    Andrea saw how three special souls were floating lifelessly in space and were reached out for by the last vestiges of the world¡¯s power. How Gia chose her out of all of the hundreds of millions of women around the world to hold that sacred soul.


    In that moment, Andrea cried, as she realized that for years she had been looking at this backwards. For years she had looked at her own failures and limitations as signs that she had done something wrong. Her own mindset was wrong, she looked at Misha as a curse, of a person she could never hope to be worthy of. But that was not the case, as she was worthy, mother Gia told her so, and was finally able to show her this now.


    That night, Andrea awoke, her face feeling pressed as she had apparently collapsed and fallen on the street, while she had her vision from mother earth herself.


    When she arose, she saw just how close she had come to throwing it all away. She was just a street away from an infamous corner, one known for selling harder drugs.


    Realizing what she had done, and what she was about to do, she felt ashamed.


    At that moment, she ran home. Well ran to Frank, seeking him for guidance and assistance.


    While he seemed to believe her, Andrea couldn¡¯t help but feel his hands dance against her arms. Only after the touch did Andrea realize what he was doing, he was checking her for puncture wounds. At first Andrea wanted to cry out in anger, but then realized that she couldn¡¯t quite blame him for his distrust.


    That night, Andrea realized that while she hadn¡¯t completely gone through and destroyed her life, she had been close, too close.


    Andrea also realized that the bond she had with her daughter was nearly gone, as she didn¡¯t even know where she was, nor how to get in contact with her.


    Then to her surprise, the next day, while the rest of the world was still in darkness, there was her daughter coming and bringing the light with her.


    It was at that moment, that Andrea swore to herself that she would do everything she could to protect her daughter, to show her of the old way and to help her protect mother Gia.


    That was how she now found herself with her boyfriend watching a girl¡¯s high school basketball game. Despite not liking the sport, she found that the game was rather interesting.


    ¡°Look at her. Already using the invader¡¯s powers against themselves.¡± Julie said, pointing out how Misha was moving between the opposing basketball players, their arms and limbs intertwining as they fought for the ball. Each time they did, Andrea was surprised to see a faint trail of energy form from the opposing team players and get sucked into herself.


    ¡°What is she doing?¡± Andrea found herself asking.


    Frank seeming excited to talk about basketball replied, ¡°she is setting a pick. Now if you look, she blocked the defender, and now yes, see she rolled off her pick and made a basket.¡±


    ¡°Uh huh.¡± Andrea said, trying to be nice to Frank as her mother answered the real question she wanted to know.


    ¡°She is able to drain and restart the progress of her opponents. The more she does this the stronger the base people will be. The idea is that eventually people will evolve to be perfectly acceptable to the viruses that are going around¡­¡±


    ¡°Plural, as in more than one?¡± Andrea asked.


    ¡°Yes, actually this is called an and-one as she drew a foul while scoring the bucket¡­¡±

 Chapter 51 A Team Game, With Team Blame (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 51


    A Team Game, With Team Blame


    (Misha Tulley)


    There was a faint hint of electricity and the scent of an autumn breeze that filled the gymnasium, swirling around the basketball fans that were in attendance for the day¡¯s game and finally made their way to her. These were the winds that hinted that the seasons would soon change, going from a crisp autumn to a cold winter.


    The winds also hinted at something deeper, something that Misha was unable to fully comprehend, even with all of her years of experience and lifetimes of memories to call upon.


    Misha stood there, breathing in the air and listening to its silent confessions, trying to understand what her heightened senses were trying to tell her.


    Nothing was wrong, at least not yet.


    There was no immediate sense of danger.


    Yet, Misha couldn¡¯t help but heed the warning that was on the gentle breeze.


    Change was coming and when the change came it would be cold and decisive.


    At least that was what Misha gathered from the sensations that were gently whispering to her mind. If she but focused her will, she swore that she would be able to hear a sympathetic message in the wind¡¯s resonance. Focusing for just a moment, she felt it a deeper message that was in fact hidden on the wind.


    BZZZ!


    Then the moment she did, a ringing discordant note of tinnitus buzzed irritatingly in her ear, distracting her from any semblance of coherent though. Mentally she knew this was a direct act of sabotage by the organo-tech that had molded itself with her own genetic structure. Somehow the organo-tech realized the breeze for what it was, an unknown message from an unknown source. It identified the unusual energy and then executed hundreds of hidden defensive measures that Misha had never seen or been able to observe in action.


    Working quickly, Misha reacted swiftly and violently to the sources of hidden code. Ensuring that such measures would not happen again, though by the time she was done the mission and intent of the disrupting code was achieved, as Misha never got a chance to try to understand the hidden message.


    Looking around, Misha tried to see the source of the message, but found no anomalies. Looking around she found her mother and her boyfriend, looking at the two Misha could only hope that her mother. Or rather the biological manufacturer for the body that she now inhabited, Misha could only hope that she found a suitable procreation partner. Though procreation, at least the type practiced and endorsed on this planet seemed to be both disgusting and inconvenient. However, after seeing the genetic results, Misha could not argue with the fact that this form of procreation did allow for a much faster evolution process.


    Shudder.


    Still, despite the obvious advantages Misha was not willing to be part of this process. Especially as she did not consider herself as a true participant in this species.


    Though she did have a few more questions for herself, ones that would obviously need to be answered here shortly. The most pressing of which would be would she ever consider herself to be a participant of the planet? If so, which species would she want to embody. So far humans had the most versatility with their adaptability and fine motor functions, at least compared to other creatures that she had seen thus far. Their bipedal form and ability to move around freely on the surface of their planet was also a bonus in their favor.


    The only real flaw she saw with their design was the ability to get colds and illnesses. From an organo-tech point of view these were to be expected as viruses and bacteria were the two easiest ways to introduce widespread changes to a body¡¯s composition without being too obvious.


    Misha had of course been made aware of this infection vector when she was first introduced to her own organo-tech. Then looking at it logically, with the fact that everyone knew that both Lykanthropy and Vampirism were passed on as diseases, it became apparent that organo-tech spread by infections.


    Of course, Misha would need to see a ruler class be awakened to see if they too were infected via a viral route, to be completely certain of her assumption, but there had been more than enough evidence that Misha had looked into this process.


    Misha even went so far as to remove the open infection vectors that her body previously had. This was not to say that Misha was now incapable of making changes to her own code or body, quite the opposite in fact. While she had cut off all, or almost all external methods of altering her genetic code, Misha still had all the internal methods open. This was so Misha could direct change internally and know exactly what was getting into her body and why it was being added.


    This level of security, while possibly coming across as eccentric was paramount in her need to survive and adapt to being in an enemy body, on an enemy controlled planet, in what was now enemy controlled space.


    Exhale.


    In this moment, Misha realized that she was alone. Worse, she realized that despite everything she had been through and gone through to this point. All the countless hours and lifetimes of improving herself and the fleet, she now had no mission. Worst of all, she was seen as expendable by her own fleet.


    Then before Misha could get too lost in her own thoughts, her coach came over and spoke to her.


    ¡°You ready for this?¡± Coach Green asked, a fire and enthusiasm filling her voice.


    Blinking twice, Misha focused herself and looked directly at her coach. ¡°Yes.¡±


    Coach Green stared at her for a minute, apparently waiting to see if she would be fired up, but then pausing she looked into Misha¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°You know, if anyone else came to me with this seeming lack of energy I would sit them. But for you,¡± Coach Green began while staring Misha in the eyes, a stare that Misha did not break away from in the slightest. ¡°I know you are always going to give your best. Go out there and show the Big Reds what who the new boss is.¡±


    The coach was of course talking about the native American mascot that was the symbol for Parkersburg High School, the Big Reds, as they were called.


    Misha nodded, standing up, and feeling her full frame stretch out putting her well above most of her peers.


    ¡°Come on Coach, we all know the only big red here is Tulley.¡± J-Sweep stated, as she too stood up and joined Misha.


    ¡°Darn right coach, they don¡¯t stand a chance against us.¡± K-Bar added, hopping up to her feet and bouncing to join the group.


    Then in no time at all, the rest of the team was up and gathered around coach.


    Coach Green for her part, felt calm, though she knew she had to say something to the girls, so she shot from the hip. ¡°I didn¡¯t have a speech prepared. Normally I would. Normally, I would try to find the words to motivate you all, right here.¡± Coach said, scanning the group and making eye contact with each of her players.


    ¡°But this isn¡¯t a normal year. This isn¡¯t even a normal starting game. Normally we start against our rivals but they are steal dealing with lack of power and other amenities. As such, this is our first game. And All I want you to do, is go out there, have fun, and do the little things that I know you all are capable of.¡±


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°YEAH!¡± K-Bar, J-Sweep and even Amoni all screamed and raised their fists in the air, touching at the center. Then the rest of the team joined in afterwards. Misha for her part raised her fist to touch the others and be part of the festivities, though she still didn¡¯t growl or scream. Instead, she let a slow intensity fill her as she straightened up her posture and began to get in her game mode.


    ¡°Looks like one of them isn¡¯t ready to play.¡± Number five from the Big Reds called out.


    ¡°I don¡¯t blame them, they came to the wrong place today. Should have just stayed home and avoided the whoopin¡¯ that is about to come their way.¡± Number eleven from the Big Reds replied back her voice loud enough to hear.


    Turning her gaze slightly, she locked gazes with the two girls, instantly her senses went off, telling her who, or rather what the people before her were.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 54.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    Tier 2 Warrior Class member identified ¨C below minimum threshold standards.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The first two talkers were sort of what Misha had expected a Tier 1 with a big mouth, who was supported by a Tier 2 werewolf.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 54.2703%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier 1 Warrior Class member identified ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    Tier 2 Warrior Class member identified ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    Tier 2 Warrior Class member identified ¨C meets minimum threshold standards.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Then looking at the rest of the team, it was clear that the starting five were all werewolves, with number  five being the weakest of the bunch. Number 11 wasn¡¯t much better as they apparently were at the threshold to go to Tier 2, but didn¡¯t do much since their transition making it so they were a prime candidate to be reset by Misha¡¯s Reaper class.


    Though this was supposed to be a friendly game, the rest of the pack could apparently smell blood in the water, as they likely realized that most of Misha¡¯s team was reset to Tier 0, a stronger base for Tier 0, and one that would have a fundamentally higher standard than what the other Big Red starters had, but that would take time. For now Misha and her team were weak, at least to the heightened senses of multiple Tier 2 werewolves.


    ¡°Go out there and get them!¡± Amoni both shoved and pushed Misha forward, trying to hype up Misha who strolled with confidence to her starting position. She was the point guard, meaning she would be in the back court, first to defend if the toss-up was won by the opposing team, or first to guide the team if Michelle tipped the ball in her direction. Either way, Misha was prepared for what was to come.


    Getting into position, Misha let a hungry smile fill her lips as she could all but taste the power of not one, but three Tier 2 warriors coming to her.


    Pausing, she felt out for a moment trying to sense the world with her recently stolen Danger Sense.


    To Misha¡¯s senses Danger Sense almost felt like staring out over a vast flat pond to see what was coming. If you held still, you could feel the waves of the world ripple out from you, based on your movements, then bounce back.


    Focusing her mind, Misha found that the lake she now focused her senses over was calm, for the only ripples that she felt were ones created by her.


    Realizing that everything was okay, if only for the moment, Misha let her smile widen as she showed teeth. In this moment, Misha was the hunter, ready to lash out and strike down fellow carnivores that forgot about their place in the world.


    So intense were these feelings of placid hunger that Misha was able to tune everything out.


    Misha tuned out the screaming fans that suddenly went quiet as the referee came to center court with the ball. She focused past the cheering section of both home and away teams that filled the gymnasium, and she was only vaguely aware of the higher Tiered Warriors and Workers that stared down from the bleachers, watching as their children or friends of their children squared off to compete.


    Poof.


    The ball rolled up into the air, Michelle and the opposing Tier 2 center jumped up for the ball, and as expected the Tier 2 managed to jump slightly faster and higher than Michelle, reaching the ball almost before it reached its apex and began its descent.


    Blur.


    Misha was already running, seeing the victor of the tip off before it even began.


    Thump, thump, thump.


    By her third step, Misha was already at full speed, by her fifth step, she was weaving through her own players, by the sixth and seventh step she was winding around and through her opponents. Though as Misha made her move, she pushed out, pushing the off balanced center, number 11, and causing her to take an awkward step back. Slapping her arm out to quickly brush aside the opposing team¡¯s power forward, a tall Scandinavian girl wearing number 13.


    Both girls looked dazed for a moment, as they just stood there, this wasn¡¯t enough for Misha to cause the group to reset their Tier rating for a more sustainable version, but it was enough to get them to feel disoriented for a moment.


    That moment was all Misha¡¯s team needed to charge forward, as they had dealt with and battled through Misha¡¯s disarming ability. They saw the moment for what it was, a chance to strike and move decisively.


    Tap-tippity-tap.


    The ball bounced to the ground, Number seven, a Tier 2 point guard named Walker for the opposing team was moving forward and managed to scoop up the ball into a near instant dribble as she stood up with the ball. Being that this was the backcourt, she felt confident enough to not practice squatting and protecting the ball.


    ***


    (Number 7, Big Red Point Guard: Kendra Walker)


    This was a problem that would come back to bite her as the opposing team had already blitzed past the halfcourt line like they were invaders at Normandy.


    ¡°HA!¡± K-Bar screamed, forcing her way through and past the dazed number 13, Kahn, as she went left, away from the ball and the momentarily distracted Walker.


    Walker could only glance left for a moment, before a blur came right long arms seeming to claw at and scratch for her face and arms.


    For a moment Walker felt fear.  She felt all consuming fear that the girl before her was coming to rip her apart. Somehow instinctively she knew that there was a looming threat in front of her, and all she could do was pause for a moment and stare.


    That pause, that slight hesitation was just enough.


    The hesitation caused Walker¡¯s hand to miss its natural timing of when to drop, causing the ball to bounce up and lightly tap her hand, throwing off her entire rhythm of her bounce and stride.


    With that slight pause, Misha lashed out, her long arms reaching in, down and around Walker. As if they were dancers moving to two different beats of music. Then just as quickly as the girl had appeared and blurred past Walker¡¯s heightened senses, she was gone.


    Only after reaching down, and feeling the open air did Walker even think to look down for the ball, only to find it missing.


    Turning around, she looked to see the read head running down the court, dribbling the ball, her ball. Then running in lock step with her was the tall power forward from the opposing team who had the name Barrett stenciled on her back.


    Then there was an unspoken moment, the red head broke slight left, while the taller Barrett continued running for the basket, only for the red head to throw up the ball high in the air. Then Walker watched as Barrett grabbed the ball mid-flight and still rising, managed to slam the ball down with a violence and intensity that caused the raucous crowd that was on hand to go quiet.


    Everyone, except for the visitor¡¯s cheering section who chose that moment to continue cheering loudly.


    To be able to reach such heights in a female game, despite the size and arm length, that was impressive. The fact that the girl Barrett could clearly leap two feet in the air was not missed by the others of Walker¡¯s team.


    What happened next, was something that would plague Walker¡¯s nightmares for years to come.


    Every inbound, every walk up the court, every pass, and especially every shot were all contested. Hell, half the time Walker thought that the quiet girl, Tulley was contesting her breathing.


    ¡°HAHAHA! Oh, man, it feels so good to watch the Misha Misery play out on others.¡± A werewolf girl, shouted from the benches. From the freaking benches, though it was clear that this werewolf girl had lost her starting role to Misha, a fact that was made clear as the girl from the benches was the first to come in and let everyone else rest.


    Not Misha though, that girl was a machine.


    Worse, Walker tried everything to get in the girl¡¯s head.


    ¡°That all you got?¡± Walker asked after having her pass picked off, then providing the pass to a teammate who missed a shot, only for Smallet to gather the rebound.


    ¡°No.¡± Was the simple one word answer that Tulley provided, and that one word was enough to send shivers down her back.


    Afterwards, when asked, she would tell the truth, ¡°she wasn¡¯t the best, but would grind you down. Hell the whole team just ground you to dust. Ground your bones to dust.¡±


    Worst of all, Walker and the rest of her team had nothing. The crowd was as good as dead after the first steal and score by the opposing team. The only ones making any noise were the opposing Team¡¯s section, clearly all family members.


    By the second half of the game, Walker couldn¡¯t even find the energy to trash talk, as breathing was tough. Finally, coach realizing that she was struggling put in a new girl, one of the girls that will eventually be made into a pack member if they keep with the team long enough, but one who was definitely not pack yet.


    ¡°Good luck, Mavey.¡± Walker said to her replacement.


    Then half expecting the new girl to get obliterated by the unrelenting force that was Tulley, Walker was surprised to see the girl stand her own. Or at least not get bullied about as badly as Walker had been. Yes, she was still pressed, forced to make bad mistakes that cost the team even more of the lead, but she was able to stand up to her relentless pursuit.


    Unfortunately for Mavey, her hands weren¡¯t as fast as the new girls, her ball handling skills were subpar to those of the rest of the team and by the end she too was being exposed for her weaknesses on the court.


    Errnt.


    Finally, the buzzer blew, indicating that the time was over. Everyone was dead, well not everyone, especially not if they were from Jackson County. The opposing team and their fan base all appeared excited. Everyone, except for Tulley, who even now just let a wolfish smile crest her lips as she stared down Walker and her teammates as they all left the court.


    ¡°Why did you have to go and poke her.¡± Khan cried out, criticizing both Jenna and Rachel for their comments to Tulley before the game.


    Hearing them, Walker could only walk back to the locker room, ready to change and forget the day.


    ¡°Big Red, more like Big Dead!¡± One of the opposing boys shouted. Hearing that Walker almost felt rage well up, but then feeling for where her wolf was and would be, all she felt was empty. This made sense, for if she still had enough energy to get angry, then she should have tried a little harder on the court. At least that is what her coach would say.


    As it was, everyone could only focus on what to do next.


    Silence.


    As the team entered the home team¡¯s locker room the Coach gathered everyone around. ¡°Honestly, I think recovering from games like this are easier, than losing close games that come down to the wire. What needs to improve, everything. What can we do better, not play like we did today. We came out flat and let the game get away from us right away. Just go home, relax and forget about today. Tomorrow is a new day and our next game is on Tuesday. I know many of you have plans for going out of town this weekend, do so. Don¡¯t even worry about setting foot on a Basketball court until Monday. Good bye and have fun.¡±


    With that the rest of the team slowly looked like they had some life breathed back into them by the words. Then she added, ¡°as for those of you going to the Hasty concert this weekend, let me know how it was.¡±


    And like that, the opening night for the team was over and everyone was left to their own devices.


    Walker changed quickly, but was still met by Palwasha Khan who found her in the parking lot.


    ¡°We are still going, right?¡±


    Hearing that Walker could only nod, speaking was still too much at this point, though she had looked forward to seeing Hasty all week, it only made sense that she lost focus on the game at the end and didn¡¯t take her opponents that seriously.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Walker said, then clicking her locks, she let Palwasha Khan in her car as they realized their weekend had just started a bit early.


    ¡°Come on, relax. This weekend can¡¯t possibly be worse than the game.¡± Palwasha said, trying to cheer up her teammate.


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s for sure.¡± Kendra Walker agreed, as she pulled out of the parking lot and hit the open road.


    Unfortunately for the two of them, they didn¡¯t realize just how wrong they would be with their thoughts of a peaceful weekend.

 Chapter 52 Camaraderie

    Chapter 52


    Camaraderie


    (Darcy Renolds)


    Darcy practically vibrated with excitement as the muscle car purred its way down the road. Honestly, before today, Darcy had no clue about basketball, why so many people watched it, or even how it could be entertaining.


    But after tonight, of watching Misha, no, not just Misha but the whole team physically push and impose themselves on a taller and stronger team was impressive.


    The most impressive person of course was Misha, not just because she was a little biased, but the way she seemed to facilitate the entire game. The way she seemed to singlehandedly break the will of each opponent.


    All it took was for her to be locked up against the enemy once, during a crossover, a screen, or any of the other terms Darcy had learned in preparation for tonight. Then after that, the fight in their opponent¡¯s eyes died, as a sort of hollow look forced its way to the surface.


    By halftime the team was up by twenty, but Coach Green would not let her girls lighten up their approach. Not until the fourth quarter. By then both teams had agreed to have a continually running clock, but that concession only covered the fact of how badly the home team lost their opener by.


    ¡°That was amazing, you two were flying out there.¡± Darcy said excitedly, bouncing around in her seat. She had the entire backseat to herself, opting to let the taller J-Sweep to stretch out her legs in the passenger seat.


    ¡°It was pretty fun.¡± J-Sweep said, with a thick smile filling her lips.


    Misha for her part just slightly smiled and nodded, as her eyes faced forward, focusing on the road.


    ¡°You don¡¯t seem to happy with the win?¡± Darcy asked to Misha.


    ¡°Oh, her. That¡¯s her excited face.¡± J-Sweep said, throwing a thumb in Misha¡¯s direction.


    ¡°That is?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, girl is a stone-cold killer.¡± J-Sweep said.


    Errt.


    At that moment the car skidded across lanes of traffic, taking away the mental image that Darcy had of her free and effortless ride. Suddenly her mind told her that she was in fact moving in a giant metal device that was whipping through the open fields at insane speeds.


    Speeds that were able to be exceeded due to the glaring lack of drivers on the roads, even now a few weeks later after the solar flare that seemed to reset the whole world.


    ¡°Whoa there, you okay?¡± J-Sweep asked, after Misha quickly regained control of the vehicle and once again the smooth ride that Darcy had grown accustomed to was suddenly back on track.


    ¡°Yeah, sorry about that, thought I saw a stray dog on the road.¡± Misha responded.


    With that J-Sweep paused and smelled the air, literally lifted her head out the window and gave a slight sniff, before returning.


    ¡°We should be good now.¡± J-Sweep replied.


    The whole chain of events from the start until now was so incongruous that Darcy almost wondered what exactly caused this to happen. First there was the sudden swerving by Misha, then the seemingly animalistic sniffing of J-Sweep.


    Yet, as Darcy¡¯s mind raced, a set of piercing green eyes locked onto hers from the rearview mirror. Seeing those eyes, Darcy¡¯s breath held as she felt her chest tighten.


    ¡°Let¡¯s listen to some music.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Oh, good idea. I¡¯ve got the perfect road playlist.¡± J-Sweep said, pulling out her iPad and synching it to the car¡¯s stereo. ¡°There we go.¡±


    And just as Darcy began to have her thoughts once more, the thoughts about asking Misha why she suddenly swerved, she found that her words and thoughts were drowned out as the musical genius of Hasty came blasting over the speakers.


    ¡°Oh yeah, you might have gotten my heart.¡± J-Sweep screeched loudly, her voice sounding terrible, only being able to barely be picked up as music thanks to the echoing chorus of the speakers.


    Still J-Sweep¡¯s smile was infectious, as soon Darcy found herself singing along from the back seat.


    Only then did she see Misha relax and let out a genuine smile as she saw J-Sweep and Darcy singing along in her car.


    Taking a breath, Darcy realized that sometimes the journey was just as much fun as the destination. With that, Darcy smiled brightly and sang along to every Hasty song that came on, knowing that there was no way she could sing any worse than J-Sweep.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    By the time the trio had made it to their hotel room in Pittsburgh, Misha finally felt normal. The reason why it took her so long to finally feel normal was the fact that today was her first day reaping not one but three Tier 2 Warriors, and a Tier 1 Warrior. This increase netted her a total of 2.8 Attribute points to award and spread out. With this Misha increased her Strength and Stamina by 0.2 each, with the rest going to Agility and Dexterity.


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    This much growth in such a limited amount of time caused slight problems. First, it almost felt like Misha¡¯s skin was on fire as her body began to expand and contrast to meet the changes. This in itself would have been fine as her mind was more than capable of separating the pains of the body from those of the mind.


    However, Misha also discovered yet another hidden secret of the Reaper System. Namely she found out what happens when a Reaper who has a stolen Ability ends up being able to harvest that same ability from someone else.


    Basically, the Reaper has an option, discard the first harvested Ability for half the value. Or there was a second option, where she could double the intensity of the stolen Ability.


    Naturally, Misha chose the latter, which caused problems.


    Mainly the issue came with the neural endings in her mind, as the Ability she stole originally, Danger Sense, was one that helped detect slight biometric changes in the environment around her. These biometric changes could alert a wielder of the Ability Danger Sense to the perceived threats that might be hidden around them in everyday life. This is similar to the ability to know when someone is glaring angrily at your back, but far more detailed as not just being able to identify who was angry, but who had ulterior motives that would adversely affect the owner.


    The impact of such an Ability was not lost on Misha, which was why rather than discarding the first Danger Sense, replacing it and getting one additional point that could be used at purchasing Reaper related Abilities, she chose instead to double down, thereby improving the quality of her Danger Sense, making her have Heightened Danger Sense.


    The only problem was that the application of Heightened Danger Sense meant that her mind, or rather the vessels that fed directly into her mind became inflamed as they were forcefully torn apart and ripped wide, to make way for newer nerve endings that fed to the eyes and other senses, heightening her awareness of her immediate surroundings, while also increasing her affinity with Electricity of her Psycher class, a combination that Misha was certain the Bakshee creators of her class were not aware of. That or maybe this was a fail safe to keep Psychers from infiltrating their ranks, as at one point Misha thought she was going to die.


    It didn¡¯t help that at that exact moment, J-Sweep said, ¡°Yeah, girl is a stone-cold killer,¡± while gesturing to Misha.


    That caused her mind to blink out for a moment as she tried to understand how J-Sweep knew. Secondly, why would she choose that of all moments to call her out on the act. Then only after a second of focusing her thoughts away from the burning pain in her mind and body, did she realize that it wasn¡¯t in directed at her actually being a murder, but an idiom about her playing style.


    With that she made a quick excuse, straightened up, and then relied on her Psycher abilities to drive the vehicle, which oddly enough allowed her to focus her mind away from the differing pains her body was feeling.


    During this time, Misha also disengaged the brakes and accelerator, which turned out to be a good thing as her legs chose those moments to spasm tight, sticking out in an unbreakable hold over her muscles, before they released. Had the accelerator and brakes been engaged at that time, there was no telling what would have happened to the three of them.


    It was stupid, and this was the last time Misha would drive after reaping from so many powerful warriors, at least that was what she told herself as she smiled and tried to mildly pay attention to the conversations going on around her, while her body was changing.


    Only once they were midway through Ohio before her body started to lessen its spasms. Then by the time they reached the Pennsylvania border, her mind too also stopped burning. Only then could she relax enough to see the changes that had happened to her during her trip so far.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 47.5676%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier -II


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    Improved Harvesting (2)


    Harvested Slot: Danger Sense (3) -> Heightened Danger Sense (6)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 15.0 -> 15.2 / 16.9


    Dexterity: 20.3 -> 21.7 / 25


    Agility: 20.3 -> 21.7 / 25


    Stamina: 15.0 -> 15.2/ 16.9


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    It wasn¡¯t over, as Misha still had a long way to go to reach the end of Tier III, but she was a lot closer to reaching the next stage of evolution.


    Then as they entered the bright lights of Pittsburgh, a smile grew on everyone¡¯s face. A smile that for the first time all night, Misha did not have to fake. For all around her were awakened Bakshee of all different types, roaming the streets out in broad daylight. Being here, in a big city, Misha knew that her options for people that were available to be harvested from were infinitely higher than those available to her in Jackson West Virginia. Seeing everyone out and about, Misha couldn¡¯t wait for her next harvesting, though she knew she would need a nap first before any future changes could occur, but still she was here and ready for what this city held for her.


    Mentally, Misha thought to herself that if she played her cards right, she might be able to harvest from her first Ruler class individual.


    ¡°What do you want to do?¡± J-Sweep asked, as the trio pulled up to the hotel.


    ¡°I say we check in first, get our stuff to the room, then head out and at least eat.¡± Darcy stated.


    ¡°I like that plan.¡± J-Sweep added, turning to Misha.


    Misha feeling the tingles on the back of her neck of her now Heightened Danger Sense, was aware that not one but two sets of eyes were focused on her. Feeling the change, Misha smiled then stated, ¡°yeah sounds like a plan, though I will need to borrow a phone once we get to the room, to make a call back home.¡±


    By the time the trio was in the room Darcy used the restroom to freshen up, J-Sweep took the moment to go out and get ice from the machine outside, all while Misha held Darcy¡¯s phone and smiled maliciously to herself.


    ***


    (Shaman Bruce Jacobs)


    Bruce¡¯s phone rang, showing an unknown number. Seeing the call, Bruce hit end and let the phone go to voice mail. Then thinking that the episode was done, Bruce relaxed going back to his work, only to be warned a half minute later that there was a new voice message.


    Seeing the message, Bruce logged in, and saw his phone pulse slightly but returned to normal the next second.


    Pausing he stared at the phone for a second, only to realize he likely saw something when he blinked. Focusing away from the oddity, Bruce went to click on the message and before he even had to enter his password the message came to life.


    There on the other end of the phone was a voice he had not heard in ten years.


    Hearing the voice from the other end, Bruce could only look on in horror at the phone that had gone black from unuse.


    ¡°Hello Bruce.¡±


    The voice called out from the other end of the line. A male voice that sounded so much like him, that Bruce felt his breathing increasing as he realized who it was.


    ¡°He, hello?¡± Bruce replied.


    ¡°Your seat¡¯s ready.¡±


    Hearing the voice, Bruce¡¯s hair went on end as they often sat next to each other at baseball games. That was their thing, they were inseparable as kids, always going to places together. For a time he was even closer to him, than he was his own brother.


    ¡°Seat, what seat?¡±


    ¡°Why, your seat in Hell Bruce. It¡¯s here, waiting for you¡­¡±


    SHATTER!


    At that, Bruce dropped his phone, causing it to break into multiple pieces. Yet, despite its broken and shattered state, the phone still managed to complete the rest of the message.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, can¡¯t wait to see you soon.¡±


    Darkness.


    Then just like that, the message ended and the phone that was now in shattered pieces on the floor went completely dark.


    Bruce stared at the broken floor in shock for a moment. Then looking around, he found himself wondering if it had all been real.


    ¡°No, no. It couldn¡¯t be real. That couldn¡¯t have been¡­¡± Bruce trailed off, not wanting to finish the name of his once friend. A friend he had sacrificed to become a shaman. A friend that he had to sacrifice due to inviting him to the pack, only for him to turn his back on the offer.


    Hearing the voice, so many conflicting emotions came to Bruce, that he felt tears welling up. Overcome with grief and emotions, he sat down at his computer, only to have a picture reminder pop up.


    On this day 25 years ago!


    Then to his horror it Bruce and Jacob sitting on the bench watching a basketball game going on before them.


    Bruce knew it well, that was the picture his father took of them from the stands. At the time it had been one of Bruce¡¯s favorite pictures, him there on the bench with his best friend, while his brother ran up and down the court.


    Then he saw the text that had been digitally imposed on the image. Just two words, but seeing them, Bruce couldn¡¯t help but feel his heart pound as he felt like his heart was about to pound its way out of his chest.


    There on the screen, were the two words that he remembered adding and sending to his brother as a joke. The words were in reference to what Abraham had said that day, when he promised to lead the team to a championship, only to lose the final game by two. The words were meant as a joke, but now they seemed to have a more ominous ring to them as he read them after hearing his former best friend¡¯s call from beyond the grave.


    There in bright colors pasted in such a way to see everyone, Bruce and Jacob, Abraham with the ball, the final shot clock winding down as Abraham had a chance to make the game winning shot. Then there at the top right corner were the words, Still Waiting.

 Chapter 53 The Turn

    Chapter 53


    The Turn


    (Shaman Bruce Jacobs)


    Later that night, a restless Bruce feverishly comb through old tomes, trying to find the manual he was looking for. A manual that was half diary and half instruction manual for how to truly evolve as a Shaman.


    The thing about being a Tier 4 Shaman was the fact that Bruce could see and feel power. He could feel the way the world could and should be, he could feel the raw natural untapped power of the world and he could tell when that same power was misaligned.


    It took a moment, but finally after the horror of what he witnessed passed. Bruce realized that evil spirits had been raised to come at him.


    For that Shaman had answers, Bruce had answers.


    Well not Bruce himself, as the answer he was looking for came in the form of a Spirit and Mind protection amulet found in his great grandfather Jebediah¡¯s grimoire.


    His great grandfather had been a true legend, a Tier 5 Shaman that was unsurpassed in his power and abilities. The only problem with his great grandfather was that he used the old ways of gaining power, of stealing the potential from slain enemies and adding that power to his own. This was a practice that was praised and even admired during the time of the Civil War, but now the act had fallen out of favor.


    Still, while the way to implement Jebediah¡¯s power gaining method had fallen out of favor, there were still enough power gathering techniques that Bruce found a way to get to Tier 4, a feat that was unheard of since his great grandfather¡¯s time.


    Just finding the rune, caused the slight blur on his mind to subside.


    Then after carving the Spirit and Mind rune, a seemingly simple yet intricate design. The Spirit and Mind rune essentially consisted of two boxes stacked on top of each other, with the top box that was bisected by a triangle pointing to the right.


    Zzapp.


    Using the old ways of rune carving, the glyph flared to life, expelling the evil energies that had been surrounding him.


    Poof.


    A trail of black smoke and dust filled the entire room, letting Bruce know that the rune was being effective for its chosen purpose, that of ridding the immediate world of evil spirits.


    Seeing that the rune was effective, Bruce went over to his phone and played the message.


    This time when Bruce heard the words, he heard them for what they were, a modulated voice that didn¡¯t even sound like his old friend. There were pitches, nuances to his inflections, words that seemed incongruous with Jacob¡¯s natural cadence. Everything about the recording now seemed completely fake, but at the time they felt so real.


    Exhaling, Bruce found himself relaxing.


    Brrrrinngg.


    An old time telephone rang from the walls.


    ¡°Someone¡¯s calling the landline?¡± Bruce asked himself, then looking down saw that his phone was still on the floor, smashed to pieces. Nodding to himself, he realized why they chose to call the landline. Though the number of people that still had the landline number were few and far between.


    Going to the phone, Bruce picked up the receiver of the antique device and spoke. Bruce was so distracted at the faint trail of black smoke that arose from his picking up the receiver that he almost forgot common courtesy, almost.


    ¡°Bruce Jacobs speaking.¡± Bruce said, still looking at the trailing vapors of smoke, only to realize that the hand that still held his carved clay talisman was still in his hand.


    ¡°Uncle Bruce, it is me, Alishia.¡± Alishia¡¯s voice sounded rushed and panicked.


    ¡°Yes, yes, I know who you are. But why are you calling me?¡± Bruce asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s, I can¡¯t take it. I, I see her.¡± Alishia¡¯s voice was nearly a whisper at the end.


    Hearing her voice and seeing the smoke trail, Bruce realized that something was amiss.


    ¡°Come to my house, perhaps I have something that can help.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll be right there.¡± Alishia said, her tone cracking as she sounded like she was almost near to bursting with tears.


    With that the call ended, Bruce put down his receiver as he realized that there was something larger going on. Going after him was one thing, but going after Alishia was another thing entirely.


    Trying to formulate his thoughts, Bruce reread the half diary and half grimoire of his great grandfather. Half journal and half survival manual.


    ¡°It¡¯s almost like someone has declared war on us.¡± Bruce said, stroking the pages of the mystical grimoire as he tried to mentally prepare himself for what would be needed next.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    Poof.


    Misha felt a mental connection in her mind break off and snap entirely. Pausing Misha waited, trying to figure out if she had done anything wrong.


    Yet, when she thought about it, the connection she had to the world as a whole was still there. Though following the strands of her pre-established power links, Misha realized that one node had been completely severed from her.


    Focusing, Misha paused trying to figure out what was missing, what it was that she wasn¡¯t seeing.


    Had it not been for the fact that she had just made this entirely new connection earlier that night, Misha might have missed the node entirely, however this was one she had just created not four hours ago, before she and the other girls turned in for the night.


    That was why feeling the sudden spark and burning away of the connection to this newly established node was so jarring. Well, that and the fact that she had never forcefully had her connections severed like that before.


    Part of her mind still burned where that connection had been established.


    The burning sensation in her brain was odd, as she knew it had nothing to do with her physical body, yet she still felt the burn all the same.


    But before she could get too far in her own thoughts, she heard it.


    ¡°You awake?¡± The whispering voice of Darcy called out, though even at a whisper her voice was loud and excited enough to be heard by almost anyone in the surrounding rooms, let alone being quiet enough to keep Jasmine, or J-Sweep, sleeping.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Misha said, getting up from her twin bed and heading over to the pull out sofa that Darcy had used for the night. Given that it was a two bed suite, each girl ended up taking their own bed, Darcy being the smallest of the three opted for the pull out sofa.


    ¡°So, you ready?¡± Darcy asked, her eyes filling with excitement as she realized exactly what today was.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Misha replied.


    ¡°Huh, wha?¡± Jasmine called out her voice caught between a half sleep and trying to find out where she was.


    ¡°Wake up sleepy head, today is the day I become Hasty¡¯s Helper.¡± Darcy shouted, as she jumped up on the sofa bed and did a slight dance.


    Seeing the actions of Darcy, Jasmine sat up and declared, ¡°no way, I¡¯m going to be the Helper, but don¡¯t worry since your part of my crew, I will let you backstage with me.¡±


    Misha hearing this just rolled her eyes and chose that moment to be first to go to the bathroom. Something she was immensely grateful for, as a moment later there was a line of people waiting to enter, as everyone¡¯s sympathetic bladder all decided that this was the time to show solidarity.


    Hearing her friends banter outside about who would be next brought a slight smile to Misha¡¯s lips, as she realized she never had a memory like this in her past lifetimes. And for a moment, everything was at peace, as she was able to momentarily distract herself from the sudden loss of a node connection.


    Mentally she just shrugged it off, realizing that she might have messed up the connection somehow.


    It wasn¡¯t until a few hours later when the trio made their way to the packed mall where Hasty was hosting her contest that Misha began to feel that something was off.


    There was an electrical tension in the air. Despite being more than four hours early for the event, the trio found that they had to park more than a mile away from the mall in order to make the trek. This was no big deal for the girls, as they were all young, but still as she got closer, Misha could feel a tension.


    With each step forward, it was as if there was an invisible field forcing Misha and the others back. Well forcing Misha back, as she was apparently the only one currently being affected by the resistance. Then just when she didn¡¯t think she could take another step forward, it happened.


    Sizzle snap.


    This time another node in her mind forcefully burst in her mind, sending an intense wave of psychic backlash to her.


    Stumbling, Misha found herself falling to the ground.


    ¡°You okay?¡±


    Scampering feet came over, as Darcy¡¯s far too tall platform shoes shuffled on the pavement stopping when they were right next to her.


    Hands grabbed and pulled Misha up on both sides.


    ¡°Thanks.¡± Misha said, stumbling to her feet as she tried to stand up.


    ¡°You okay? What happened?¡± Jasmine asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Misha said, and meant it, this was the second time such an event happened.


    ¡°You¡¯re bleeding.¡± Darcy cried out, pointing to Misha¡¯s face.


    ¡°What?¡± Misha asked.


    ¡°Oh yeah.¡± Jasmine said, taking an involuntary half step back as she saw the blood and realized how close she had been.


    Reaching up, Misha found that there was a warm liquid on her lip. Then pulling her hand away, she saw the signs of blood on her fingers.


    Blinking, Misha felt around for something to wipe away the blood with.


    ¡°Here, use this.¡± Darcy said, pulling out a few tissues from her purse.


    ¡°Thanks.¡± Misha said, grabbing the tissues and then holding her hand to stop the bleeding, while holding her head back.


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± Jasmine asked.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine just allergies.¡± Misha replied, answering with the first thing that came to mind.


    Hearing that Jasmine and Darcy could only nod slightly in understanding. It wasn¡¯t a good answer, but honestly how would Misha explain that two mental nodes she had sent out and attached to people were now entirely burned out, and that burnout caused a slight backlash that Misha was now paying for.


    Pausing, Misha realized that something was wrong with her nodes. These were the hot points to people in the world that she could just jump to mentally and spy on those people. Two nodes she had were on Darcy and Jasmine, both of whom were right in front of her.


    The other nodes, those were on people she was either trying to protect or trying to spy on. So far, two of her spying nodes had been burned away in about as many hours. Misha didn¡¯t know what this meant, other than something was happening.


    Then pausing, Misha realized that this was likely what her Heightened Danger Sense had been trying to warn her about a moment ago. Now that she had time to think about everything, that is exactly what the mental barrier was that she had felt, the barrier that had kept her from entering the mall. Her newly enhanced sense was trying to warn her about the impending node destruction.


    At least that was what she thought it all meant.


    Looking around, Misha realized that her two friends were there staring at her.


    Then taking a hesitant step forward, Misha waited for the impending doom to set in, which was all that the resistance she felt earlier could have been. After taking the hesitant step forward and feeling nothing, Misha realized that she was likely okay.


    ¡°You ready to go in?¡± Darcy asked.


    ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s go.¡± Misha said, walking forward, while still holding the tissues against her nose. Honestly given how cold it was this morning, the tissues managed to preserve some heat, a small victory but one Misha was willing to take at the moment.


    With each step forward, Misha felt more confident that the danger that she was being warned about was over, and that things were going to be okay.


    What Misha failed to realize was that at this very moment her mind was in the process of rewiring itself to better protect from future catastrophic damage. The sensory input portion of her mind, the part that was working double shifts on continuing to keep mental nodes active, while also interfacing with the organo-tech features of the newly acquired Heightened Danger Sense were currently pushed beyond their limits. This was why when not one but two node connections were forcefully severed, it created a severe feedback loop, that both overwhelmed Misha¡¯s mental systems, while making it so that the now overwhelming sense of danger was beyond the scope that Misha¡¯s mind could fully comprehend. The final result of all of this, was the fact that Misha was now mentally blind to the dangers she was casually walking into.


    ***


    (Elijah Cummings)


    Elijah stood outside of Station Square, an excitement filled his eyes as he watched as hundreds of thousands of Bakshee spawn and their minions all came in attendance to see the Queen Sinner herself.


    Today would be but a small preview of what would come.


    What he had today was a slower acting, but no less potent version of the organo-tech killer that he had proven to be of great effect in Europe and Asia.


    Here, the idea would be simple, this time he would hand out dozens of the weaponized contagions in the form of air fresheners to mundane humans. Those humans seeing the air freshener and having to stand in line would spray themselves gradually, hopefully even offering to share them with others in line.


    By the end of today, the hope was that everyone that went in line, parked in the parking lot, and even looked at the mall entrance would be infected. Then all it would take is for one of those that was infected to go to the concert tomorrow and spread the cure to the world.


    With that in mind, Elijah smiled brightly as he held out the small weaponized air canisters.


    ¡°Can I try one?¡± A female asked coming forward.


    ¡°By all means. All proceeds go directly to charity.¡± Elijah replied back.


    ¡°Oh what kind of charity?¡± The female asked.


    ¡°Oh, I represent St. Elijah¡¯s Research.¡±


    ¡°Really, I never heard of them.¡±


    ¡°Yes, we are a small research organization trying to rid the world of the common cold and other infectious viruses.¡± Elijah replied.


    ¡°Oh?¡±


    ¡°Yes, this can is our first prototype, an air freshener that also kills 99% of viruses on contact.¡±


    ¡°Really, in that case can I take two?¡±


    ¡°Take as many as you like, just please be sure to spread the word around. Oh and here is a free one if you are going to stand in line and use it.¡±


    ¡°Why thank you,¡± the woman said, handing a $20 bill to Elijah as she took three canisters.


    ¡°Would you like your change?¡± Elijah asked.


    ¡°No, please keep up the good work.¡± The woman said.


    ¡°Oh, I will. I will¡­¡±

 Chapter 54 Paranormal Meetings

    Chapter 54


    Paranormal Meetings


    (Darcy Renolds)


    Anytime you have so many excited teenagers in one area you are bound to get nervous tension and drama. Add to that the idea that by being the one who gets seen by the pop icon would get the dream job of being given backstage passes, admittance to the tour and more.


    Tension.


    Having arrived so early, people found themselves shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. Women who started off wearing heels were already carrying their pair of heels, opting to rest comfortably in their bare feet against the smooth tile flooring.


    On top of everything was the smell.


    Grabbing so many teenagers into one spot was bound to create some chaos. The number of food kiosk vendors had seemingly tripled for the day, the scent of fresh food only seemed to coat the smells of tension and teenaged angst. It didn¡¯t help that everyone was dressed for a cold Pittsburgh day, meaning that many had worn thick winter coats inside.


    ¡°Get out of my face.¡± One girl hissed at a smaller girl who just shifted anxiously from foot to foot.


    Misha and J-Sweep looked on wondering if they needed to step in. Well Misha did, J-Sweep was more interested in seeing what actually happened.


    Fortunately, the security detail that was on call was also heightened as a real cop and a mall security guard team came forward to try to deescalate the situation.


    ¡°What seems to be the problem here?¡±


    ¡°Her, she is constantly being all twitchy and even stepping on my designer shoes.¡± The angry girl spat out, and like that the disparity in poverty between the two girls was quickly drawn into comparison. The girl that was talking was slightly taller with a thin lean build wearing an eye catching white dress and surprisingly enough was still wearing six inch heels. This ensemble and her attitude seemed to scream that this girl was from wealth.


    By contrast, the smaller girl in front of her looked like she was from a much worse place socially. While her clothes were clean and pressed, they had clearly been worn multiple times before and didn¡¯t have that first day clean look that the angry girl¡¯s clothes did.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t even touch your stupid shoes.¡± The second girl hissed back.


    That was but the first instance, many more similar events played out all around. Due to the girl¡¯s sizes the trio mostly found themselves left alone.


    Yet, despite all of this, there were oddities that began to crop up.


    Achoo.


    Sneezing, what seemed like simple allergies began to break out quickly amongst the crowd.


    A few of the more nervous patrons began pulling out miniature fans, or perfume bottles to make sure their scents were covered, or at least that seemed to be the attempt behind so many different individuals coming out and adding differing and competing scents.


    By the time Hasty and her entourage of guards arrived an hour early for staging, the atmosphere seemed to resemble more of a Dutch oven than a mall having more attendees here today than it had all month.


    As the fashion superstar made her way, everyone pulled out their phones, as cries of joy and attention came out from her fans that would all supposedly get a chance to be Hasty¡¯s legendary helper.


    ¡°Hi Hasty!¡±


    ¡°Hasty I love you!¡±


    A few different groups even broke into bouts of random serenading of famous Hasty songs as she passed. People did everything and anything to grab Hasty¡¯s attention as she smiled and waved, but never seemed to look at any one contestant in the face. Instead, she just seemed to be tangentially aware of the rows of adoring fans as she speed walked past the line.


    This was her typical M.O. and the way she had handled all of her selections thus far, which was why she shocked everyone, when she completely broke protocol and her long elegant stride as she came to a complete stop as her head and eyes seemed to snap to her right as she locked gazes with the giant red headed high school goddess that was Misha Tulley.


    Misha not saying a word just stoically nodded, as if such an action was to be expected.


    Of course, as far as Darcy was concerned maybe Misha had expected this type of reaction all along, it was Misha after all.


    ¡°You,¡± Hasty called out, pointing out Misha.


    With that every head turned as one to face Misha, Misha who was just standing stoically there in the center.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Then before anyone could react, Hasty turned to her head scheduler, planner, or whomever the regal lady was to her side. At which point she declared before God and everyone that this random goddess was to be her helper, she did so with one declarative word, ¡°her.¡±


    At which point two guards came forward, placing themselves on either side of Misha.


    When Darcy saw this, she thought this was it, that Misha was going to leave them. Hell, Darcy knew she would, though as this unfolded, one desperate thought filled her mind as she idly wondered how she would get home with Jasmine.


    Turning to glance at Jasmine Sweet, showed that she too was having the same worries about abandonment, as what do you do when your ride is the chosen helper.


    Fortunately for both of them, Misha was made of different materials as she stood still, a calm note of authority coming to her as she pointed out both Darcy and Jasmine both.


    Hasty seeing this asked, ¡°they¡¯re with you?¡±


    Misha nodded.


    ¡°Yeah, you two, please also be my guest.¡± Were Hasty¡¯s words that sent chills down Darcy¡¯s spine, as this was Hasty, the Hollywood superstar who had come down from the heavens and had now chosen her.


    Well really, she had chosen Misha and Misha had chosen her, which was totally like the same exact thing. Almost as if Hasty had chosen her directly.


    What happened next was hard to explain, even having lived through the phenomenon Darcy would have a hard time explaining what exactly happened next.


    For a moment there was a faint lull, as everyone tried to take in what had just happened. Not only had Hasty made her decision for a helper before she had even seen the entire line of people, but she had done so, in such a definitive way that she caught everyone, her staff included, off guard.


    There was a brief moment as the end of her security detail caught up, while the two guards that had originally come for Misha now surrounded Darcy and Jasmine, both of whom were still on Misha¡¯s sides.


    The trio plus two guards made their way to join the other security guards, even going to stand next to Hasty.


    Hasty stuck out one elegant hand towards Misha.


    Misha looked at the hand apprehensively for a second, but then ultimately agreed, sticking out her own hand. Then poof.


    People would later call what happened a miniature terrorist attack, a minor EMP going off.


    Yet, Darcy being that close she felt it, sure as anything she felt the burst and exchange of energy. She even saw the way both Hasty¡¯s and Misha¡¯s eyes seemed to glow ominously with a silvery hue.


    ¡°AHH!¡±


    Immediately people began panicking.


    That¡¯s when the security detail began moving, rather than going out the exit they came, or towards the initial exit which was somewhere towards the front of the line, the security guards broke protocol and apparently pulled an audible as they went through Jelk¡¯s Clothing Store.


    Then Darcy felt a strong set of hands on her back.


    ¡°Follow me,¡± a loud voice called out apparently belonging to the hand that then pushed Misha forward.


    At that Darcy half ran, half seemingly glided through the mall, to the department store, then quickly out the back of the store as they made their way towards the still shining sun.


    Despite everything that had been happening, it was still light enough out that everyone could see what was happening within the mall.


    Yet, apparently every piece of electronics for a thousand yards around the famous meeting had been irrevocably lost, making so that only those that were livestreaming at the moment had their content saved.


    A fact that Darcy would be immensely grateful for later on, as it meant no one could get a good enough angle or shot of the trio to find out who had stolen their shot at being Hasty¡¯s Helper.


    As they got out, a limousine was already prepped and ready to take off, once Hasty, her secretary, the trio and two guards got into the back of the vehicle.


    An Awkward tension filled the cab of the limousine, and for a second Darcy wondered if the limousine had also been shorted out by whatever had happened.


    Vrroomm.


    Yet, the car started up almost immediately.


    Looking quickly, Darcy could almost see the faint glow of Misha¡¯s eyes burn a little brighter the instant before the car started up. Yet, that could all just be part of Darcy¡¯s mind adding even more oddities to what was clearly a very vivid dream.


    Figures that even in her dreams that Hasty wouldn¡¯t choose her, but the girl she too now found herself obsessing over.


    Movement.


    Only once the limousine started moving did everyone let out a collective sigh of relief. Everyone except for Misha who seemed to be as calm and stoic as ever.


    ¡°Wow, wasn¡¯t that exciting.¡± Hasty began.


    Giggle.


    Darcy for her part couldn¡¯t help but let out a slightly nervous laugh at that. Everyone laughed, but Misha who just nodded.


    Hasty still seeming to be oddly tense and nervous, an effect that was oddly endearing to the pop sensation pressed on.


    ¡°So, do you all still want to be my Helpers?¡±


    SQUEAL!


    There was a high pitched squeal being released, and for a moment Darcy felt extremely self-conscious that she managed to get that loud, before she realized there was also an echo in the limousine as Jasmine too was squealing.


    Looking out of the corner of her eye, Darcy could only relax when she saw the giant smile on Misha¡¯s face. While she still won cool points for not squealing in front of the legend like a moron, she still looked amazing smiling at her obvious excitement. At that moment right there, Darcy knew she had it bad.


    Worst of all, it was clear that Misha only saw her as a friend. Which was okay, this was not her first rodeo of unrequited love, and after James, she felt she was much better able to handle such murky waters.


    Though, Darcy knew that given the odd looks that Hasty kept sending Misha¡¯s way, she knew that her work was cut out for her. As it was clear that for whatever reason Hasty herself was smitten with her Misha.


    Yet, that was not noted in her words, as Hasty immediately turned to face Darcy first.


    ¡°So, tell me all about yourself.¡±


    Then almost as if compelled to tell her entire life¡¯s story, Darcy did just that. ¡°I am Darcy Nicole Reynolds, and we came from Jackson West Virginia to be here.¡±


    ¡°Jackson?¡± Hasty asked, a note of surprise on her face.


    ¡°Well we did have a brief stop over in, where was it? For the basketball game.¡± Darcy asked, turning to her two friends.


    ¡°Basketball game? You play?¡± Hasty asked, her words completely sincere as all Darcy could do was tell everything that was the truth.


    ¡°Me no, that is the two goddesses that you see next to me. I just went on to cheer them along.¡± Darcy found herself answering, yet despite feeling like she had to tell Hasty everything, it also felt natural. Like she was catching up with a long-lost friend.


    What she missed was the way Misha¡¯s posture shifted slightly, as if she were becoming guarded herself.


    ¡°The two of you play basketball?¡± Hasty pressed suddenly shifting her attention to Misha and Jasmine.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Jasmine answered back enthusiastically.


    ¡°On the same team?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t until that night that Darcy would realize that while Hasty only engaged in conversation with Darcy and Jasmine, each question ultimately yielded a response that gave more information about Misha. But that was just her being paranoid, right?


    ***


    (Alishia Stone)


    The talisman that Shaman Bruce gave her was creepy and smelled of rot. In her mind she knew the talisman had to have been carved from dried out meat of some kind. Yet, Alishia didn¡¯t have the heart to ask where exactly the meat came from.


    Instead, she was more appreciative of the result, namely the fact that she was no longer plagued by vivid dreams where she was murdering an old woman who could only cry out in pain with each movement made in her dreams.


    Now Alishia as the next pack Alpha had been tasked by Bruce to find five people that she would give similar talismans to, these five would form the basis for her pack.


    In her mind she already had the names, Tricksy from North, Amoni, so she could keep ties with Bruce. Then there was Troy, Dave, and Rodger from the football and basketball teams.


    Pulling into Rodger¡¯s driveway, she held the package with the fleshy talismans that almost seemed to have dried blood etched deep into the carvings.


    ¡°Now all I need to do is get my ex to wear this, for his protection, so he will come back to me.¡± Alishia said, touching the trinket and finding the one made for Rodger was just as slimy as the one she now wore around her neck. ¡°Then how do I get him to keep it against his skin.¡±


    With that task in mind, Alishia exited the vehicle wanting to break whatever hold that harpy had on her man. For while Bruce was still at a loss for who might have cursed them, even going so far as believing that it was the ghost of their victim coming back to haunt them, Alishia had her own opinions on the matter. Opinions that only made sense if they related to the new girl who had so completely undermined everything that Alishia had spent the last year and a half going about earning.


    Exhale.


    Ding-dong.


    Letting out a breath, Alishia rang the doorbell of her ex, and braced herself holding an ornate wooden box in her hands. One that contained a flesh talisman that she desperately needed her ex to wear, without going to the authorities about where the talisman might have come from. Simple, right?

 Chapter 55 Mission Complete

    Chapter 55


    Mission Complete


    (Hasty)


    Exhale.


    Finally, after years of being stuck. After years of being told she had messed up, that she would never be able to achieve the next phase of existence she did it, Hasty managed to finally make it through her bottleneck and become a Tier II Reaper, whatever that meant.


    Actually, just being able to know that she wasn¡¯t alone was a relief in and of itself. For the first few years, being the only one of one was a badge worth wearing with pride. Particularly as she could cut and choose the best of all abilities from others as she saw fit.


    Yet, her growth was stagnant, as she had been stuck at the pinnacle of her evolution for years. Unable to improve her Attributes further. Unable to find any new or interesting Abilities. Worse, the Abilities that she did have seemed to pull and strain her body in ways she found most uncomfortable.


    What use is it to be able to summon forth a fire, if it feels like your entire body is on fire while doing so?


    Yes, having an impromptu pyrotechnic display is always nice and adds a flare of danger while singing a song about getting back at your ex, but did it always have to feel so painful?


    Now, her body felt like it was once again able to grow, that there was another limit to how much she could grow and achieve in this lifetime. How she a girl who came from nothing with little more than a love for singing rose to the heights of stardom, and now not only did she find someone else that shared the same plight, a kindred spirit that she could finally talk to about everything, but she had made it.


    Pausing she once again reread the prompt that flashed in her eyes when she first met and touched hands with ReaperOne, A.K.A. Misha Tulley.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 62.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Mission Completed: You managed to meet ReaperOne before the next scheduled uplink.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reward: One Full Upgrade, now Tier II. 1.0 Body upgrades.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that she saw the upgrade take place as her body that felt like it was near to bursting was finally able to relax slightly. Almost as if she had been in a cocoon for too long and was just now able to emerge and spread her wings.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 62.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier -II


    Alternate-1: Speed and Stamina Build.


    Ability Bonus: Sense Danger (3), Feral Weapons (2), Increased Durability (1), Enhanced Comprehension Speed (1), Commanding Voice (2), Allure (2), Enhanced Senses (1): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell, Increased Attribute (1): Agility, Stamina;


    Elemental Focus (1): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    Secondary Focus (2): Lightning ¨C Prerequisite (Fire and Air)


    Secondary Focus (2): Ice ¨C Prerequisite (Water and Air)


    Secondary Focus (2): Metal ¨C Prerequisite (Earth and Fire)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Harvested Slot: NA</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 22.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 14.9 -> 15.0 / 16.9


    Dexterity: 14.9 -> 15.0 / 16.9


    Agility: 20 -> 20.4 / 25


    Stamina: 20 -> 20.4 / 25


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 24.4324%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">New Abilities Available:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Warrior Class: Alpha (5)


    Worker Class: Coven Leader (5)


    Ruler Class: Primal Matriarch (5)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Looking at her sheet, she felt oddly relieved and impressed, particularly with the fact that she could finally break the fifteen-point threshold for both Strength and Dexterity, thanks to her one point in physical enhancements. That and the idea of finally being able to get new and powerful abilities caused something deep within Hasty to stir with excitement.


    These were the powers of group leaders, those that would force those weaker in Tier ratings to combine their power and become more effective as a single cohesive unit. With these options, Hasty realized that she could now control and direct groups of the different classes to join her and do her bidding. That part of the sheet made sense, the new Abilities. Though there was one new section that took her a moment to think about, only to come up with no real answer to what or why it was there.


    Pausing Hasty didn¡¯t know what to make of the Harvested Slot. Though looking at ReaperOne, Hasty was fairly certain that the answer to what the Harvested Slot was could be answered by the senior, who seemed to carry herself with a refined dignity that only comes with age.


    When she had first been assigned the mission to find the other Reaper, she was at first slightly angered by the fact that the other Reaper had somehow managed to learn some sacred insights that let Misha progress faster than her. Yet, after meeting the girl, it was apparent that she had something deeper to her.


    Even now as she spoke only to her so-called friends about their life, ReaperOne remained oddly quiet and composed. Almost as if she only came to meet Hasty for the sake of the mission and nothing more.


    Seeing the almost casual indifference to Hasty¡¯s stardom, Hasty tried a different approach for understanding more about this enigmatic leader.


    ¡°So what would you like to do, now that we are all here in Pittsburgh?¡± Hasty asked.


    SQUEALS!


    The two friends ate up the comment hook line and sinker, while ReaperOne just continued to look on with a contemplative stare.


    At first Hasty thought of this mystical ReaperOne as a rival that she would somehow have to best. Yet, through all things she held herself with a calm measured pace that never seemed to get too excited or too withdrawn.


    Also staring into her emerald eyes, there was an electric potency that was unmistakable when just glancing at her. While it was clear that the girl before her was almost half Hasty¡¯s age, she carried herself with the poise and dignity of someone who was royalty.


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Perhaps it was only a matter of inevitability before she was overtaken by this emerging star, which was why the powers that be had clearly forced the change over that much faster. This of course set off a whole slew of ideas in her mind, where it implied that not only were the beings that provided these amazing powers and abilities constantly watching and monitoring, but they were able to see the potential of others before they had a chance to fully manifest themselves.


    Realizing this and so many other oddities about what was happening, Hasty slowly found her mindset changing from the childish anger at being passed over by someone clearly younger and presumed to be inexperienced. To having a more begrudging acceptance of what had happened.


    Regardless of how the rest of these tours went, Hasty was certain of one thing, that changing her entire venue and coming back to the states to search for the ReaperOne had definitely been worth it, as she was now excited to see a fellow kindred spirit, and quite possibly the little sister she never knew existed.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    Interference.


    If Misha had to describe everything going on around her at the moment it would all be summarized in that one simple word, interference.


    First, there seemed to be ancient Psycher code particles transmitting constantly, but they were broken transmissions. Even taking into account the fact that different signals could be broken up, spliced, and then recombined later with vowels and letter combinations at similar frequencies the words she was picking up made no sense.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 20.973%; background-color: rgba(194, 128, 28, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">For Queen. Through</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">The Redemption Genocide.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    As far as she could tell this was what the two Psycher codes were. The fact that they were Psycher codes was unmistakable, though they were clearly cruder models of the language, that or were being transmitted or replicated by people that only knew how the words should sound and not how to write them.


    Honestly, Misha didn¡¯t know if this was her seeing the work of a fellow Psycher, or if this was a Bakshee¡¯s imitation of a semi-literate Psycher.


    Clearly the person that put together this communication never had to build and rebuild countless communication systems for the mothership that would then be transferred out to the rest of the fleet. Nor did this person really know how to have overlapping bands produce one coherent and encrypted thought process that was incapable of being intercepted by the enemy.


    The entire thing was just infuriating, and that was while she was waiting in line at the mall for the Hasty person to show up.


    Fortunately, once Hasty appeared, things reacted quickly.


    First upon contacting Hasty¡¯s hand a hidden pulse relay response was released. The whole thing was rather odd and ingenious, basically inside her body was half of a dormant activation code that by itself just looked like random spliced code that was ultimately meaningless. Given how much random code was in her body that served no function, this improper coding seemed to be par for the course with the Bakshee.


    Yet, after touching hands not one but two strands of code completed a connection. The first was the update to her applied mission state. The second was an external pulse of energy that apparently informed fleet command that the first provided mission was completed, when, and how much time remained. No doubt these factors would go into the future application of other missions, along with showing how interconnected the planet they were on was. Had it taken close to the full year, then the planet of course would be considered underdeveloped from a technological and mobility standpoint. Had they been able to interact almost immediately, it would show a greater degree of communication and transportation capability. Given that they were able to accomplish the implied task within a month showed high marks for being an interconnected world and that people on the world were able to move about fairly quickly.


    At least, that is what Misha would have taken in from those measurements. While she couldn¡¯t count on the Bakshee being as observant as she was, Misha knew that underestimating your opponent was always a foolish endeavor. Also, her apparent misclassification of the so called junk code strands within her organo-tech showed that her assessments might not all be fully accurate, and that she might need to work on inherent biases if she truly wanted to continue to improve herself.


    That said, the message that was provided for her was somewhat underwhelming.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 60.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Mission Completed: You managed to meet ReaperTwo before the next scheduled uplink.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reward: One Full Upgrade, 1.0 Body upgrades.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Yes, finding out that she had hidden code within her body that was waiting to be used to form completed bonds with others was both amazing and disparaging. Amazing in the fact that it could be done so flawlessly that Misha herself didn¡¯t recognize the dormant code for what it was. Then disparaging in that this was all the mighty Bakshee could apparently do with such an impressive feat of coding that it went beyond her notice and scrutiny.


    Then of course there was the seeming automatic upgrade that went on without any real work or effort.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 37.6216%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier -III


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    Improved Harvesting (2)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Harvested Slot: Heightened Danger Sense (6)</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Additional Harvest Slot: NA</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Yes, from that upgrade a new Harvesting Slot was now available, meaning that she could try to find yet another Ability that she truly wanted and use that to build upon.


    The fact that she went ahead and got Tier III right off the bat without needing to have her Attributes upgraded fully made her feel sort of empty inside.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 22.7027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 15.2 -> 15.3 / 18.9


    Dexterity: 21.7 -> 22.1 / 30


    Agility: 21.7 -> 22.1 / 30


    Stamina: 15.2 -> 15.3 / 18.9


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Yes, she distributed the one point equally in a one, four, four, one manner, but it still felt hollow with how little she was truly able to utilize the new capabilities of her new upgrade.


    It wasn¡¯t until she looked at her Reaper Abilities that her mind about the sudden changes to her body and system were suddenly halted. As for the first time in a long time she actually had not one, but three new options available.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 36.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">New Reaper Abilities Available:</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Class Evolution Growth (2): Warrior, Worker, Ruler.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That was it, not much for description on these Abilities, though from what Misha could tell or what she felt she could infer from the different Abilities was that with these new abilities, Misha might be able to selectively evolve the Attributes, Abilities, and the ultimate role that different groups within each major class can and will evolve.


    Pausing for a moment, she realized that this was huge. The ability to specialize different groups to excel at one particular aspect, or to be able to adapt to certain harsh conditions over another would be invaluable with some of the planets that were noted as habitable, but unoccupiable due to terrain features and poison ratings. With this, Misha felt that it might be possible to biologically engineer groups of people who could survive on those harsh planets.


    Then pausing, Misha realized that this thought was a half-implanted memory, half mentally provided recruitment thought on how to improve not just this world but others as well.


    Following the thread of the thought, Misha was once again surprised to see the intricacies of the neural circuitry that the Bakshee were so famous for. This was literally an implanted memory, had she not been aware of the foreign thought taking root in her mind, who knew what could happen.


    This of course, led her to the memory of how parts of her own mind were recently ripped out due to her hastily constructed network of interlinking thoughts to inanimate objects.


    Misha had been sloppy, the fact that she let her mind get so stretched out that the simple act of breaking a connection caused her mental pains was a rookie mistake. Yes, she had never been trained on how to create such intricate networks on hostile territories before, but that didn¡¯t completely excuse her from doing things like constantly keeping links open to her mind. That was the first issue, as the constantly open connections would allow for quick and violent feedback pain loops that would cause problems.


    Focusing on that, she locked down her mind, making sure to only reconnect with her mentally established links if and when she wanted to.


    Pausing, Misha thought for a moment then realized that was a good first start, but that she still needed to do more.


    For now though, she was now protected against outside mental attacks coming into her mind. Now she had to try to see just how many more dormant thoughts were still lying in her mind, like live wires just waiting to be inadvertently touched.


    Yet, before she could get too far down this train of thought, she was pulled from her own mental protections that she was putting in place, when she was asked.


    ¡°What do you say?¡± Darcy asked excitedly.


    Pausing, Misha could see out of the corner of her eye that J-Sweep was also trembling with excitement and barely able to contain herself.


    Realizing that something was apparently said and almost unanimously agreed upon, Misha could only fault herself for not being at least partially aware of what was happening around her.


    Then not wanting to show she wasn¡¯t actually paying attention to her friends, she decided to go with their clear excitement.


    ¡°Sure,¡± Misha said.


    Squeals.


    At that both Darcy and J-Sweep began to shake and scream with excitement as Darcy reached out her left hand to grab hold of Jasmine¡¯s. Then only a second later did Misha look down to see that Darcy had place her hand overtop of Misha¡¯s.


    Looking down, she wondered when that happened. Then she wondered why it didn¡¯t seem to bother her, as she almost always felt awkward while being touched. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Darcy was a mundane, Misha thought to herself. Yet, before she could get too lost in her own thoughts, Hasty spoke up giving some understanding of what exactly Misha had apparently agreed to.


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll make the reservations right now.¡± Hasty exclaimed, then turning to the formal secretary to her side, she just stared.


    ¡°Oh, now you remember I¡¯m here.¡± The formal secretary said, clearly joking as she began texting feverishly on her phone.


    Seeing the phone, Misha reached out her mind and mentally connected to the device, reading its contents and then relaxing slightly at the idea, as the secretary¡¯s text was fairly easy to comprehend.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 45.7297%; background-color: rgba(194, 128, 28, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Ms. Hasty has requested a spa day for herself, and three guests.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And like that, the status of being recognized as Hasty¡¯s Helpers would officially begin.

 Chapter 56 The Excursion (Darcy Renolds)

    Chapter 56


    The Excursion


    (Darcy Renolds)


    Something was off about Misha.


    Not that Darcy was staring at her constantly, wondering why she was the only one that didn¡¯t seem to be super excited about meeting pop sensation Hasty. No, that wasn¡¯t it at all, instead it was just her being curious about a friend who seemed to be having a bit of an off day.


    It all started with a nosebleed of all things.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Darcy found herself asking for what had to be the millionth time.


    Misha for her part just held the bloody rag to her nose and nodded. Why Misha of all people had a nosebleed was beyond anyone¡¯s comprehension. They just started right after everyone agreed to an all expenses paid shopping spree, followed by a grand spa visit.


    Then almost as if Misha had one of those weird fetishes about seeing Hasty exposed in the spa, she got a nosebleed. Yet, for her part she just seemed to take it all in style.


    ¡°Are your allergies normally this bad?¡± Ms. Delaney asked, concern etched deeply in her voice.


    Misha just paused for her part and then eventually shook her head. She had given up trying to talk through both a pinched nose and a bloody handkerchief.


    ¡°You sure you still want to go out?¡± Hasty asked.


    Misha just looked first at Jasmine, then let her eyes set on Darcy causing Darcy¡¯s heart to flutter slightly at the intense stare. Then seeing something in Darcy¡¯s reaction, she seemed to pause herself and then nod.


    Hasty for her part just looked at the trio, and then seemed to come to her own conclusion.


    ¡°Okay, well let¡¯s go have some fun then.¡± Hasty exclaimed as she led the group out.


    Jasmine and Darcy led the procession, forming a form of superfan buffer between Misha and Hasty. While Darcy felt somewhat awkward at the position, she now found herself in, she couldn¡¯t help but want to be close to her idol. I mean this was the dream after all, being here next to Hasty.


    Then just when she almost thought her enthusiasm was dying down or about to end entirely all it took was one sympathetic look at Jasmine. Their eyes would meet, and she would see the fire in Jasmine¡¯s eyes and boom once again that childish euphoria was once again ignited in her, and she was set to a stream of steady giggles and an insane smile plastered on her lips. She knew it was wrong and childish, but at the same time she ultimately knew this for what it was, a once in a lifetime event that would never be replicated again.


    Only once the limousine finally made it to its final destination did Darcy realize that Misha¡¯s nose had stopped bleeding. She still held the damp red rag in her hand, ready to wipe away any future streams, but fortunately everything seemed to be over.


    At least, Darcy hoped it was over, as that was hard to stomach.


    ¡°You better?¡± Darcy asked.


    Misha for her part just nodded her head cautiously, as if worried that the sudden shaking might cause more red liquid to drip. Fortunately, nothing happened, though for a moment, at least according to Misha¡¯s face that didn¡¯t seem to always be the case.


    ¡°Oh thank God,¡± Jasmine said, finally turning to watch Misha, though it was clear that for someone who was as physical as Jasmine was. Where she played a contact sport like Basketball and everything, Darcy came to understand one thing about the girl, she was squeamish when it came to seeing blood.


    This theory was further proved when Jasmine first tentatively looked to Misha, having had her back to Misha the entire time. Then once her nosebleed stopped, she first glanced out to make sure what Darcy said was true. Then once it was proven to be true, that is when she visibly deflated like a balloon that had half its air released. Only to relax turn to face Darcy head on, which allowed her to see Misha sitting at the back. Which lasted all of five seconds, before her eyes scanned down to see the bright red handkerchief in Misha¡¯s hands, which then caused the big girl to turn and face the front again as all the color drained from her face.


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    ¡°You don¡¯t like blood?¡± Darcy found herself asking the obvious question.


    Jasmine for her part just stared straight forward and shook her head as she answered, ¡°no.¡±


    ¡°Well that¡¯s good, because we are here.¡± Hasty said, cutting in and informing everyone that they had finally made their destination.


    With that, the vehicle parked, and Darcy saw no less than five people get out of other vehicles step through traffic and around the limousine, before creating space from the vehicle and the crowd of gawkers who started coming near the limousine that seemed to appear out of nowhere.


    ¡°All we have to do is wait for the all clear.¡± Hasty said, turning her head to the side as she too looked out the window.


    With everyone¡¯s attention faced outside, Darcy was the only one who saw the slight twitch in Misha¡¯s face.


    Seeing Misha scrunch up her face, Darcy instantly turned to face the girl and found herself asking. ¡°Are you okay?¡±


    With this a myriad of questions came to mind, was she afraid of strangers? Logically she knew that the girl did seem to shy away from large crowds of people, so was this an issue? If this was an issue and she wanted to stay back should Darcy stay with her? Or was she about to get another nosebleed, where etiquette would dictate that she stay with her friend, especially if she wanted to ever progress this relationship further. Then thinking of this scenario she almost wished that Misha would stay back, if only for the fact that she could gain sympathy points with the amazing red head.


    ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m fine.¡± Misha said, but then rather than looking to the right, like everyone else she instead turned her head to the left and seemed to look directly at someone.


    Darcy seeing her face suddenly get serious, couldn¡¯t help but wonder what was happening.


    Seeing her like this, Darcy decided that this was her chance. Swoop in, get the sympathy points for being a friend who would stay back with her, if needed. Then convince her to go and have fun, a win-win scenario.


    At least that was the plan, so sliding over the leather seats, she soon found herself by Misha¡¯s side, and attempted to grab her hand, only to find that the right hand was the one that held the bloody rag in it and quickly decided to just place her hand on Misha¡¯s wrist. Not as intimate of a gesture as she had wanted, but she was not touching that hazmat cloth at all.


    Placing her hand reassuringly on Misha¡¯s wrist, she began to speak.


    ¡°We don¡¯t have to go if you don¡¯t¡­¡± was as far as Darcy got, before Misha quickly moved forward and cupping her rag-free hand against her ear began to speak.


    ¡°One of the security detail has been compromised.¡± Misha whispered, her words sending chills down Darcy¡¯s spine from how intimate the gesture was.


    With that a slight shiver went down her spine at the touch and the way the words caressed her ear. Then finally her mind made sense of the words that were being spoken.


    Staggering back, Darcy stared at Misha and exclaimed loudly, ¡°WHAT?¡±


    ¡°Shh!¡± Misha hissed, pulling up her right hand with a finger extended, only to stop herself once she realized she was close to pressing her blood covered rag against Darcy¡¯s face.


    Darcy too stared at the bloody rag covered hand like it was a cobra raising its head to strike.


    Then before anyone could do anything, Misha lowered her right hand, draping it over her lap as she continued.


    ¡°Look, over there.¡± Misha said, pointing off to the right, where another car that had been filled with armed escorts sat. Darcy for her part turned but failed to see anything other than a crowd of people swarming and getting in the way of the security detail vehicle and the limousine.


    Clink, clunk.


    The sound of the metal door opening echoed in the limousine at that moment.


    ¡°All right, time to go and pamper ourselves.¡± Hasty said, as she was one of the first to leave. Followed by Jasmine.


    Darcy looked at Misha for a moment who was still just staring off in the opposite direction.


    ¡°You¡¯re coming right?¡± Darcy asked.


    The words seemed to pull Misha from whatever she was dealing with as she just nodded, and then proceeded to follow Darcy out of the vehicle.


    As she got out, Misha found Ms. Delaney the person who had originally given her the now blood soaked rag that looked to be more than useless. That is when Misha held up the used article with a somewhat questioning look on her face.


    At that Ms. Delaney just raised her eyebrows in a I don¡¯t want any of that type of gesture, before having a eureka moment where she reached into her large bag she carried. Found something that looked like it held food in it. At which point she emptied out the contents into her bag and pulled out a plastic bag that she opened and held at arms length.


    Misha seeing the gesture for what it was placed her used rag inside the plastic bag, at which point Ms. Delaney promptly sealed the bag and then was about to walk over to a nearby trashcan, when a guard team member saw the act and proceeded to take the bag from Ms. Delaney and urged the three of them to continue on their way.


    With that gentle reminder, Ms. Delaney placed her hand on Misha¡¯s back to guide her, while Darcy pulled up on Misha¡¯s side. With that the three began to move as one down the entrance while Ms. Delaney rummaged through her bag and then seemed pleased to find a packet of wet wipes, which she then handed to Misha.


    Misha nodded thankfully and began using the wipes on both her face and hands, removing any lingering residue of dried blood from her. Before balling the used wet wipes tightly in her hand she moved in close and spoke to Ms. Delaney.


    As she spoke Ms. Delaney stopped, and then stared first at Misha, and then looked back in the direction that Misha had been looking for the entire time. At that, a look of confusion and rage filled her face as for a moment Darcy could swear that she saw a flash of lightning rage across the normally polite and courteous woman¡¯s face.


    Then there was a slight tension as electricity seemed to build up around the normally composed woman.


    Darcy felt the thrum of electricity and could smell the crisp sweet smell of ozone in the air as things seemed to escalate quickly.


    Zap.


    There was the faintest pulse of electricity coming from Ms. Delaney, at first Darcy wanted to chalk the whole thing up to not using dryer sheets, but there was clearly something more to what was going on here.


    Overhead the sky seemed to react as thick dark clouds sparkling with mischief began to thrum and pulse in the sky. Turning the slightly overcast day into complete darkness, at least as dark as the day could get at roughly two PM.


    Then Darcy watched in horror as everything she thought she knew about the world was suddenly turned on its head.


    THUNDERCLAP!


    And the world went ever bright for a moment as a bolt of lightning raced across the sky, and seemed like it would crash down directly into the trio.


    Ms. Delaney looked shocked, as if she like Darcy knew they were both going to die at that very moment.


    However, standing amongst them was Misha who seemed to stand tall as she held up her outstretched hand at the bolt.


    Darcy could only watch on in horror as the massive bolt crashed into Misha. Being so close, Darcy could feel the power of the bolt. A bolt that was so intense that even with her eyes closed she could see the flash of the bolt landing.


    Then pausing for what felt like an exceptionally long time Darcy could only pause as she waited for the inevitable. She waited for the force of the bolt to crash down, to throw her back violently, then she waited for her friend to cry out in pain.


    However none of that happened, instead what she saw when she opened her eyes only left her with a sense of awe and confusion.


    ¡°What?¡± Was all she could say, it was the only word that seemed to accurately describe the scene before her. A scene that even her overactive mind could not fully process at the moment.

 Interlude IV Sudden Exposure (Rachel Powers)

    Interlude IV


    Sudden Exposure


    (Rachel Powers)


    ¡°Tonight, on The Insiders¡¯ View, we are going to discuss the topic that everyone is buzzing about, and that is the new action super star that Hasty herself is trying to pull off. Not since the times of Michael Jackson have we seen such blatant high quality action movies right in the middle of the street by a noted pop-icon. Are we on the verge of seeing Hasty break into yet another realm of entertainment?¡± Rachel Powers begins her speech as the screen splits to show the hosts underneath, while the image of the now famous lightning bolt from the end of the world was shown.


    Rachel was the seasoned anchor that was a pioneer for women¡¯s broadcasters. While she was not the first to trailblaze across the field, her sassy and imposing nature caused her to be compelling and seen as a sex icon even after spending decades within the bright lights of television. While her days of working for a big network were over, she found herself recently reemerging from the shadows of her career with this new podcast series that seemed to be able to bridge a generational gap that her former networks were unable to bridge themselves.


    On the screen there were of course multiple close-up views, but then a view came to life from a building on the opposite side of the street that was at the exact perfect height to both record and show the stylized visual effects that went into play.


    In the view a large arcing bolt seems to come from out of nowhere, across the Pittsburgh skyline and arc straight in front of Hasty and her conveniently chosen Helper. The Helper, along with her two friends in attendance both have a look of shock on their face as they clearly had no clue what was going to happen. The sudden and intense bolt of energy caused their faces to be perfectly illuminated, showing not one not two, but three different skeletal structures just waiting to be hidden.


    ¡°Now look at this,¡± Rachel begins, causing the screen to stop at one particularly bright burst of lightning. ¡°Look at this attention to detail, how we see not one, but three different body types being displayed in just the group of four here. Hasty and her helper both have the same greenish hue to their skeletons, showing that they are likely from the same cloth. Then we have the taller friend, who clearly can be seen with the visage of a werewolf coming out. Then we have this last friend, the almost normal girl and her normal structure. This level of detail is impressive on its own, but take a look a this.¡± Rachel continues to break down the scene.


    With this next set of instructions, the scene switches to yet another view from a different building slightly closer than the one that has been filling everyone¡¯s social media feeds for the past few hours.


    ¡°Added to the tension surrounding this whole thing is the fact that the four main culprits have seemingly disappeared from the public eye since this staged encounter.¡± Rachel began.


    ¡°I know, but isn¡¯t this all a huge publicity stunt?¡± Lidia Roper asked.


    While Rachel Powers was the symbol of age and wisdom, Lidia Roper was the much younger and energetic version that very much resembled a younger but hungrier Rachel Powers. While Rachel had seemed to shrink slightly due to age, Lidia was tall, long legged and showed off those legs on almost any occasion she could.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°Yeah, at this point without even the police investigating we know that everyone is safe and just getting ready to appear at the concert.¡± Gina Martin added.


    Gina, a tanned beauty probably looked familiar as she was the former Miss Brazil who captivated the world with her poise and prowess on many action movies. Only to have her career cut short when she broke her leg in an injury that never healed correctly. Still, even to this day, her beauty was undeniable, though unlike her younger counterpart, Gina never showed her legs, always instead opting to wear pant suits that hugged her waist and backside, while giving her legs ample room to move about.


    ¡°Good point Gina. There are many rumors going about on the internet, and we are here to talk about them all. But first, we have an Insiders¡¯ View exclusive. That¡¯s right, we have never before seen video from a different angle that also recorded this exact event.¡± Rachel begins.


    The camera image is slightly older and a bit grainier than the other video feed, but this one had clearly been touched up by AI rendering software.


    ¡°One thing we wanted to point out was the fact that there were apparently stunt people within the crowds. For look at this, with this angle you can see the hundreds of people that gathered, and if you look closely you can see more wolves, along with what appear to be vampires.¡± Rachel began, pointing out three people from the crowd that had more odd colorations around them.


    ¡°These people seem to be the opposition faction.¡± Rachel continued.


    ¡°Wait, okay. I see the dark outline basically saying that they are darker or a different faction. I get that, but how exactly are you going to say that they are vampires?¡± Gina Martin asked, offering a bit of controversy to the declarations that were being bandied about.


    ¡°Simple, if you have werewolves, you need to have vampires as the contrast. Haven¡¯t we all seen the vampire hunter series? You know the one where the vampire falls in love with the werewolf?¡± Rachel said, while waving her hand in a trying to remember gesture.


    ¡°Love my Lykanthropy?¡± Gina asks.


    ¡°No, that was a horrible comedy and not really a vampire thriller romance.¡± Rachel responded, before tapping her finger to the side of her head. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it will come to me, but I am being told that we need to move on. Anyways, we are showing this as we expect there to be more of this type of theatrics at Hasty¡¯s up and coming concert. I have a feeling that with how popular this event was, we have just seen the start of this.¡±


    ¡°Wait, how can you guarantee that this type of thing will even happen again? I mean, I get it, it was clearly a big publicity stunt performed to drum up attention to buy some of the live streaming tickets that were now going for triple the original asking price, but what do you mean?¡± Lidia Roper asked.


    ¡°Well, as we all know, or are finally coming to understand. This event here was clearly staged. The Helper and Hasty were the only two who were seemingly in on it, everyone else was filmed to show their honest and genuine reactions to the spectacle.¡± Rachel began, pointing out the shocked looks.


    ¡°But to have AI programs ready to record and alter each person, is a feat of focused movie magic that people have only been dreaming about, yet Hasty, always one step ahead has managed to do just that. She managed to make an AI algorithm that overrode everyone¡¯s recordings and live streams to show this amazing piece of cinematic history.¡± Rachel continued, speaking a theory that had been posted on the deeper parts of the web, but have suddenly gained much more traction as experts weighed in on the different film angles, where everyone tried to understand what was happening.


    ¡°Wait, you believe that crazy story about Hasty and her team being able to work with the local businesses and cell phone providers for everyone that was recording within her immediate proximity to have the AI generating software forcefully uploaded to their phones, just so they would be part of the mass hysteria?¡± Gina asked, a bit incredulous.


    ¡°Look, I¡¯m not stating this. I am just stating the direct comment put out by Hasty¡¯s camp, related to this incident.¡± Rachel clarified.


    ¡°You mean that note that only came out after supposed leaked portion of the AI code used to Detect The Monsters Nearby was made publicly available to everyone? The same one where you put it on and use the flash of your phone to see if your friends and family are one of these monster groups?¡± Lidia began, holding up her phone and showing that she in fact had the noted AI application installed.


    ¡°Oh wait, you have it?¡± Rachel asked.


    ¡°Of course I do, why not. The funny part is, that the program then tags the person that you captured as being supernatural, and then allows for anyone else who scans that same person to get the same exact results. It¡¯s kind of fun and addicting, to be honest.¡± Lidia said, then flash.


    ¡°What was that?¡± Rachel asked.


    ¡°Oh I just took one of you,¡± Lidia began looking at her phone and then her face seemed to go in slack jawed amazement as she looked at her screen.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Rachel asked, concern evident in her voice.


    ¡°You, it¡¯s you, but in this image, you have a purple hue around you. Do you know what that means?¡± Lidia asked, a note of concern in her voice.


    ¡°Kill the segment, cut to commercial.¡± Rachel said.


    Click.


    The screen went black as the last episode of The Insiders¡¯ Views aired.

 Chapter 57 The Escape (Part I)

    Chapter 57


    The Escape (Part I)


    Darcy Renolds


    (Current Time)


    Vrooom!


    The purr of the engine roared to life tearing through the open back roads and highways that marked the long trek back from Pittsburgh to little old Jackson West Virginia.


    Silence.


    Despite the late hour, the fact that dawn still wouldn¡¯t come up for another two hours at minimum, everyone sat completely still.


    From the backseat Darcy saw the mile markers slowly count down from over a hundred, to the remaining few dozen or so miles that still remained.


    Looking around, signs of the disastrous concert still could be seen.


    Sniff.


    And smelled.


    The girls had taken to changing into their sweat soaked game worn jerseys rather than deal with letting the crud and viscera dry on their clothes.


    Unfortunately, Darcy had no such uniform to change into, and now looking down saw the dried sprays of dark crimson patches all over her clothes.


    Wet wipes had been used to get off the majority of the stains, particularly from the clumps that managed to stay on her skin.


    Now that their exit was so close, now that she could see the familiar roadways that led to home, to safety, Darcy felt the tension in her shoulders relax. Not only did she find it easier to breathe, well partially easier to breathe, as the smell was still ripe in Misha¡¯s vehicle. Darcy could now feel an odd sort of sadness that things were finally coming to a close.


    ¡°You know, I¡¯m almost sad that it is over,¡± Darcy spoke. Her words shattering the silence and pulling the attention of the two other passengers. Jasmine for her part just turned her head and stared at Darcy like she was a moron. Misha did much the same, though her vision was provided by a subtle use of the rearview mirror.


    ¡°Oh, come on. From a story standpoint it was epic.¡± Darcy continued speaking into the silence.


    This time Misha turned her attention away from Darcy and back to the road. This was likely a good thing as Darcy was fairly certain that the reason the engine was so loud was due to her excessively speeding. Though, again Darcy could not blame Misha for the excessive use of speed. Just rather the fact that she was speeding was reason to give the road full attention.


    ¡°How?¡± Jasmine finally asked, her mind clearly in that odd fog that happens at this hour of night. The witching hour, as her mother always called it, the hour when you needed to get home quickly, lest you incur terrible luck.


    Hearing that, Darcy finally began going over the events of the weekend in order. ¡°First, you won your game. Congratulations again, it was impressive. That game alone was a one-sided beat down that we can boast about for years to come.¡±


    At that, both Misha and Jasmine nodded in acceptance.


    ¡°Then we not only met Hasty, but were chosen to be her helper.¡±


    ¡°Misha was chosen, not us,¡± Jasmine corrected.


    ¡°Right, but we got all the benefits of that. We got the VIP treatment, and even got to be on stage for the concert.¡± Darcy continued.


    ¡°The concert? You are going to call that concert a win?¡± Jasmine asked.


    ¡°Now that we survived, heck yeah.¡± Darcy stated.


    At that, Jasmine opened her mouth and looked like she wanted to protest the idiotic statement, but then finally closed her mouth and seemed to accept it as fact. Well fact now that they had in fact survived, a fact that was proven by the sign that now said they were under twenty miles away from entering their home.


    ¡°You know, now that you mention it, it probably will make for an amazing story.¡± Jasmine stated.


    Hearing that Darcy just beamed and said, ¡°thank you.¡±


    Then as if finally finding something to lower Darcy¡¯s good mood, Jasmine commented, ¡°you know you still have dried skin particles in your hair.¡±


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°What? Eww!¡± Darcy screamed as she began clawing at her hair, only to find that Jasmine was in fact correct. There was a clump of dried skin clearly stuck to her hair.


    ***


    (Two Hours Ago)


    Clump-clop-clump.


    Heard the rattling of metal as if heavy weights were jumping onto the roof of the vehicle and trying to get into the car. Hearing the sound, Darcy shot up from her deep slumber and was instantly awake and aware of her surroundings.


    ¡°AHH!¡± Darcy screamed on reflex, though even the act of screaming was odd as she felt more dried blood on her face, holding her muscles together.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay!¡± Misha said, turning around from the front seat and grabbing Darcy firmly around the wrist.


    Oddly enough, this strange act seemed to perform the desired effect as Darcy paused long enough for her mind to register that the crazy girl was holding her wrist. Then looking around, she realized the odd clumping sounds from around the vehicle were not monsters climbing to get on the car, again.


    Instead, all that was there was the unmistakable sound of a giant car wash working and cleaning off the remainder of the blood stains that had likely had time to begin to dry out on the car.


    Another quick glance showed that the time now said it was just after midnight.


    12:02


    Realizing that they were still safe, and that Misha would not have stopped at just any spot to clean up, Darcy asked. ¡°So we are safe?¡±


    Misha just shrugged.


    ¡°As safe as can be, which was why we stopped here to get gas and a car wash.¡± Jasmine replied.


    With that revelation, it was clear that Darcy had passed out, slept through turning the vehicle off and getting gas. Then only been awakened once she heard the loud thumping of the brushes spinning violently on the vehicle.


    Phew.


    With that Darcy let out an exhausted breath and then found her sleep deprived mind say the first thing that came to her.


    Even the sight of Jasmine still using her phone didn¡¯t bother her at this point. For all Darcy wanted to do was go back to sleep, as her mind was very close to being at the edge of shattering. Then her body seemed to awaken as, her mind went away from the horrors that she foresaw and settled on more immediate concerns. This was when a sleep addled Darcy made a huge mistake.


    Darcy had wanted to say that she needed to use the bathroom, as her bladder was suddenly awoken by all the sounds of water spraying and washing over the vehicle. Instead, what she actually said was, ¡°I love you.¡±


    Blink.


    With Misha still holding her hand, Darcy shook her head, and then exclaimed. ¡°I mean, I¡¯d love you if I could use the restroom.¡±


    At that Misha just nodded, but then held out a half-used packet of wet wipes, ¡°sure but you should probably use this before going in.¡±


    With that, Darcy looked down in horror and seeing the dried blood and skin particles clinging to her clothes and skin, she could only stare at herself in wide eyed horror.


    ¡°Yeah, thanks.¡±


    Then as she grabbed the packet of wipes, she began cleaning her body and wondered exactly how much of what was coming back to her was real, and how much was the residual memories of her nightmares.


    Vert-vum.


    She was about to ask, until she saw the giant brushes slowing batter and beat a thin strip of flesh down the back window of the vehicle. Seeing the particle, Darcy decided that it was best to not ask this question.


    ¡°Take your time when you go, as we will go through the wash again.¡± Misha said, her words taking a moment to fully sink in, but then afterwards Darcy could understand the logic. There had been a lot of blood to clean off and not just one cleansing would likely suffice.


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    ***


    (Four Hours Ago)


    VRRRRR!


    Despite already being outside the confines of Pittsburgh city limits, the sheer roadway system and series of broken or abandoned vehicles were staggering.


    Obstacles littered the roadway. Yet, Misha just turned and drifted her car out and around vehicles, bodies, and the occasional ambulatory image. Though ambulatory for this purpose could also mean a four-legged monster charging forth like a crazed demon hound on crack chasing their vehicle like they were the mailman delivering biscuits.


    Darcy didn¡¯t know how close things were, nor what the sudden thumps were that occasionally hit the vehicle and then seemed to bounce off into the distance.


    Truthfully, Darcy didn¡¯t want to know, which was why she just closed her eyes, hunkered down and tried to get out of Misha¡¯s sight so she could focus on leaving Pittsburgh as quickly as possible.


    Vrr-vrroom.


    Finally, the vehicle stopped swerving constantly and instead seemed to pick up the smooth flow that Darcy had become accustomed to while riding with Misha.


    Only once she was certain that there were going to be no more incidents did she open her eyes and look around.


    That was when she first noticed the streaks of dark red substance on the outside of the vehicle, right where she remembered multiple thumps occurring.


    Then she looked down and finally managed to feel the coolness of thick liquids drying on her skin.


    Don¡¯t look down, don¡¯t look down. Darcy told herself, not wanting to see the horrors that awaited. Fortunately, even when her eyes and mind betrayed her and looked, she found that it was too dark inside the cabin of the car to see anything.


    Flicker.


    Of course, that was exactly when Jasmine pulled out her phone and began searching for things to read.


    Darcy was about to complain, but then she too found herself reaching into her pocket to pull out her own phone.


    37%


    Seeing the charge left, Darcy had a terrible realization hit her.


    ¡°Shit!¡± Darcy exclaimed.


    At that, Jasmine just turned her head to look at Darcy and see if anything was going wrong. Then seeing that nothing was truly out of place, she asked. ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I just realized I left my charger back at the hotel.¡± Darcy said, referring to the hotel that they had checked out, and double checked twice before leaving that morning.


    This was a good thing too, as now all of their stuff that they had taken with them was just waiting for them in the truck of the vehicle.


    A vehicle that Darcy was still confused as to how Misha seemed to know exactly where it was, despite having been taken over ten miles away from it, due to the limousine ride and everything else that occurred that day, well yesterday.


    Glares.


    Darcy paused as she suddenly felt uncomfortable as both Misha and Jasmine just stared at her incredulously.


    ¡°What, I¡¯m not saying we need to go back, just that I won¡¯t be able to charge my phone.¡± Darcy exclaimed, then she held up her phone and showed off the low battery number.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s terrible, you have an iPhone?¡± Jasmine asked.


    With that Darcy could only nod, knowing that Jasmine¡¯s cord that she was easily pulling out of her pack would not fit her phone.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± was all Darcy could say.


    Seeing the charger that was clearly the wrong size, Darcy just thought of this as another reason why today was a terrible day.


    While the day had started off amazingly well, with being picked out. Well with Misha being picked out, and her getting to be near Hasty and see her idol in person, it had slowly spiraled out of control.


    Everything from the odd photoshoot that apparently only Misha and Hasty were in on. Then the odd concert that was cancelled midway through, where they then had to run for their lives. To Misha and Jasmine both fighting their way through the throng of scared concert goers, to the craziest getaway. Darcy was fairly certain that she was now part of the crime, an accomplice? That said, she was not going to turn herself in, not until the people she saw were no longer crazy.


    ¡°Oh, look. The CDC officially noted that they closed the concert and all future concerts for the time being.¡± Jasmine said, holding up the article that clearly showed the last act of the concert. Well it was really still the beginning act of the concert, but it was the last act for that concert as right after that the stage was rushed.


    Darkness.


    As Darcy tried to recall the memories of what happened, it was almost like there was a dark fog that clouded her mind. She knew what she saw was terrible, but despite it having just happened, her mind either couldn¡¯t process what happened. Or worse, her mind had completely blocked out the trauma of the events that happened.


    Then just as she tried to rationalize that what she saw or thinks she saw couldn¡¯t have happened, she would move and feel the coldness of drying slime cling and break apart on her skin, reminding her once more that there had been horrors. Horrors that Misha and Jasmine both had fought their way through. Not only that, but they had both made sure to take her with them.


    Finally, after a long moment, Darcy found herself asking. ¡°So, what exactly happened?¡±

 Chapter 58 The Escape (Part II)

    Chapter 58


    The Escape (Part II)


    (Misha Tulley)


    (Eight Hours Ago)


    Static buzzing.


    There is an electrical current that is hard to describe that can only be felt while in the middle of nearly seventy thousand people all gathered to hear music being created and generated.


    Even the lull before, where Hasty and her minions practiced setting up their instruments and conducting their sound checks had an unmistakable thrum and course of raw dormant electricity. Then as people began to enter, that dormant current began to increase slowly.


    It was hard to notice the effect of planetary grooming, but when you had first a thousand, then two and then ten thousand people all gathering in and slowly filling the stadium, the effect of the increased current on the stadium was invigorating. Just breathing in after half of the scheduled audience arrived caused Misha to feel alive.


    Many who are not aware of the true energy of a concert won¡¯t fully understand the excitement and experience of power that comes with so many people all gathered around to share one experience.


    Seeing it, Misha could feel the start of an artificial hive mind starting. This was nowhere near as exhilarating as the hive-mind she once remained a part of during the millennium-long war, but it was there. A close organic structure to what could be the foundation for a hive-mind.


    Had Misha known this earlier, she was certain that methods could be performed to take control of such a structure. Even though these connections were lose, they were still there albeit at a basic level. Not enough to control, but enough to guide, to force experiences and emotions onto a subject that would never be tolerated by the individual.


    It was odd, even feeling the effect herself she noticed how the blatant surge of electricity from so many bodies coming together seemed to overwhelm her own body, well her outer shell. Fortunately for Misha, her inner mind remained an impregnable palace, but it was the external portions of her body that remained opened and receptive.


    Tingle.


    Mentally, Misha used these moments before the concert to go over the phenomenon often associated with surging emotions caused by people at concerts and other venues. She found articles about people being pushed to extreme acts of violence due to misunderstanding, but the acts of violence themselves were acts that the individual in question would normally never accomplish on their own.


    For a moment, Misha wondered how such acts were made possible.


    Then she felt it, low pressure, overhead the sky grew dark as the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees in a moment. This was ten degrees that pushed the autumn night sky into the realm of almost chilly. It was the calm before a storm that was going to happen almost exactly at the same time as the concert. At least that is what Misha felt would happen, though all local weather casters said that these were just random clouds that appeared out of nowhere and would likely disappear just as quickly as they appeared.


    At first Misha believed the weather reports, that is until she felt the presence of the Rulers nearby. Though something was off about their appearances.


    The oddity of the Rulers was hard to describe, as it had been years since she last saw rulers. Well true rulers capable of effecting change on the world around them. Yet, the lightning strike from earlier and now this all showed that the power level of Rulers, particularly those in larger cities was a lot more powerful than anticipated.


    Yet, it was the messages that her harvesting system gave her when she looked at them that caused the most concern.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.2703%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Ruler Tier III detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That was the first sign that something was wrong with the individual. Seeing the person, Misha casually made her way out to the crowd, then pretending to go to a seat a row behind the individual in question, Misha made her way out, and accidentally touched the target.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 26.8108%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Reset registered, rebooting system.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    With that one touch, Misha felt a surge of energy come into her, but then realized that this was not the only issue. For looking around she noticed that in the crowd were hundreds of other Bakshee Awakened cast members in attendance.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.2703%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Worker Tier IV detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    While Misha could do nothing for the Tier IV worker, nor the throng of minions who were all collectively linked to the leader, she could spot a few others that had warnings within her Tier III and below reaction range.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.2703%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Warrior Tier I detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.2703%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Warrior Tier II detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.2703%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Warrior Tier III detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the scale and knowing that Misha, at least for now was limited to just eight reapings a day, Misha decided to get the most bang for her buck by focusing only resetting the Tier IIIs in any of the classes.


    In the end Misha had managed to effectively use all eight of her reapings on a total of two Tier III Rulers, along with three Tier III Workers and Warriors respectively.


    While this event did get her a full 4.8 Improvement points to add, Misha felt that this was not the way she truly wanted to reach this setting. Not when it meant that so many unattended warnings were being left unattended. Most concerning were the Tier IV and at least one Tier V Worker. Well Misha couldn¡¯t exactly tell what her true Tier rating was, but seeing as she was surrounded by a dozen or so Tier IV drones, yes drones, Misha figured the one she couldn¡¯t tell the rating of was a Tier V.


    In the end Misha split it mostly evenly, granting one point each to Strength and Stamina, and then one point four points each for Dexterity and Agility.


    With the forced Tier upgrade thanks to her meeting Hasty she still had both a higher maximum and of course the one additional Harvested slot that remained opened. Additionally, thanks to her now being a Tier III, she was able to reap Tier II Abilities from the different Tier IIIs that she successfully harvested.


    Given everyone of the Bakshee¡¯s corrupted states, reaping them and resetting their baseline back to Tier 0 was easy.


    What wasn¡¯t so easy was choosing which of the Tier II abilities she would in fact take from the Tier III individuals she harvested.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 42.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Warrior system Skills Available:


    Tier II


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Mind Shield (7)


    Rapid Healing (4)


    Tier I


    Feral Weapons (2)


    Increased Durability (1)


    Enhanced Comprehension Speed (4)


    Enhanced Senses (1): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell


    Increased Attribute (1): Dexterity, Agility


    Shaman (5): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 41.4054%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Worker system Skills Available:


    Tier II


    Mind Shield (5)


    Bond Minion (1, 3, 5, 7)


    Tier I


    Enhanced Senses (2): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell


    Increased Attribute (2): Dexterity, Agility


    Enhanced Comprehension Speed (1)


    Increased Endurance (2)


    Commanding Voice (5)


    Allure (4)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.8649%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Ruler system Skills Available:


    Tier II


    Mind Shield (3)


    Bond Minion (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8)


    Greater Storm (7)


    Tier I


    Elemental Focus (1): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    Secondary Focus (2): Lightning ¨C Prerequisite (Fire and Air)


    Secondary Focus (2): Ice ¨C Prerequisite (Water and Air)


    Secondary Focus (2): Metal ¨C Prerequisite (Earth and Fire)


    Commanding voice (2)


    Allure (2)


    Increased Comprehension speed (1)


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the options, Misha could only pause, as she realized that each of the three classes all went for some form of mind shield, which would only be present if it was in the targeted host. From this, Misha could only surmise that as the different individuals got higher in their respective classes, the need to protect their mind became more of a concern.


    Then she also noticed that Tier II was where both the Workers and Rulers both began to get subordinates that could be linked. Seeing those options, and the fact that Mind Shields became prevalent at that Tier, Misha could only assume that the safety net was given to protect the users from being turned into a drone themselves.


    Realizing the importance of protecting her mind from being influenced by others, along with the fact that she was certain that with so many of her targeted subjects having the Tier II skill, Misha took Mind Shield and got it to the second iteration. There was also enough for her to raise her Danger Sense to the third ranking as well, causing her final build to be somewhat impressive given where she started out this trip at.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 34.7027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Tier -III</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Improved Harvesting (2)</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Harvested Slot: Heightened Danger Sense (9)</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Additional Harvest Slot: Mind Shield (15)</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 28.5405%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Physical Characteristics: (4.8 Applied)</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Strength: 15.3 -> 16.3/ 18.9</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Dexterity: 22.1 -> 23.5 / 30</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Agility: 22.1 -> 23.5 / 30</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Stamina: 15.3 ->16.3/ 18.9</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    While Misha was still sad that she wasn¡¯t fully meeting her Attribute limit, she was glad that her Tier III ranking was still considered a perfect evolution. Meaning that even now she knew that the flaws of her build were slowly but surely being whittled away.


    With the new Mind Shield in place, Misha also thought that she could feel a clear protective layer forming in her body that existed just outside her skull that would prevent any foreign powers from entering her psyche. While it wasn¡¯t a perfect shield, it was still something that clearly looked like it could negate energy coming in. Also given that she could easily recognize the openings within the mind shield, it was clear that she was able to direct her thoughts outward in a controlled, but protected manner that would not be stopped by this shield.


    With her second harvested slot in place and fully active, Misha felt confident with her choices thus far and began heading back to the stage.


    Cough.


    As she began making her way back, that is when she began to hear the first of what would soon turn into many coughs.


    The coughs almost became contagious, as everyone that was noted as being awakened all began to cough.


    Then to Misha¡¯s surprise, even a few of the non-coughing awakened Warriors and Workers that were in attendance soon began to cough as well.


    Once any awakened began to cough, Misha would immediately notice the warning pop up over their heads.


    Cough.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.2703%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Warrior Tier I detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Cough, cough.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.2703%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Warrior Tier I detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 49.9459%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Defective Warrior Tier II detected. Immediate Reset required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Just seeing the messages appear out of nowhere caused Misha to realize that something was going on. Then as she made her way back, she felt it.


    Hot poison breath.


    Yes, someone coughed almost right on top of her.


    The moment they did, Misha felt something she didn¡¯t expect to feel at a concert, perhaps it was something she didn¡¯t expect to feel ever. But there it was, nanites. Well not true nanites, but an oddly familiar form of bio-attack against her body.


    For a moment, she felt the spot of hot air on her skin, almost as if it burned. Which realistically it sort of did, at least at first.


    Then Misha felt the underlying controls of the electrodes being used, she felt the coursing of power trying to delve deep into her skin.


    That was when she realized this for what it was, a Psycher doomsday weapon. Well, a close proximity to the doomsday weapon. These were the equivalent of last ditch nuclear weapons that the Psychers would only deploy after every vessel and operator had died and the Bakshee were set to storm the mothership.


    Due to how violent and corrosive the Psycher doomsday weapons were, they were placed with the Maintainers. At the time Misha was told that such an arrangement was based on how much trust and respect the other Psychers had for their beloved maintainers.


    It was there that Misha, having been placed in charge of the doomsday weapons and their maintenance had been forced to interact with both the neutralizing containers and at one point a partial breach of one of the containers.


    While the chemicals themselves were supposed to be able to distinguish from Psycher and Bakshee alike in theory, the practice was not exactly as preached. Still as a good Psycher, Misha developed a cure for the contagion, basically create a quick fire that would burn the device entirely.


    That was what Misha had done when she only had access to fire. Given that she had multiple bodies that she could reincarnate into, such a drastic approach was not beyond the realm of probability. And that was how treating the contagion was originally dealt with. Over time, it was determined that applying a highly concentrated electrical jolt to affected parts of the body would also be enough to stop the spread of the contagion.


    This was why Misha¡¯s first reaction to the foreign chemical was to burn off the infected appendage, particularly as dark boils began to form on her skin almost immediately.


    Yet, she paused, realizing that there was no other vessel for her. Also, this vessel had been painstakingly harvested and researched to get to this point. There were also the mental concerns she had about the treatment of Psycher Maintainers, particularly now that the memory of having to house and care for occasionally leaking super weapons was placed in their care during intense war time activities. These thoughts and more flashed through her mind, until she realized that this life in particular granted her a separate advantage, in that she could wield and control electricity.


    Zap.


    Not even thinking about the consequences, Misha directed a bolt of the ambient energy around her directly into her arm and body.


    Thrum.


    The hair on her arms stood up on end, as she felt the pulse of energy. Then she felt the breakdown of the foreign bioweapon under her skin.


    Mentally, she began directing her body to attack the foreign substance and immediately begin working on specialized antibodies to protect against future attacks.


    Given the widespread use of these viral infections and the fact that by now almost everyone who had come was either coughing, or being coughed upon, Misha made her way back stage.


    There she saw something that brought horror to her face, as she saw the fact that Jasmine, her teammate and dare she say friend was backstage with dark bags under her eyes.


    Seeing her, Misha immediately went over.


    ¡°Watch out, I think I caught something.¡± Jasmine stated.


    As she approached, Misha was first concerned, but then was relieved to see the message forming over her head.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 69.0811%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning! Unknown Corruption Attempted on Warrior Tier 0 detected. No immediate action required.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the message, Misha realized that apparently Jasmine being used multiple times as a human, or rather Warrior Class, harvesting subject paid off. As the contagion seemed to focus on Bakshee class members who had not been harvested back to a more stable state.


    Then as if realizing something, Misha turned to Darcy, ¡°is Hasty okay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, she spoke of having a headache earlier, but said that she will be good to go for her performance.¡± Darcy replied.


    At that, Misha felt the strange sensation of warning growing within her gut, it might have been the fact that she just increased its potency, but Misha could not help but feel suddenly worried about what was happening around her.


    ¡°We need to stop the concert,¡± Misha said.


    Dun-duna-dwaaa!


    At that, three notes of an electric guitar being strummed and left to reverberate throughout the stadium could be heard echoing even backstage.


    With that Misha could only realize that she was too late and that the concert that she now needed to stop, was suddenly going in full effect.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Jasmine asked.


    Hearing her teammate, Misha first wanted to respond with a yes, as she didn¡¯t want to over speculate. That was until she felt the tension growing within her stomach, as she realized that something was about to go extremely wrong.


    There was a slow build up, but slowly over time, the tension grew.


    Finally, Misha unable to watch in silence anymore went out and then saw the storm cloud coming in, a literal metaphor for things to come, as it was clear that the storm was being brought on by powers outside nature¡¯s control.


    That was the first sign that things were going exceedingly wrong, but slowly as the rain began to pour, it almost seemed like the rain helped spread the disastrous infection.


    Crackle.


    Off in the distance lightning began to spark and illuminate the night sky.


    Then almost as one, the underlying electrical current of so many bodies being in such close proximity began to change. Morphing from the joyous anticipation of music, into something far darker.


    Then, it happened. The moment the entire audience had been seemingly waiting for began, the concert began to rock on in full glory for a second, a brief second before anarchy overtook the crowd. As suddenly, as if in response to the building tension, a final command was given.


    It was simple, a slight pulse that seemed to piggy back off of the electrical ambiance that flooded the stadium. With that one simple pulse, the final catalyst for the poison was released, causing all those infected with the virus to have their bodies pulse and mutate, all before the final act of what would soon be unleashed truly began.


    Thwoom.


    Just like that, the hair on Misha¡¯s head began to rise due to static electricity, as true horrors began to manifest right before her eyes.

 Chapter 59 The Escape (Part III)

    Chapter 59


    The Escape (Part III)


    Jasmine Sweet


    (Six Hours Ago)


    Howl!


    A deep echoing cry of pain rang out. Pain that was clearly being expressed by a master of unfathomable power.


    Hearing the howl, Jasmine felt the unmistakable power and cry of a master many tiers above her own.


    Stasis.


    Hearing the deafening pain filled howl caused her body to tense up as she realized that this was it, things were nearing the end.


    Her body was locked into place, held as if awaiting to hear the inevitable commands. Commands that would seemingly never come.


    Worse, her body was caught in a state of slight movement, where only the pace and position of her feet were enough to keep her balance. Should a breeze or anything come at her from the sides, she would easily be knocked over.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Darcy asked, her arms going over to grab the large girl who all but stood in perfect stone stillness. Just as nearly a fourth of those who were in attendance.


    Seeing that something was wrong, Darcy reached out to grab hold of Jasmine¡¯s arm in an attempt to keep her from falling.


    ¡°Answer me!¡± Darcy cried out, fear evident in her voice. Just hearing the concern in her voice caused Jasmine to rethink the small girl, that had been seen as little more than a fellow groupie. But at this, hearing her and feeling her warmth against her arm, Jasmine almost felt like she could break free of the mental hold that the terrorizing howl had invoked within her mind.


    Meanwhile, while Jasmine and some of her unwitting werewolves were caught still, awaiting a command, anything to break them from the clutches that bound them.


    Other monsters in attendance also gave out orders.


    Thunderclap!


    Lightning split the skies, as dense rain began to fall.


    Simultaneously, hundreds of quivering emo teens were released from a mental hold and set loose on the crowd.


    That¡¯s when the master who had given out the howl of agony let loose another final and more violent command.


    ¡°Fight!¡±


    Hearing the command, Jasmine sprung to life. The tension that had been holding her body in place was now set free, as she was finally able to move on her own.


    Rage filled her, as she felt her body growing and changing on its own. Her Lycra leggings and other stretchable clothing began to bend and stretch to fill her new size and dimensions.


    With this new command to fight, her body was seemingly able to grow larger and stronger than she had ever imagined. There was an annoying weight on her left arm, that she quickly dislodged by the quick violent shaking of her left arm. Then much as a horse would use its long tail to swat away a fly, so too did Jasmine use her same strength and power to swat away the fly that had been bothering her left arm.


    ¡°Oof!¡± A familiar cry rang out, bringing forth memories within Jasmine¡¯s mind. Memories that were being overridden by the fact that all of her enhanced senses were now sensing the smell of other monsters nearby. Monsters that her species had evolved over time to war and fight against. Monsters that set off mental warnings about possible dangers that would be unleashed.


    Dangers that even now Jasmine was turning towards and preparing to strike out against.


    ZZAAPPP!


    That was until, Jasmine felt an intense jolt of electrical energy course through her. Then in just as many minutes, Jasmine once again felt her body lock up in place. But then soon found the hold, and the unavoidable command from the pack elder to snap in her mind.


    Flicker.


    The world flickered, as her mind suddenly relaxed from the strain and unavoidable rage that she had been forced to endure. Rage that she had been forced to act upon.


    Collapse.


    Jasmine collapsed to the ground, her body and muscles twitching and convulsing as she finally felt control of both her mind and body coming back to her slowly, the same way an old computer system would.


    From the ground, Jasmine saw Misha first check on Jasmine, going so far as to look into her eyes. Then seeing something, maybe a form of recognition, she nodded.


    ¡°Sorry about that, but you already hurt Darcy, and I didn¡¯t know what you were going to do next.¡± Misha said, her voice calm and incongruous to the violence and mayhem that was happening around them.


    ¡°Stop this!¡± Hasty, or maybe one of her staff was calling out trying to get order over the scene, but something had clearly gone wrong a long time ago.


    ¡°Get up,¡± Misha said, lightly slapping Jasmine on the cheek, a slight jolt of electricity passing in the touch, but not enough to hurt. Instead, this one seemed to help her mind gain control over her body a little easier.


    With that Jasmine was able to shake her head and begin to get to her feet.


    Now that Jasmine was up, Misha began looking around, and then panic filled her face as she darted off to the left.


    In the back of her mind, Jasmine realized that the spot where Misha ran towards was the spot where the annoying pest on her arm got sent.


    Only now, that she was finally back in control of her mind did she realize what had been happening. That was Darcy?


    Looking over, Jasmine saw the small girl sprawled out over a speaker that had been knocked over. Her feet were up and exposed in the same way that Jasmine remembered the way the only thing visible of the wicked witch of the east was her shoes.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Seeing the same image now, Jasmine shot to her feet and stagger jogged over to see Misha standing over Darcy.


    Groan.


    Darcy was in bad shape, blood was pouring out of a gash on her head, and Misha was there checking the wound.


    A wound that inwardly caused Jasmine to flinch up, if only for a moment. Yet Misha was there, pulling off her outer Hasty shirt and wrapping it around Darcy¡¯s head like a souvenir bandana.


    Seeing the state of Darcy, Jasmine could only get close and realize that this was her fault. She had struck this person who was nothing but kind to her, while her mind and body were forced to work against her will.


    Tremor thump.


    The feeling of movement on the stage could be felt, as apparently part of the audience that had been set into a frenzy now stormed the stage.


    Turning, Jasmine saw monsters. There was no other word to describe the once humanoid creatures that now stormed the stage in complete carnage.


    Just when Jasmine thought she would have to fight back, to defend herself an intense bolt of energy shot past her right ear and impaled the first pursuer. Then arced out the back of the would be attacker and ended up striking three more people that were all charging forward.


    Panic.


    The beam was so close that Jasmine could feel the heat all but burning the hair on her head. With the intense beam so close, it was all she could do to gently twist and shift her body away from the path of the beam.


    Then once it stopped, she turned to see Misha standing there with her left hand out, like she was some kind of superhero.


    More tremors.


    Then just as that initial wave was stopped, a second larger wave began to charge. Turning to see the new threat, Jasmine watched in awe and horror as a wall of flames erupted up from the stage, like a miscued pyrotechnic display that separated Jasmine from the lunging humanoid monsters.


    A few of the faster bodies were still swept up in the flames. Their bodies bursting through the circular pillar of flame and almost instantly being set ablaze by the intense heat.


    Once again Jasmine turned back to see Misha in an intense state of focus. This time she had both hands out, as she focused her attention.


    Seeing her, Jasmine could all but feel the energy radiating off of her in waves. Energy that seemed far more potent than anything she had ever experienced in her lifetime.


    Jasmine opened her mouth to talk, to say something, anything. But it was Misha who ended up breaking the silence as she stated, ¡°grab her and let¡¯s get out of here.¡±


    Hearing the words, it took a second for them to fully register in Jasmine¡¯s mind, before they finally began to settle in.


    Then hearing them, she nodded and standing up began to gingerly walk forward.


    For a moment, Jasmine wondered if she would be able to carry the small girl, as her muscles were just now beginning to regain their original strength. Fortunately, the girl was small, that or Jasmine was suddenly a lot stronger than she remembered, maybe it was the lingering traces of adrenaline in her system. Regardless of the reason, Jasmine was easily able to grab and carry Darcy¡¯s small frame in a modified princess carry, not wanting to expose her head to any more trauma.


    ¡°You ready?¡± Misha asked, glancing over her shoulders as she continued to keep the flames high, and all but obscure their movements.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Jasmine replied, then when she was just about to ask what exactly Misha was doing, Misha spoke.


    ¡°Also, know that whatever you see from here on didn¡¯t happen.¡± Misha stated.


    ¡°Right,¡± Jasmine replied and like Jasmine made what had to be her most memorable exit from a concert ever.


    For her part, all Jasmine could see was flames, flames that seemed to move in a clear and concise manner around the three of them. Odder still was the fact that the smoke from the flames never seemed to bother the trio, even the heat of the flames seemed to be directed outwards. This was not to say that the flames were not hot, but rather the focus of the flames seemed to be outwards.


    This of course, only lasted through the trek of the stage that had wooden planks set down, likely to lessen the impact of musicians who jumped around and performed on stage.


    The moment the trio walked down the stage, everything seemed to change.


    First, Misha seemed to know the exact layout of the stage, the exits, and most importantly where each monster lurked.


    Boom, boom, pop!


    Going out the main exit tunnel, the one that led to where the home team¡¯s lockers would be, there were dozens of humanoid monsters moving and flailing about. Yet, as they got close, to the trio bright explosions in the back or front pockets would erupt.


    It was horrible and grotesque, as tightly fitting pants, jeans, and other apparel clearly burst and exploded as they got closer.


    Only after a second of recognition and smelling the oddly familiar scent of burning plastic did Jasmine¡¯s mind register what had happened. Misha had somehow caused the cell phones and other electronic devices that each person had on them to burst or explode.


    Since these were monsters, or humans that lost all reasoning skills, they never even thought to pull out their phones, apparently.


    Instead, they went into a form of rage and destruction that was seemingly unavoidable.


    From there, Jasmine mostly seemed to zone out, barely keeping pace with Misha, while carrying the body of Darcy that slowly began to get heavier and heavier.


    ¡°Please calm down!¡± The voices cried out.


    By now it had only been a matter of minutes, but the carnage was going full force.


    Rumble!


    The sound of hundreds of panicking people charging and trampling over each other overhead could be heard as Misha continued to guide them out side passageways that seemed to lead to an auxiliary staff parking lot.


    SNARLING!


    Just going outside, Jasmine could hear the howl and cries of monsters going wild.


    The scent of ozone and unfettered power was pungent in the air.


    Thump, badump.


    As they got out, monsters from all over began charging towards them. For a second Jasmine wondered why, but then sniffing, she too smelled the unmistakable scent of blood coming from Darcy¡¯s head.


    Then just when she thought she would have to do something to help fight off the charging monsters, the strangest thing happened.


    Misha held out her hand and caused not one but two armored vehicles to come to life, high beams on instantly. Their lights so bright that they caused the charging humanoid creatures to blink and cover their eyes.


    This was all the vehicles needed, as they seemed to shift into gear by themselves and violently sped forward before plowing into and through the mob of monsters and fleeing concert goers.


    Shock.


    Jasmine could only look on in shock at that, but then looking she saw the eyes of Misha glow brightly as she realized that Misha had just killed those people by driving a car over them.


    ¡°Holy shit Misha!¡± Jasmine exclaimed.


    Pausing for a second, Misha turned, her eyes still glowing as she turned to Jasmine.


    ¡°What would you have me do?¡± Misha asked.


    At that Jasmine just paused, then seeing the cars that were still going wide and mowing over and down more monsters.


    Even now the bodies that had been run over slowly twitched and seemed to reach up, as if guided by either cartoon violence or some unearthly power.


    ¡°Nothing,¡± Jasmine finally stated, realizing that the horrors of this night were somehow just beginning.


    ¡°Okay, you still good?¡± Misha asked.


    Pausing for a moment Jasmine wondered if she was still good, but then she wondered how could she be good? She had been mind controlled, electrocuted, and then watched phones be used as miniature explosives to disable people, then what was likely the worst case of road rage possible.


    Then to make matters worse, Jasmine could feel the adrenaline that her body had been using up until this point slowly wearing off.


    ¡°No, I could use a rest,¡± Jasmine said.


    For a moment Misha just stared at her with an, are you serious look, but then seemed to look around as another vehicle came to life. This was one of those reinforced hummers, you know the ones that are extensive gas guzzlers and completely impractical for anything other than apparently surviving an apocalypse.


    The vehicle that randomly sparked to life zoomed through the parking lot and stopped right in front of Jasmine.


    ¡°Hop in.¡± Misha stated, before jumping into the front seat.


    Pausing for a moment, Jasmine wondered what she should do with Darcy.


    ¡°Should I buckle her in?¡±


    ¡°I would,¡± Misha stated. At that, Jasmine just nodded then as soon as the door was closed behind her they were off, twisting and swerving through the parking lot.


    VROOM, vroom, vroom.


    As they moved, Jasmine heard more and more vehicles purr to life as they made their way through the parking lot. While Jasmine didn¡¯t know what was happening, she knew that her first priority was to get Darcy strapped into the back of the car. From there, she then felt her own body getting jostled about, and immediately began strapping herself in. Well she tried to.


    Ultimately it wasn¡¯t until her third full attempt that she was able to get enough slack in the seatbelt to wrap over her lap before Misha cut or violently turned the wheel, implementing the automatic locks on the seatbelt.


    Looking down, Jasmine almost felt jealous of Jasmine, who had one of the center seats that was not susceptible to the odd restraints.


    Then seeing Darcy still getting jostled about, she reached over and snuggled the small girl against her chest, before taking a moment to look forward and see what was happening.


    Before her was something out of Mad Max, or some other violent racing movie, where three vehicles were charging forward, clearing roadways and causing a path to be clear, as each vehicle seemed to sacrifice themselves to clear a path.


    Then finally, they found themselves outside the mall, in the now vacant overflow parking lot that still held one Mustang GT.


    ¡°How did you?¡± Was all Jasmine began to say, but then just stopped asking questions as she didn¡¯t want to know at this time.


    Instead, all she did was follow Misha who once again seemed to be doing something completely crazy.


    Seeing the vehicle, Jasmine felt both joy and a sense of relief wash over her, as she knew this car meant safety.


    As they approached, the Mustang purred to life, as if ready for their immanent departure.


    ¡°Grab her and let¡¯s go.¡± Misha stated, jumping out of the vehicle that apparently could stop immediately.


    Misha¡¯s driving skills once again impressed Jasmine as she went from nearly forty miles an hour to a complete stop in with only inches of space between the doors that would be opened. This way the distance they had to carry Darcy¡¯s body was almost nothing.


    ¡°What, huh?¡± Darcy cried out, her hands trying to seemingly fight off Jasmine¡¯s hands that were attempting to unbuckle her.


    ¡°Come on, we are almost done.¡± Jasmine said, her tone soft as she wanted Darcy to work with her, rather than against.


    ¡°What, what about the concert?¡± Darcy asked, her voice groggy.


    KA-BOOM!


    At that, an eruption of what had to be a bomb going off within the stadium could be felt even from the distant parking lot.


    ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s just say it was a blast, and get out of here.¡± Jasmine stated.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Darcy stated a bit melancholically as she followed Jasmine and seemed to be able to ease her way into the back seat of Misha¡¯s car before passing out again.


    The moment everyone was out and clear of the vehicle, Jasmine couldn¡¯t help but turn to Misha to wonder what they should do with the car.


    Then as if reading Jasmine¡¯s mind, she watched as Misha¡¯s eyes once again glowed, though slightly dimmer this time as vehicle sped off and accelerated, before catching flames then crashed into a building.


    With that Misha visibly looked to deflate for a moment.


    ¡°Can I do anything?¡± Jasmine found herself asking the obviously tired looking Misha.


    ¡°Do you mind driving for a bit?¡± Misha asked.


    And then hearing the question for what it was, Jasmine let a smile fill her face as she would finally get her own chance to drive the Mustang.


    ¡°Yeah, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ve got this.¡± Jasmine said, not realizing exactly how disastrous those words would be.

 Chapter 60 The Return (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 60


    The Return


    (Misha Tulley)


    (Current Time)


    The tension finally began to ease, the closer the three got to their final destination. A strange sense of emptiness fell over the trio.


    Now that they were back in town, the craziness of what they had just witnessed and experienced finally began to settle in.


    Jasmine for her part kept giving side long glances at Misha. There was awe and a bit more in those gazes as she seemed to have realized something about Misha.


    That¡¯s when Jasmine began the process of trying to at least stay next to Misha.


    ¡°Hey, I just realized. I¡¯m not expected back until much later today, or maybe even tonight. Is there a way I could stay with you?¡± Jasmine asked, her question primarily directed towards Misha, but as Darcy was also there, she too just had to but in.


    ¡°Yeah, that sounds great, we can all go to my house, it is more than large enough for all three of us, also my parents are out of town this weekend, so it would be great to have friends over.¡± Darcy began, her voice slightly timid as she too clearly did not want to be left alone after the ordeal they had all gone through.


    ¡°One second, let me try to call my pops.¡± Misha said, as she pulled off the road and found a well lit parking lot connected to a closed strip mall that would awaken in about three hours or so, once it was daylight out. For now, it was still early in the morning and it was at that stage when the human mind tried to fight to go to sleep one last time before the full effects of night were gone.


    ¡°You can¡¯t the lines are all dead.¡± Darcy started, but that didn¡¯t matter as Misha already had out her phone and was dialing Grandpa.


    Brring, bring.


    This was part of why Misha wanted to pull off, as it allowed her to focus her will on the devices that had been blocked out, and force them to operate.


    ¡°What, hello?¡± A clearly haggard sounding Phil answered, his voice unnaturally horse for some odd reason.


    ¡°Hey, we made it back safe, but we were wondering if we could stay together?¡± Misha asked.


    Misha feeling that something wasn¡¯t right, mentally reached out through the phone to get it to live stream her grandfather''s face.


    This was easy to explain, as people always inadvertently hit the camera button when they were talking and seldom realized exactly what was happening. For Misha though, the phone was doing more than sharing an image, as she was able to use the phone to tell that there was a slight tremble to the way Phil held himself.


    In the camera view, Darcy and Jasmine got to see the side view of an old man who looked like he had aged ten years since they left.


    ¡°What? Yeah, I wouldn¡¯t mind if you came.¡± Phil said, a slight smile coming to his wrinkled face.


    Seeing the look on his face, Misha realized something was wrong, though she couldn¡¯t quite tell from that angle, which was why she decided to switch the camera view.


    Switching the view of the camera, so that it now showed the exterior of the room Phil was in, Misha saw that Phil was in bed. There next to him was the picture frame of Julie, her grandmother.


    It was clear that there was some form of ritualism in the gesture, as Julie¡¯s frame was sitting on the untouched side of the bed that had likely been set aside for Julie. A side that even now, Phil wouldn¡¯t dare to touch, lest he offend the ghost of his dead wife.


    Seeing the camera angle, Misha couldn¡¯t help but ask.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t leave the room at all while I was gone, did you?¡± Misha asked.


    With this Darcy and Jasmine both went to look at the same image that Misha saw, but both were wondering what led Misha to this conclusion.


    However, they didn¡¯t know that Misha had already channeled her mind into the various mechanical and electrical devices around the room.


    Devices like the alarm clock told her that the alarm had not been set since Friday, the day she left. The fan¡¯s breeze showed that there was a faint musky odor that it was battling to fight back. His watch that would have told Misha his vitals including his heartbeat, breaths per minute, and steps taken all showed zero steps taken since Friday.


    Indicating that he hadn¡¯t moved. That or if he had, he hadn¡¯t taken his watch with him. This meant that he hadn¡¯t gone outside of his house, as he would always want his watch with him while working. It was one of the few social ticks that her grandfather had that made him so endearing.


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    Now that she had all of this information, it became apparent that Misha would be needed to get him out of this fugue state that he was in. Just when she thought she would have to play dirty, Phil stated the truth.


    ¡°No, no, I didn¡¯t.¡± Phil finally admitted after seemingly battling with himself for a moment.


    Hearing that Misha just nodded, the fact that he was honest with himself was a good sign. It meant that he didn¡¯t want to lie about his state or condition.


    ¡°Okay, well we are coming over and we expect you at your best.¡± Misha stated, then turned to face Darcy and Jasmine to see if that was okay.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Darcy said, ¡°though know I might need to take a shower there.¡±


    ¡°Well I don¡¯t think I can help you there.¡± Phil stated.


    Chuckles.


    With that Phil¡¯s humor shone through.


    ¡°Aww, you sure? I have this spot that will be very hard to get.¡± Jasmine stated, using her voice to purr into the phone.


    Hearing her, Phil melodramatically clutched his hand over his chest.


    Seeing the gesture, Misha decided that now was likely as good a time as any to end the video call portion, but still keep the line open.


    ¡°Ms. Jasmine, please don¡¯t tease this old man. My heart can only take but so much.¡± Phil stated.


    Hearing him go into his normally charismatic role, Misha let a smile crest her face.


    This too was a good sign.


    It meant that while Phil was still grieving, still feeling lonely, particularly when left alone for some time. He was not entirely done for, not yet at least.


    ¡°Aww, you too cute Mr. Tulley. But I will see you soon.¡± Jasmine stated, her voice playful.


    ¡°Well if you have both Ms. Jasmine and Ms. Darcy there, then I should definitely take a few moments to get ready for your arrival.¡± Phil said, his voice perking up the more he spoke.


    With that taken care of, and Phil given enough time to get up and make himself presentable, Misha ended the call as they gave their final pleasantries.


    ¡°Well, we are about ten minutes out, and will see you shortly.¡± Misha stated.


    ¡°I¡¯ll see you then.¡± Phil said, his voice drastically different from when she first called.


    Click.


    The moment the call ended, Jasmine spoke.


    ¡°Wow, he is not doing well is he?¡±


    ¡°No, he is still taking the death of grandmother pretty hard.¡± Misha answered.


    With that, Misha felt a surge of determination fill her, as she remembered the grudge that she had set aside.


    At the time, she had done so because she felt she was too weak, the little mind backlash she faced from her phone stalking stunt proved that she had been reckless with her approach. But now she felt powerful enough to actually do the things that she needed to do, in order to set thing right.


    ¡°It still bothers you too, doesn¡¯t it, her death?¡± Jasmine asked.


    Hearing that, she was drawn from her internal thoughts and realized that her emotions might have been on display.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± was all Misha could say truthfully.


    ¡°Well come on, we are definitely not ending this until school starts tomorrow.¡± Jasmine stated, making it so that both Misha and Darcy realized that school would start again tomorrow.


    Darcy was annoyed as she would clearly need more rest to recover from her already long and exhausting weekend. Misha on the other hand, clearly had other things on her mind.


    For Misha realized that by tomorrow, she would see Rodger and most likely Alishia, particularly if there was a game.


    With this trip, Misha had grown so much. She had gone from a Tier II to a Tier III, thanks to her meeting Hasty. She had also seen the pinnacle of power that larger cities offered.


    Seeing them all, Misha realized that she was now strong enough to hopefully survive an attack.


    She also realized that for peace of mind, she would need to strike out, to take her revenge. Particularly as she had let her grandfather be able to sleep soundly knowing that Julie¡¯s death had been avenged.


    Also, she had to make sure that ritualistic killing for sport would no longer be practiced.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Darcy asked, her voice concerned as she locked gazes with Misha.


    Misha for her part just stopped and nodded.


    ¡°Yeah, just worried about him.¡± Misha admitted.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll make sure he is safe.¡± Jasmine said.


    At that Misha just gave a somewhat skeptical stare at Jasmine.


    ¡°I mean, before it was taboo. But now that he is single, who knows.¡± Jasmine stated as a coy smile filled her lips.


    ¡°Oh, that is gross!¡± Darcy said, smacking Jasmine on the arm from the back seat. But then she too added, ¡°though I can definitely tell where you get your good looks from.¡±


    That last bit was directed towards Misha.


    Misha for her part just turned to face Darcy who suddenly blushed brightly at the sudden attention from both Misha and Jasmine.


    ¡°Wait, no, I didn¡¯t mean that you look like a man, I just meant that¡­¡± Darcy tried to respond.


    ¡°Just stop digging the hole deeper,¡± Jasmine said.


    With that Misha for her part just gave a slight smile before shaking her head. Honestly, Misha had no clue what just happened, but figured that for whatever reason Darcy seemed too embarrassed to answer honestly.


    At that, Misha just put the car into reverse, then began driving home.


    Home, it was an odd concept that Misha had a hard time understanding until now. Home wasn¡¯t a typical Psycher word, and seemed to be one that was generated on this planet. Yet, after so many years of being here, she finally understood the meaning of the word, but only after its true meaning had been corrupted. Only after the meaning had been tainted by the removal of what made the home more than a house, and more than just a dwelling to shelter yourself from the elements.


    Her home had been violated, broken by the fact that a key member of her home had been taken from her.


    Even now she could feel the slightly empty void of the house. The way the house had less residual energy due to grandmother¡¯s body not being there to generate residual heat and cast-off energy the way all life forms do.


    Just driving back, and mentally reaching out to her home, it felt like one of the lights was out. Not enough to make things impossible to see, but enough to be noticed. Enough to make the room that much dimmer.


    Having had a moment to breathe, to experience the world and come back, Misha felt like she had grown.


    In a way, the weekend out had been exactly what she needed, for she came back energized, and refreshed.


    Now she was ready to begin her plan of exacting revenge.


    ***


    Monday morning came far quicker than the girls had expected.


    In the end they all stayed at Misha¡¯s place for Sunday night as well. Using Misha¡¯s washer and dryer to clean their extra clothes and uniforms, before heading to class.


    For Darcy this was fine as she would have otherwise had to stay alone at her own house.


    This also meant that Misha would have to drop her off at her house after school to get her car back.


    ¡°Honestly, I have to thank you. Just having a day to relax was perfect, so thank you and thank Phil for me as well.¡± Darcy said, as they made their way back to school.


    Seeing the school, a strange sense of apathy washed over the occupants of the vehicle. Looking at the old building, it almost felt like they had all suddenly outgrown the building that had just a week ago felt so large and overwhelming.


    ¡°Not a problem.¡± Misha stated, as she began pulling into the school parking lot.


    ¡°Hey, there¡¯s Rodger,¡± Darcy stated.


    ¡°Yeah, next to his ex?¡± Jasmine stated.


    Hearing her, Misha looked and saw the two of them. Then as if suddenly realizing who was driving the Mustang GT, Rodger instantly jumped away from Alishia.


    Seeing their reaction, a thought came to Misha¡¯s mind, as she proceeded to drive down to the far end of the parking lot and proceeded to park there.


    ¡°What are you going to do?¡± Jasmine asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ll get even.¡± Misha noted.


    ¡°Good, he deserves it after cheating on you like that.¡± Jasmine stated.


    At that Misha could only nod.


    ¡°Wait, they might not have cheated¡­¡± Darcy added, but then stopped herself as she realized she was defending the likely ex-boyfriend of her crush. ¡°No wait, I agree, get even.¡±


    And like that the trio left the car, ready for a new day at school.


    ¡°Hey wait, I can explain!¡± Rodger said, ¡°it wasn¡¯t what it looked like.¡±


    Hearing him, Misha just glared at him, but then remembering that it was time to make things right, she turned to face the boy.


    ¡°Not here, we¡¯ll talk later.¡± Misha stated coldly, before turning to join her friends on the way into school.


    Rodger for his part, felt a shiver run down his spine at the intense stare coming from Misha, someone who he feared would likely become his ex here, if he didn¡¯t play his cards right.


    ¡°You mean it though, right? That you¡¯ll get even with him?¡± Jasmine asked, after they were well out of hearing range for Rodger.


    Hearing her, Misha could only smile a thin malicious smile.


    ¡°Oh yeah, him and Alishia both.¡±


    Then with that, they entered school each feeling happy with the comments made by Misha, but for drastically different reasons each.

 Chapter 61 Noticing Discrepancies

    Chapter 61


    Noticing Discrepancies


    (Misha Tulley)


    To say that people reacted differently since the since Misha and the others left for the concert would be an understatement.


    While it had only been two and a half days, the actual impact on society was far more than expected. Even out in far away places like Jackson West Virginia.


    If Misha had to use one word to describe the change in people she noticed, it would have to be war.


    To be more exact, the phrase she would use would be war readiness.


    As everyone held a slightly more alert posture.


    Well everyone aside from Rodger and Alishia who by all means seemed to be normal, well as normal as two murderous sociopaths could be.


    No, in this case the difference was in the way everyone automatically had out their phones while walking about the school.


    And this wasn¡¯t the same lack of attention that one would expect with the odd time draining devices, at least that is how Misha saw the invention of phones being.


    No, in this case, the difference was the phones seemed to serve as a way to make people more aware of their surroundings. As everyone was moving and flashing their phones about, along with the white light at the back that served to show that most had the camera feature enabled in some way.


    ¡°Oh, man. I need to find someone new to scan. I¡¯ve been stuck at level three forever.¡± A boy who Misha believed to be part of the Freshman class stated.


    ¡°Same,¡± the friend he was standing next to stated with a sort of exasperated voice.


    ¡°The only problem is that we don¡¯t really get experience unless we tag and mark new people.¡± The first boy began.


    ¡°Yeah, or you can get more experience by slowly tracking and noting the location of one of those who popped as a monster.¡± The second person stated.


    ¡°Yeah, but that experience gets halved if more than one person tracks them at the same time.¡±


    ¡°It does?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I was able to get all types of experience by following that Amoni girl through town yesterday. But today when I tried, I noticed the experience was so much lower.¡±


    ¡°So what are you doing here?¡±


    ¡°Duh, isn¡¯t it obvious, this is the way to scan all the new people before anyone else does. Hey, look there¡¯s that other girl from the basketball team.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯ve got her too.¡± The second boy said as they both held up their phones and began scanning Misha.


    Misha for her part tried to just keep walking, even though she could feel the slightly advanced traces of what had to be Psycher scanning activity against her.


    While Misha had not been one of the developers of the ship board program, nor known who invented the program for the fleet. As a Maintainer, it was her job to fix and therefore test when the ship¡¯s scanning systems went offline or were otherwise damaged. This meant that she was well used to the feel of the intrusive beams of energy.


    Now, these beams generated from the phones light source were not as powerful as the scanners utilized on her ship, Misha could still feel the odd tingle that would cause radiological damage to a body, over time.


    ¡°Ahh, inconclusive.¡±


    ¡°Same.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s try again?¡± The first boy stated.


    ¡°No, we got enough experience to level up. Let¡¯s leave her.¡± The second boy said.


    ¡°Yeah, even if we scan her again, we wouldn¡¯t be awarded any more experience.¡±


    With that the two went back to their perch and again just began scanning everyone that came into or through the school¡¯s front doors.


    It would have been fine if that was the only case of this, but it seemed that most of the school were also playing or at least aware of this new phone feature.


    As she walked she saw everyone had out their phones, and rather than being at a slight angle towards the ground, as would be indicative of texting or reading the screen at a comfortable holding level. Everyone had their phones up, lights on and were scanning each other.


    ¡°Oh this is so cool.¡± One girl posed.


    ¡°Yeah, I wish I was a hidden werewolf.¡± A second girl stated with a slight pout to her lips.


    ¡°Yeah, did you hear that Ryder is a vampire?¡±


    ¡°The computer nerd?¡±


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    ¡°Yeah, the same. Also, almost all of the basketball players and most football players are werewolves.¡±


    ¡°Ahh, that is so cool!¡±


    Hearing this, Misha¡¯s ears felt like they were burning.


    ¡°Oh wait, the new girl, she is hella bright.¡± The first girl in the clique began speaking as she pointed her phone directly at Misha.


    Misha for her part, now thanks to her one understanding of the pulse being sent to her, and her now inherent Psycher control over electricity just let the pulse pass through her. That was the thing, so long as the pulse kept going or was disrupted in some way, it would not be able to send back a reply.


    ¡°Wait, she just disappeared from my phone.¡±


    ¡°No, she is right there.¡±


    ¡°I know, but look, see.¡± The girl said turning her phone to apparently show the image of Misha, or at least that is what Misha assumed, based on the reaction.


    Regardless of the situation, Misha decided it was best just to head to class, and try to give herself time to think everything.


    Right now, everything seemed to be thrown off by this new application that everyone was using.


    Getting to her class, Misha noted that Amoni was also here, though she seemed to be trying to hide herself behind a book.


    ¡°Look there she is,¡± one girl said, peeking in and flashing a burst of light into the room.


    For a second, Misha thought it was directed at her, but then soon found that it was directed at Amoni. Who even behind her stack of books seemed to have a reaction to the beam.


    This was noticeable as Misha noted a slight sheen of ripples moving around her skin. Not much, almost enough to make it look like she had sweat that was being refracted by the application.


    ¡°There we go, I just got level two!¡± The girl who flashed Amoni said.


    ¡°See I told you, all you have to do is constantly tag them once an hour and you get full points for tracking.¡± The second girl stated.


    Hearing this, Misha paused and then turned to Amoni.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Misha asked.


    ¡°Yeah, just getting tired of this new stalker app game that everyone is playing.¡± Amoni noted.


    ¡°What game app?¡± Misha asked.


    Pausing Amoni looked at Misha like she was crazy, but then just shook her head. ¡°Yeah, figures you wouldn¡¯t know about the hottest new game sweeping the nation.¡±


    With that Amoni reached into her bag and pulled out her phone, which she then opened to show a new app called Surreal.


    ¡°Apparently this game helps identify people who are different, and will scan you, save you and your biometrics to a data base, where you will constantly be seen and able to be tracked.¡± Amoni said.


    ¡°That sounds¡­¡± Misha began, but was quickly cut off.


    ¡°Invasive? I know. The only problem is that everyone can play, and there is a weekly process where the person who gets the highest level for a week can earn a thousand dollars, so of course everyone here is playing.¡± Amoni stated.


    Hearing the financial compensation portion of the application, Misha could understand the appeal.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that illegal? As in close to borderline stalking?¡± Misha asked, trying to understand how an application like that could not be considered a stalking program. Particularly if it seemed to encourage people to track and locate individuals.


    ¡°You¡¯d think so, but there is a feature that makes it so the application does not operate within residences. Meaning, that you can only track so called marked individuals while they are out in the public sectors, like schools, businesses, and so on.¡± Amoni stated.


    Hearing that, Misha became intrigued and pulled out her own phone and decided to take a look at the application in question.


    ¡°It¡¯s called Surreal?¡± Misha asked.


    ¡°Surreal, monsters among us.¡± Amoni stated.


    ¡°There seems to be a reset timer?¡± Misha asked.


    ¡°Yeah, every night at midnight local time, everyone¡¯s data gets erased. Everything but their own level and experience points to next level. Then you are allowed to go out and find new monsters. The only problem is that there are never new monsters and that the monsters never change from day to day.¡± Amoni stated, a note of bitterness to her voice.


    ¡°How long has this been out?¡± Misha asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, at least since Saturday, but I don¡¯t remember hearing about it before then.¡± Amoni replied.


    ¡°So everyday you get points for scanning yourself?¡± Misha asked?


    ¡°Yeah, I get the first time finders fee. Also, I just need to scan myself once an hour to get a full hour bonus of tracking experience.¡±


    ¡°So you also get points for ratting out your own location?¡±


    Hearing that Amoni could only nod.


    ¡°Can I ask why you do this?¡±


    ¡°Simple, it¡¯s a thousand dollars.¡± Amoni stated.


    With that Misha could only nod her own head.


    ¡°Here, I¡¯ll try it with you.¡± Amoni said, holding up her phone and from point blank range Misha was not prepared for the pulse of energy that entered her.


    A pulse that once again refracted back before Misha could do anything to alter the trajectory of the pulse.


    ¡°That is odd, I got full points for a first time finders tag. Even though it says you were already scanned multiple times today.¡± Amoni noted.


    At that Misha just raised one questioning eyebrow at the girl.


    ¡°What? It¡¯s cool, it means that everyone that finds you and tags you, will get enough experience to level up, regardless of who finds you.¡± Amoni noted, as she began typing into her phone.


    Seeing the typing, Misha felt a note of concern fill her, as she asked. ¡°What are you typing?¡±


    ¡°Oh, just your name, age and vitals.¡± Amoni stated.


    ¡°You¡¯re entering my name into a tracking database?¡± Misha asked.


    Hearing that, Amoni paused as she let that thought sink in, before shaking her head. ¡°No, this is just an interactive game for money.¡±


    Before Misha could comment on how in a game that didn¡¯t have adds, the users were the product, she had her thoughts interrupted by the teacher coming in.


    ¡°Sorry about the delay,¡± the teacher began, coming into class. ¡°Oh, I see you all are playing Surreal, well go ahead get all yours scans in, then phones down for the rest of class as we have a lot to go over today.¡±


    With that, Misha felt herself putting up a faint electromagnetic barrier around her. This wasn¡¯t much, but it was enough to violently repel any intrusive beams that might otherwise be aimed at her.


    Then while her teacher began going over the day¡¯s lessons, Misha felt her mind wandering down a deep dark path of data storage and retention.


    Using the same network infrastructure and connected readings that the Surreal system used to log, track, and mark every supernatural entity, Misha used to piggy-back her way into the same network, where she began accessing log data.


    While exploring, Misha found that the network that she was now traversing was far more complex than anything she had encountered in her time here on this planet, indicating that someone with far more advanced skills and abilities had pushed the level of technology here on this planet to an alarming state forward.


    Lurking in the forbidden servers, and data entry sites, Misha found indications of future plans and features that hinted at features and capabilities that spoke of a more sinister nature.


    Just being here, made Misha feel simultaneously nostalgic, while also feeling apprehensive for not knowing the true goals and intentions of the creators.


    Looking at the data, Misha found that as Amoni had noted, there was no change, no random algorithm that would change the status and location of those who were exposed as supernatural entities via the Surreal application and its users. Instead, all of the data was being compiled and processed to show a pattern of life that went far beyond the scope of what most would consider practical.


    With a simple query, she found her name Misha Tulley, while the folder with her name had recently been updated. She found multiple files and packets related to her activities and whereabouts.


    There were indications of her being in Pittsburg, then at the Hasty concert, followed by a few noted distance scans believed to be her. Followed by a few random events linking her to stopping at a gas station.


    Pausing, Misha remembered the phone that the gas station attendant had out. At the time Misha didn¡¯t think anything about the encounter, but then realized her data had been scanned and stored here. Apparently the program was able to scan and sort individuals by their aura intensity. Or that is what the program algorithm seemed to note.


    Seeing the data, Misha realized that her folder and system had been flagged as a priority for whatever reason.


    Regardless, Misha seeing the data, decided to alter the information.


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    <td style="width: 100%">Name: Rose Ambhurst</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Then she subtly changed the relevant data being stored. Changing her height, her hair and eye color, and even her profile picture to a random stock image of the cute but forgettable girl from the phone commercials.


    Data related to her aura would still be gathered, and there was not much she could do, other than change the baseline and try to hide her data while being in plain sight.


    With that, she went and tried to find all of her friends.


    As was expected, Darcy was the only one who had not been flagged in such a way. But Jasmine Sweet had also been tagged and was noted at going to the same convenience stores and concert as Misha. Once again Misha changed the data slightly, realizing that Jasmine would likely be scanned hundreds of times, but now that she had already been categorized, her data should end up in the same folder.


    The entire process was slow and laborious.


    In fact, many times Misha almost wondered if someone was there watching her, but she couldn¡¯t find anyone despite her clear paranoia.


    To no one¡¯s surprise, Misha found files on all of her teammates, which she also altered slightly. Though making sure to ensure that the data of Rodger and Alishia was more than accurate, even going so far as to provide their related phone numbers, addresses, and biometrics.


    With this new service, Misha realized that she could use this application to help track down the Warrior class soldiers that still needed to be held accountable for her grandmother¡¯s death.


    At that thought, Misha paused and looked around, suddenly realizing exactly what this place was for.


    ¡°This is to track us down and kill us all?¡± Misha noted.


    With that, Misha decided to try to come back again tomorrow to see if her changes were still in place. Though now, she felt like her job became just a little bit easier to pull off.

 Chapter 62 Espionage (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 62


    Espionage


    (Misha Tulley)


    Over the course of the next week, things seemed to mostly settle down. Though there were talks of creating a quarantine, especially as people from Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas were noted as being under restricted movements.


    While the media was mostly quiet about the whole ordeal of what happened at the Hasty concert, there were reports that Hasty herself had managed to leave and was safe, but was currently avoiding the limelight.


    As for the phone app game Surreal, it was still as popular as ever, though one particular note of interest came from the fact that while people noted the same few people were always the monsters in other parts of the world. There were reports of the game constantly changing from day to day as advertised at one location.


    In Jackson West Virginia the people who woke up daily to be different types of monsters changed daily.


    While the total number of monsters remained the same for the area, everyone, or almost everyone, changed from day to day.


    There were a few odd abnormalities, like the way Alishia, Rodger, Abraham the pack alpha, and Bruce the pack¡¯s shaman all remained the same. Always setting off alerts and causing countless people to exclaim in delight whenever they appeared in public.


    Also of note, the sponsors of the App were already making payments out to the people who managed to gain the most levels in the same day, making the app even more exciting to participate in the game.


    Surreal: The game that pays you to explore the hidden depths of hidden world around you.


    Yes, advertisements about the game were going viral, just as micro adds and newer transactions were being made available to the game.


    While the game still focused on the leveling of the individual playing, they could now purchase double experience multipliers, helpful hints on where the last known monster might be, and daily completion bonuses for tracking and identifying each and every supernatural within a 15-mile radius of your house.


    This last feature, of setting a daily to find all of the noted monsters that were out and about in the world around you at first seemed harmless. In fact, the entire game was meant as a way to go out, exercise, and meet new people.


    The only problem came from when it was the same people day in and day out that were being tracked and not just by one person but a whole community things began to escalate.


    While there was a strict no following people when they were in a residential community, this restriction didn¡¯t stop people from stalking the last two or so people they needed for the daily completion by taking a zoomed in picture of the individual at their house. By using a new version of jailbreaking a phone, people found that by downloading a $4.99 package, they could temporarily remove their phone from broadcasting and receiving mode, where their phone would go dead to the network.


    As long as the new package was activated while in a community area, the phone¡¯s geo-tagging feature for images would list the last saved location.


    Then the user would track the missing individuals to their dwelling, take a picture of them at their house. Where they would then promptly leave the community area, deactivate the new jailbreak feature where they initially activated the feature. Which would make it so the user appeared to be at the same location the entire time.


    With this, a lot of people were able to easily get the daily missions for finding everyone that was identified as a monster. And was a feature many who had already received payments for leveling touted as the ultimate return on investment. For $4.99, they managed to turn that investment and a little bit of work into a $1,000 payoff.


    After details of this new jailbreak feature went live, the game took on a more ominous tone.


    ¡°Have you heard about Alishia?¡± Jasmine asked during stretches before practice.


    ¡°No, what?¡± K-Bar responded.


    ¡°She hasn¡¯t been to school in a week.¡±


    ¡°A week?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, she is apparently getting stalked every time she leaves her house. It¡¯s getting so bad that she has taken to dressing up with disguises, but still gets found every time she leaves.¡± Jasmine continued.


    ¡°Yeah, my dad and uncle have the same issue. Though they are mostly using the new app as a way to promote their business.¡± Amoni stated, adding her own observations to the issue.


    ¡°All I can say, is I¡¯m glad I have never been identified as one of those monsters.¡± Jasmine said with sincerity.


    ¡°I was, at least on the first few days.¡± K-Bar noted.


    ¡°Same.¡± Two-Tone and Amoni both replied in unison.


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    ¡°I¡¯ve never had it, but then again I have to say that I¡¯m kind of glad it¡¯s never randomly fallen to me.¡± Michelle said, adding her own thoughts to the mix.


    Misha for her part just nodded along, not wanting to tell everyone here the real reason why they weren¡¯t targeted by the program. Instead, she let them think it was all a coincidence.


    ¡°Did you hear about the Surreal Murderers?¡± Candice from the b-team asked.


    ¡°What?¡± All the girls asked nearly in unison as they all chose that moment to switch the outstretched foot they were reach for and turned towards Candice for this juicy bit of gossip.


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s all over the news. They say that someone is targeting the monsters in Surreal and killing all the monsters.¡± Candice replied.


    ¡°What? No way.¡± K-Bar said.


    ¡°Yeah, that is just an urban myth.¡± Jasmine responded.


    ¡°It¡¯s true. Or at least it is true that someone is going around and killing people who have been identified as monsters for ten days in a row.¡± Candice continued, her voice dropping to show the severity of the information she was sharing.


    Hearing the information, Misha¡¯s ears perked up as she thought she now understood the reason for the Surreal tracking app. Or at least a reason.


    ¡°Oh my gods,¡± Michelle all but squealed.


    ¡°What?¡± Amoni asked the tall backup center.


    ¡°Could you imagine if someone had the Jailbreak app on their phone. They would take it, save their location as being in town. Then go out, commit the murder of the individual, then come back to the spot they were at when they turned the phone off. Turn off the Jailbreak and boom permanent alibi.¡± Michelle stated.


    ¡°You know, you have a devious mind.¡± Amoni said, staring at Michelle as if seeing her for the first time.


    At that Michelle mostly pulled in on herself as she blushed at the comment and sudden attention.


    ¡°I, I didn¡¯t come up with it on my own. But it is on the site.¡± Michelle noted.


    ¡°The site?¡± Jasmine asked.


    ¡°Yeah, the site where you get the Jailbreak app. Though there it is written as a joke.¡±


    ¡°A joke?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, they say something like. This is intended for entertainment purposes only. Any crimes you commit while this feature is enabled can be caught by other recording devices as such be careful, but at the very least this will help your phone from self-snitching on you.¡± Michelle said, repeating the warning almost verbatim.


    With that everyone paused as they took in the information that was given.


    ¡°Man, I should get that app so my parents can¡¯t keep on tracking my location all the time.¡± K-Bar said.


    ¡°I got it for that exact same reason,¡± Candice agreed.


    And like that, all of the members of the Jackson High School women¡¯s basketball team decided to invest $4.99 for their own peace of mind. Well everyone but Misha, but Misha knew that altering her data provided by her electronic devices was child¡¯s play to her at this point.


    From there, the team was met with an intense array of drills that would push the girls to their limit before the next game in two days¡¯ time.


    ***


    While Misha had never stopped altering the data that she transmits, she had begun to alter the way she reaches out to different connected devices. As she remembered all too well the damage, she suffered from the psychic backlash received when she tried to get Bruce Jacobs to admit to his crimes.


    She had been cocky, almost too brazen.  All but storming into enemy lines and trying to perform a psychological attack. In a way the backlash she received was good as it helped her take defensive measures while extending her mind to different data sites.


    This was why she had taken the act for what it was, a wake-up call.


    The threat here was posed by an enemy that had won against her forces. That concept was still hard to understand, at least it was hard to understand how, until she met a master level practitioner.


    Their magic while seemingly trivial was capable of great things, and Misha needed to be aware of that.


    This was why Misha had taken to being extra careful while interacting with the Surreal servers.


    There was something about the layout and design of these servers that felt simultaneously familiar, and also treacherous.


    The meta data stored was so precise, so accurate that it was almost too easy to change and manipulate.


    Even the encrypted packets of data seemed too easy to find and alter.


    But that was when she realized something.


    The cypher used to encrypt deeper modules was a unique cypher taught to my Psychers. For Psychers, encrypting and decrypting information was easy, and something that was taught at an early age.


    The basic cypher just needed one of the elements, from there the Psycher would fold data using one of the known elements and ultimately lock them in place.


    At first Misha had no talent for any of the elements, which was why she was placed in the Maintenance section. Only after a few years of working did Misha realize that her pathways were backwards from normal Psychers, making it so she had to cast her element from the opposite direction than what all of her instructors told her.


    Of course, after realizing this learning to use and manipulate the element of Fire became easier. But rather than letting her get reclassified to a fighter, Misha found that she was allowed to get promoted quickly within the Maintenance sector, first reaching acclaim by joining the fire suppression team. Then by proving she could easily perform the work of a Maintenance fire suppression team by herself, she quickly became a crew chief and ultimately never looked back.


    That said, she did understand the basics used by Psychers to use the elements to encrypt data. While Misha only now had an affinity for Fire and Electricity, she found that these two affinities were perfect for decrypting data on the internet.


    Basically, all that standard decryption did was take the energy components of a file and turn them slightly, altering their appearance rotation and meaning. This process would create a decryption key, but unlike how others thought of it, this wasn¡¯t some major component, but one that seemed rather easy to solve. At least from a Psycher¡¯s perspective, as all one needed to do was find the open slots, where the key would fit, then place in a little bit of malleable energy, and slowly rotate the energy particles until they all lined up and effectively flipped the information back into its standard location. The entire process sounds a lot harder to accomplish than it actually is.


    With these Psycher locks, it was mostly the same, all except that certain files had an extra layer of protection. Basically, nothing more than a giant bow that needed to be pulled from the correct string, at the correct time, in the correct order. The idea being that by pulling the wrong elemental thread at the wrong time, or pulling an elemental thread for too long, the chosen thread would tear through the encrypted data and thereby eliminate it.


    Seeing the Psycher encrypted data, Misha had mostly avoided the data. Finding that altering the collected data, and protecting herself and her friends from being targeted by this Surreal tracking system was more important than finding out what was being held within the Psycher encrypted boxes.


    The only problem was that the more times she came to investigate the area, the more Psycher encrypted boxes she inevitably found.


    Of course, Misha knew this practice for what it was, a honey trap. Setting out more and more Psycher encrypted documents knowing that only a Psycher could decrypt them. Maybe one of the advanced Bakshee could as well, though someone that powerful would likely never come down to a planet that was still in the process of being terraformed. Meaning that only a fellow Psycher would be able to decrypt these files. Not just any Psycher, but one versed in decryption methods.


    Of course, Misha herself had never been allowed to take the decryption and encryption courses. But that didn¡¯t mean she never had a chance to learn, for as the lead maintainer, it often became her job to help operate on, maintain, and update the latest training modules for the fleet.


    Which invariably needed her to fix, and test the products before returning them.


    The fact that she was privy to otherwise classified information was often overlooked by the fact that she was highly capable at her fleet assigned tasks and mission.


    For days Misha had avoided touching the Psycher encrypted payloads, but unfortunately today it seemed that her luck had run out.


    The reason the sudden change in ability to avoid the clearly intriguing payloads was due to relevance. Before now, none of the payloads that appeared had any value.


    Also, based on the computing capabilities of the server, it seemed that once the data available had been Psycher encrypted, it was inaccessible by the computers as it would require someone to come in and manually unlock the encrypted files with actual elemental control.


    Unfortunately, today would be the day that Misha would have to unlock the Psycher encrypted file, if only to see what they knew about her.


    As she arrived today, there was a slight difference to the layout of information. And Misha could almost feel an oppressive aura over the entire server, though Misha knew from her mental probes that she herself was safe.


    That was until she saw that not only her file, but the files of her fellow teammates that she had been altering daily were all Psycher encrypted.


    Worst of all, her own encrypted payload let her know that someone was onto her. For on her file that she had altered the name of early on, once again stated her real name.


    Name: Rose Ambhurst. Misha Tulley

 Interlude V Stalker In The Weeds (Inquisition)

    Interlude V


    Stalker In The Weeds


    (Inquisition)


    Huff, huff.


    The suddenly vulnerable elemental users wheezed out in pain. Their lungs burning as they were not used to the intense pressure of needing to be physically capable of escaping.


    Unfortunately, the elemental user, or the self-reported ruler class of the Bakshee was not used to such strenuous activity.


    Misdirection.


    Looking over their shoulder for the place where the pursuer was clearly following them, they failed to notice the way an electrical wire suddenly snapped off from the bracket that had held it for nearly half a decade.


    Nor did they notice the way the electricity and lighting in the area before them suddenly flickered out, causing the area ahead to be pitch black for a moment.


    They also missed the way, this sudden immersion into darkness caused their mind to pause, to hesitate for just a moment.


    This was perfect for the pursuer, for they too were getting tired of chasing a monster.


    A monster whose habits were well known to the stalker thanks to the accumulated data stored within the Surreal application. An application designed to track and monitor monsters in real life.


    ¡°No, noo¡­¡± the tired voice called out, turning away from the darkened alleyway that their mind inherently understood represented an unknown danger.


    Splash.


    Staggering backwards, the victim, a monster capable of calling forth flames at will missed the subtle signs of recent rain. Nor did they seem to notice the fact that while running downhill had been easier, it also caused an area for water to pool together and block even normal pathways. Thus the small puddle that the victim now found themselves immersed in.


    Normally such an event would not be much of a concern.


    Even the slight speckles of mud soaked water that splashed on their pant leg was inconsequential.


    What did matter, was the way the target had been pushed into the trap perfectly. Following the same exact path that they always took for their morning exercise routine. Going the same path, away from danger that their muscles instinctively knew. Not realizing that someone had tracked them, well not this person, but others had tracked them down.


    That others had noted their exact spot where they always paused and hesitated. The spot where their own body spoke of unsafe footing. A spot where they either ran forward when the water was low, or turned around when the water was high. On days like today, they would likely press through knowing that the splashing water would quickly wash off from sweat soaked legs.


    This was why the stalker had been so meticulous with pushing their victim this way.


    Why they had all but felt seemingly confident in their escape, despite the fact that no one seemed to hear them as they ran the few hundred meters from the spot of the first attack, until here.


    ¡°Sto, stoap¡­¡± the victim cried out, their words slurring as they realized they were being drugged with something.


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    Pausing, they realized that the initial attack, a crazed slash of a weapon had been a decoy. Or that somewhere along the way they had been poisoned, not much but once their blood started circulating, the effects of the toxins began interacting with their body a lot more.


    Zzapp-crackle.


    At that moment, that is when the downed powerline sparked back to life, momentarily releasing a block¡¯s worth of electricity right into the liquid that the victim also found themselves standing in.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡± A moaning cry of pain escaped from the lips of the victim. Someone who had by all measures been completely innocent, for tonight.


    Someone who had done nothing more than gone out as they always had for their evening run.


    With a cold glare, the pursuer just watched as the body first collapsed to the ground, before a final shock was released into the collapsed victim, before releasing their control over the cord.


    Once they had released their control over the cord, the emergency alerting systems sprang to life, indicating that there was now a detached cable and a momentary power outage.


    By automated design, power from different part of the grid were then rerouted to give light to the area that had suddenly gone dark.


    Once the lights had returned, only the body of a lone jogger could be found. One who apparently got electrocuted in a freak accident during their evening run.


    ***


    Whatever her name was before didn¡¯t matter. The name given to her mortal shell was immaterial to her current state of affairs, and her current goal in life.


    Now as she had always been, she would be Inquisition.


    Originally, her job for the fleet and the great mother had been to identify, eradicate, and prevent threats to the great fleet.


    For countless millennia she had succeeded in just such a way.


    Now though, now she found herself in a new world.


    A world in which she had died, resurrected, and come back trying to prevent the further corruption of this planet.


    For countless generations she had been reborn on this planet.


    Her first death out at the edges of space made it so her ability to find one of her remaining natural vessels to be nearly impossible.


    Then when she first arrived here over two centuries ago, she was noted as a monster. A serial killer.


    Someone who was hunted down and ultimately killed by the very mobs of people she tried to protect.


    In the beginning, she had been na?ve with both her level of activity and her expected dwell time for reincarnation.


    As life forms in this world were both slower to evolve to maturity than expected. Then once they were at the state of maturity, they often fell out of the ideal ability range within a matter of decades. Such inefficiencies in design, made it so that making any lasting change was almost impossible to perform.


    This was why over the past few cycles, she had been building up technology. Starting with simple time saving tools and devices, that ultimately spawned multiple cycles of improvements.


    All of this was done with the intention of making it so she could have more control over the evolutionary process of creation. By systematically adding more and more creativity to each iteration of designs, she made it so the world, despite being influenced by Bakshee hosts, relied entirely on Psycher mechanical designs.


    From this, she had found that there was one other Psycher.


    Though that Psycher had long since lost her trust. He was new, seemingly reckless with his willingness to strike fear into the world with monster sightings.


    Even going so far as to stage an all out coup in Pittsburg.


    A great showing and strike.


    The event caused hundreds of infected Bakshee minions to be outed, but that was ultimately meaningless.


    However the Inquisitor had used that moment to launch her Surreal application. A program that would instantly alert people to the status of monsters.


    After generations of building wealth and hiding caches of money throughout the world, funding such a project, particularly one that offered cash rewards was easy to achieve.


    Which was why she was able to track and document all of the infected Bakshee that attended Pittsburgh and other venues.


    However, while searching her feeds, an anomaly appeared.


    Three individuals seemed to have slipped through containment protocols.


    Odder still, was the fact that these three individuals were seemingly of three different origins.


    One was clearly a non-infected, while another was of the warrior or rager class. Then there was a third, someone who the Inquisitor took special measures to track and stop, but were able to easily slip through most alerts.


    In fact, the fact that all three went to school was odd, particularly after what they had all gone through over the weekend.


    The Inquisitor had even established an alert for anyone residing within a three hundred mile radius of the concert that did not go to school or work as usual on the following Monday would be marked on a CDC watchlist.


    This meant that either all three individuals who had clearly been at the concert, and then subsequently had all of their data about being at the event deleted were either very good, very lucky, or had an insight into her multiple layers of data tracking.


    At first, the Inquisitor thought of the experiment as a simple cat and mouse routine. Clearly a mouse was somehow able to access her networks, bypass her security measures, and then alter data.


    Data that she had painstakingly gathered, aggregated, and then collated into a perfect layer of tracking.


    In fact, this mouse was so perfect at not only moving in and altering her steps that the Inquisitor herself would have thought the information was a simple miscalculation on her part. Except for the fact that she herself was a living breathing computer, or the Psycher equivalent.


    With her mind and Psycher training, she could go into enemy territory, mentally map out and record and store troves of data at will.


    This was why she was able to notice the subtle signs of a master altering her data.


    Then upon closer inspection, the master was intelligent, not just changing their own data, but changing the data of those around them.


    This was how the Inquisitor had found data stores related not only to the prime suspect, but those she went to Pittsburgh with were also tampered with, in similar but subtle ways.


    It was at this point that the Inquisitor was met with one of two options. First, she could try to oust the individual, develop ways of tracking them down and ultimately squashing them.


    Though, they had already done enough of that by constantly changing and manipulating the data from one very rural area in the country.


    The other thing she could do was something that she had thought about doing for a long time. Namely taking on an apprentice.

 Chapter 63 Cat And Mouse (Three Weeks Later) (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 63


    Cat And Mouse


    (Three Weeks Later)


    (Misha Tulley)


    The signs were there from the start. Of someone more powerful and far more capable than Misha being at the helm of Surreal.


    But the question came, why?


    What was the point.


    Everyday, Misha would easily make her way into the data storage areas for Surreal, by simply following the flow of data. Then she would routinely wipe any data exposing her or her teammates as supernatural entities, and then randomly change the names and reassign the number of misplaced ¡°monsters¡± to ten or so different individuals.


    Why ten? Well the number didn¡¯t really matter, so long as it wasn¡¯t a one for one correspondence to the number of people whose personal information she was changing.


    At one point she went so bold as to increase the number of individuals to twenty.


    Then when the data kept getting changed back, she went bolder, changing her data for trial judges, prominent lawyers who had a history of going against gaming companies for data harvesting tactics, and other prominent figures.


    After a few days of garnering attention from those individuals, people with enough political clout to forcefully remove the game, a truce was adhered to.


    The truce was, Misha and her teammates were safe from whatever nefarious purpose the game had, and no prominent people who were not already linked to the supernatural community would be targeted by the application¡¯s algorithms.


    The media had a frenzy the day Judge Hightower had his data and location leaked constantly from people barging into his courtroom for getting quote ¡®triple experience¡¯ for finding and tracking the new Surreal monsters.


    This was done on purpose, as it meant that those that found the new judges and political leaders were all but ensured to earn the most experience for the week and thus allow each to earn a thousand dollars that week.


    ¡°Have you heard?¡± A female voice asked. This was one of the chatty girls that often had two or three alternate accounts active at one time that said variations of her ideas on Social media, without ever thinking that just because she SIM swaps, doesn¡¯t meant hat her phone and personal computers aren¡¯t linked to the activity.


    Seeing the activity for what it is, Misha could only shake her head, but still had to listen in as this girl was part of her morning classes.


    ¡°No what?¡± Her friend and often co-conspirator asked.


    ¡°That the Surreal Slasher is in the area.¡±


    ¡°You believe that urban legend?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a legend, as many people who have been continually identified as monsters have all died.¡± A third person added, this time the boy who sat behind the duo. Misha instantly understood this as an attempt of the boy to get the attention of the multi-account influencer.


    ¡°There is no proof to that, also everyone died in different areas, in different ways.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, some were even registered as accidents.¡±


    ¡°Accidents?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, like the man who died by an exploding bag of popcorn.¡±


    ¡°There was also the one that died when their kitchen sink randomly started spraying water, which caused the nearby dishwasher to create a spark and electrocute the person right in their kitchen.¡±


    Hearing the conversations going on, a chill ran down Misha¡¯s spine as she remembered doing that exact thing. Then to seemingly harp on the idea that these events were not random at all, the other students all commented on the similarities as well.


    ¡°Hey, is that exactly how Jerome died?¡±


    ¡°What? Are you saying that the Surreal Slasher targeted Jerome?¡±


    ¡°I mean, it was odd how he died on the one day that there was no electricity.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not true, there was electricity, but it had just gone out earlier that day.¡±


    As the students continued to argue over details of the case and what really happened, it was clear to Misha that she was being mocked.


    That or someone associated with the Surreal game made some educated guesses about her involvement in the activity.


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    However, before Misha could get too lost in this particular train of thought, a substitute teacher came in.


    ¡°Good morning class, I will be your new teacher for the next few weeks, while your primary teacher Mr. Witherspoon recovers from a recent mishap.¡± The smoothly elegant lady began.


    She was regal in a way that was hard to describe. Her face was stunning, with high cheekbones and a heart shaped face. One would swear she was a fashion model, if they didn¡¯t take into account their current location. While there were places that had fewer people around, this would not be the place for a model, unless of course they were trying to lay low.


    Just as she spoke, a number of students inadvertently raised up their phones towards the new teacher, each apparently trying to see if the new teacher appeared to be a supernatural the same way Mr. Witherspoon did.


    Muted groans.


    Judging by the way the other students quickly lowered their phones to their desks, it was clear that this new teacher did not in fact register as a supernatural creature according to the famous application.


    Hearing the groan, the teacher just let loose a coy knowing smile.


    ¡°Sad to find out that I am just like you,¡± she began, then moving her eyes over the classroom, she stopped as she locked gazes with Misha.


    ¡°Well, most of you anyways,¡± the substitute teacher added as she quickly continued her scan across the rest of the classroom.


    ¡°Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Ms. Clayton, and as previously stated, I will be your substitute Civics teacher for the foreseeable future.¡± The teacher, Ms. Clayton stated.


    Silence.


    There was a way she commanded the room with her presence and poise alone. While she was attractive, her body and outfit seemed to hide a muscular body.


    Looking at here, there was a reason why everyone initially went for their phones to scan the intruder. For she clearly had the physique one would associate with a warrior cast, or werewolf, as the media was so prompt to endorse them.


    However, she didn¡¯t spark any warnings in Misha¡¯s mind. There were no signs that this person had any of the known forms of enhancement. Which Misha could identify Tier V individuals by now, meaning that either this substitute teacher was exceptionally powerful. Or, she was not a supernatural at all.


    The only problem with that understanding was that it meant the chills and warnings that Misha was now experiencing by watching this individual casually come into a high school setting and take instant control, meant that she was either extremely overconfident in her own abilities. That, or she had a power that Misha herself could not even fathom.


    As the classroom, went on, it was clear the topic for discussion today was going to be the ongoing string of murders and inexplicable deaths that surrounded Surreal, along with the ethics associated with the Surreal application itself.


    Misha for her part remained quiet, not wanting to be drawn into this conversation.


    However, it seemed that the teacher had alternate plans.


    ¡°You there, the quiet redhead, what is your opinion on the talks of a game only available in urban areas of being intrusive?¡± Ms. Clayton asked.


    Hearing the question for what it was, Misha tried to divert attention away. ¡°Isn¡¯t that for the lawmakers to decide. There have been documented cases of there not being any reasonable expectations of privacy for people who go out into public.¡±


    ¡°So are you saying that it is legal for people to track and stalk certain people daily?¡± Ms. Clayton asked.


    However her question was more open ended and a senior clearly trying to draw the attractive teacher¡¯s attention back to himself cut in.


    ¡°Yeah, but celebrities constantly followed by paparazzi and nothing happens to them?¡±


    ¡°Good point; however, the counter to that is that by some act of the celebrity they seemingly either chose to be in the limelight, or their actions thrust them into the limelight. Whereas these individuals have often done nothing other than just exist and be tagged with a random algorithm for that day.¡± Ms. Clayton pressed.


    While her eyes scanned the room, Misha couldn¡¯t help but feel them linger on her for a tad longer than the other students.


    Though for her part, aside from one or two other attempts to get Misha to join the conversation topic of the day, Misha was left alone.


    Bababringg.


    As the class bell went off, Ms. Clayton went back to the front of the class and said, ¡°good conversation today. I will see you all tomorrow.¡±


    Then with that, it was clear that the students were able to leave.


    However, just as Misha rose from her desk to leave, she was stopped by the teacher.


    ¡°Misha Tulley, will you please see me for a moment.¡± Ms. Clayton said, her words more of a command than an actual request.


    Hearing the request, Misha instantly went on alert.


    The reason for the concern was not readily apparent to Misha. Until she realized the incongruity. All throughout class, she was the redhead, hey you, or the quiet one. Now that class was over, she was called out by name. Not just that, but the teacher had locked gazes with her, while calling out. While it could have been a coincidence, Misha found the entire exchange to be too strange to not at least be partially aware of what was happening.


    Misha moving forward, calmly waited for the other students to leave.


    While she waited, she saw the way the new teacher nodded, or quickly waved to the students.


    ¡°Great class today.¡± The one overly enthusiastic male student said.


    Ms. Clayton for her part just smiled and nodded.


    Then to her shock, Misha saw the faintest of bright read beams burst out of the substitute teacher¡¯s eye and quickly scan everyone. The bursts were so quick and precise, that Misha was certain that most non-awakened would notice the activity.


    Misha for her part even saw the beam flicker towards her, and all but try to cause an immediate reaction to her Bakshee cellular structure.


    Instantly, Misha felt her outer layer of alerts and alarms being agitated by the intrusive scan. Fortunately for Misha, these cell components and protocols had long since been disabled. As long ago, Misha saw the issues and potential problems that could be had by leaving these components open.


    As the red scanner passed by, Misha felt a slight sense of relief, as a lot of the tension that had been building within Ms. Clayton¡¯s coiling muscles suddenly relaxed.


    Only for a second blue light to shine from the very same eye.


    At which point Misha felt a mentally intrusive scan occur to her. Though this one was different, as this one seemed to somehow scan into and then through her.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 40.4324%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Class: N/A


    Rank: E13-LME


    Position Title: Lead Mechanical Engineer


    Flight Hours: 18,650,328


    Ship Assigned: Matriarch Flagship


    Reincarnation Status: Keep Alive At Whatever Cost


    Affinities: Fire, Electric


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the information laid bare for all to read like that, well anyone that could see in the Psycher spectrum, which was what the initial red shift beam had been in as well. A brief note of nostalgia filled her, as she saw her entire millennia of service summarized in seven lines.


    By contrast, she had only been a Bakshee for less than a decade and already had more lines and more accomplishments to boast of. Still, it was nice seeing her hours of flight time, and her resurrection status still listed. According to the fleet, and its records, she was still a member in good standing and ready to be rewarded as such.


    From the intrusive scan, it was clear that the person before her was a high-ranking fleet officer. As she clearly had a class assigned.


    While Misha was not aware of what classes could scan for both Bakshee and Psycher accomplishments, it was clear that this person was dangerous. Worse, they clearly outranked Misha due to her having a class, something that Misha was never allowed to do.


    Just as Misha expected the neutral relationship between the two of them to alter, as Misha expected Ms. Clayton to clearly begin to pull rank. Which is what she did almost immediately.


    Staggering for a moment, Ms. Clayton just looked at Misha. This time seeming to take her in completely, before nodding in a form of acceptance.


    ¡°We need to talk,¡± Ms. Clayton said, then handed Misha an encrypted cypher.


    The coding was simple enough, having had to repair all of the encryption and decryption devices, Misha was easily able to break the cypher. Particularly as this cypher was about three, no four hundred years out of date.


    Still the cypher was fairly easy to parse, though Misha did take her time wondering if there was a second cypher, but found no such secondary formations.


    Ms. Rose Ambhurst, I think it is time we finally meet¡­


    It wasn¡¯t until Misha took in the name, that Misha understood who exactly this person was before her. Just as her mind made the mental connection that the person before her was not only the person who had been altering her data for the past few weeks, until they finally came to a truce. Misha also realized the most important part of this exchange.


    The fact that she was now staring at the Surreal Slasher, in the flesh.


    Suddenly, Misha felt a lot less secure with her position as she quickly made a glance for the various exits of the room. There was the door of course, but that was too obvious. No, if Misha was to get out of here, she would need to go through the windows.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I take it by your quick scan for exits, you understand who I am?¡±


    And like that, Misha could only pause as she debated how to handle this obvious power play.

 Chapter 64 Hero Worship (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 64


    Hero Worship


    (Misha Tulley)


    ¡°I think you and I should talk after school later today, probably before your practice later today.¡± Ms. Clayton stated.


    It was clear from her tone and pacing that she was used to dominating many conversations. There was also the insinuation that by Ms. Clayton knew the fact of her school schedule that she knew more about her.


    Hearing those words Misha could only nod, realizing that both the threat and implied extraneous knowledge was held by Ms. Clayton. Misha assumed that most of this was either taught via interrogation techniques, or learned from her craft, or a matter of both.


    Tingle.


    Misha also felt the gentle mental probing of Ms. Clayton trying to access her mind. It was subtle, and likely would have been something she might have missed before her recent run in with a Warrior Priest who assaulted her mind through an open connection. Since that point, Misha had trained daily to both keep her mental shields up, but to also notice any signs of external influence.


    This wasn¡¯t to say that she couldn¡¯t also reach past her own defenses and use her own Psycher powers to interact with the world. Rather, she now knew the importance of prudence and of keeping a tight leash on her activities.


    Misha just watched the operative for a moment, looking for any signs that she was trying to use her mental probes to access her mind. As would be expected from an expert, there were no tells at all. Nothing, not even the slightest twitch of the mouth, the dilation of the eyes.


    ¡°Impressive.¡± Ms. Clayton began, then nodding to herself, ¡°yes, we definitely need to have a talk after class today. Don¡¯t worry, I will inform Ms. Green about your needing to stay after today.¡±


    And like that, Misha was dismissed.


    For her part, Misha was not wasteful with the rest of her day. Mentally logging into the school¡¯s Wi-Fi and then piggybacking off of the Wi-Fi signals to the internet and all the elusive databases thereof, Misha began hunting.


    First, she found out who Ms. Clayton was. Or who she was this lifetime.


    From everything that she had gathered, Misha assumed that Ms. Clayton had been here for close to four hundred years. This was largely due to the encryption schema used. This could be a red herring used to throw Misha off the trail of this Psycher, knowing that they could have more robust encryption schemes, but Misha didn¡¯t think that was the case.


    Though to be safe, she did keep that aspect in the back of her mind.


    Instead, she focused on the developers of Surreal, the parent company and the parent company¡¯s parent company. This might be deep but eventually, she found what she was looking for, a hidden CEO of one of the primary subsidiaries with controlling interest in one of the big four mega-conglomerates Johnstone Inc. Following that trail, Misha found dead ends and a chance of a lifetime encounter, where the current CEO just so happened to both found an important chipset processor that utilized lithium as a new medium for electrical currents.


    From there, Misha found other people throughout history who did similar contributions, creating one key component that would then be purchased and added to Johnstone Inc over the generations, until finally it was a massive entity with so many moving parts that it seemed almost impossible to fully control.


    Worst of all was the shameless way that the contributors to Johnstone Inc unapologetically stole components and processes from Psycher technology.


    Honestly, Misha thought it was a little too easy for her to slip in and move around in such constructs, but knowing that Psycher technology had been intentionally leaked. Well not just leaked, but boiled down, riddled with vulnerabilities, and then freely given to an enemy planet, Misha could not help but be impressed.


    For generations, someone has been purposefully building up one of the world¡¯s four mega conglomerates to not only control the world, but allow access so that a Psycher fleet could easily arrive, take over the planet and harvest the resources needed to continue he war.


    Looking at the schematics, Misha already felt she knew the next five or six designs that were going to be implemented over the next few lifetimes of this Ms. Clayton.


    Honestly, the entire scheme was brilliant, and seemed to take advantage of the fact that Ms. Clayton both knew that technology had to appear to be developed slowly. While, also giving time for the world to slowly accept and rely on the technology being slowly trickle fed through anonymous contributions and corporate mergers.


    All of this was to say that by the time classes ended and Misha was forced to go back to Ms. Clayton¡¯s classroom, she was better prepared for what to expect.


    The Psycher operative was cunning, resourceful, and most importantly capable. Their job was to go to a planet, integrate with its society, and then slowly corrupt the planet from the inside. And it seemed that Ms. Clayton had managed to do this perfectly.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Of course, the only problem was that now that the war was over, and all Psychers were effectively in exile, what did that mean for people like Ms. Clayton? Misha herself was still wondering what exactly it all meant, as she too was at a loss for what to make of her life.


    For now, Misha was content to try to adapt and thrive in this new world with the role that she had been given. That said, perhaps it wasn¡¯t too soon to start looking for ways to make her own mark upon the world. As there were a lot of designs that Misha could implement on her own that would spark interest and get her own name out there.


    Perhaps with a second person, she could create a tandem operation. One where even upon deaths and resurrections, they were able to hand off control of the mega-corporation, or find a way to get both into the same company at key areas.


    Though thinking about it, such an act would make it fairly obvious for anyone conducting an internal review of the massive world conglomerate entities. Meaning that when the Bakshee eventually came, they would just remove the one mega-conglomerate corporation and be done with all their efforts.


    No, thinking about the entire thing logically, it would make more sense for her to work her way into one of the other mega-conglomerates and influence designs in those organizations as well.


    These were the thoughts that Misha had expected to go over with Ms. Clayton.


    Honestly, most of this could have been done over communications throughout the day on secured channels. Misha knew for a fact that if she could create such stable channels, then the Operative should be able to as well.


    This was why, Misha was completely thrown off when she went to Ms. Clayton¡¯s room.


    ¡°Glad you could come,¡± Ms. Clayton said, as if there was anything else that Misha could have done given that a report was already sent to Ms. Green. Then quickly going behind her, Ms. Clayton raised the blind over the single window looking into the room, then proceeded to lock the door.


    The intent was clear, that should anyone look in, they could clearly see a teacher and student conversing after class, but no one would be able to get in and interrupt their conversation. Then with the door latched, Ms. Clayton proceeded to gesture for a desk at a giant table, where Ms. Clayton began walking to the opposite side of the table.


    Misha for her part just nodded, and went to the indicated seat. Upon sitting down, Ms. Clayton went straight into her pitch.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure you have questions, as do I. To help with this, I suggest we do a one for one swap. I ask a question, you answer truthfully, then you ask a question I answer truthfully. From there we will see where we stand.¡± Ms. Clayton began.


    Hearing the words Misha could only nod.


    ¡°Though first, I am curious about your capabilities. Given that you have had the past three hours to investigate, what have you found out. What do you think you know. And most importantly what do you think the plans are for this conversation.¡± Ms. Clayton began.


    Hearing that, Misha could only nod and realize this was likely an interview. Such things were not rare, in fact it was how Misha got a starting position on the Matriarch¡¯s Flagship almost immediately upon entering the fleet.


    Realizing this was the Psycher way, she went through everything.


    ¡°Your name isn¡¯t Ms. Clayton, but Ms. Ursala Jarnic. You are primary shareholder of Jarnic Inc, a manufacturer of new lithium superchips and processers and therefore majority owner of Johnstone Inc voting interests. Before that you were, Eloise Fench wife to successful inventor Jacque French, inventor of Mechanical Laboratories and their energy regulators. Before that Reina Johnstone wife of Marcus Johnstone, founder of Johnstone Inc. Before that you were Abigail Patton, wife of Leonard Patton founder of Patton industries that later merged with Johnstone Inc to form the super pack that it is today. I could detail others, but I¡¯m sure you understand where and how this is going.¡± Misha said.


    Silence.


    Before, there was no break or blemish to her otherwise perfect operative mask. Now however, now there were clear breaks in her as her lips slightly parted in wonder as she clearly seemed to be at a loss for what just happened.


    Seeing her in such a state, Misha just paused. Before noting that ¡°I judge this to be your tenth total reincarnation on this planet. The first few you were lost in random inventions during the Renaissance, and again in London during the 1700s, but only recently did you start having a plan on moving forward by corrupting the supply chain and information networks that the planet relies on.¡±


    With that final note, Ms. Clayton finally began to nod in agreement.


    ¡°I should have expected nothing less from the Lead Mechanical Engineer for the Queen¡¯s Flagship,¡± Ms. Clayton began, before nodding her head in acceptance of the details provided. ¡°Now, I guess it is up to me to ask you my first question. When did you arrive here?¡±


    ¡°Here as in this planet?¡± Misha asked, the words sounding odd even from her mouth. For almost her entire lifetime here she had been under the impression that she was alone. Now she had to wonder a few things on her own.


    ¡°Yes, here on this planet.¡± Ms. Clayton, or the operative playing the part of Ms. Clayton confirmed.


    ¡°This is my first lifecycle on this planet.¡± Misha began.


    Hearing that Ms. Clayton continued, her own curiosity taking control of her and making it so she broke her own rules of question sharing.


    ¡°This is your first time. Is there any chance that the Queen might also arrive?¡± Ms. Clayton asked.


    Hearing that Misha could only shake her head.


    ¡°Doubtful, when I lost my resurrection resources with the fleet, we were at the edge of space trying to avoid an obvious containment breach. During which I passed away ensuring that the ship was able to leave and go back to charted space. This was at least sixteen years before we received the message relinquishing us from our oaths of fealty,¡± Misha stated.


    Hearing that explanation, the light of hope that had filled Ms. Clayton seemed to die out.


    ¡°Oh, I see.¡± Ms. Clayton said, trying to put her emotional mask back in place but the damage had already been done.


    With the slight pause, Misha did not dare to ask the officer a question now. Years of training in the fleet letting her know that while it had been suggested as a one for one exchange, Operatives were on an entirely different level and should be avoided at all caution. That said, when they asked you for anything you were obliged to help them. They were the boogeymen of the fleet for a reason.


    ¡°I realize that was two questions in a row for me. So I will give you the floor. Surely you have something you wish to know?¡± Ms. Clayton asked.


    Realizing this was the chance she had been hoping for since she first agreed to this meeting, Misha asked the number one question on her mind. This was the question that she was not able to get an answer to, despite her relentless digging. While she had a theory, she wanted to find out more. As such, she asked the operative the only question that seemed relevant at the time.


    ¡°Why me?¡±


    Hearing the question, Ms. Clayton could only smile in satisfaction. This was when Ms. Clayton inadvertently revealed not one, but two bombshells that Misha had never known.


    ¡°Oh, if only you had been able to integrate with the leveling system. You would have made a perfect operative. Smart, resourceful, and most importantly, you don¡¯t waste time by getting to the point.¡± Ms. Clayton stated, inadvertently giving out her own opinions on Misha and revealing something that had never quite been discussed before.


    Hearing the comment, Misha wondered if the lack of being able to integrate with the leveling system was why she was relegated to the maintenance section of the fleet. Had everyone else not relegated to maintenance operations been able to level? And if so what did that even mean? Then Before Misha¡¯s mind could truly begin to process these words, Ms. Clayton made her second major declaration. One that seemed to spin her own perspective of the world on its head.


    ¡°Still regardless, we are strapped for resources. As such, I would like to take you under my wing and teach you to be an Operative.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± Misha asked, confirming that the heretical words she thought she heard were in fact real.


    ¡°Yes, and to make it so you get full use out of that second question, I will do you one better. For if you agree to join me as my apprentice, I will try to see if we can awaken the leveling system within you, correctly this time.¡±


    And like that, Misha felt a mental command coming through to her mind.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 94.7027%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Operative Ursala Jarnic has requested your assistance in an ongoing subversion operation. Warning, accepting this task will place you under the strictest of confidences. By accepting to hear the mission details, you are agreeing to keep all information that you learn about the ongoing operation and its objectives secret from everyone, except for the Hive Queen. Do you wish to hear more?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>

 Chapter 65 Operatives Are Different (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 65


    Operatives Are Different


    (Misha Tulley)


    Gentle breeze.


    The wind rolled past Misha as she felt alive. Her first mission, not as an operative, as she still had a long way to go before she would be cleared for that level of activity.


    Instead, she would be relegated to overwatch.


    Overwatch was the position Misha likely would have been assigned to, had she not demonstrated her mechanical acumen at an early age. Where she had been relegated to ship maintenance.


    Still, for a first-time job being overwatch was both relatively easy and exhilarating.


    The task she was given was simple, watch over Ms. Clayton, otherwise known as Operative Ursala Jarnic, while Ms. Clayton worked from Misha¡¯s list of assigned targets.


    Still despite being literal miles away from Ms. Clayton, Misha couldn¡¯t help but feel her heart pounding as she understood the importance of her role in this mission.


    ¡°As an operative, the most important piece that I have been missing is Overwatch. Someone to watch my back, warn me of impending dangers, and provide distractions when possible. Now I know you might think you are strong enough to conduct operations on your own, and you are. But I think it would be best for us to work as a two-person team. Together we will shore up our deficiencies and best of all, you will keep your cover as a student. There is also the fact that killing these monsters, that is directly killing them does no good for you. As you gain no bonuses, no stolen animus, and are stuck in your current position. Whereas, for whatever reason I was able to integrate with the neural upgrader, so by killing the enemy I will get stronger with each kill.¡± Ms. Clayton stated logically.


    The argument was without a doubt the best Misha could ever ask for. With this, she would still be doing the work she always had been, she would keep her cover, and be able to root out the ancient enemies from the root. Well the worst of the ancient enemies. Misha still had reservations about killing off every Bakshee, but that was an argument to be held later.


    For now, the focus was on the remaining three, Rodger, Alishia, and the local pack shaman Bruce Jacobs.


    Thanks to the Surreal app, Ms. Clayton and Misha both knew the most likely places where the three would hang out. They knew the general routes taken, they even knew about the recent Shamanistic magics that had caused severe backlash to Misha.


    Hearing that the main opponent was a powerful Shaman, Ms. Clayton took a different approach.


    The task was simple, kill off one of the two lesser pack members and then use them to lure Bruce into lowering his guard.


    While the process seemed to have too many working parts for Misha¡¯s perspective, she had to defer to the senior.


    Misha for her part made sure to give herself an alibi, as she would live stream herself working on her car. Surprisingly there was a huge following for people watching a female mechanic Live stream her working on a vehicle, while not talking.


    The Live stream was twofold. First it gave her a clear alibi, for how could she legitimately be conducting an operation, while Live streaming. Second, the same internet connection she used to link her camera to the internet, was the same communication layer she piggy backed off of to first find and track Ms. Clayton.


    Now that she knew what to look for, Ms. Clayton was relatively easy to find.


    First, for cameras that ran on infrared spectrum, she was a clear two to three degrees higher than normal humans. Not as much as the warriors, or werewolves, who were often five degrees higher. Also, the workers were generally three or more degrees lower than standard humans. While the Rulers, they were not so easily identified, as there did not seem to be any difference between them and their body temperature, at least not from what Misha had been able to observe. Granted, this was only due to two actual people ever being noted as Rulers in Surreal, both of whom were killed early and violently in a string of unsolved murders.


    Murders that Misha was fairly certain she could link back to Ms. Clayton. Or at the very least Misha was certain that she could link Ms. Clayton to the scene of the crime.


    It went without question that Misha deleted all logs of Ms. Clayton and any possible relation to those crimes. Part of her told her that she would need to keep that data, in case things went wrong with their Operative and Overwatch relationship. Though Misha figured, that should anything actually happen, it would be Misha likely dying at the hands of Ms. Clayton, or Ms. Claytons future reincarnation.


    This was why Misha ultimately got rid of the evidence that could link Ms. Clayton to any of the crime areas. If there was an eventual falling out between the two, Misha was certain that the details she now used to track Ms. Clayton would prove invaluable in the future.


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    However, Misha couldn¡¯t help but feel odd for having the layer of protection between her and Ms. Clayton.


    Logically, the distinction between them made no sense. They were both Psychers, and therefore both supposed to be on the same side. Yet, their side lost, and this Psycher had been here for centuries apparently working to undermine the eternal enemy¡¯s chance of using this planet.


    Yet, Misha couldn¡¯t help but feel that following that form of logic was self-defeating.


    Rather than trying to destroy the planet, wouldn¡¯t it make more sense to join them and then break them apart from the inside? Misha even hinted at this.


    ¡°What if you could become a worker, I mean a werewolf. Not only would you be able to level as a Psycher, but you would also be able to level up as a werewolf. Essentially being able to level up twice for the same or equivalent amount of work. Also, you would have a lot easier time from hiding yourself if you masked your presence from within.¡± Misha stated.


    ¡°No, don¡¯t you understand. Assuming that this worked, that you were somehow able to turn your current possessed vessel into a Bakshee outercoat. You would then make it so your children and future progeny would not be able to host your soul if and when you die. While I haven¡¯t been able to possess the body of a direct family member yet, by spreading out each life and making it so each life has multiple generations of children to choose from, I increase my odds of not only survival, but also finding an ideal host.¡± Ms. Clayton stated.


    Hearing that cold callous response, Misha realized something.


    ¡°Wait, your saying that you purposefully try to possess the body of your own children and grandchildren?¡±


    ¡°That is the goal, I haven¡¯t quite perfected the process yet, but I am working on it. That said, I still have a few additional designs that I could add to continue to be relevant.¡± Ms. Clayton said, before staring at Misha coldly for a second.


    With that glare, the intent was clear, Misha was not supposed to challenge her boss, this officer by stealing her conglomeration of organizations by introducing her own technology into the fray.


    Seeing the clear challenge in her eyes, Misha held up her hands in a placating gesture. This was one that Psychers wouldn¡¯t get, but as a fellow humanoid, the gesture was clear.


    This was why, despite having found her first true Psycher, one who attempted to train her. Misha still felt the need for preservation, where she kept a layer of skepticism as a protective barrier to separate her from the Psycher.


    An immortal reincarnating enemy that could appear as anyone in the future.


    Realizing the threat that Ms. Clayton posed, Misha now understood the reason why so many people were afraid of the Psychers. The fact that they had all been unified under one banner for so long must have been frightening to the different species of the universe.


    Still, why was she having these traitorous thoughts now?


    Pausing for a moment, the reason soon became apparent.


    ¡°I have eyes on the target.¡± Ms. Clayton said.


    Then locking into her feed, Misha both destroyed any video fragments that might get uploaded to the cloud storage servers, while using other video monitoring devices to see and track the targets.


    ¡°Feeding in resources now.¡± Misha replied back, her lips barely moving from below the hood of the car. For those watching her own life stream, they would see what appeared to be Misha having a hard time turning a particularly tough bolt. When in effect she was actually using the waves of energy in the internet to grab her voice, and amplify it for Ms. Clayton.


    With the location identified, Misha went to work. First finding all two dozen or so video surveillance devices in the area. Everything from CCTVs on the nearby food marts, to streaming dashcams, to people on their phones, to police recording devices.


    Everything was at Misha¡¯s disposal.


    Since this was their first mission together, this would be just a simple observation.


    Ms. Clayton would go out, make visual contact with the targets. Then Misha would provide different feeds in real time. This way the two could find what worked, what didn¡¯t work, what was too distracting, and be better prepared for how to conduct an actual operation together.


    It came as no real surprise that Rodger, Misha¡¯s supposed boyfriend was currently cheating on her. As he was clearly holding Alishia¡¯s hand in the middle of an open park.


    Gentle breeze.


    Once again the wind blew both in the park, and a minor form of that same wind, or maybe a distant echo of the same breeze, also blew within the open door garage.


    The breeze was enough to let Misha know that she was here working on her car. Which is what she did, she began taking apart her connection circuits, and using a toothbrush with her own mixture of cleaning products, began scrubbing the cords, before hooking the wires onto a stick that hung over and dipped the rest of the wire in a dense resin wax that would hopefully strengthen the outer coating of the wires. The entire process was entirely mind numbing and above all time consuming, which was why it was perfect for her live stream.


    Misha did make sure to show off her own secret formula, for the camera, showing off the initial dirty cords. Cords that Misha did nothing to other than immediately dunk in the odd liquid. Once submerged, a layer of dark oils and resin washed away, almost instantly from the wires. Then picking up the sticks that she wrapped the wires over, she picked up the now clean wires and began dipping them into a second vat of solution.


    While her body moved mechanically, performing the cleaning ritual that her body had done for millennia, her mind was actively engaged finding networks. Identifying nearby people, trying to use local heating markings and other indicators to identify if the people present were supernatural in nature.


    Fortunately, one of the people in the park had the Surreal app already downloaded. While the app itself was not active on the phone, it was a simple task for Misha to log into the phone and quickly scan the nearby people for signs of Bakshee influences.


    Unfortunately, the camera owner didn¡¯t actually scan many people with her phone. That or if she did, there wasn¡¯t enough time for the Surreal application¡¯s unique use of light to identify anyone as a supernatural.


    This was also something that Misha had been trying to understand. How did the application that Ms. Clayton created identify people as Bakshee. Obviously, this was some form of advanced Psycher operative knowledge. Knowledge that had been weaponized on this still evolving planet.


    Then it hit Misha, the reason she always felt guarded around the Psycher Operative.


    It was the fact that for whatever reason, Ms. Clayton knew that Misha herself was a Bakshee. Or at least had managed to infect her body with a form of the Bakshee. Which was noted the way her original file had been preserved and constantly brought back online, all but forcing Misha herself to go in and change the data daily.


    That was likely the reason that Misha herself had felt so off around the operative, as she herself had been guarded. Even her rationale for why she would never succumb herself to the Bakshee, there was a note of bile on her face, as if she had been forced to make concessions, if only for the sake of this mission.


    Realizing this, Misha finally understood why Ms. Clayton had originally gone in to this mission with the idea of it being a preparatory gesture, as it was clear that Ms. Clayton still had her own reservations about how valuable Misha was. At least, these are the thoughts that came to Misha¡¯s mind, while she seamlessly provided a full 360 degree feed of the environment around them. The fact that there were seven other entities within the park, and none of them appeared to register as supernatural entities according to the Surreal database.


    ¡°Good work,¡± Ms. Clayton said, her mind apparently able to take in all the different streams of data and compartmentalize them as needed.


    Hearing that Misha nodded, realizing that there might still be hope for this partnership. Even though they both had temporary hang ups, they could get along for a common enemy. In this case, it was Bakshee that were involved directly in the death of her grandmother. A concept that seemed both foreign to her, and at the same time seemed like it should be punished tenfold.


    Perhaps, feeling Misha¡¯s subdued by still present feeds of anger that were likely providing a deeper resonance to the feeds being provided to Operative Clayton, Misha shouldn¡¯t have been surprised by Operative Clayton¡¯s next action.


    ¡°I¡¯m going in for the kill.¡± Operative Clayton said, then before Misha could really register everything that happened. The world blurred, as Ms. Clayton sprung into action.

 Chapter 66 The Wrinkle (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)

    Chapter 66


    The Wrinkle


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Things had gone on for too long. Worse, in all her time here she had only found two other Psychers.


    One was a religious nut job who went about trying to massively exploit one of the few true weaknesses identified operatives like herself.


    She had been to Pittsburgh, she had seen what happened to those that were infected, they had major issues at first, running rampant in the streets. But within seventy-two hours, they all seemed to have a hard coded reboot, where they were all able to be resistant to similar future attacks.


    Fortunately, the process that Ms. Clayton used was different enough to not be affected by the blocks used by her former associate.


    Now though, now she had a chance to make a true difference.


    This girl, she was like putty. Maybe a late bloomer. The fact that she never was able to integrate with the true system was somehow more impressive, given all of her accomplishments.


    Over eighteen million hours of flight time, for the mothership no less.


    During her interview, she had hoped for a story about the great queen, something about her benevolence, her ethereal beauty. But apparently Misha never got a chance to see her. Not even on inspections, as the Grand Matriarch never ventured on the lower floors, that was always performed by the subordinates.


    In a way, that all made sense, the Grand Matriarch was far too busy most of the time to deal with such formalities. Though it was odd to have never seen anyone in the maintenance section for over two millennia, especially someone who seemed like they were highly decorated and appreciated by the fleet.


    There was also the fact that Misha was proficient in not just one but two different elements and able to change information faster than she herself could replace it.


    No, after doing a few tests, and then meeting the maintainer in person, it was clear that Misha was by far the best chance she had at taking back this planet.


    The fact that she was somehow able to access her controlled systems, many with cutting edge Psycher technology up and running, showed her brilliance.


    Even while investigating the mysterious Misha, Ms. Clayton could not find any form of technology used. There were no subdermal implants, no eye implants, no chip readers of any kind. If Ms. Clayton didn¡¯t know for certain, she would almost swear that Misha never used any form of Psycher technology at all.


    Ms. Clayton herself had to at least fall back on the use of at least a physical foci of some kind, be it energy conducting crystals, wires sewn into her jacket sleeves, something.


    Yet, despite everything, Misha had gone into their meeting with nothing to denote her method of operations. This either meant that she was insanely confident in herself and her ability to get to a nearby storage area, where she could access her Psycher foci materials. Or the level of technology she had was so advanced that there was no way for Ms. Clayton to find them. Or thirdly, the idea that she was somehow so gifted that she could communicate to machines directly.


    Judging by her persona, and the first hand accounts of everyone Ms. Clayton spoke to about the girl, this seemed to be the case.


    Even now, she had people watching and recording her livestream of her actions during this event, just to see what she would do.


    This was partly why Ms. Clayton decided to change up the plan.


    The plan had always been to kill these two.


    It was clear that for whatever reason three of the monsters that were identified in Surreal were constantly monitored and flagged by Misha.


    They were subtle hints at first, a CCTV camera somehow flagging the users as active and moving. The way store front cameras would flag these three as having entered a particular establishment. Things that Ms. Clayton herself could only dream of having the program do, it did on its own seemingly thanks to Misha.


    Also, it was clear that Misha was some type of tracking genius, that her ability to remotely track people through different open world technology was exceptional. Then there was the way she was seemingly able to pretend to be doing something else while providing real time information to Ms. Clayton¡¯s ears and eyes.


    This was why throwing a slight wrinkle to the girl was so important, things didn¡¯t always go smoothly on missions. If Ms. Clayton was to actually recruit and trust Misha, then Clayton realized that she needed to see how the girl responded under pressure.


    How did the girl react under less-than-ideal circumstances. These were all things that Ms. Clayton resolved to identify here and now.


    There was also the strange fact that for whatever reason the girl also pinged on her detection programs, at least she did at first. Though somehow either that proved to be a fluke, or the girl was somehow able to find what she had been targeting with her scanning apps and been able to mitigate that as well.


    The more she hung around this strange anomaly, the more Ms. Clayton felt alive. This was yet another reason why she decided to act, as for the first time in so many hunting operations she felt alive. Almost as if this was her first time hunting, when she had been set loose onto an already terraformed and processed planet and was given free reign to act as she pleased.


    During that mission she went on a murder spree, killing thousands of infected Bakshee resources, before she was ultimately killed and sent to respawn.


    Though it had given her a lot of experience.


    With this life, Ms. Clayton was in new territory.


    Not only was she running a multigenerational product line that was being made into an integral backbone of the emerging Bakshee technology, but given her recent use of the Surreal app to track and eliminate high end targets, Ms. Clayton¡¯s level was the highest she had ever gotten to on one lifetime.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 50.8108%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Name: Ursala Jarnic (Ms. Clayton)


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Class: Elite Operative; Level 417


    Rank: O9


    Position Title: Lead Elite Operative


    Flight Hours: 1,328


    Planet Assigned: Bakshee Resource Production Planet 101121


    Reincarnation Status: Not At This Time


    Affinities: Water


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That was the other thing that got to Ms. Clayton, the fact that somehow a simple maintainer was flagged for reincarnation, while she was not. Though again that could be explained by the way the girl could apparently keep the flagship running at all times.


    It didn¡¯t take a mental genius long to realize that the Psycher Mothership, known as being unsinkable was only taken down once this Misha was forced to resurrect off the ship.


    However this also brought up the fact that if Misha could appear out here, then maybe the Matriarch would be able to resurrect out here as well. This was of course just a pipedream, a dream of a child who was separated from their parent for so long that they wished to be able to see their mother one last time and be told ¡°good job.¡± Such emotions were unbecoming of an operative, but were still some of the impulses that Ms. Clayton now dealt with after having been left alone for so long.


    This was why she was actually happy to find Misha, to work with her. And hopefully, by taking care of these two individuals that had clearly offended Misha in some way, Ms. Clayton hoped that she could prove herself useful to them.


    The targets were clearly identified as a social pair, even if the male was somewhat reluctant, it was clear that he would still give into the temptations of a female throwing themselves at him.


    From her research into Misha, it was clear that Misha and the boy had supposedly been going out, at least that was what social media messages seemed to indicate. Then apparently after the Pittsburg incident, Misha came back, to find that the boy and this trashy werewolf were back together.


    Seeing the pair, and getting the message that the area was mostly clear, along with no less than five exit paths available to her, this was the perfect time to strike.


    As a master of the Water element, Ms. Clayton has had numerous lifetimes to perfect the art of Water.


    Water is in most habitable planets used by both the Psychers and Bakshee, which meant that the number of planets the two great factions would focus on would directly impact the other species.


    With Water, many things were possible for an operative. Everything from poisoning the water supplies that would be then fed to the Bakshee fleets. To finding new and unique ways of attacking mostly water based lifeforms.


    That was the thing about Bakshee, their organo-tech was perfect in water. This meant that a Psycher Operative like her, one who specialized in Water Manipulation could come up with new and unique methods for taking down individual targets.


    Better still, the higher her level got, the more ambient energy her body was able to absorb and repurpose for the exact process of becoming a better killing machine for the Psycher Empire.


    Thus, after countless lifetimes and deaths, Ms. Clayton now had what she referred to as the perfect Anti-Bakshee design.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 71.6757%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Primary Affinity: Water</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Noted Affinity Skills: Control (MAX), Movement (MAX), Flow (MAX), Creation (MAX), and Distance (2)</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    At first, she wrongly went for a distance approach. This proved costly in most cases. Now she had unlocked Distance as her newest feature, but only after maxing out the other components that she learned were clearly more important.


    Control was used to exert her will and intent over all forms of water. The higher one¡¯s control, the more ability a Psycher has as manipulating water with more chemicals and contents in it. To practice, Ms. Clayton originally began by mixing sugars into water. Then gradually progressing to mixing drinks, to now where she could mix and move human blood.


    Next came Movement, where not only could she Control human blood, but then she could move said blood to specific spots. This was how a cut enemy could be forced to bleed out faster, how blood wouldn¡¯t have enough time to coagulate properly and so on.


    From there came Flow, rather than forcing liquids to just move, she could now use her will to force liquids to move in directions not anticipated. With this, Ms. Clayton could force blood to pool in otherwise healthy patches of skin. She could force liquids to rise up in the air, or cause liquids to sit in a target¡¯s throat and choke them.


    From there came Creation, nothing better than creating excess liquid within a contained human body to induce death. Though such attacks do appear sloppy at least at first.


    Now she was back to where she originally began, with distance being a factor.


    Using her Distance skill, Ms. Clayton was able to use her different skills from a few paces away. This way, she looked like she was an innocent passerby, when all hell would break loose.


    Attacking two grouped targets was tough, and from years of experience it was crucial to take down the stronger of the two first. This was why, after a quick glance, Ms. Clayton decided to start with the female.


    While still weak, it was clear that the female both had leader characteristics, a feeling she got from being in the field for so long. Along with the fact that the boy seemed to kowtow to her every whim.


    This was why, based on the split second of information gained, Ms. Clayton focused on target Alishia and then proceeded to use an excessively violent and dangerous attack on her.


    Boils.


    Being a master of Water manipulation the first thing Ms. Clayton did was quickly force normally healthy blood to pool into pockets of otherwise healthy flesh.


    The process was simple, and instantly corrosive, which was what was desired.


    ¡°What are you okay?¡± The boy asked, fear evident in his tone, as the hand he had just been holding suddenly began to break out as if in hives.


    Though hives were the last thing that these were.


    Burst.


    A packet of warm blood burst from the sore that had randomly appeared and sprayed the boy.


    Instantly, the boy shrunk back, looking at the blood on his hand. Which was good, as the female distracted by the sudden disgust on the boy¡¯s face paused in panic.


    This gave Ms. Clayton the time she needed to continue her relentless assault.


    Had the girl run away, or shifted into her war form, this could have gone differently. Not bad differently, but just different.


    This was good as it gave Clayton the time she needed to move about and gain more control over more and more pockets of flowing blood in the monster¡¯s system.


    Such practices were both time consuming and mentally taxing for Ms. Clayton. Still she pushed through, trying out this new technique from a distance that normally required her to be touching an otherwise bound subject.


    With this method, she was able to create signs that the girl was infected with a fast acting form of the plague.


    Boils burned and corroded their way up through the body. Blood poured out from the eyes and ears of the victim.


    This wasn¡¯t enough to kill a warrior, but it would make it harder for the subject to move.


    Using the moment Ms. Clayton used Creation energy twice, once on the female and a second targeting on the male. Not much, just a creation of unique liquid within the target that was clearly under her control. Liquid that Ms. Clayton could call upon at any time in the future, should she get within range of the victim.


    ¡°What is happening?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know?¡± The female cried out bloody tears, before getting up and changing into a bleeding werewolf right there for all to see.


    The boy looking surprised, looked around and then saw Ms. Clayton who was in heavy disguise with sunglasses and a hat. Had the boy had more time to question why someone would be wearing sunglasses at night, he might have thought something was up, that this had been a set up of some kind. Yet, the boy was too new to the life, and caught in that fight or flight mode that so many of their kind result to.


    For a moment Ms. Clayton prepared herself to have to face a warrior head on in battle. While she had no doubt she would win such an encounter, it would still be hard to hide her true identity. Especially if the police were involved, which was part of why she wanted Misha on overwatch.


    Yet, the boy took one look at the woman, then down to his puss and blood covered hand to see that he too was now producing his own boils. That¡¯s the point where he decided to break off and run away as well.


    Seeing the event, Ms. Clayton felt the need to chase them down. In the past that is exactly what she would need to do, but this time things were different. She had already made the first infection. From here, the next steps should be easier.


    ¡°Track them, and get me an escape route.¡± Ms. Clayton said.


    Then in the corner of her glasses, she saw a highlighted route appear that overlay an aerial view of the park, and highlighted a path to take through the very same park. On the same map two different colored dots also appeared to be heading off in different directions.


    Seeing the level of information being given to her, Ms. Clayton could only smile to herself as she made her way along the highlighted route.


    While the two subjects had gotten away, this was never meant to be more than an introduction to the life, and to see if Misha had what it took to assist when the mission went sideways.


    This might actually work out, Ms. Clayton thought to herself as she clearly found her way to the escape route, where she found one of her escape vehicles conveniently located. The engine was already warm and waiting for her.


    Seeing the fact that the machine seemed to be able to move on its own and was in the exact position that she was told to leave from was a bit curious.


    Again, this mechanic had more power than anyone had a right to. When she got out, she intended to have the vehicle searched for controlling modules, or energy fluctuations of any kind.


    But for now, the girl had passed.


    As soon as she was seated behind the driver¡¯s seat the car began to move on its own.


    ¡°This is rather convenient.¡± Ms. Clayton said, her instincts telling her to be weary.


    Yet, the car drove smoothly through the streets, hitting every green light, enroute to the predetermined safehouse.


    Once there, Ms. Clayton stripped out of her clothes, destroyed her wig, sunglasses, and hat that were put a preestablished incineration pit.


    Then pausing to herself, she paused as she saw the girl still working on modifying a car.


    Realizing that they were both viewing each other in real time, Ms. Clayton saw the girl working stoically the entire time.


    ¡°I think this will work out splendidly.¡± Ms. Clayton said, looking around and trying to see where any hidden cameras might be to spy on her, but she saw nothing. Instead, all she saw was the faintest head nod given by the girl, who then made a few last-minute attachments to the engine.


    ¡°And that is how you fix corroded wires to improve your performance. I¡¯ll try this again, when I have another project to work on. Until then, this is goodnight.¡± Misha said to her live streaming channel. Then moving her finger behind the mounted camera, she moved and the live feed cut out, leaving the channel showing a blank screen.


    Seeing the broadcast, Ms. Clayton could only nod, as she found herself talking out loud.


    ¡°I will be anxiously awaiting our next project, together.¡±


    Flicker.


    A light source flickered in the room, whether that was just a surge, or something else was impossible for Ms. Clayton to tell. Though Ms. Clayton decided to take it as an acknowledgement from her newest apprentice, one who scared even her with her raw power and abilities, if she was being completely honest with herself.

 Chapter 67 Sleeping In

    Chapter 67


    Sleeping In


    (Misha Tulley)


    The next day, the sun rose as it always had. Misha¡¯s mind awoke minutes before the alarms around the room prepared to go off in their oddly invasive way that denotes wear on the battery and a seemingly innate form of machines becoming slightly aware of their status and purposes and choosing to gain delight in meaningful ways.


    Misha¡¯s alarm for her phone was one such program.


    If she paid attention, Misha could see the alarm notification beginning to signify its intent to pounce thirty minutes before its actual time to strike. When interacting with the program it was clear that this was a feature of the alarm app, one that pre-warned victims before striking. In the same way exploding snakes from a can might wait anxiously to pounce on unsuspecting people. Even if the people they ultimately explode on are the very people who set them to begin with.


    Such logic in programming seemed odd to Misha.


    Why have a program warn you that it is going to try to catch you unaware. Yet, invariably people around the world woke up daily to be surprised by the very alarms they set for themselves.


    Misha also found herself wondering how much longer it would take for the alarms to go the next step and try to surprise their wielders randomly. For now that was not the case, but soon Misha felt the machines would be able to reason for themselves.


    At which point she would have to brush up on many of her mechanical persuasion skills. Coaxing a cleaning droid to clean the halls of a recently incinerated ship hull was a taxing and often overlooked portion of her day. One that only now after seeing how the other groups operated did she remember such details from her past incarnations.


    Normally the machines were perfectly happy to perform their functions. In fact, it wasn¡¯t until they were thrust face first into the fringes of battle that they often questioned their very existence.


    Now Misha found herself wondering the very same thing.


    What had her mission been all those years? Talking to machines, getting networks to work when she asked. Then when they still refused, forcing her words to come across with a lot more violence and force.


    Did the machines fear her?


    At the time she didn¡¯t think it was possible. She was even fairly certain that if they did fear her, they would not work so hard for her. Each piece and component worked well above their maximum life expectancies, often by mere daily and preventative maintenance.


    The machines even told her of their aches and pains. At least that is what she took the messages being sent to her mind.


    Whenever the wires wouldn¡¯t conduct electrical flows as efficiently she would clean them in her special solution.


    That might be it, for the first time in forever she both created and used her special wire cleaning solution. The smell alone was enough to apparently set off a deeper memory system within her fragile human body.


    Smell never used to be a factor in her old body. That or if it was, smell didn¡¯t set off memories the same way her human body did.


    Was this the same for all Bakshee?


    Die they remember odd details about the enemy and about survival via smells? Was that one of their hidden advantages?


    So many questions rolled in her mind.


    Worse, despite feeling the thrum of anticipation from her phone at the chance to pounce at her, Misha just lay in bed, her eyes closed as she tried to understand what was happening.


    For the first time in her life, she saw an operative at work. Not just any operative, but one who had clearly managed to survive and thrive on a planet for generations. Such a person was legend. The stories of nightmares and fiction among the maintenance staff.


    Yet, after seeing her in action, Misha felt, well she didn¡¯t know how she felt.


    Technically she shouldn¡¯t feel anything, as her training dictated that she learn a new mission set to help with the future needs of the fleet. So that once she eventually rejoined the fleet her skills and experiences would be an invaluable asset for others.


    However, Misha couldn¡¯t get over the way her mind raced wildly. Well not wildly, the thoughts were focused and controlled, but wild to her.


    They seemed to jump all over the place from memories of last night, to thoughts of her time fixing her Mustang, to times of her fixing random robots amongst the fleet.


    Only now that she was being forced to learn a new skill, and help out an operative did she begin to wonder if the machines she fixed and ordered about with her mind didn¡¯t like her.


    Had they held secret resentments for her? If so they never seemed to let those emotions show in their decision trees.


    Yet, after last night, Misha couldn¡¯t help but feel her own mind wondering if she liked the idea of being a fill in mop or convenience piece for operative Clayton.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    I¡¯ve only been here for sixteen years, and only been free of dedication to the queen for half that. Somehow in those few years of freedom I¡¯ve become so used to the idea of independence that I hate being forced to conform to mission needs, Misha thought to herself as she continued to lay in bed.


    Her motivation to rise up suddenly missing. Well not missing, not entirely. She was still in her allotted personal time, which was in effect all time before her alarm went off.


    Before her alarm went off, that was her personal time to sit, ponder, meditate, and get her mind in order. Once that alarm went off, she would put on her mental mechanics uniform and prepare for the daily regimen that she had established for herself.


    As she sat, anxiously waiting for the final moments of her freedom to end by the alarm app fulfilling its purpose, Misha wondered if this was what refurbished equipment that was stolen from other ships felt like.


    Working with and streamlining new devices and components into the ship was always a hassle. For whatever reason her section and she in particular was always tasked with integration.


    Misha remembered how it was always her job to integrate newly identified technological wonders from around the universe and first awaken them. Then get them to accept the environment they were in, then eventually get them to conform to the detailed systems that Misha herself had implemented.


    The process took time and what originally took years to fully indoctrinate pieces was eventually cut down to months and then finally weeks. Once a piece was fully indoctrinated, someone higher up the food chain would come down, inspect the piece see what its maximum outputs were and then take that component away.


    Misha of course could still monitor the component anywhere on the ship, which was why keeping them integrated was always easy.


    The only real hard part came when people tried to take the components off her system.


    For her part Misha didn¡¯t know how other ships ran their operating and integration systems. Others would come onto the flagship and inspect her works. Some would even ask questions, but Misha was never allowed to see the way other ships were designed or operated.


    Given that they were all part of the same fleet, Misha assumed a fairly standard level of competence throughout the fleet.


    Yet, seeing the surprise that Operative Clayton had from minor actions made Misha wonder.


    Of course, there was also the other key detail. The one that Misha realized was still affecting her now, that being the final words of operative Clayton.


    ¡°I will be anxiously awaiting our next project, together.¡±


    From all context clues, it was clear that Operative Clayton genuinely appreciated what minimal support she offered. Being their first operation together, Misha felt being hands off, avoiding the use of her Abilities and being as minimally invasive as possible was preferred.


    Yet, to her surprise Ms. Clayton seemed to like her doing things for her, like driving the getaway vehicle. Performing overwatch, providing escape routes, layouts and details of the surrounding areas. These were all things that all Psychers should be able to do, right?


    Ping.


    Ping, ping, ping.


    Misha paused, feeling the thrum of electricity going off. For a moment she was confused as she thought the pings were the winding up of her alarm app, preparing its obvious strike. But then her mind told her that it was something different.


    Opening her mind and focusing on the technology, Misha realized that the pings were her daisy-chain of different accounts alerting and forwarding emails from a distant account.


    Pausing to understand the chain, Misha followed it back to realize the account being noted was old. Years old in fact, but why was it getting pings now?


    Then reading the email subject lines that were rolling in, Misha finally understood.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 26.3784%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">From: [email protected]</a></td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Subject: Is Your Formula For Real?</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 30.0541%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">From: [email protected]</a></td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Subject: Question About Video Integrity</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the message, Misha quickly discarded the obvious scam email.


    It wasn¡¯t until the fifth email asking for the cleaning solution she showed on her video last night that appeared in her inbox, that Misha realized this was the account associated with her VTube account.


    Then pausing, Misha wondered if the questions were serious, as her solution was clearly pretty basic. Granted what you were cleaning would change the ingredients utilized, but for most corrosive oils her solution should do the job quite adequately.


    At least that is what she had thought. Before she got too into her thoughts, her phone app went off frightening her and catching her completely unaware.


    Brringg-brr-brring.


    Exhaling slowly from being caught by surprise by the very application that Misha had spent the better part of the last half hour anticipating was a bit frustrating.


    Still discipline dictated that now that the alarm had rung, her personal time was over and it was now time for her to begin her day anew.


    Turning off her alarm, Misha forced herself up and began going through her morning calisthenics, before preparing for her day.


    She was still tired, her body requiring more rest than she was ever used to while on the fleet. That and her excessive use of splitting her focus for over an hour-long operation last night had not done her body and mind any favors.


    However that was not going to stop her as made plans to pretend like nothing had happened.


    ***


    (Darcy Reynolds)


    Darcy found it hard to awake this morning. For the life of her, she wondered why today of all days was so tough to awaken as normal.


    Then thoughts of last night and a sexy Misha working in a tight white t-shirt in overalls under a car came to mind.


    While Darcy had never been much for cars, she had found herself oddly drawn to watching that live stream. One that came up as a last-minute alert on her phone that told her that someone she was following was doing a livestream.


    Given how late it was, Darcy almost dismissed the notification off hand, until she saw the name associated with it, and decided to give the stream a chance.


    What happened next was hours of odd sweat and grease covered muscles taking apart an engine, cleaning out the wires, and then putting them back in.


    Never before had automotive repair looked sexy. In fact, Darcy was certain that a thousand different actors and actresses could try to do the same thing, but would fail miserably. There was a subtle fluidity to her movements. The way she gracefully and systematically worked her way through every part of the engine.


    What is she doing?


    Don¡¯t ever touch that!


    She is a moron!


    You can¡¯t do that to an engine!


    Lines after lines of people came in to complain about Misha. Then they saw her soaking her wires. Something that Darcy assumed all people did.


    But apparently that was not the case. Most said they just replaced the wires, or did other things, but soaking them in unknown solutions was not recommended at all.


    Yet, Misha didn¡¯t seem to care. That or she had her notifications off, which was likely good, as Misha missed more than a few people trying to buy her attention on the live feed.


    Darcy herself had also thought about doing so, but then held back at the last minute. A fact she was glad for, as Misha clearly was not paying attention to the comments. Instead, she was just streaming for the act of streaming and showing one of her passions.


    It was clear the girl was a gear head. Darcy understood that from the beginning, particularly with the way she had managed to repair almost every vehicle in town after the solar flare.


    That said, watching her work last night was a thing of beauty. The way she lost herself to invest everything she had into making sure the components and tools were laid out in a neat orderly lines. Then cleaned, and ultimately placed back together in a little under two hours.


    That¡¯s right, she had done it, taken a fully functioning car, taken out every component of the engine, cleaned and polished the components. Then put them all back in good as new in under two hours. Best still was seeing her get into the vehicle and drive off at the end.


    Proving the doubters wrong.


    She had stayed up so late watching the live stream that even now her body and mind refused to work, due to how tired she still felt. Still, she forced herself to get up and out of bed. Knowing that she had the perfect subject to talk to her about today, namely her live stream, and how amazing it was.


    ***


    (Rodger Lee)


    Rodger awoke to feeling pain. Pain and an odd sticky sensation that seemed to cover most of his body.


    At first he thought about sleeping in, about just continuing to rest, but then realized that he still had a lot to do today. For today was his first true day being with the pack. He would now present himself before the Alpha of the city, someone who he had never met. Well not as an actual werewolf. Everyone had met Mr. Abraham Jacobs, but this was his first time meeting him in his official capacity as the pack alpha.


    Knowing this, Rodger knew that everything had to be perfect.


    Yet, for some reason, today when he awoke, he felt slightly groggy as if suffering from a cold. Which should be impossible given his new hyper immune system.


    Crackle-crust.


    It wasn¡¯t until he tried to open his eyes that he felt something was wrong.


    Opening his eyes he saw the flakes of dried blood that had somehow set on his eyes as he slept. Wondering how this was, he wiped at his eyes, only to feel a slight burning sensation in his right hand.


    Then in horror he looked down to see that somewhere last night he had taken to bandaging his hand. But despite this precaution, his hand for whatever reason still tried to bleed through his gauze and padding.


    ¡°What? What the heck?¡±

 Chapter 68 Business Arrangements

    Chapter 68


    Business Arrangements


    (Misha Tulley)


    It was odd watching a professional work.


    Misha watched as her new mentor showed her the slow and methodical method for taking down a group of Bakshee. Particularly when this group had gone and made things personal.


    Rather than wanting violent bloody revenge as her body all but demanded from an oddly sympathetic biological level. Misha was taught to wait.


    The attack, nothing more than a one-time interaction of operative Clayton meeting with and infecting Alishia and Rodger was by all means benign.


    Yes, there had been a daring escape, a quick entry and exit showing their teamwork.


    But since that point, the effects have been fairly benign.


    Or benign by Misha¡¯s overdramatized standards.


    The attack used was weak, a simple virus that only affected Bakshee warriors.


    Having just witnessed and fought off the effects of the faster acting, and delirium inducing attack from another Psycher, Misha was not impressed.


    This variant was slow, but it did do something that Misha thought was the purpose of the whole operation.


    Once the poison had been applied by Operative Clayton, the immune system or functionality for Rodger and Alishia had been fully breached. Meaning that Misha was now able to bypass all personal defenses of the two.


    This was a process that Misha herself was now trying to deal with on a fundamental level.


    To put it in simple terms, she now had access to the entire boot system that comprised Alishia and Rodger¡¯s Bakshee framework. From here she could decode, mutate, and alter not just their base abilities and functionalities.


    There was just one problem.


    Well multiple problems, but they could all be boiled down to one clear issue. Namely, how do you kill a system that has no inherent function to kill or permanently turn itself off?


    From a computer terminology perspective, this would be the same thing as saying you can destroy the operating system, delete all the files, eliminate all the work, but at the end of the day, the base computer is still there.


    This attack vector by Ms. Clayton was the same.


    Misha had the targets she wanted compromised. From now on, she could make it so that each and every future version of computers from Alishia and Rodger all had the same genetic defects or worse.


    Again, though the problem was the lack of a personal touch.


    There was no way to exact retribution.


    This was when Misha realized that she had in fact changed. The old Misha, the one of the fleet would have thought in the form of millennium. Destroying all future branches of these two was a far worse fate than one could imagine. It would also make it so that future progeny would be weaker and therefore more easily able to be subdued by Misha and any future Psychers.


    By all means and measures, Misha should be satisfied with this compromise.


    However she wasn¡¯t.


    What good was ensuring that all future branches from these two would be withered and corrosive to the entire terraforming process of the planet, when she could just burn the trees down to the root right now?


    Still, Misha realized that she was new to this. That Operative Clayton was a trained professional in this, and likely knew best.


    This was why, Misha began working in private.


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    Practicing methods like the BlackEnergy 3 attacks and beyond, Misha found herself working on her own unique attack vectors that could possibly help her gain the sense of satisfaction that she so craved.


    Her craving for vengeance was not overwhelming, not all consuming. At least it wasn¡¯t all consuming for the moment. That said, the need for full revenge was drawing near.


    For some reason, Misha felt that there was a time limit to the method currently being displayed by Operative Clayton.


    That or her ideas for working were much faster.


    Given her role within the fleet, the maintainer, this made sense and likely skewed most of her understandings of how quickly Psychers should operate.


    In the fleet, her task was to maintain the complete functional integrity of the ship from start to finish.


    This meant she could relax so long as the ship was fully functioning. The only problem was, that the moment something went wrong not only was she to fix said problem, but she was to do so immediately. Not only that, but part of her problems for the future came from being told to do the impossible.


    Or at least these were tasks that Misha and her fellow repair workers thought to be impossible, namely they were told to identify future problem areas and begin fixing them before they had a problem.


    The only problem with such logic was it bordered on near precognition phenomena.


    This was the point where the war became the hardest, and many of the resources for maintainers to be reincarnated were denied. That or were kept off ship.


    When reincarnation events happened, it meant that over time more and more of Misha¡¯s fellow crew members were forced of the ship, while Misha was one of the few left onboard.


    This was a blessing and a curse.


    It was a blessing in that Misha soon found herself promoted to the top after a mere millennium of working directly for the queen¡¯s flagship.


    The curse came in the fact that soon all the major maintenance options were her responsibility. Even those other crew members who survived the purges eventually were denied resources and forced to reincarnate off the flagship, leaving just Misha and one or two others.


    Misha found herself thinking about not just these odd occurrences now that she had more access to different people. But she oddly found herself wondering why her mind kept traveling back to her time on the fleet.


    More importantly, she found her mind wondering to what exactly the Matriarch actually looked like.


    ***


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Exhaustion.


    ¡°I am too old for this,¡± Ursala said to herself as she looked in the mirror and took in her glamorous look. This was the look of Ursala Jarnic, CEO of a Fortune 50 company.


    Even now she could feel the slow and methodical draining of her new body¡¯s slowly draining energy being sucked away to keep two Bakshee infections active.


    All Ursala had to do was focus for long enough and the diseases, these pustules that she had inflicted on her two targets would be permanent.


    ¡°A month at max,¡± Ursala said to herself as she applied her eye liner in the mirror while giving herself a pep talk about using her powers once more and increasing her proficiency.


    This was of course the blessing and the curse of the Psycher.


    Yes, using her powers would ultimately increase her skill and proficiencies with her more obscure abilities. The only problem was, like always Ursala now found herself drained. She had bitten off too much too fast, trying to impress the simple mechanic.


    As least, the person she originally thought of as the simple mechanic.


    But after seeing her in person, and realizing that this was likely the famed mechanic of the fleet. Ursala found herself needing to keep up the ruse of power.


    Which at this point was too far down the line. Meaning she wouldn¡¯t just need to pretend to be as powerful as she claimed, but she would need to be as powerful.


    The only problem, was that killing Bakshee agents to level was tough. Doing so and not getting caught was doubly tough. Back in the day all she would need to do is go to the old west, find a bar and mow down the inhabitants. That or take her powers to the local well and infect an entire city of werewolves and vampires.


    Now though, now times were tough.


    She had just gotten this new body. Better still, she had just managed to forge her own birth records to prove she was the illegitimate child of her previous body. A body who was taken down by other werewolves trying to enact vengeance.


    That¡¯s the problem with Bakshee and their odd organo-tech, they could literally hunt her down for miles and for years on end.


    Not only that, but the vampires could track her blood, which she would often shed of some of the more daring tasks.


    That was why Ursala felt so confident going after the two tier zero kids. How they were Tier 0, despite the one being an Alpha was beyond Ursala. But seeing those two in such a weakened state, and knowing their importance to her target, the mechanic, she knew she had to go all out.


    That of course was a few nights ago.


    By now she should have moved on to the other targets.


    The only problem was that she was exhausted. Despite being Tier 0s, the energy required to keep both individuals infected with her plague spores.


    Of particular concern was how many times she had to seemingly reapply the base compound to the female, the one who was a Tier 0 Alpha.


    At one point, Ursala felt that she had to be going toe to toe with a venerable shaman, but soon dismissed that idea as there were no signs of a powerful enough shaman being present. At most Ursala estimated there to be a Tier III shaman, while the powers and patterns needed to break her plague spores would be at least a Tier IV if not higher.


    For those reasons, in addition to her trying to run and maintain her everyday persona as the CEO and entrepreneur face of a fortune 50 company, Ursala felt tired.


    Still, despite feeling tired, more tired than she had been in multiple lifetimes, she also felt truly alive. For now she had hope, with time and effort she was fairly certain she could pull the Mechanic to her side. All she needed to do was prime the hook and reel her in.


    This was why Ursala kept reapplying her lock on the two Tier 0 werewolves, creatures that would normally be below her scrutiny, especially with how minimal the return for effort was.


    Logically, she should cut her losses, but this was too important of a chance.


    Knock, knock.


    Then just as she was going over her plans, she heard a knocking on her door.


    ¡°Yes?¡± Ursala called out, finishing up her makeup as she expected her assistant to come in and tell her what her first meeting of the day was.


    ¡°Ms. Jarnic, your eleven o¡¯clock is here to see you.¡± Ms. Martin stated.


    Hearing that her schedule had already started, Ursala could only nod in agreement.


    ¡°Send him in,¡± Ursala replied, trying to remember the name of the particular person who she would be meeting with, and why.


    ¡°Right away.¡±


    Of course, Ursala couldn¡¯t ask her secretary about whether the gentleman was a supernatural or not, as no one was allowed to utilize the Surreal app while working. It was odd, but rather important for legal reasons.


    This was why Ursala was completely surprised when she entered the parlor to see a well-dressed dark-skinned man in an exceptional suit with a blue blazer and dazzling ivory tie.


    ¡°Why hello,¡± Ursala said, reaching out a gloved hand to grab the hand of the local businessman who Ursala was here to do business with.


    ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Jacobs, Bruce Jacobs, and I would like to thank you for your time today.¡± The well dressed man said, as he gently wrapped his two large paws for hands around the much more delicate hand of Ursala¡¯s and gave a gentle clasp and shake.


    ¡°Yes, what can I do for you Mr. Jacobs?¡± Ursala found herself asking.


    Little did Ursala know that at the moment of the connection, a metal ring worn by Mr. Jacobs set off a faint tingle of electricity. Electricity that let Mr. Jacobs know that after searching for so long, he finally found the source of so much trouble.


    Hearing the question and realizing that this was his moment Mr. Jacobs merely smiled and replied.


    ¡°Oh, but I believe it is I who should be able to offer something of interest for you.¡±

 Interlude VI Bakshee Developmental Observation Station T&$5*# - (TASSOH)

    Interlude VI


    Bakshee Developmental Observation Station T&$5*# - (TASSOH)


    The Bakshee TASSOH observers sat in their seats, day in and day out, devoting their entire lives towards watching the development of newly evolving planets and ensuring the moment that each planet was ready for integration to the Bakshee nation, they would be contacted immediately.


    This forced contact was important as it provided unity and helped the newly capable planets to accept their fate more easily. There were times at first when planets were left to terraform on their own. When the early planets had to contact the rest of the fleet, they would then be accepted with open arms.


    The problem with such an arrangement was that these developing planets didn¡¯t always go in the directions given, meaning they often spent years to centuries exploring space on their own. This was found to be a problem as it often meant that by the time such planets finally joined the collective, they were too defiant in their own ways. Which often led to needless political infighting, when larger enemies were a constant threat.


    A way to prevent these minor oversights and deep political ties to the planets of one¡¯s own origin was to have stations nearby to meet with and indoctrinate the planet a decade before full space exploration was possible.


    Thus, while the TASSOH mission might not have been the most glamorous of positions, offered to many as a retirement facility for the soldiers who spent their lives at war. Or as a waystation for researchers who either annoyed the wrong people or were deemed a hindrance to the actual advancement of sciences to be stationed.


    With this odd mix of best but past their prime fighters, and na?ve scientists often made for random conversations. Particularly as at least one former soldier had to stand shift with a scientist counterpart, to ensure all the readouts from the various planets within their scanning ranger were monitored and progress reports were sent up nearly constantly.


    Most of the time these were boring shifts where only stories and random conversations were made to help pass the time. With only the most exceptional of planets truly drawing any attention from their instrument panels.


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you, there was word of a master mechanic on the Matriarch¡¯s ship. We used to call the creature the unsinkable Psycher. So long as one of their reincarnation pods remained, it didn¡¯t matter what happened. Whether it was complete hull breach. Hull fires, disabling of the systems. Nothing we did would stop that flagship from being repaired and able to flee the zone within thirty minutes.¡± The old soldier began saying, as more than caffeine was in his cup to help loosen the old warrior¡¯s tongue to begin his shift.


    ¡°No way, that is just a myth. Something they tell young grad students to study harder lest the boogeyman thwart all their efforts.¡± The younger but cocky scientist replied.


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you, we got it. We spent years tracking down Psychers who had been part of the initial crew of the flagship. Each and everyone spoke of the machinist that could do the impossible, even for people of her kind.¡± The soldier continued.


    ¡°What¡¯d you do, hunt them down, force their resurrection points to be within our bases?¡± The scientist said mockingly.


    ¡°Yes, that is exactly what we did. And after a while of interrogating each member, they all came to the same story. That there was one mechanic who kept that flagship running like clockwork regardless of what we threw at it.¡±


    ¡°Okay, so how did you get her then?¡±


    ¡°Simple, over time, we confirmed where her resurrection point was. Then we gave a precise attack, where we targeted that resurrection point solely, getting rid of all bodies then we kept attacking the flagship, just throwing life after life at the ship, until we were certain that the maintainer and her crew were dead.¡± By the end of the speech the soldier grew more somber with his response, as it was clear that this was an emotional moment for him.


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    ¡°We just threw life after life at the onslaught, trying to get one minor objective. Not even hoping for the destruction of the flagship itself, just taking down the maintenance staff.¡± The soldier finally concluded.


    ¡°If so, then that was a terrible waste of resources.¡± The scientist replied.


    Hearing that the soldier could only nod in agreement.


    ¡°It was a waste, but it was worth it in the end. I¡¯m sure every soldier who gave their life that day would all agree.¡±


    ¡°Wait, you are talking about the massacre of Reacher¡¯s End? The one where close to a hundred billion units of resources were lost, thousands of ships, and millions of soldiers all lost because of a failed gambit?¡± The scientist exclaimed, recalling the story and how it was looked on as a failure in the war colleges.


    ¡°You say failed, but we got her. Then within a decade, we were able to track down the still bedraggled flagship, where we were ultimately able to kill off their queen once and for all.¡± The old soldier stated.


    Silence.


    This was one of the natural stopping points of the shift, as both observers went about their tasks of seeing the feeds from the various planets that were all being developed.


    Finally, with their checks complete, the scientist finally went back to the original conversation.


    ¡°So what made you think of this story?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± The old soldier replied, his mind still going over the numbers and data sets before him.


    ¡°What made you suddenly remember the story of this legendary Psycher ghost mechanic?¡±


    With that the soldier could only pause for a moment, before going on with his own introspection.


    ¡°It¡¯s these readouts.¡± The soldier noted, pointing to the fifth of seven data sets that they were supposed to read over.


    ¡°The readouts?¡± The scientist proclaimed as he went over to double-check the values being presented before him.


    Upon reading the numbers, the scientist did note a wide fluctuation of activity. With what appeared to be the feeds of no less than seventeen displaced Psychers. Their brainwaves and functions flagged for monitoring, two of which had evolved enough to be on the indoctrinated Psycher watchlist.


    ¡°Yeah, two Psychers. You think one of them is this Ghost mechanic?¡± The Scientist asked.


    Hearing the comment, the soldier just shook their head.


    ¡°No, that would be too obvious for the mechanic. No, I think it is this one here.¡± The soldier said, pointing to the notification of not one but two Reaper units active. Not even pointing to the Reaper unit that was biologically older, but noting the Reaper unit that had recently surpassed the only other Reaper unit present.


    ¡°What even is a Reaper Unit?¡± The Scientist asked, while pulling up a data pad and trying to recall the technical data of the set.


    ¡°They are a long defunct setting. One that should only be active at the beginning of a Terraforming event, and then die out entirely. The fact that not one but two are active this late in the process is an anomaly.¡±


    ¡°So they are a backwater planet that is far from being ready to be integrated.¡± The scientist stated dismissively.


    ¡°You might think so, but that one model has already been exposed to and resisted multiple Psycher based plagues. Not only that, but they have shown the ability to shield others from the effects of Psycher plagues as well.¡± The soldier noted, scrolling up and showing how the subject in question was at ground zero of an outbreak, one that was estimated to cost the planet at least five years to recover from. At least recover from in the form of an integration with the galactic society as a whole.


    ¡°So what are you saying? The fact that this person survived being exposed to two different Psycher plagues makes them this ghost mechanic?¡±


    ¡°Not just that, but there are Psycher spikes that come out,¡± the soldier said, denoting different reading points on the charts. All indoctrinated individuals had their statistics sent directly to the research facility. These same feeds were the same sensors that certain Psycher operatives learned to decrypt and access while in the field.


    Still, despite the flaws, the system was the best they had available at the time. And so long as the number of noted Psychers didn¡¯t get much higher than two, such infections were deemed to be acceptable. Too many more, and either troops would need to be sent in, or the planet would be deemed a waste of time and resources, and all feeds from the planet would go to a passively monitored state.


    ¡°You know that is impossible, that even the older nanite systems would be able to disrupt the psychic feeds of everyone save the matriarch.¡± The scientist stated, as they went over and were surprised to see that despite his comments to the contrary, the Psychic spikes of activity did come from the noted Reaper.


    Then pausing for a moment, he looked at the specs of the Reaper and was momentarily shocked by his findings.


    ¡°Wait, this is perfect modification of a Reaper exo-suit. Such a thing should be theoretically impossible. That is why Reapers are designed to die off over time.¡± The scientist began, recalling perfectly the explanations given during his training.


    At that, the old soldier could only nod in agreement, as if finally being able to prove their point.


    ¡°You know what this means right?¡± The scientist asked, a note of pure excitement filling his face as he was close to being able to present the scientific finding of the century. How to fix the flawed Reaper components, it was right there. Better still, this readout even showed the modifications done to prevent future Psycher plague attacks. A bit late, but still good to know. Then just as his mind began to race with all types of possibilities, he was brought back to reality by his shift partner.


    ¡°It means we sit right here and watch and wait.¡± The soldier confirmed.


    With that, the look of excitement on the scientist¡¯s face dropped, as he realized the soldier was correct. There wasn¡¯t enough now, to do more than continue to apply observation resources, and monitor for changes.


    Then with a start, the cocky scientist looked at the old soldier, and begrudgingly felt a note of respect filling his gaze as he looked at the old veteran.

 Chapter 69 Loose Threads

    Chapter 69


    Loose Threads


    (Hasty)


    ¡°It has been three weeks and you are telling me that no one can find anything on the girl, Misha, and her entourage?¡± Hasty exclaimed, as even she had a hard time remembering the name of the girl that won her sweepstakes.


    Though to be fair, this was not really her fault as all references to the girl, her compatriots, or even the contest winner were slowly eroding and disappearing. Almost as if the name itself was ice left to melt in the baking hot summer sands.


    Unfortunately, it was not summer, there was no beach, and as far as the world was becoming concerned there was no Misha. At least not a Misha who was in Pittsburgh, who arrived with her friends and then fought her way to freedom.


    Immediately after the event, data from the event, its subsequent riot and subsequent violence were all captured on tape. Millions of hours of video footage were collected, stored and processed.


    The only problem was, that the cameras for where Misha and her friends had left were apparently faulty on the night of the event. Worst of all, the server that did manage to capture some data was then corrupted and had severe damage. The backup facility, that served as an alternate storage site for data was also destroyed.


    Then there was the blurring effect of videos of the event. This started small, with but minor blemishes to the faces of the people that were on stage with Hasty at the time of the incident. Then slowly the names and words also got corrupted, until finally the videos were no longer playable in any format.


    It was a legal nightmare as Hasty and her team were close to being charged with tampering of data, but enough data survived that it was clear to see who was most to blame for the wild concert.


    Doctors were claiming that it was a bacteria in the water supply that caused the mass hallucination, claiming it was something similar to the Salem witch trials, where foreign bacteria got to the brain and caused mild to severe hallucinations. At least that is the best explanation that has been detailed thus far.


    ¡°I regret to inform you that no, we have not found any sign of the three girls in question. Furthermore, it seems that all records associated with just writing down their names via electronic correspondence have caused issues.¡± Ms. Delaney, Hasty¡¯s right hand woman and the only reason why Hasty still could hold onto the idea that she was still sane after everything that has happened.


    ¡°How so?¡± Hasty asked, suddenly interested in this new note of understanding.


    ¡°Every email I write with the names has been corrupted. Even names from my alternate or newly created accounts get corrupted, altered, or ultimately deleted sometimes before I even hit send.¡± Ms. Delaney stated, there was a moment where it looked like she wanted to say more, but then collected herself.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Hasty asked.


    Hearing the question, Ms. Delaney seemed to struggle with herself, before ultimately answering.


    ¡°I¡¯d almost say that it was a government conspiracy to cover things up, but the only problem is, that the government isn¡¯t this good. I mean we are talking about killing the dissemination of intelligence at the time of transmission, something that is theoretically impossible. Then there are the odd occurrences.¡±


    ¡°Occurrences?¡± Hasty pressed.


    ¡°Yes, as you know, I kept personal notes in my journal, which has so far managed to remain the only record of these three people and their names. I¡¯ve tried to copy down versions of the names onto hand written letters to myself and others, but the letters never got processed.¡± Ms. Delaney continued.


    Hearing that, Ms. Delaney looked a little bit better, but still seemed to be holding back even more information.


    ¡°There is more?¡± Hasty pressed.


    With that Ms. Delaney just nodded as she bit her lip. ¡°There have been odd eruptions too, as if something is trying to attack my personal journal.¡±


    ¡°Events?¡±


    ¡°Yes, they started off as minor at first, but the more time passes, the more I can¡¯t help but see random events happening.¡±


    ¡°Like what?¡±


    ¡°Like a quick contained fire erupting from when I put my phone on my journal. I managed to put out the fire in time, with the flames only minorly damaging the leather coating, but the phone was destroyed.¡±


    ¡°I remember that,¡± Hasty added.


    ¡°Then there were other random encounters that I can¡¯t help but feel were somehow orchestrated. Once I had the journal in my hands when leaving the library where I created the new email accounts, as I left an automated delivery courier came far too close for regulations and splashed me and my journal. Again, the pages were once again saved, but that was just another incident that felt somehow forced.¡± Ms. Delaney said.


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    While the splashing of a courier drone was not unheard of, its timing couldn¡¯t help but seem suspicious, particularly as the package supposedly went to the library in question. Also, the phone exploding was also new, but again Hasty had been so lost in her own issues that she had failed to notice the troubles that Ms. Delaney was going through.


    ¡°Is that it?¡± Hasty finally asked.


    ¡°Is that it? Is that it? Yes, that is it so far, but you and I both know that this isn¡¯t done.¡± Ms. Delaney stated.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know that trouble always comes in threes?¡± Ms. Delaney asked.


    ***


    (Bruce Jacobs)


    Tired.


    If Bruce had to put how he was currently feeling into one word, it would have to be that he was tired. For the first time in a long time, he constantly found himself being awoken by random sounds throughout the house.


    Most notably, he had the dream that people were trying to steal his prized BMW, the new eight class with leather heated seats, power steering, and best of all none of that hybrid junk most people try to drive around in. The car was sleek, fast, and knew how to make some noise to let others know he was coming through.


    Why did Bruce feel that his car would be stolen? Well simply put, it was the best car in the whole neighborhood. It was so good in fact that he had to hide it in his sealed garage, both to protect the vehicle from the elements, and to prevent people from thinking they could take it.


    This was why, every time Bruce woke up, he could swear that he heard the engine of his vehicle revving wildly.


    Yet, every time he made his way to the garage, he found the vehicle right where it was supposed to be. Sitting there patiently, just waiting for him to drive off to wherever he was needed today.


    The first time he checked, he just opened the door, gave a quick cursory check around the garage, saw that the door was still sealed and that the activation code was set for the alarm system. With everything the way it was supposed to be, Bruce took in a deep calming breath and went back to bed.


    Only to awaken a few hours later, when he once again heard the revving of his beloved vehicle.


    This time he made it down the hall and to the kitchen, before the noise stopped.


    Quickly grabbing a baseball bat from behind the couch, Bruce made his way through to the garage, only to find that everything was still set up as before.


    This time Bruce didn¡¯t just check from the doorway. This time he found himself walking around the garage, only to find nothing.


    There was an odd smell of smoke and carbon in the air, which caused Bruce to look under the car for anyone.


    Dizzy.


    That¡¯s when Bruce¡¯s old age hit him, once he lowered his head too fast. But he had to be quick, as he was trying to check under the car to catch anyone that might be hiding under the car. But nothing.


    Bruce stood up, feeling slightly dizzy from the sudden movements.


    ¡°You need to get out and walk around more, old man.¡± Bruce said to himself, as he held himself still, trying to regain his balance.


    Then on reflex he went over to test the alarm by opening the side door to the outside.


    BEEP, BEEP, Chirp.


    Yep, immediately, the alarm that had been set went off, giving Bruce thirty seconds needed to go over and reengage the alarm system.


    Staggering, Bruce made his way over and drunkenly put in the code. His fingers feeling slightly fatter than normal as he typed.


    Then with the alarm disengaged properly, he let out a sigh of relief, gave one last look at the car.


    For a moment, he thought about going over to touch the hood of the car to see if he could feel some heat, but then just shook his head. It had been a long night and he probably heard the neighbor¡¯s car revving and that caused him to freak out in his dream.


    Still though, Bruce did make it a point to get more exercise. Even with his werewolf body, apparently there were some problems that good genetics couldn¡¯t fix.


    For a moment Bruce almost felt nauseous, causing him to leave the garage faster, and run to a bathroom. After his thirty minute stomach scare was over, Bruce made his way back to bed, content that everything was only in his mind.


    Revvving.


    Yet, every time Bruce felt his mind fully relax enough to go to sleep, he was awoken by the noisy neighbors and their damn muscle car. A car that could not compare to his own.


    Knowing that his neighbors were likely jealous of his very fast and well protected car, Bruce tried to go to sleep. That is, until his alarm clock finally went off.


    Yet, despite everything, Bruce felt sluggish.


    He still felt nauseous for whatever reason.


    ¡°Might be getting a cold,¡± Bruce said to himself, before realizing that if he worked out more, he might not get sick as often. This only doubled his personal goal of going to work out more.


    Still he was tired, his mind still reeling from the lack of sleep he got due to his annoying neighbors. Mentally, he noted that he would talk to the neighbors, once he got back from work.


    Unfortunately, work waited for no one, which was why Bruce, who forced his entire staff to come into the office, knew he had to lead by example and do just that. Despite wanting to call out sick, Bruce did what any good manager would do, he sucked it up, got ready and then entered his car to leave.


    Dizzy.


    Once again, Bruce felt dizzy for whatever reason, but decided to just deal with it.


    Shaking his head, he closed his eyes and fought through the dizzy spell.


    Then slowly, he felt oddly tired. Too tired to drive. Mentally he knew he should call out sick, but he couldn¡¯t. He also knew that he should just go back to his bed to get more sleep, but these were leather seats. Comfortable leather seats, and his bed was so far away, that he couldn¡¯t relax properly.


    Hot.


    Bruce found himself feeling hot, which was when he realized he should at least turn on his car to get some AC going.


    Ding.


    The minute he turned on his vehicle, the low gas light came on. That was odd, but then again it was a new car and Bruce hadn¡¯t had time to figure out how much larger the top half of the tank was than the bottom half of the tank.


    With the cold air being recycled from his garage to his face, he felt momentarily relaxed. This was when Bruce realized he would reward himself by taking a quick power nap within his vehicle. That was when he decided to call into the office, to let his secretary know that he would be a little late getting in.


    Bring.


    ¡°Hello, JD Banking, this is Cathy speaking, how may I help you?¡± Cathy Bruce¡¯s receptionist asked.


    Hearing her warm energetic voice, Bruce could only smile, knowing that she was already there to take care of anything that might come up.


    ¡°Hi Cathy, this is Bruce. I am just calling to let you know that I going to be running a little late today.¡± Bruce said.


    ¡°Thank you, sir and we will hold down the fort until you arrive.¡± Cathy said, her warm overly affectionate tone letting Bruce relax slightly.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Bruce said, as he reached up and clumsily hit the end call button.


    Click.


    The phone call ended, with a time reading 47 Seconds.


    With that, Bruce closed his eyes and tried to fight through the dizziness that was threatening to rule his mind.


    Thrum.


    A gentle thrum and movement of gears beneath him let him go to sleep in what was now an oddly soothing sound.


    His last thought, before his mind completely went blank was of his receptionist seeming to continue the conversation after their initial call ended.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Bruce¡¯s recorded voice came back to him, sounding oddly distorted. Did he actually sound like that in real life?


    Click.


    There was the obvious sound of the call ending. Then a pause before Cathy could be heard visibly relaxing.


    ¡°Phew, no, thank you jerk, for not coming to the office so we can get work done.¡± Cathy said, her normally cheerful voice filled with a deep sense of venom.


    At first Bruce was slightly angry at the words, but then realized it had to be part of a dream. A lucid dream that he could now interact with, or was somehow aware he was sleeping.


    Then his mind finally relaxed, letting him get past even the initial stage of sleep, so he could take his quick power nap.


    ***


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    ¡°This is News 7, your number one leader in local news.¡± The Announcer began, before continuing, ¡°we regret to inform you that a local leader and influential pillar of the community was found dead today. The person was found dead by what police are calling an apparent suicide by carbon monoxide attempt. More at eleven.¡±


    Click.


    Hearing the news Operative Clayton could only stare at the television wondering first how the set came on. But then, wondered what local leader had died in a small town like Jackson West Virginia.


    Then a quick internet search later and her question was answered.


    Seeing the articles and obituaries, Ms. Clayton only had a one word response, ¡°how?¡±

 Chapter 70 Remembrance

    Chapter 70


    Remembrance


    (Misha Tulley)


    Sometimes irony strikes when you least expect it, that or may it is just the ever evolving sphere of coincidence that seems to stalk life as karma¡¯s little shadow. The way no one can outright claim karma exists, but then is reminded over and over of the overbearing and heavy-handed reach of coincidences.


    Which if anyone watches for long enough, they will often tell you that there are no such things as coincidences, just as there are too many threads of fate weaving items together to believe in anything as ephemeral as irony. Thus, when events play out to their logical conclusions, one can only truly see the signs of fate that are before them, and realize that fate is watching and apparently judging.


    Knowing this absolute certainty of fate always watching and meeting out rewards, punishments, and warnings equally, Misha could only accept what happened to her as a sign that fate was watching and had not yet passed full judgement on her, yet.


    ¡°Team,¡± Coach Green began, her long form covered in the thick protective layer of a black with white striped Adidas windbreaker and matching pants. Her tone was serious, as she held a rather small box in her hands. Her tone was the no nonsense decibel that she used when she was giving out instructions that she either had no control over, nor did she want to argue the point over just how little power she had over these details.


    Hearing her tone, everyone instantly snapped to attention with a form of rigidity to their stances as if they were ready for her to claim that the team was being disbanded. That had been a concern that with everything going on, and with budget cuts, sports, especially the girls¡¯ sports, would be cut due to funding issues.


    With the coach looking so serious, everyone appeared to be nervous, as if waiting for the axe to drop. Everyone but three people, the coach who was as unreadable as ever. Misha who was still indifferent and never truly let her real emotions play out on her face. Then finally there was Amoni who was unusually calm. Well, no, she wasn¡¯t exactly calm. Rather she seemed to twitch and sway slightly in place as if she knew what was going to happen, but didn¡¯t want to give anything away.


    ¡°As you have heard, the county has suffered a number of budget cuts over the past couple of months,¡± Coach Green continued.


    Groans.


    Hearing the words, team as one let out unified grunts of frustration that seemed to echo in the gymnasium.


    ¡°Now calm down, we knew this was a thing. Also, as I told you before, we were given the option to either disband or find external funding sources.¡± The coach continued.


    At that recognition everyone tensed up, as they knew selling boxes of candy bars to the other students would be tough, but worth it if they could continue to play. At the realization that a lot of their class times would be taken up selling candy bars, many prepared for the inevitable conclusion.


    ¡°Well, as you might have seen many of the other sports teams have already begun selling boxes of candy to help raise funds.¡±


    Again, more discontent filled the gymnasium as it sounded like the team would have to do something scandalous like providing car washes in winter, or something equally stupid.


    ¡°As you no doubt could have guessed, most of the teams that you see peddling wares were unable to find a donor in time. We too were unable to find a suitable donor in the time period provided.¡±


    At that Misha and Amoni both stared quizzically at the coach, for ironically, the same exact reason.


    ¡°For you see, we were not able to find one donor, but two.¡± Coach Green said, then holding out her box, she opened up the contents to reveal two different badges.


    ¡°These are our sponsors, Phil¡¯s Rustbucket Garage, thanks to Misha and her grandfather¡¯s generous contributions,¡± the coach said, holding up the first badge that just said Phil¡¯s on it, with a rusty bucket embroidered on a typical mechanic name plate.


    ¡°This will be worn on your right-hand side, like so,¡± Coach said, holding up the patch to a spot just below her right collarbone.


    Then with the first badge taken care of, the coach took on a more serious tone.


    ¡°For the next sponsor, I want to take a moment to address a prominent figure and pillar of our community who sadly passed recently. As many of you are no doubt aware by now, Amoni¡¯s uncle passed away recently. Mr. Bruce Lamar Jacobs was a very affluent man who worked tirelessly to support and build up our community, and above all he loved seeing his beloved niece play basketball. As such, the Jacobs have donated some of his finances left behind to help support not only the basketball team, but many facilities around campus. That is why I am proud to state our second badge of honor will be in commemoration of Mr. Bruce Lamar Jacobs and his immense heart.¡± Coach said reaching into the box and pulling a second plate from the box. This patch just had three white letters ¡®BLJ¡¯ sewn onto a black background.


    Then to demonstrate the placement of the patches, coach Green unzipped her jacket to reveal her own uniform with the patches already placed and sewn into their correct spots.


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    ¡°I will give each of these to you now. Know that while you all are part of the team, you will not be able to play in any sanctioned games, unless you have the sponsors¡¯ badges clearly placed on your jerseys.¡±


    At that coach began handing out patches in pairs to each member of the team, making sure to thank Amoni and Misha respectively for their family¡¯s support.


    Holding the patches, Misha could only stare at the three letters.


    The three letters of the person she killed. The person whose name she would have to carry with her for at least the length of the season. Seeing the patch, Misha couldn¡¯t help but think it was a message from the universe as a whole. A reminder that while she might have escaped mortal punishments, she was not above karma¡¯s retribution, particularly if she pushed too far.


    That said, she realized this moment for what it was, a simple acknowledgement and warning not to get too ahead of herself. A warning that she would have to walk a fine line of retribution from here on out. That if she still wished to punish Alishia and Rodger for their parts in her grandmother''s death that she could very well gain karmic backlash.


    Suddenly, Misha felt a slight burning sensation in her hand, as if the badge itself grew hot to the touch. Again, either her own mind interpreting and adding additional sensations that were not actually there to help understand the situation, or karma providing a very real tangible feeling to the warning she was clearly receiving.


    Then just as the burning sensation got hot enough that Misha might have to do drop the patch or something, the coach spoke again, pulling Misha¡¯s mind from the trance that had overcome her, and pulled her back to the real world.


    ¡°That gives you all three days to find an iron, ask a friend who has an iron, or take it to the tailoring shop on Main Street by Friday to get these patches applied.¡± Coach Green said, going back to her spot at the center of the formation.


    Three days, before she would have to wear the remembrance of Bruce Jacobs, the ring leader of the group of wild unchained killers that killed for sport. Three days before every time she put on her uniform, an item that gave her both a sense of accomplishment and joy would have to be noted by the initials of her Grandmother¡¯s killer.


    Then Misha switched her vision to the first one, the patch of her Grandfather¡¯s garage, the source of balance and strength in this world. Seeing that patch, Misha felt a wave of calm wash over her, as she realized that fate didn¡¯t just bind her, but bound others that were close to her as well.


    It wasn¡¯t just her own life and body that were linked to karma, but she was also linked to others by karma. Knowing her grandfather, he would gladly sacrifice himself for her and her karmic debts. For that reason, and that reason alone, Misha decided to end things with Alishia and Rodger. She made plans to cut karmic ties to Ms. Clayton, and instead she would focus on living her life as is.


    In her mind, justice had been levied, Alishia and Rodger had both been punished. While the two ring leaders who orchestrated the event were now dead, both Bruce Jacobs, the shaman and spiritual leader of the wild hunters. Along with Jerome, the future pack leader who would no doubt encourage others to act in such irredeemable manners in the future.


    Two deaths and two injuries for the life of one innocent.


    From a karmic perspective, Misha could accept such an outcome. Yet, from a personal perspective, Misha still felt the result lacking.


    Exhale.


    Misha exhaled deeply, and then swore she would cut karmic ties with Alishia and Rodger as well, making the situation complete.


    Of course, karmic ties are never so easily severed.


    ***


    (Alishia Stone)


    Alishia and Rodger sat in Rodger¡¯s van, an old Odyssey that was over two hundred thousand miles rack up, but a vehicle that was still great for overnight stays and campouts.


    Steam filled the windows, the only sign of their previous interactions in the back, on the twin sized mattress that had been used to replace the back row of seats.


    Idly the two sat patiently in the driver¡¯s side and passenger¡¯s seats, just staring forward at the exit of the building.


    ¡°You sure about this?¡± Rodger asked, a note of nervous comprehension in his tone.


    ¡°Yeah, I saw her coming here the other day.¡± Alishia responded.


    ¡°The same lady from the park?¡±


    ¡°The same old hag from the park.¡±


    Hearing the words, Rodger was about to argue that the old lady had been sort of cute, given her age, but then quickly caught himself as he stared over at the girl that was sort of his on-again off-again girlfriend with benefits.


    ¡°So what are we going to do when we see her?¡± Rodger finally asked, figuring that there was likely something more to this process, other than just witnessing the person they both thought of giving them the worst case of food poisoning ever.


    ¡°I¡¯ve decided that I will take her into my pack.¡± Alicia said.


    ¡°Your pack?¡± Rodger asked, trying to make sure he heard her correctly.


    ¡°Our pack, she will be under the two of us. And when you need some were-cougar you can get your fill.¡± Alicia said, her tone only half joking.


    For a moment Rodger wondered if she was serious, but then quickly remembered the rules.


    ¡°Wait, shouldn¡¯t we avoid turning those who are older than us?¡± Rodger asked, trying to remember the sayings of their old shaman.


    ¡°That is what you are supposed to do if we were going to immediately integrate her into the pack.¡± Alishia stated.


    ¡°Wait, aren¡¯t we going to add her to the pack though?¡±


    ¡°Eventually.¡±


    ¡°Eventually? So, what do we do between the time when we turn her and then?¡±


    ¡°The plan is simple, we make her feral. Turn her, set her loose upon the world, then come to her after she commits her first murder. After that, we offer to guide her and help her cover up her murders.¡± Alishia said, as if this was the most common thing to do.


    Rodger paused and looked at the girl like she was crazy. She was, certifiably so, and Rodger had known it for a while now. But it was one thing to know, and another thing to see her psychosis in action.


    ¡°Why her though?¡± Rodger found himself asking, wondering if there was more to this. He had found an out, he was away from her clutches there for a moment. When he was with her, but for some unknown reason he had come back to Alishia.


    Sniff.


    Then all it took was one quick smell of the lingering scents of youthful passion that reminded Rodger of why he came back to her, even though she was only going to bring him down the longer he stayed with her.


    ¡°Because she¡¯s rich, and despite everything does not go around with a security detail, making her a perfect target for us to lure, latch, and leech.¡± Alishia stated confidently.


    ¡°Lure, latch, and leech?¡± Rodger parroted, not quite understanding this phrasing.


    ¡°Yes, we lure her away and turn her, then latch onto her at her weakest moment, only to then leech away at her fortune. Then when she is fully committed to the pack, we use her to lure in more promising pack mates.¡± Alishia said.


    Hearing the argument for, Rodger couldn¡¯t refute the logic, and if everything went well, no one would be aware of their activities, nor would anyone be able to link them to the chaotic actions of the soon to be turned and left to go rampaging werewolf.


    Allegedly there were rules and taboos against such actions, but that was only if the council of elders caught you. Given the recent activity to the pack, the alpha for the area was completely at a loss for what to do. Making this the perfect time to try new feats, particularly if they might actually be successful in the long run to the pack.


    If worse came to worse, then it would just be the words of a slowly degenerating serial killer versus the two of them.


    There was a lot of upside to this, also Rodger knew that if he refused here, with the old millionaire, then her next target might actually be her. Feeling mildly protective, he decided to go ahead with her plan.


    ¡°Okay, tell me what you need me to do,¡± Rodger stated, a note of conviction filling his voice.


    ***


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Double ping.


    The moment Ms. Clayton left her temporary office, she heard and felt her phone vibrate letting her know that not one, but two supernatural creatures were nearby.


    Not wanting to appear too anxious, Ms. Clayton pulled out her phone and immediately noted the direction of the two noted dots.


    Seeing the dots, a faint feral smile filled Ms. Clayton¡¯s lips as there were only a few monsters that still registered in this area. Then a quick glance in the direction of the dots showed her a damp and musty van sitting in what would otherwise be a pristine parking lot at the edge of the business district of town.


    Realizing how close her targets were, Ms. Clayton came up with a plan.

 Chapter 71 Double Strike

    Chapter 71


    Double Strike


    (Misha Tulley)


    Buzzing.


    There was an odd buzzing, almost an echo that was seemingly impossible to deny. Yet, with almost everything Misha normally did to prepare for her day, she felt the odd intense buzzing filling her body.


    For a moment, she wondered what such a situation meant.


    But then, she realized this was a convergence point. At least that was what she often considered such moments.


    The last time she felt such odd resonance with the world around her was the day she died. Well not just the day she died, but the day she and her reincarnation chamber on what had been her personal home had been completely destroyed.


    At the time, she fought the sensation.


    It felt like drowning.


    Like she was out on the waves of an ocean in a storm, bobbing up and down and all she could do was wait. It wasn¡¯t until that moment that she remembered her home world, how her planet had been destroyed completely. But for whatever reason, the Matriarch herself had happened to feel the presence of her and the last few survivors of her planet.


    Her home planet had water.


    Not just water, but endless waves of violent water that would rise up and threaten to destroy everything in their wake if they were allowed to.


    Misha realized now why she hated the water. Not only did it make electricity so much more intense, so much easier to fizzle out and harder to control. But it reminded her of home.


    Odd.


    Especially as she never died on her home world. In fact, it wasn¡¯t until she got to the fleet and was trained to reach her full potential that she was allowed to die without fear.


    At first part of her died away with each death. The old parts. The unimportant parts.


    Until finally, only the best version of her survived. The part that remembered the sacrifice that the Matriarch had made to protect her and her fellow refugees, despite being at war. Despite having apparently managed to push the invading Bakshee away.


    Why would they flood the world?


    That was her thought at the time, a thought that had persisted, until death after death and finally century after century stripped that thought from her mind.


    Yet, now that she had time to think. Now that she was all but reminded of how important it was to just wait out the storm, and not fight the currents. Now is when she felt the echoes of her past life coming back to her.


    Last time she fought the nauseating bobbing of water. The entire sensation was so strange that Misha didn¡¯t realize or remember what those sensations meant.


    Those sensations, that was her consciousness becoming one with the universe for a moment.


    Pausing she could almost remember the old priestess of her tribe giving a speech about the unrelenting waves.


    ¡°When the currents of fate arrive, you will know for they will come first with a ripple. Then a full-on tidal wave. Once they come, do not waste your energy by resisting the minor waves. Instead, prepare yourself for the tidal waves that are sure to come.¡±


    While the words seemed like mumbo jumbo, they had proved to be invaluable her first time she felt them. As not fighting was the exact reason why she managed to survive long enough to be rescued by the Psycher fleet.


    Then not listening to the warning, or rather trying to fight the currents were what led her to being too tired to prevent the final death on the fleet. At least that is what she felt happened. It was her fault after all, so many depended upon her, and she let them all down.


    Now the currents were once again violently shaking.


    Ping.


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    Her phone pinged.


    This was her second alarm going off, letting her know she had slept well past her intended time and was now late. Also at this point there would be no future alarms going off.


    Almost out of reflex she felt the want to reach out for connectivity to the world, to see what was happening. For a moment she almost felt that she could find out why she hadn¡¯t been able to relax at all last night and why even now she felt like she was about to be swept up in events that were far beyond her control.


    Holding her mind still, she held off on the intent to use her powers and have her neurons flooded with electrical impulses from the overly loud world around her. With a modicum of her power, she could easily see and predict what was happening all around her, just as she always did.


    Not that it changed anything.


    In the end, her grandmother still passed away, her mother sought out comfort from an apparent stranger, and worst of all Phil kept pushing himself too hard. It was the last one that Misha paused on.


    The idea of losing Phil somehow felt like it would momentarily be too much to bear.


    Then almost as if hearing her internal thoughts going on, Phil came in. Normally, at this time Misha would be too absorbed in her digital undertakings to truly notice her maternal grandfather. Yet, getting a second to look at him, it was clear that these past few months had been tough on him.


    He had deep bags under his eyes, and if Misha was not mistaken he looks to have lost about ten pounds or so from an already frail frame.


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re still here? I figured you would have left by now,¡± Phil said conversationally.


    6:12 AM.


    Her mind flickered for the time and the time instantly came to her.


    He was right, she was late, or she should have been late, had this been a normal day.


    ¡°I¡¯m not feeling well, would you mind if we just called in sick today?¡± Misha asked.


    Phil just looked at Misha with a quizzical look.


    ¡°You want me to call out sick as well?¡± Phil asked trying to make sure he understood the full comment.


    ¡°Yes, we need granddad granddaughter time, no phones, no electronics.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Oh, wow, it must be big if you are saying no electronics,¡± Phil replied half-jokingly.


    ¡°It is, let¡¯s just turn off the powerlines, lounge around and read. Avoiding anyone and everyone, including mom.¡± Misha said.


    ¡°Especially your mother, and you¡¯ve got a deal.¡± Phil said, as he left the room.


    Whirr.


    A few minutes later, Misha heard and then felt the moment the main circuit breaker for the house had been snapped off. Within moments of the act, a million micro transmissions that interacted with Misha¡¯s mind constantly suddenly stopped. Finally, Misha felt like she could just breathe.


    No expectations, no electricity, just a moment to stop and appreciate what she had.


    Then to seemingly make sure she truly appreciated what she had, Phil called out right there.


    ¡°You better come quick, or else all the western survival stories will be claimed,¡± Phil said, calling out his favorite stories that had their own shelf of shame in the living room. While grandma always pushed for reading, she did admit that while the content of his stories was terrible, at least he was in fact reading.


    ¡°Coming,¡± Misha said, as she went in and went immediately towards her cyber espionage stories, but then paused. Instead, she went for a mystery novel from what had always been grandma¡¯s shelf. Even now looking at the shelf, she saw that a layer of dust had built up. Seeing the dust on grandma¡¯s shelf, Misha just tisked to herself before quickly wiping the dust away with her finger and then grabbing the most well-worn book.


    Tingle.


    Just touching the book, Misha could swear she almost felt her grandmother¡¯s love pouring out into the pages of the old well-worn novel.


    ¡°Now you¡¯re going to read that trash?¡± Phil asked.


    ¡°You¡¯re one to talk,¡± Misha replied back, using grandma¡¯s own line against him.


    Hearing that, Phil just laughed.


    ¡°You know, the butler is the one who did it?¡± Phil shot back, trying to ruin the story. A story that Misha already knew the ending to as grandma read this story to Misha at least three times.


    ¡°I know,¡± Misha replied, but then shot back, ¡°you know the bear dies in the end of your story, right?¡±


    Chuckle.


    ¡°I know, but I still want to see him fight to survive that long.¡± Phil replied.


    And like that, Misha had her first sick day since starting going full time to the local high school. Also, for the moment, she didn¡¯t feel quite like she was drowning, or about to drown the same way she had all night.


    ***


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Blinking.


    One second the world was completely black, a dark canvas that engulfed and surrounded her completely. Then the next minute, her Psycher traits took over and she was fully awake.


    ¡°What is happening?¡± Ms. Clayton found herself asking, or trying to ask. As she felt her mouth moving from her own thoughts, she realized that her mouth was dry.


    No, not dry, but coppery and dry.


    Odd.


    This entire thing was odd? Where was she? How did she get here?


    For a moment, she realized something was wrong.


    From her training, it was clear that she had been drugged. This was nothing new, in fact she had dealt with this same situation multiple times before. As a Psycher she had multiple options for cleansing a drug fueled binge.


    This was not her first rodeo, nor was it the first time that an enemy would get her with drugs. Though again, what happened was still a mystery.


    Last she remembered, she had been leaving her office, when something happened.


    ¡°Restart.¡±


    Nothing.


    ¡°Recycle, refresh.¡± Ms. Clayton tried all the standard commands needed to get her body to begin hyperactively processing all poisons and impurities from her system. Given how rich her diet had been recently this was going to be a bad thing, but ultimately needed if it gave her a clear mind of what happened.


    Still nothing.


    Pausing for a moment, Ms. Clayton realized something was drastically wrong. Her mental commands that she had buried into her subconscious to activate on command were missing. Or no, missing wasn¡¯t the right word, they were still there, she could feel the impulses in her mind. Mentally she could drag her senses across the embedded commands, feeling their raised textures that said they were there, but then trying to find the activation grooves turned out to be nearly impossible, as the activation command lines seemed to be coated with a thin layer of skin. Or what Ms. Clayton mentally associated with being skin.


    ¡°System,¡± Ms. Clayton commanded, this time her words clear enough to hear, as she had finally produced enough moisture to make it so at least speaking the commands would be heard.


    System was the catch all, the ultimate command that would bring up every command and possibility afforded to her as a Psycher.


    This would be more cumbersome, and ultimately more distracting, but right now a few things were slowly registering in her mind. First she was bound to a chair. At least she thought it was a chair, likely metal, smart, with industrial strength handcuffs binding her feet and hands.


    Her feet were bare, well sort of. For whatever reason it felt like she was still wearing socks, but there were now holes in them. Also, her clothes fit, but there were multiple tears in them. Mentally she associated this with fighting, but the tears seemed to be in odd places for fighting, as they seemed to go where her thighs were, her feet had socks, but again they had holes. Her shirts had strips of fabric missing.


    And worst of all, for the first time in forever, her Psycher status screen was inoperable.


    ¡°Ah, you¡¯ve finally awoken,¡± the voice of an overly cheery female said.


    ¡°What did you do to me?¡± Ms. Clayton said, her mind actually experiencing fear for the first time in centuries due to her not able to actually see her Psycher screen. Before, it had always been there, a constant indicator of her progress. While deaths did reset her overall capabilities, it had still remained even through death.


    ¡°Well first, we hit you with our van, but only after you pulled a gun on us. We honestly thought you were going to die, but then we managed to save you by giving you the gift of Lykanthropy, the gift that keeps on giving.¡± The overly arrogant girl said.


    As she spoke, Ms. Clayton remembered who and more importantly where she remembered the girl from, this was Alishia Stone, a target that she had taken on personally for the Mechanic.


    And now¡­ well now she didn¡¯t know what was happening.

 Chapter 72 Adaptation

    Chapter 72


    Adaptation


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Tingling.


    There was a gentle tingling within Ms. Clayton¡¯s mind, the same way a too small drill would create rhythmic vibrations within her cerebral lobe.


    Apparently at some point she had passed out from the changes that were wracking her body. A vomit projectile spatter pattern in front of her showed the outline of two silhouettes. Seeing the distinct outline of her abductors likely covered in the very vomit they induced from her hijacking caused a slight twinge of mirth to come to Ms. Clayton¡¯s grime covered face.


    Though the mirth was soon replaced by an intense burning sensation, as her mind and muscles felt like they were on fire and being molded with sottering irons.


    Things were happening. Changes were taking place, and all Ms. Clayton could do was accept the changes.


    Mentally she felt for things on her body, only to find out that most of her clothes were now missing. Likely done as a precaution, which was smart, while the kids had managed to remove her hidden weapons and picks, the thing that annoyed her most was that her watch was missing, along with its hidden destress beacon. If she was extremely lucky the kids would have set it off.


    If not, well then she would have to try other means of escape.


    In her mind, she felt an odd sort of prison around her psyche, as if what had previously been a balloon was now encapsulated by a lead lining. Somehow the change was both permanent and expanding.


    The way she knew the change was permanent was hard to explain.


    Call it intuition.


    You could say it was her trusting that the worst that could happen could and would most often occur.


    Like the way no one came for her now.


    Even Ms. Clayton¡¯s new compatriot seemed to have abandoned her. Or worse, somehow where she had been taken was so secure that there was no way even for the mechanic herself to find her.


    Depending on how long it had been, her normal guards and security detail wouldn¡¯t even check in on her. At most she would likely get a concerned text message and call asking where she was and why she was late to work.


    No, right now she was on her own.


    Well, not entirely on her own. In the other room were the two teenage werewolves who were apparently copulating after a successful hunt.


    Moans.


    Yep, that and the stench of their bodies going wild made it so Ms. Clayton, had time. Apparently, after going to clean off the vomit from their bodies, the duo thought, oh lets procreate real quick while the patient is undergoing changes.


    This was fine, as it meant that Ms. Clayton had time.


    Time to do what, she did not know, but she had time.


    Glancing around, she saw that she was in the center of a large open warehouse that had likely been used to slaughter cows or other farmyard animals.


    Now that she had more time to observe everything, she found that she was shackled to a steel chair. Apparently, this was not the first time this chair, nor this room had been used for such conversion processes.


    This was bad, as such an act likely meant that most electrical equipment would not be nearby. Meaning that even if the Mechanic was somehow aware of her plight and looking for her, there was likely no tether connecting her to her current location.


    No, right now, Ms. Clayton was on her own, the same way she had been for centuries.


    Focusing her mind, she remembered the Mechanic¡¯s talk about the organo-tech of the enemy. How if you focused just enough, you could mold the new tech to do your bidding.


    While she was nowhere near the level of ability that the Mechanic had shown time and time again. There were a few basic classes that she had been expected to master. Unfortunately, none of those classes had any way of helping her now.


    At most, they let her realize that changes were happening to her body, and that if she focused intently on the burning spots where the changes were manifesting, she could make alterations. At least that was the hope, as she focused her will on the connection points, where muscle met bone. She focused on the burning parts and first expanded them, before condensing the components to be thick steel like fibers.


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    Her goal was to be the biggest and strongest she could make herself.


    In a way this was ideal, as it helped her adapt her body to her chosen fighting style. Going for highly durable and robust muscles in the arms, torso, and knees. While going for powerful tendons in her fingers, and arms.


    Ms. Clayton wasn¡¯t being forged into a wolf form, at least not the traditional wolf form. Here she was focusing on her own understanding of human anatomy and her own indomitable will to force her body into a perfect form.


    For a warrior class like hers, there was a base form. One that held her enhanced natural body. Then there was the next step, an evolutionary step of increased energy expenditure to create momentary mass and power.


    Scientifically speaking the conversion ratio of energy to power and mass was still a widely held secret of the Bakshee.


    Now Ms. Clayton had a chance to both witness the conversation ratio from a firsthand perspective, but also she got to take into account all of her years of experimentation and applied physical violence to create the toughest base model she could begin with.


    Resistance was futile, at this point all she could really do was accept her fate, form a perfect body, get free from here, then work with the mechanic to help reverse the process. At the very least, she wanted the weight that encapsulated her mind to be broken enough for her psyche to be able to retreat after death.


    Panic.


    There was of course a panic, for what if the Mechanic didn¡¯t wish to help her?


    Ms. Clayton had the thought for a fraction of a second, before she remembered the six or so warriors that constantly had their information erased and changed daily. Speaking of which, Ms. Clayton would definitely need the Mechanic¡¯s help to have her own status changed.


    Irony.


    A word that often gets misused, but somehow seemed to be applicable to this situation she now found herself in. For the very application that Ms. Clayton now feared to oust her as a supernatural, was the program she had in fact created. It was also the very program that got her into this situation, as she used it to track the two wolves in the parking lot.


    Two wolves who were sitting behind the wheel of a large and apparently reinforced van. A fact that Ms. Clayton now remembered vividly, as she saw the way the boy got frightened for a moment. Then after being yelled at by the female, the obvious leader of the pair, surged forward and slammed into Ms. Clayton.


    Phantom pain.


    Even now, remembering the moment of impact caused pain to shoot through her ribs. Pain that was again reinforced by the surge of energy, pain that Ms. Clayton now used to expand her chest cavity just enough to give her just a bit more air to breathe.


    Holding in her breath, she felt the surging pain sizzle at first, but then gradually cool and release after enough time, meaning her modification had been successful. With that slight push outward, she had given her lungs just a bit more room to expand and hold oxygen.


    Then with the initial surge done, Ms. Clayton focused on the next part, her arm muscles.


    Not only was she focused on increasing her overall lifting power, but she now focused her will on having ease of movement, along with intense pulling strength. Then the last part was a further reinforcement on her legs.


    With this last push of the slowly dying surges of energy, Ms. Clayton focused on developing powerful thigh muscles. Her intent was to create muscles that were powerful enough to jump over vans easily, something the warriors could do, but Ms. Clayton herself sadly could not. At least, she hadn¡¯t been able to when she saw the incoming van and tried to jump away. Instead, she just missed the exit and found herself pinned against another parked car in the parking lot.


    That should be something else that people could use to track her, but again the damage had already been done. She had been pinned long enough for the monsters to force their poisonous blood into her body. Worse, she had been in such a bad mental state that her mind couldn¡¯t form any real resistances, at least not until now.


    They drugged her, that is the only thing that made sense. Those two monsters that were even now mating like rabbits in the other room had likely drugged her.


    Sniff.


    The smell of anesthetics and medical supplies seemed bolster this train of thought, as Ms. Clayton could all but swear that she was sweating out the poison from her body.


    Relief.


    Finally, after long last the last of the burning changes finally left her body, as she felt a momentary reprieve from the pain.


    Pausing for a moment, she took in first one breath, then a second. Before realizing that if she was going to get out of here, she needed to do it herself.


    That is when she decided to act.


    GRRROOOANNN!


    Moving her newly coiled muscles in concert with each other, she began pushing and straining the metal chair and its bound chains simultaneously.


    By pulling her arms and flexing her legs, she pushed as hard as she could. She pushed so hard that the chair itself began to bend backwards.


    This was good, as it actually loosened up the tangled chains that were wrapped around her arms and torso. At least, they loosened up when she sat up, causing the chains to rattle and roll over her torso.


    Then it was a matter of her quickly pulling her arms through her back in some odd reverse swimmer¡¯s stroke that freed first one arm, then a second.


    Rattle rattle.


    With her arms freed, the chains began to fall and clatter loudly against the ground.


    Silence.


    For a moment there was an intense silence that filled the room, as Ms. Clayton wondered if that was enough to get the attention of the two otherwise distracted lovers.


    As she paused, she realized that the faint tell-tale sounds of coitus were also missing, making it clear that Ms. Clayton needed to free herself of the chains binding the rest of her torso and legs.


    Fortunately, this was mostly accomplished by her standing up, and climbing her way up to stand on the remains of the metal seat. At which point she found herself full free of all restraints, right at the exact moment that both hastily dressed lovers hustled into the smooth dock room. Their feet sliding, as they apparently didn¡¯t take off their socks during the act, making their entry into the room just a touch more comical than would normally fit such a scenario.


    ¡°Let me guess, this is your first time?¡± Ms. Clayton said, still staring down at the two from her high perch atop the broken metal chair.


    The two paused, looked at each other then both began charging forward.


    ¡°Kneel!¡± The woman called out, as she charged forward.


    Hearing her desperate attempts to claim control, Ms. Clayton could only laugh as she realized getting out of here would be a lot easier than expected. In fact, she was so caught up in the moment that she failed to notice that she had a new message from a completely different system than she was used to interacting with flashing in the bottom right of her peripheral vision, letting her know something had happened.


    While the girl slowed her charge forward slightly, the boy was already caught mid shift, his feet tearing through his white socks and remaining clothing.


    Seeing the charging monster, Ms. Clayton only smiled as she leaned back in the chair, letting the bent metal frame hit the floor, as she rocked back and prepared to fight two monsters in hand-to-hand combat.


    They don¡¯t know what they are in for, Ms. Clayton thought to herself as her mind was already taking inventory of the room around her and finding multiple weapons to use.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    Tinnitus.


    A faint dull ringing sensation had been resonating in Misha¡¯s ear drum all day. The only thing that seemed to calm the ringing was the fact that Misha focused on the moment. She focused on enjoying the quiet moment and silent glances of togetherness that can only be gained by spending time with family.


    Misha liked that word, and found herself oddly drawn to the concept of family. It was something that she had never experienced before, but found that she would want to remember this moment, and perhaps that was why moments like this were so quiet, so it would be easier to fall back on and re-immerse yourself in.


    Such moments were ultimately wasteful, as they served no true purpose, other than providing comfort. Somewhere between the words on the page and the mental images forming in her mind, she came to a new understanding, one that was counter to all her Psycher training.


    All we have are moments, time will be eternal, but our moments and memories of those moments are all that truly matter.


    Then like that, it worked.


    All her focusing and effort on relaxing seemed to work, as she soon found the ringing in her ears start to subside, as she slowly felt her mind relax and the near constant ringing sounds within her ears to go away.


    She didn¡¯t know what happened, in fact, she didn¡¯t want to know.


    All she knew was that somehow the karmic debt she owed was paid, or at least nearing a zero sum, making it acceptable for her to be herself. Though rather than jump right into finding out what had happened, she paused and instead chose to enjoy the lingering traces of this moment.

 Chapter 73 Restart

    Chapter 73


    Restart


    (Misha Tulley)


    The moment of contemplative silence was not meant to last apparently, for almost immediately Misha felt the tingling sensation of electronics and minor thrum of mechanical engineering coming towards her.


    At first, Misha was confused by the seemingly new source of electronics, and machinery heading her way. Though the more she focused, the more she thought she found a slight mechanical memory to the components.


    Then by the time the vehicle came to the long gravel driveway, Misha could see and feel the full intensity of the vehicle. From there she could make out the telltale patterns that made this vehicle distinct from all others. This vehicle was a large muscle car that never got pushed to its full limits, as a mechanic this made her job somewhat easier, as it meant the machine never had to be worked to be brought back to its peak condition. Though as a master mechanic for the fleet, this seemed like a waste, almost like the driver was purposefully keeping both the vehicle and themselves from reaching their true potential together.


    Just the idea of not pushing a vehicle to its limit of capabilities seemed odd.


    Misha knew that there were laws against such acts, that such actions would invariably lead to arrests in this world. But out in space, not pushing your machines to their limits of capabilities was seen differently. Out there, overheating was solved as easily as venting certain components to space in quick successive bursts to help prevent hull deterioration and fracturing.


    That said, on planets, the laws and regulations were always odd. For it was often encouraged to not go your fastest, to not push your equipment to its maximum capacity.


    Now being on a planet for so long, Misha slowly began to understand why this was the case. First the obvious overheating, but then there was also the way that most people were not able to push their equipment to its maximum potential and still be in control.


    People on planets also seemed to be spooked out by the oddest of actions. For if they saw someone go up and manually turn on an invention to operate, they would not think twice when the machine ran. But if you remotely set off that same invention to perform the same actions, many would often get frightened by the sudden activity.


    The whole thing was odd, but ultimately something Misha couldn¡¯t help but have to deal with, planet dwellers were strange, but in a good way. That was her ultimate analysis on the situation.


    ¡°Looks like we have company,¡± Phil said, finally hearing the car that caused Misha to mentally start to reach out with her mind and senses. Senses that first found the vehicle and identified no less than a dozen ways to disable the vehicle from reaching their house. Of those dozen, only three would be violent, causing damage to the driver and passenger.


    Hearing the words Misha could only nod in agreement.


    ¡°Well, who do you suppose it is?¡± Phil asked, placing his book down on the coffee table and standing up while stretching out his back.


    ¡°It¡¯s mother and her male companion,¡± Misha replied, as her mind couldn¡¯t help but pick up the blaring sensation of openly transmitted electromagnetic waves in the air.


    Just feeling those waves for the first time all day felt like her mind was suddenly coated in spider webs, that stuck, adhered, and then somehow melted into her mind.


    Tingle.


    At the sudden appearance of random signals, after just a few hours of being able to detoxify from them caused Misha to involuntarily shiver. By now Misha was well aware that she would not be able to escape the feeling of inventions or electronic devices on this planet, but that didn¡¯t mean that her being exposed to such situations would in any way get easier.


    Sigh.


    Hearing the words from Misha, Phil just exhaled in annoyance, before asking.


    ¡°What do you think they are here to talk about?¡± Phil asked, his eyes peering to Misha.


    With that, Misha knew that this was supposed to be a guess, but in her case, she knew.


    ¡°They are here to talk about why I was out of school, and why you didn¡¯t call me out,¡± Misha answered, having instantly seen, felt, and analyzed the open messages on her mother¡¯s phone.


    ¡°Gah! I knew I forgot something, oh well,¡± Phil replied, his words filled with the expectation of knowing he could do better. Then after pausing for a moment, he turned to Misha and asked, ¡°is that all they are here for?¡±


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    Misha paused, and then taking a moment to scan both their phones deeper, she exhaled and shook her head.


    ¡°No, there is something else that they are here for as well,¡± Misha added.


    SLAM!


    Before Phil could ask what this something else was, the door flew open, banging against the wall, before an overly excited Andrea charged in and demanded, ¡°well where is she?¡±


    Then before they knew it, all preparation went out the window, as the two were already thrust into the middle of whatever this sudden confrontation was really about.


    ***


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Training.


    Regardless of however much training you get, you will never be fully prepared for the first day you rage out and let your centuries of combat training merge with your recently enhanced body, allowing you to become a super killer.


    This was what happened to Ms. Clayton, AKA Ursala, who first felt like the wolves attacking her were mocking her.


    The reason for this mocking was in the slow and almost methodical and wide-open ways the wolves threw themselves at her.


    Rocking back on the recently bent metal chair, Ursala the slayer had enough time to prepare for impact with the charging male.


    By impact, she of course meant the impact of trying to direct one of the steel chair legs into the rapidly charging werewolves that could normally only be anticipated and never as effective as wanted.


    The reason why there was a difference between anticipation and effectiveness was simple, it came down to the ability of the mind to comprehend all the stimuli being fed to it, and then being able to react to that stimuli in a timely manner. For regardless of how powerful or focused your brain was, there was always a split second lost in the time it took for the mind to process images and thoughts, and the corresponding time it took for an effective response impulse to be sent down the torso and legs and react.


    This was why, the chair stabbing attack was so tough to pull off, the idea was to stand bracing your weight on the back of the chair just long enough, to subtly shift the body of the chair into the charging wolf.


    There was a split second¡¯s time to react, and mostly Ursala had to do this by reaction.


    That is until this time, when the speed that the wolves charging at her seemed to be done at a mockingly slow pace. As her mind was suddenly able to not only keep up with the charging teenagers that were barely starting to transform from sweaty teens to that of full-blown werewolf killers.


    The transition might explain part of the slow movement, as the transition was never as seamless as one would expect. But that wasn¡¯t the only course, as the wolves seemed to be charging full steam ahead, almost missing the idea of the chair legs being a weapon at all.


    This was fine, and something that a lot of the older monsters had in their favor, as older monsters generally had hides that could withstand even the sharpest of blades.


    However, these wolves were not such seasoned veterans.


    They were slow, almost mockingly slow, until Ursala realized that these wolves were not slow, not really, but rather her perception of the world around her had sped up. Not just her perception of the world, but also her ability to react to the world as well.


    Suddenly as if finally realizing the position she was in, her mind began to adjust and move slowly.


    Like a land shark, she found her left foot slowly turning and guiding the chair she was standing on, directing the two right most legs to face center mass of the charging male wolf¡¯s right thigh.


    The wolf was so focused on the still standing and mostly unchanged Ursala, that he failed to notice how slowly and smoothly the chair was moving. Despite the back of the chair being bent downward, the sudden weight of Ursala bracing the chair with most of her weight, the chair leg sat at a downward angle that was gradually rising upward due to the metal that was bending back into its original shape.


    Then a thought hit Ursala as she infused centuries of Psycher combat training into a quick and decisive blow. Stomping down with her left foot, she bent the chair¡¯s back until it was almost back in its natural starting position, this caused the chair to both lay flat on the ground, while tilting the top right chair leg to now rise upward at an angle.


    An angle that was quickly directed into the meaty leg muscle of the charging wolf.


    SHRREEEEEEKKK!!


    Almost instantly, Ursala felt the impact of the charging wolf, but rather than being thrown away, as she had expected, as countless battles had prepared her for, she stayed.


    Well mostly, as the charging wolf did force the chair to spark and grind its way over the chains that also lined the floor, while Ursala felt herself getting pushed back.


    Spurt.


    There was a sickening suction sound as a squishy quad of muscle ran into and was pierced by a long metal chair leg. The wolf so focused on their charge and changing forms, failed to realize what was happening until it was too late.


    One step.


    Two grinding steps.


    The wolf charged forward as if on autopilot for a moment, until pain and realization of the moment filtered through the beast¡¯s mind and caused the wolf to stop.


    ¡°AHHH!¡± The male wolf finally cried out, as it reached down and grabbed at the chair leg that had pierced its thigh clear up to the seat.


    While the initial attack had been successful, Ursala knew she still had more to do, as she could see the female wolf still charging at her from her peripheral vision. This was when she decided to try to disable the larger and more aggressive male, before fully focusing on the female.


    That was why all it took was a quick repositioning of her feet on the ground just off of the chair, then a quick shifting of her weight back on her right leg, before she then struck forward with that same right leg. Planting her right heel as hard as she could into the flat seated surface of the metal chair.


    GROOANNN!


    With that strike both the metal chair leg and the wolf groaned out almost equally. The chair due to its metal being bent and twisted within the muscular thigh that somehow held on despite being mostly ripped out. In fact, it was only due to grinding against the bone that the chair was forced to bend. That grinding against the bone and tearing away of muscles was also why the wolf began dropping in pain.


    Of course, this only helped Ursala who used the now mostly flat chair legs to reach out and clip the charging form of the female werewolf who had already fully transformed into her combat form. Causing the wolf to trip and stumble almost instantly.


    Seeing the slow moving body of the now falling female werewolf, Ursala reached out, grabbing the wolf with her own sharp and growing claws between the neck and collarbone.


    Slam.


    Then with a deft movement, Ursala violently guided the falling form into the ground, where it slammed into and amongst the clattering chains.


    Seeing the chains, Ursala quickly grabbed a handful and wrapped it around the neck of the wolf, then making sure to wrap the still looping other end around the chair. Then with practiced ease, she moved around the injured male wolf and proceeded to pull the coiled chains until there wasn¡¯t any more slack to be had.


    ¡°AHH!¡± The male wolf cried out, as the female first resisted, before choosing to charge forward to the right side of her mate, the opposite side from which Ursala had begun wrapping.


    Seeing the move, it was just as Ursala had planned, as the charging wolf caused the chain wrapped around the chair to pull tightly, again causing the male even more pain that would not be instantly healed from, at least not until the metal spoke was removed from his leg. Given his low level, it meant that the rod would have to be manually removed first, before true healing could occur.


    This meant that effectively, Ursala only had to deal with the one female, a female that had to fight over and around her increasingly disabled partner.


    What happened next was a master class in what happens when two neophyte wolves went up against a trained psycher. Namely a long slow bloody battle, made increasingly more lopsided by the fact that this time Ursala herself was also a wolf, and therefore even more deadly.


    Realizing how easy this would be, Ursala found herself smiling rows of long sharp canines at her former captors, all while fighting and mostly managing to keep her inner wolf at bay while ripping away the two assailants.


    What happened next could best be summarized as a massacre.

 Chapter 74 Calling A Friend (Amoni Jacobs)

    Chapter 74


    Calling A Friend


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    It had been a long week. Heck it had been a long year. Everything that possibly could go wrong had. Basketball and trips outside of the county were cancelled for the immediate future while the CDC spoke about shutting down the entire eastern seaboard while they try to quarantine the odd substance that was released in the mall and the Hasty concern.


    Added to that was the fact that her father and her cousin both had perished.


    Now, she could not get ahold of the replacement alpha, Alishia, who calling her a ¡®B¡¯ would be derogatory towards female dogs. No, it was not her week? Month? Year?


    Grrind.


    Worse, she was now in this car that had been driven by her cousin, someone who apparently had no clue how to allow an engine to shift between gears.


    She meant to take it to Misha to get her to check it out, but at first she held out as she was angry at the new girl as seemingly everything that went wrong, all began when she arrived.


    Everything from her losing her spot, to her mojo, then her family.


    While it was obvious that she lost her spot due to talent, and that Misha clearly had nothing to do with her father or her cousin, it still managed to make her feel better blaming the girl.


    Truth be told, Amoni herself had also skipped class, or at least she would have had it not been for her vehicle. The only problem was that now, when she finally felt like taking a moment to ask Misha for help, this was of course the first day that Misha called out sick.


    A day that Amoni should have taken in solace herself.


    Of course, she could have taken her father¡¯s car, but that had been where they found his body. Where she had found his body.


    Then thinking back on it, Amoni couldn¡¯t help but feel sort of guilty at that. His face look so confused.


    Worse, their last conversation with each other had been an argument, one where she spent the night at Two-Tone''s.


    Had he been depressed? How much carbon monoxide does it take to kill a fully powered werewolf? Surely more than one would expect. Meaning, he almost had to have killed himself.


    Did he do it on purpose? Was he sorry that he argued with me? These thoughts and more went through Amoni¡¯s mind.


    At first Amoni felt angry that Misha had even called out, today of all days when she needed her the most. She hadn¡¯t called out when her own grandmother passed away, but now she called out?


    Then as if realizing how selfish her own thoughts were, Amoni chastised herself, for she realized that this year had also been tough for Misha, as she lost her grandmother. It was also her first time being allowed to enter school, and despite thinking she would be completely awkward, she was surprisingly easy to get along with.


    These thoughts were made worse by the fact that Amoni had been indirectly involved in the death of her grandmother, thanks to her former packmate and cousin. The very person who went about randomly trying to slaughter random civilians as some form of pack initiation.


    Putter.


    Once again, Amoni¡¯s thoughts were drawn to the way her loaner vehicle was puttering. Which of course led her back to the last time she had this car serviced. Shortly after Jerome¡¯s death. Things had been bad, but that was when Misha had come through the most.


    To help raise funds, Misha and her grandfather held a local fundraiser to get every vehicle EMP compliant. During that time she had just done a cursory job of fixing her vehicle and getting it to run.


    ¡°I can fix it, but I¡¯ll need an hour to get everything cleaned out.¡± Misha had stated at the time.


    Unfortunately, that was when they were twenty cars in line, and Amoni didn¡¯t want to press her teammate too much at the time. So instead she waited.


    ¡°Nah, it¡¯s fine,¡± Amoni had replied.


    Sputter, putt-put-poof.


    There was an explosion, or what felt like a mini explosion for Amoni. Worse, almost immediately after the explosion, the power started to fade from her vehicle and only by instincts did she have enough forethought to begin pulling the clearly dying and sputtering vehicle over to the side of the road.


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    Looking around, Amoni only saw cornfields and deserted lanes everywhere.


    For a moment the idea of one of those cheesy horror films flashed in her mind, as she realized this is exactly the start to one of those bad stories.


    AWOO!


    Off far off in the distance, Amoni swore she heard the howl of a wolf crying out.


    The sound sent a chill down her spine as it was the call of an Alpha daring to challenge anyone who came on its territory.


    Fortunately for Amoni, she was a few miles away and likely not the cause of that Alpha¡¯s bestial roar, but still this was not the territory.


    Mentally in her mind she went through the different pack members and could not think of one that owned a farm this far out.


    In fact, this far out, she knew she was close to one of the local parks, though to be fair state parks were all around Jackson, part of the allure for her family. Plenty of wilderness to roam around in, though there had been questions about pack loyalty of late.


    Particularly with the pack Shaman, her father dead, and the next Alpha slaughtered, there was just Alishia, but she shouldn¡¯t be out here.


    Or maybe she would be, but that wasn¡¯t the sound of Alishia in her combat form, that was the sound of a fully aged werewolf.


    Freaking out, Amoni pulled up her phone and all but expected to find that there was no reception.


    Which was why she was surprisingly shocked to see one lone bar letting her know she could make a call.


    Exhaling.


    With that small glimmer of hope, Amoni opened up her phone and began scrolling through her contacts. In her contacts she had her friends and teammates all listed by her own personal nickname for them.


    Rocket


    Stabrina


    Trouble


    Two-Tone


    Looking at the list of names, her mind went out to see where each member was. Rocket and Sabrina had both moved out of town years ago, though she still kept their contact info.


    Two-Tone made the most sense, as that was where she had been heading to. Or was going to head to after a quick nature walk, but not after hearing the clear challenge of an aged Alpha.


    As the niece of the current pack alpha and daughter of the shaman, she was never to show fear or reverence towards another alpha, lest it make her father appear weaker. Better for her to run and hide, than to submit.


    Or so her teachings had gone.


    This was why, Amoni chose this moment to try to flee.


    For a moment, she wondered who she had as Trouble, but then realized it was Misha the very person who could have helped her fix her vehicle if she but asked.


    Then pausing for a moment, she hesitated and tried to call Two-Tone but her finger clearly slipped.


    Long pause.


    There was the ever long pause that only seems to happen far out in the boonies. Ones where you can almost feel the waves of energy reaching out and trying to connect to the local towers. The entire thing felt both comforting and oddly disquieting at the same time.


    For Amoni and most wolves of this generation, the comfort of a phone came from the fact that it was almost a given that it was needed to blend in with society. As such the residual bursts of energy and technology were both accepted and appreciated. Simultaneously though, there was an odd undercurrent that the wolf part of her hated. She wasn¡¯t alone as it seemed that all wolves thought technology was inherently bad, but a now noted necessary evil that had to be accepted.


    Brrinng.


    Finally, after a long time the phone finally began ringing. Almost instantly, Amoni felt relief wash through her as she realized that this meant she would be safe.


    For there was no one who knew more about cars than Misha. Though unlike boys or other gear heads that Amoni had met, Misha never flaunted her mechanical superiority. In fact, had Amoni not seen her in action herself, she would have thought that the grandfather was the one who was a true mechanic. But he seemed to defer to Misha at all times.


    Click-click.


    The sound of the phone connecting and then what had to be an echo of that connection were heard. Again, these were subtle signs that Amoni noticed due to her keen hearing, but ones that let her know just how far out of the way she was.


    ¡°Hello?¡± The somewhat confused voice of Misha answered.


    For a moment, Amoni wanted to chastise her for sounding confused, but then realized that up until this point she had never called Misha directly.


    ¡°Hi, its me,¡± Amoni began, then realizing how bad that sounded, she continued. ¡°Amoni¡­¡±


    ¡°I know, are you okay?¡± Misha asked, her voice sounding slightly confused on the other end.


    For a moment Amoni wanted to be strong, but then realized that maybe Misha could help her get out of here.


    ¡°No,¡± Amoni cried out, her emotions almost getting the better of her. It had been a long day. Her father died, her car died, and now she was out here in the middle of a murdering corn patch with what had to be a rogue wolf trying to claim dominance. It was all too much and Amoni didn¡¯t know what to do.


    Sob.


    In the end, rather than saying everything that had been on her mind, but instead she just let out a sad whimper.


    ¡°I take it you are having car troubles?¡± Misha asked in her oddly cold calm and methodical voice. Something that Amoni normally hated, especially the way she never got fired up, even on game days, but now, in this moment, Amoni felt somehow reassured by this reaction.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Amoni again cried out, but this time she was able to keep herself from sounding like a complete wreck. Instead, she just sounded like a partial wreck.


    ¡°Okay, I need you to do two things for me.¡± Misha replied, her voice calm and steady like the earth.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Amoni responded.


    ¡°First, take in a deep breath, you are going to be fine,¡± Misha replied.


    At that, Amoni took in a partial breath, as her chest was too tight to take in a full breath, but that seemed to do the trick as now at least Amoni felt like she could talk without bursting into tears after every word.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Amoni stated, letting her know that the first task had been completed.


    ¡°Next, I need you to put the phone on speaker and place it on your dashboard. I am going to walk you through a quick diagnostic of your vehicle.¡± Misha explained.


    Once again, Amoni did as requested, placing the glowing light of the phone up on the dashboard.


    From a wolf trying to hide her location, this was the worst thing possible, as that light would be visible for miles around, given how dark everything was out here. That said, Amoni felt it was worth it to get out of here quickly, while not having to wait for a tow truck to come and get her.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Amoni said, once that task was also completed.


    ¡°Now, I need you to place your feet on the gas and brake petal at the same time and try to start your engine.¡±


    ¡°Both?¡± Amoni asked, as this sounded stupid and something that she had been warned numerous times not to do.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Misha answered confidently. Hearing her confidence, Amoni figured what was the worst that could happen? She was already out here in the middle of nowhere. Half expecting a chainsaw wielding werewolf to come out and strike her down.


    Plop-plop.


    ¡°Okay, now before you turn the key, gently take your foot off the accelerator.¡±


    ¡°Okay?¡±


    Plop.


    With that the sound of the accelerator pushing back out could be heard in the overly quiet vehicle.


    ¡°Now try to turn on your motor,¡± Misha stated through the phone.


    ¡°Okay?¡± Amoni replied, not expecting anything to happen. Which was why she was suddenly startled when the dashboard lit up, and her car began to rev to live almost instantly.


    Vrooom.


    Suddenly the car was purring proudly.


    ¡°Oh thank you, that worked, I guess I¡¯ll let you go now?¡± Amoni said, not wanting to waste too much more of Misha¡¯s time.


    ¡°No, you should probably keep this call going and take the vehicle straight to our shop,¡± Misha stated.


    ¡°Any shop?¡±


    ¡°No ours, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll work on it for free, but you definitely have a lot of work still that needs to be done.¡±


    ¡°But it sounds fine now?¡± Amoni protested.


    Sputter-puff-pop.


    Then almost as if on cue, the car had a slight hiccup and sounded almost exactly like it did before she had this trouble.


    ¡°Okay, never mind, I¡¯ll be right there.¡± Amoni said, then pausing for a moment, she stated truthfully ¡°thank you.¡±


    ¡°Not a problem, now come on before Gramps won¡¯t let me work on it tonight.¡± Misha stated.


    And like that, Amoni looked out at the night sky and saw that it was in fact getting dark.


    ¡°All right,¡± Amoni said, pulling her vehicle that seemed to flow like water over the backroads.


    As she left, she failed to see the two glowing red-yellow eyes of the predator who was tracking her departure. The only sign that Amoni felt something was off was by the slight shiver she felt, and the way she could swear she saw fireflies in the sky, despite it being far past the time for fireflies.

 Chapter 75 Vehicle Versus Alpha (Amoni Jacobs)

    Chapter 75


    Vehicle Versus Alpha


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    Amoni was pretty sure she was being messed with.


    Her car suddenly working by putting her feet on the brake and accelerator at the same time. Then placing the phone on the dashboard, while keeping the line open with Misha.


    But despite how absurd the whole process seemed, Amoni couldn¡¯t deny that it was working.


    Vrroom.


    The car moved smoothly, though Amoni knew this was due to her connection to Misha.


    There was a time when they went through a dead zone, where Amoni thought she lost connection to Misha. During that time, the car which had been running perfectly to that point began to sputter and cough wildly. The whole steering column went wild and she had to fight to keep her vehicle on the road. Fortunately, she was able to keep the car going relatively straight, which helped her get out of the dead zone.


    That time more than any, let Amoni know that either Misha was just the luckiest person alive. Or Misha was somehow able to control machines.


    It had been joked about, speculated even.


    ¡°The girl was a machine, both on and off the court, why can¡¯t she be the queen of machines as well.¡± That was the running gag, but right now Amoni couldn¡¯t refute the claim too much, as right now every instinct in her mind told her that losing Misha would mean she would be stuck out here.


    Finally, after a while of just driving, where the fear in her mind began to subside due to how close they finally were to town, Amoni let out a sigh and thought she would thank the girl.


    ¡°I, I think I owe you an apology.¡± Amoni began, but whatever she had been expecting from Misha was abruptly changed by Misha.


    ¡°Actually, before this goes any further, I am going to need you to speed up a little bit,¡± Misha noted, her voice calm, but with a slight hint of panic that sent shivers of fear down Amoni¡¯s spine.


    VRRROOOOMMMM!


    ¡°What?¡± Was all Amoni could get out, before the car started picking up speed and barreling down the pothole filled road she was on.


    Thump-tha-dump.


    Then just as she began speeding up, a large figure jumped out of the cornfields nearby and tried to land on her car. In fact, even with the sudden increase in speed, the creature would have managed to land on the vehicle, had the car not forcefully swerved to the left by two feet. After which, the car seemed to correct itself and move back to the right, just in time to avoid a rather odd assortment of potholes.


    So focused was she on the car seeming to steer itself, that it took her mind a half second to look back in her rearview mirror to see what she had apparently swerved out of the way to avoid.


    There staring back at her were the glowing red and yellow eyes of a predator.


    Instantly Amoni knew what the solid form was that had just appeared, as fear gripped her mind and body.


    She felt fear as she had never seen any beast with glowing red eyes like that, but she knew what it meant. The glowing red eyes and feral appearance of the creature meant a fractured fratricide had occurred. Myths and legends of such events had been spoken about such events in the past.


    This was why getting willing pack members was stressed above everything else.


    For a fractured fratricide occurred when the converted member of a pack went mad during the transformation process and rather than being subdued by the pack alpha that converted them, they instead went wild with rage and began killing everyone and everything around them.


    Seeing the crazed wolf, Amoni knew that she as a fellow lupine would not be accepted, as she would likely be seen of as a threat to the deranged monster.


    Fortunately, Misha was still there with her, on the phone.


    ¡°Okay, we are going to take you the back way around town to our shop,¡± Misha stated, her voice as calm and cold as ever.


    ¡°Wait, you can¡¯t there is a monster chasing me,¡± Amoni began.


    ¡°I know, that is why we are going the backway, plenty of straightaways and open fields to really get some distance,¡± Misha noted.


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    Vrr-ooom.


    Once again the vehicle responded as if it was not under her control, as the vehicle began to speed up.


    Wobble.


    As the vehicle sped up, Amoni felt it begin to wobble in a way that would normally be concerning, but quickly evened out and began rolling smoother than ever.


    For a moment Amoni felt that she could do this, that she could get away from the crazed beast pack killer.


    Of course, that moment of relief only lasted a second, before her mind inadvertently looking down and saw the other ire of her concern.


    ¡°Misha, I¡¯m running out of gas,¡± Amoni confessed, her voice low as if she expected Misha to yell at her for being so negligent.


    ¡°I know, there¡¯s nothing we can do about that at the moment, but you will get here and you will be safe when you do.¡± Misha stated, her voice calm and collected.


    Exhale.


    Hearing her calm tone, Amoni could only breathe in relief that she had such a great friend.


    The entire thing seemed to be a vision from a dream, or maybe a never-ending nightmare. The only thing that let her know that she was alive and awake were the cold tears that gently began forming in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. Tears that spoke of fear, anger, and hope.


    Amoni realized that she never cried in her dreams, and perhaps that was the best litmus test going forward, pain, grief, joy, happiness, all of those emotions could be faked during a dream, for they were all easy to relate to. But tears, true eye watering tears, those were enough to break the delicate tapestry of dreams, as they all but changed the consistency of how resting eyes interacted with the world. By her crying now, she truly felt that she was both awake, and furthermore as long as she had Misha she had hope.


    ¡°I, I just wanted to say thank you.¡± Amoni began, once she gained some composure over her body.


    ¡°Shh, none of that now. For now, I need you to focus and realize we are going to take this right turn sharply here, hang on.¡± Misha stated.


    Then before Amoni had a chance to comprehend what was being said, and what the words actually meant, her car began turning hard to the right. The steering wheel turning on its own, as Amoni could all but feel the pedals shifting and thrusting in breaking and speeding bursts.


    Click.


    Even the emergency break popped itself up, for a moment, before dropping back down once the hardest part of the immediate turn was complete.


    For a moment, it felt like a professional racecar driver was here with her, sitting in the seat and guiding the car wildly.


    Swoosh.


    Amoni for her part was not actionless. With the wheel spinning violently Amoni first reached up to grab the Jesus handle with her free left hand. Then when the car began to spin about wildly, causing the phone to slide about, Amoni instead decided to reach out for that as well. That was why with one arm on the Jesus handle and one arm reaching out for the sliding phone, Amoni missed the fact that the car began to straighten out and begin only slightly drifting to the right, as it continued to make the slightly meandering turn towards Phil¡¯s Rustbucket Garage.


    Ding-ding-ding.


    Just as Amoni thought she was almost done, the emergency fuel light came on in what had to be its lava hot orange color. A color that all but seemed to burn into the darkness of night.


    Seeing the light, Amoni could only cringe internally, for that meant she had roughly twenty miles, but that was under optimal conditions.


    Meanwhile, what she, or rather what her vehicle was being forced to do at the moment was anything but optimal, as she was clearly speeding up.


    For a moment Amoni hoped that no cops were out. While they almost never came out here to the boonies, one could never bee too careful.


    Though Amoni felt that her excuse for speeding today was a bit better than her normal ones. The whole, my car was possessed by the spirit of a formula one racer, while being chased by a fractured fratricidal werewolf was a good enough excuse to speed. However, even she realized that no one would likely believe her.


    Still, for the moment, she had a chance.


    And that was more than she could hope for at the moment.


    Holding her phone in her right hand, and the Jesus handle in her left, Amoni felt odd. It took her a moment to figure out why exactly something felt off.


    Only after a few seconds did she realize that the reason she felt so out of place was the fact that she had neither foot on the pedals, nor was she touching the steering wheel, but the car was driving safer, and more smoothly than she could ever do on her own.


    Once she realized how much faith she was putting into the ghost driver of her car, and most importantly into Misha who seemed to be directing the ghost driver, Amoni realized she needed to make one confession before she died.


    ¡°Hey, I need to tell you something¡­¡±


    ***


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Rage.


    Anger filled every fiber of her being. Ursala was so angry that her life had turned to this, that she had been forced to forever give up on being who she was. That her life and career as a Psycher was over. That even now she could feel her mind, the bastion of safety afforded to all Psychers was slowly being eroded away, and left with nothing more than a pale memory of who she was.


    She hated them, everyone of them for turning her into this. For making it so it wasn¡¯t enough to just be killed, but for her to be changed and humiliated in such a way.


    That was why she made it her last mission, that so long as this body of hers existed, she would spend every waking moment hunting down every werewolf that she came across.


    Relentless.


    She was relentless in her pursuit, they ran fast, she would run faster. They got away, she would track them down and find them when they rested.


    There was nothing that could keep an operative like Ursala down for too long, and she knew it. She demanded that of herself, which was why even now she continued to chase.


    Vrr-errrt.


    The vehicle she was chasing suddenly stopped and pulled off a nearly impossible turn. All while somehow gaining speed and traction on the roadways.


    The car turned right, and then began veering further right.


    While Ursala clearly lost sight of the vehicle, her other senses told her where the vehicle was, and better still, her other senses told her that by cutting through the forest, she could make up much needed ground.


    That was how Ursala found herself running through a densely packed forest. Then before she could have a misstep and fall into a drainage ditch that would severely delay her, her newly heightened senses and reflexes told her when and where to jump. Most importantly, her instincts all told her how far to jump as well, letting her easily jump over a ditch that would have cost her valuable seconds to climb out of, if her mind could remember to climb that is.


    Fortunately, the fear of falling and the ditch were short lived, as she easily made the jump and with a few more paces she was back to her full speed. Then a few more paces found her back on the road, where the scent trail for her next target was the thickest.


    Ahh.


    Once she felt the scent of her prey fill her nostrils once again, Ursala felt relief fill her mind as a feral smile filled her lips. She was back, and better still, once again she could see the vehicle that her chosen target was leaving in.


    If Ursala had any luck at all, the creature would be taking her directly to more pack members. Pack members were delicious, for they offered powers that any normal Psycher would hesitate to grab onto. Unfortunately for Ursala, she was all but forced to take the forbidden powers, but they worked wonders on her body and mind, letting her push both to new limits that she had never experienced before.


    Gurgle.


    Even now, with the flesh of her captors and former tormentors on her lips, Ursala still felt hungry. This was the disadvantage of having such a powerful body that was able to overcome so many of the body¡¯s normal limitations, was that it required a lot of food. Particularly, when you pushed the body to its fullest.


    Still this was nothing for Ursala, she would live for the hunt, just as she would die for the hunt. If she happened to die now, then that was a worthy death in her eyes. At least that was what the last part of her Psycher mentality told her, as she continued to push her newly adapted body to its limits and beyond.


    Crunch-rumble-rumble.


    The speeding car quickly turned off and began going up a gravel road.


    Hearing the sound of her prey finally slowing down, Ursala smiled as she realized she had cornered her prey, and all that was now required of her was to stalk, and wait for the chance to make her kill.


    Sniff, sniff.


    Better still, the scents on the air told her that the girl was not alone here, as there were other snacks available to eat as well.


    Laughter.


    Realizing that these people, didn¡¯t know what was awaiting them what was now stalking them, Ursala snarled evily to herself as she began to slowly stalk her way forward.

 Chapter 76 Werewolf Versus Werewolf

    Chapter 76


    Werewolf Versus Werewolf


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    Rumble, rumble, pop.


    The car flew up the rocky road so quickly that dust and debris were being kicked into the air. The image behind her showed that she only had a few seconds, but she was already prepped for what to do.


    There before her was Misha, standing stoically, with everything she needed.


    Badump, badump, badump.


    Seeing the pale girl standing there, with the pale moonlight shining down and seeming to glow on her lustrous red hair caused a shiver to run down Amoni¡¯s spine.


    For a moment their eyes locked and she saw the look of determination.


    Seeing her, Amoni began doing everything as commanded.


    Click.


    The first thing she did was unclasp her seatbelt, something that would be stupid normally, particularly with how quickly they were moving. But despite her fingers being off the wheel, the car steered forward perfectly.


    ¡°Yeah, I need to ask her about that,¡± Amoni thought to herself.


    ¡°AWOOO!¡±


    But a sharp piercing howl from no less than three bends away told Amoni that she had other things to do besides ask that question.


    Bing, bing, bing.


    With her seatbelt off, and her hands already reaching under the hem of her shirt, she almost paused when she heard her car beeping at her.


    ¡°Sorry about that,¡± the voice over the phone rang out.


    Then even the binging sound from her seatbelt alert went off, allowing Amoni time to focus on her task. Which consisted of pulling her t-shirt over her head and getting it into a tight ball that she then placed out the window.


    Rumble, stop.


    The car came to a quick stop, as a drone whirred forward, long thin metallic claws reaching out to grab the balled up shirt, before streaking off past the house, and into the open fields, and eventually to the cornfields.


    For a second, Amoni wondered if the tiny drone could force its way through the stalks, but was quickly drawn out of her stupor by Misha¡¯s voice that now spoke with an echo.


    ¡°Don¡¯t just sit there, get out and change already,¡± Misha¡¯s voice said both in person, and through the speaker of her phone that was now clutched tightly within her hand.


    Taking a deep breath, Amoni got out of the car with only her sports bra on top, and her sweat pants on, her nice shoes had already been kicked off, as they would not survive the transformation.


    Amoni got out of the car, and realized that her clothing was perfect for changing, and began to do just that.


    Almost out of habit, she tried to close the door, but was quickly stopped by Misha.


    ¡°Wait, leave it, we need to sell that you left in a hurry. Now change and run into those crops, I¡¯ll be right behind you,¡± Misha¡¯s cold voice echoing in Amoni¡¯s mind.


    She dropped her phone, well dropped would be a wrong thing to say, as Misha had already gained possession of the phone somehow and was herself moving to another area.


    For a moment, Amoni realized just how dangerous the entire situation was.


    She was being chased by a crazed and feral were that was likely blood drunk on the energy of its sire. Now she had to change in front of a non-pack member, a clear violation of the covenant. Assuming Amoni and Misha both survived, just witnessing such a change meant that Misha would either have to become pack, or die. There were very few exceptions to this case.


    Her father would know.


    Painful pause.


    Then at the thought of her father, the man who just died, a pang of pain echoed in her body, before she shook her head. The last thing her father would have wanted was for her to show any sign of weakness. Also, Misha was technically not looking, which meant she didn¡¯t actually see the transformation.


    These were the rational arguments her mind made, as she began changing.


    Crunch, crackle, pop.


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    With each step, Amoni forced her body to grow and mutate with the curse. Before this had been very painful, as she felt that her two sides were at war with each other. But recently the change had been easy, well easier.


    While she did feel the stretch and strain of her bones and muscles, it wasn¡¯t as pronounced as it once was. Now it was more of a good ache one could expect after stretching after a long exhausting workout.


    This was why Amoni found herself switching to her wolf form half way through the open field that ran past the basketball courts.


    It was also why she was able to get to full speed before reaching the corn field. As she entered, she found the scent of her own clothing and instinctively followed it.


    Poof.


    Before she was hit with a bag of dirt that seemed to have come out of nowhere.


    Only after looking up did she see that there was a second larger drone that had apparently timed its approach perfectly to drop a bag of dirt one would find laying around a farm, right on her.


    Anger.


    For a moment Amoni felt anger, but soon calmed herself as she realized this was the chance she needed.


    Rather than shaking the dirt free, as was her first instinct, she instead rubbed the dirt deeper, having it meld with her own overgrown fur on her arms, and head.


    She would so need a bath after this, but she always needed one after a change.


    Now, all she had to do was remember the rest of Misha¡¯s plan.


    Remember the plan and execute.


    ***


    (Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)


    Ursala found herself stalking her prey.


    Sniff, sniff.


    With each step, she felt the distance that her prey could travel away shorten. Her ears, now powerful and sensitive enough to hear the rustling of deer trying to get one last midnight feast in before they were forced to go into winter preservation mode.


    For a moment, she just paused and basked in her senses. Feeling the world come alive and talk to her in ways she never thought possible.


    In this moment, she felt like she was finally a true part of something greater than herself.


    She had always known that she was part of something greater, as a Psycher, but now that her baseline thoughts were freed of their former corruption, she felt free in a way that was hard to describe.


    Before, it was as if she had always been bound. Her mind always grabbed and altered by the overwhelming will of the Matriarch and her leaders.


    Now though, now she was free.


    Ursala had the power of the earth flowing freely through her, giving her power and bonding her to the world in ways she could only imagine.


    Her mind, once her sharpest tool, was only made sharper by the impulses she was now able to receive and comprehend.


    For this moment she was free.


    While she could feel the responsible part of her mind melting away into the background, she let it happen. She had of course read of similar situations, moments when people take drugs or substances to release their inhibitions. Of course, such substances had little to no effect on a true Psycher, as their mind could always burn through even the toughest of stimulants, to help get the mind back to a perceived stable point of comprehension.


    Yet, that was so limiting, so tedious.


    Now Ursala found herself free. Her mind able to grow, expand, and adapt to the world in ways she never thought possible.


    Her mind was cranked up and put to an eleven, forcing her to either let her brain melt down due to all the new stimuli given to her by her overpowered senses, or to relax, and let her mind focus on what was the most important thing.


    In this moment, the most important thing was the hunt, the thrill.


    She was hunting werewolves, it was her mission, and at least this part of her mind was able to acquiesce to her new state of consciousness. By her mind tethering itself to hunting down the hated enemies of her kind, those that forced her into this situation, she was able to relax. Or the final vestiges of her full Psycher doctrine were able to relax just enough, as it mentally associated this with a training mission. A new training mission where she would use her heightened senses of the enemy, to better kill the enemy.


    It had been so easy.


    Crunkle.


    Even now she could feel the last remnants of the drying blood flake out from beneath her large fingernails. Fingernails that could scratch the bark off a redwood.


    Her body was mutating and releasing endorphins that only helped her mind speed up in its interpretation of the stimuli happening around her.


    Mentally, a part of her knew that her full cognitive processes were being diminished, but she didn¡¯t think it was enough to cause any permanent harm. Not while she felt so free, and alive.


    Yes, alive.


    For the first time in all of her lifetimes, she felt alive in a way that only those who lived once could truly experience and enjoy.


    Perhaps that finality, that ability to teeter on the verge of life and death was what made these moments so magical, what caused these monsters, of which Ursala now found herself apart of to be so magical.


    Rustle.


    Then, just like that, the impulses that had been guiding Ursala¡¯s feet forward, continued their magnetic pull.


    By now she saw no more shortcuts, her sense picked up no great divides that could be jumped to gain distance on her target.


    Especially as the biggest outlier, the large rumbling engine that sounded far too smooth to be on the roads had finally sputtered to a stop.


    There was something odd about that, her logical mind, her old Psycher mind told her to be careful. Perhaps that was why she paused so long on that deserted road.


    But why her Psycher mind told her to be cautious was not able to be identified. Eventually, Ursala found herself scoffing at the latent fear of the Psycher mind, finding the hesitation and impulses for self-preservation to be wholly anathema to what her newer, more powerful, and more durable body told her she could withstand.


    With a newfound confidence, she followed the road, smelling the scent of rubber dislodged dirt in the air, filling her nostrils and almost covering the scent of her target. Almost, but the amount of sweat and fear that had come from that weaker predator were almost palpable to Ursala. It so thick and pungent that Ursala could almost swear she could stick out her tongue and taste the acrid stench of fear. The stench that only a fleeing animal could exude, while being chased by a superior predator.


    Smelling that intoxicating aroma, Ursala found herself stomping forward.


    For a moment she almost thought there were two scents, that of the timid and frightened girl, then that of the wolf.


    Sniff, sniff.


    The two scents overlapped for a moment.


    Again, the nagging Psycher mind of Ursala¡¯s consciousness begged for caution. Yet, every instinct told her that the creature she was chasing was frightened. Even the wolf side, if it was around would cower in fear at the sight of her, this much Ursala knew as fact.


    Then almost as if to confirm this feeling of dominance, Ursala felt the moment the girl she was chasing failed. Even her wolf failed to form, a sign that her mind was too weak to be a true predator, that she couldn¡¯t even manifest the wolf to defend her when she needed the wolf the most.


    Truly pathetic, the bestial side Ursala thought to herself as she while moving cautiously at first, soon found herself chasing after the scent of her prey in the fields.


    This would be a chase that Ursala could not resist, as her still blood-stained lips peeled back, revealing rows of serrated bloody incisors that could rip apart an elephant¡¯s thick hide.


    Turning left, she followed the trail.


    Wide arcing paths, over and around and through the cornfield.


    With each step Ursala trampled over rows of cornstalks.


    Again, her mind told her something was amiss, but her senses told her that the prey was just ahead. As such, she ignored the warning, and continued pushing forward.


    Oblivious to the fact that eventually she had found herself right back where she started.


    The prey doubled back?


    Ursala¡¯s mind raced as she tried to understand what happened, she had been so meticulous with her pursuit. Yet, for some reason, she found herself back to a part that smelled remarkably like her. Though there was one difference, a thick acrid smell filled the air.


    At this point her rational mind all but screamed at her to get away, but for the life of her, other than the thick sweet pungent smell somehow reminded Ursala of the calm before the storm.


    Squish, splash.


    As Ursala stepped forward, she felt her oversized hairy feet step down into the bent over stalks of dead and dry corn. Yet, despite having clearly gone through once, this time the terrain had slightly changed, as there was a damp cold liquid on the ground. Instantly, her mind knew that the sweet and over powering smell she had been sensing was what she stepped into, but it wasn¡¯t water. Despite looking down and seeing that the liquid was clear, like water should be.


    Her mind paused as for a moment her savagery almost gave way to her rational mind that was desperately trying to once again reassert its dominance, only for fear to rise up.


    Fwoosh.


    In less than a second, a roaring fire appeared from seemingly nowhere and roared to life, burning both stalk and the sweet-smelling water.


    For a second, Ursala¡¯s rational mind managed to break through and warn of the smells, being that of gasoline. With that, her rational mind spoke of fear and how to escape, if she but did one thing that seemed counterintuitive. That of diving through the flames and towards the clearly visible open fields that were just beyond the flames.


    Of course, there was only a second of rational thought that Ursala felt, before her animal instincts took over at the sight of a roaring flame that spung to life, and all but chased after her.


    Panic.


    And like that, the once proud hunter, found her instincts and fear of flame take over as she desperately tried to flee away from the flame. All rational thought gone, as she let her instincts take over, as they were clearly more suited for survival.

 Chapter 77 Psycher Versus Werewolf

    Chapter 77


    Psycher Versus Werewolf


    (Misha Tulley)


    The stage had been set. By now the fields that hadn''t been harvested were already set to be cleared.


    Now though, now the flames would help clear the fields faster.


    Chills.


    Despite the roaring flames crackling nearby, Misha felt a slight chill running down her spine. The reason for the chills was apparent, as it was a crisp autumn night, one that spoke of violence and unclaimed powers.


    Overhead the sky was lit with a mostly full moon.


    The moon was still in its waxing state, but that would only be possible to tell if one truly looked at the moon and saw the faint sliver of shadow that kept the moon from fully lighting the area.


    As it was, with the flames and the moon, vision was rather easy.


    Especially as Misha had the cameras from her few drones she had enlisted to help her.


    After a particular encounter with a random boy, Misha felt the need to add more layers of protection to her sanctum.


    That¡¯s what this was, her inner sanctum, just as she found solace and protection in the hull of her flagship. Misha had begun thinking of this place as her own.


    Which was odd, as it was only after the first few centuries on the flagship, when more and more senior crew were replaced, or relieved of their duties that Misha had been given permission to enhance the ship and make it her own.


    By contrast, Phil had almost immediately turned over control of this area to Misha. Everything from a shop filled with extra mechanical parts that could be used to seamlessly grab and move barrels of gasoline, to hydraulic lifts that could move on their own cognizance to specified areas. To more complex things like cars that even now hid a frightened Amoni off in the distance.


    Despite her wanting to stay and help, Amoni did as was asked and stayed in the vehicle, though her posture showed that she was clearly looking out the back window of the vehicle and not following proper safety procedures at all. The act itself was slightly odd and took Misha a second to realize why she did so, particularly with such elevated vitals.


    One would think that being in a vehicle, Misha¡¯s own Mustang GT no less, would have filled Amoni with a sense of hope. As it meant that even if all of Misha¡¯s pyrotechnics and planning went to waste, then Amoni could feel secure in the idea that she herself would survive such an ordeal.


    Yet, she just sat there, eyes peeled back, as her adrenaline and other chemicals raced through her body elevating her heart rate and increasing her oxygen consumption. At this rate, Misha postulated that the car would need to be turned on in a matter of minutes, in order to help cycle the air. But that of course would draw the attention of the beast.


    Lowering the windows was also out, for right now, Amoni¡¯s scent was contained within the vehicle. A vehicle that very quietly and steadily rolled its way down the gravel driveway without making a sound. Oddly enough, this didn¡¯t seem to bother Amoni, at least not any more than Misha deciding to go toe to toe with a rampaging werewolf.


    In her mind, Misha knew this meant something, but couldn¡¯t quite place the emotion. She was still getting used to these emotions, for they all seemed to come out of nowhere and cause erratic responses, even from her.


    Yet, now that she had them. Now that she knew what emotions were, she felt that she couldn¡¯t give them up. Which caused other parts of her mind to question her very existence, for could she still be considered a Psycher, that is a true Psycher, if she allowed her actions to be guided by emotions?


    ¡°AWOOOO!¡±


    The sharp shrill cry of a rampaging werewolf pulled Misha from her mental musings.


    With everything set up, and Misha as prepared as she could be for the scenario she now found herself in, Misha took in a deep breath, closing her eyes for a second as she centered her mind.


    Bump-tha-dump.


    The rampaging beast surged forward, seeing Misha in her defenseless state, eyes closed and standing with barely her feet shoulder width apart, hands empty.


    Seeing a target, any target, standing straight up and visible from nearly a hundred feet away was an open invitation to charge forward.


    For Misha, seeing the charging werewolf would be as simple as opening her eyes and seeing the one dark spot amongst a ring of growing flames.


    Splash.


    Still, the wolf was fast. Fast enough outrun the spreading flames that all but forced it to run directly at Misha.


    So engrossed in its relentless pursuit of prey, the wolf seemed to miss the fact that it charged through random wet spots in the field. Spots that had it taken a moment to process, would realize that the pooled pockets were at the top of a slight incline. Yet, its wolf mind only saw a vulnerable target.


    Misha didn¡¯t need the sensors of her various drones to tell her that the beast was charging at her and at full speed within three strides. She didn¡¯t need to hear the crunkling of the dead corn stalks that still grew on the property, despite the farm being long dead, to hear the approaching wolf.


    For she could feel the wolf.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Deep down, within the consciousness of the wolf¡¯s coding was a Psycher, at least what remained of one. For the mind of this Psycher had been gnarled and frayed. Misha couldn¡¯t quite put her finger on the reason why, maybe it was that the core concept of this Psycher was damaged, or that somewhere along the way she lost the sharp intent required of a Psycher to live through death, but this Psycher was clearly lacking in some fundamental way. A way that was indescribable for Misha to put into words.


    Yet, seeing the once impressive mind being eroded away slowly was enough for Misha to know where her opponent was, and where to aim.


    Then before the wolf actually landed on the last and final trap, the trap sprung itself.


    Fwoosh!


    One second, a crazed werewolf was mindlessly charging forward. The next second, a hydraulic lift activated, springing five feet up in less than a second. The machine was not meant to move that quickly, but it could, when coaxed and given the right incentives.


    What happened next, was a thing of practice grace.


    Like skeet shooting, but with a much larger and easier to locate target, Misha held up her right hand, aimed, and then let out a burst of Electrical Energy.


    ***


    (Amoni Jacobs)


    To say that her first real fight as a teenage werewolf would be one of her forced to sit in the car like an adolescent was not what Amoni had in mind.


    There had of course been trials, pits where she would scrape and claw her way amongst other pack members, but as a shaman she often considered herself above such minor actions, which was why the idea of fighting a crazed Alpha seemed so odd to her.


    In her mind, she knew the number one way for a true Shaman to prove their use to a pack was to enlist the power of the elements to bring to heel any rampaging alpha.


    For a moment, Amoni had been close to that goal. Even now she could feel the power and strain of the elements closer than ever to her fingertips, yet, as she looked on, all Amoni could see was just how much further she had to go.


    Badump, badump.


    Amoni¡¯s heart raced in a slow methodic beet to the ever present call of war.


    A battle was brewing, and Amoni knew that she would not have lasted a second against the challenger, an Alpha who seemed to be larger and more roided up than a particularly lost athlete whose body was reeling from the effects of hallucinogens, steroids, and uppers all working in unison to tear the body apart in one last fit of adrenaline fueled mayhem.


    Yet, there standing off against the opponent was Misha.


    Just seeing her there, her back straight, her gaze focused, it was clear that she was not only prepared for this set of circumstances, but that she was even now orchestrating the field to work to her advantage.


    Watching her stand there defiantly while flames erupted out, encircling the wolf and all but forcing them forward caused Amoni¡¯s breath to catch in her throat.


    The crisp night autumn air played tricks in the car, as what breath she did release provided an odd fog that seemed to add to the supernatural state of what she was witnessing.


    Thump, thump, thump.


    Even from this distance, through a vehicle with the windows rolled up and wheels slowly rolling away at a slow measured pace, Amoni could hear the charging wolf. This was an effect of her heightened hearing at play.


    Spring.


    Then out of nowhere, there was a loud metallic echo that seemed to reverberate in the night air. Before the Alpha even had a chance to react, they had apparently fallen for Misha¡¯s trap.


    Rather than falling down, as one might expect to accomplish against a larger and more agile predator, a trap method that is never successful, Amoni got to witness something else entirely.


    As always, the warrior, this Misha was one step ahead of even what Amoni had thought, for she saw the violent enraged alpha get thrown up into the air.


    Again, such an act would mean nothing.


    In all, the height thrown was only a matter of feet, even as the beast was thrown off their feet and forced to regain their balance, they were already correcting their form to land properly on their feet.


    There was just one problem, as Misha wasn¡¯t done with her attack.


    As soon as the wolf reached its apex, and seemed to pause in mid-air for just a moment, that is when Misha struck.


    ZZZAAAPPPP-BOOOM!


    In less than a second, Misha had acquired her target, taken aim and then released a blindingly bright bolt of electricity that struck the wolf in mid-air.


    That same bolt then continued to follow said wolf, all the way down to the ground, where it¡¯s arcing and flailing body spasmed wildly.


    At this point, Misha¡¯s levels of diabolical planning kicked in, for everyone knew that such effects normally wouldn¡¯t be enough to fully incapacitate a werewolf, let alone a rampaging alpha.


    That was when the barrels of gasoline that Misha had used her machines to spread about played their part, for it seemed that she truly was a genius at math, for she even calculated the trajectory of a falling and flailing werewolf so that they would then land in a pool of gasoline. At which point they would then have the sparks of electricity, along with bright blue bursts of electrical fire that had already taken hold of the fur of the great predator, all combining to form one amazingly large flaming werewolf marshmallow.


    FWABOOSH!


    Instantly, the wolf that was still in the process of having their muscles forced into tightened knots due to the surging currents of electricity, arose up and began flailing about wildly.


    Yet, despite the wild movements, Misha never moved.


    Even the flames that seemed to rise up and began to engulf the dry cornfields that were mostly knocked down due to the actions caught fire. But not Misha.


    She just stood there, like a true shaman. Like the shaman that her father spoke so reverently about, ones that would face down opposing pack alphas and protect the pack.


    Amoni could only watch on in amazement, as finally the preparations seemed to have been enough. The wolf finally collapsed.


    Misha held up her hand, letting out the stream of electricity pulse for a five count longer, until the bright blue sparkling stream of electrical current died out, leaving only a brightly burning wolf that could only now begin to move.


    Then with a wave of the same hand, the one that had so casually controlled the lightning, Misha waved her hand and caused the flames around her and covering the wolf to end.


    Badump, badump, badump.


    Watching her, it was clear that she had been wrong about Misha all this time, she was a Shaman. That or one of the magi, but those people were just myths. Also, she was fairly certain that no magi could control the elements to that level.


    Even now, Amoni could only watch.


    Climp-grind-pop.


    Somewhere along the line, the car that had been slowly rolling out away came to an abrupt stop and put on the emergency break. Amoni¡¯s eyes glanced at the now extended hand break, but only shook her head as she looked back to see Misha.


    By now Misha had moved, she slowly moved forward, as she did, more and more of the flames died down. Despite being well over a hundred yards away, the flames that looked like they were about to rampage, all came to an abrupt end.


    Amoni watched as Misha walked over to the corpse of the dead Alpha. As she got closer, all Misha did was shake her head, it seemed that she truly hated killing, which was good for a shaman, as it showed she valued her role as a guardian of balance.


    As she reached down, Misha touched the werewolf, immediately afterwards the once raging and uncontrollable beast reverted back to her human form.


    The woman looked oddly familiar, but her features were too dark and charred to make out accurately.


    Yet, the act itself proved beyond all shadow of a doubt of Misha¡¯s true position as a hidden shaman. For who else but a fellow shaman could force an alpha to lose their rage and change back.


    Seeing that, Amoni felt something inside herself change, as she realized that with everything that had happened. She needed to step up, to be the new leader. Jacob was gone, Alishia was terrible, and Misha¡­


    Well, with Misha, their pack would have a true Shaman, one far more capable than she could ever be.


    It hurt to admit, but at the same time it was liberating, as it meant that she could be the Alpha.


    With Misha by her side, she could do almost anything.


    These thoughts and more raced through her mind, as she watched Misha give the last rites to a fallen Alpha. One who went crazy from the transition to power.


    How Misha made it all look so easy too, going so far as to place her hand over the fallen Alpha¡¯s forehead, at which point Amoni was almost certain that a supernatural glow could be seen.


    Before nodding to herself, and removing her hand.


    At which point the faintly blue glowing orb over the Alpha¡¯s head rose up, seemed to look at Misha, before bowing once. Then in a streak of blue light, the spirit zipped off into parts unknown.


    Seeing the miracle that had happened before her, Amoni was more certain than ever. Misha was a shaman, and if she played her cards right, she would be her shaman.


    ***


    (Andrea Tulley)


    Deep breaths.


    It had only been a few weeks since she met Frank, but since then everything she knew about herself had changed.


    Now, she held up a stick, one that seemed to tell the future. Well her future, as it glowed with a big red ¡®+¡¯ sign.


    Seeing the notification, Andrea knew it was both a blessing and a curse.


    She was a terrible mother.


    Yet, despite herself, Misha had turned out fine. Better than fine, actually, and that was by herself.


    Now she could do so again, with Frank.


    Then pausing for a moment, she wondered if this baby would be like the next. Then thinking to herself, she just shook her head, no Misha was a once in a lifetime trial, surely the next one will be easier.


    Flicker.


    At that exact moment, the electricity in the hotel room flickered, her eyes barely having time to notice a quick blue blur of light, before the lights came back on.


    Tingle.


    With that, Andrea felt her stomach and swore that for a moment, she could almost feel the child inside her stomach come to life.


    ¡°Everything okay?¡± Frank asked, his voice mildly concerned, as he spoke through the hotel¡¯s bathroom door.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Andrea responded almost automatically. Then seeing the applicator that still hadn¡¯t changed its original notification, Andrea took in a deep breath and steadied herself. ¡°Actually, there is something I need to tell you¡­¡±

 Interlude VII Bakshee Developmental Observation Station T&$5*# - (TASSOH) (Six Months Later)

    Interlude VII


    Bakshee Developmental Observation Station T&$5*# - (TASSOH)


    (Six Months Later)


    The lead Bakshee station scientist sat at his planetary control helm. This was the control panel for the world itself. From here she could note the change of the world, how quickly the planet was adapting, and most importantly, from here she could help the world adapt to the new set of circumstances happening.


    While it was important that over time, all species fall into one of the three classes of Bakshee. Each then able to perceive and remember the past. There also came points in destiny. Moments when the regular unaltered population needed to be handled so that they didn¡¯t burn the Bakshee at the stakes. Or worse, set back the evolution that had already taken root on the planet.


    After many trials and errors, this planet in particular seemed to need extra adjustments, thus the authorization for this one planetary control panel to be opened and operated, by a single trusting Ruler class Bakshee.


    Monitoring of and knowing when to judiciously use the planetary control panel was the sole reason why Ambassador Col¡¯inte was called to this way station to begin with.


    While such a position might seem like a career setback for most, to her this was a minor stepping stone. See her family, or rather the dynasty of families that she was a part of already controlled most of this sector of space. Thus, her having a fundamentally important role for this planet was crucial for the future goals of her planet to incorporate the resources of this fledgling planet to help assist the dynasty move forward.


    While the Bakshee were united against common enemies, they were clearly setting their sights on what the universe would be like after the last true enemy was replace.


    Being that Col¡¯inte only achieved the Tier IX category and only then managed to unlock the Immortality perk at the cost of most of her other magical effects, her growth had been stunted. While she appeared young, that youth came at a cost, one that needed time on her part to adapt to. Fortunately, her being Immortal meant that she now had as much time as necessary to fix her short comings, which was another reason why she chose this posting.


    In fact, her position and perks made it so she would easily outlive all of the other scientists who were now stationed with her. Scientists who many of which were third or fourth generation observers from different universal dynasties.


    On its interface, the observation station TASSOH was neutral, which was why Col¡¯inte was the only representative from her dynasty who was allowed to attend and maintain the lead role in the development of the planet.


    The faster the planet was able to acclimate to the Bakshee system, the better her review. Given that she only started a little over six thousand years ago, Col¡¯inte knew her developmental track for the planet was going exceptionally well.


    The terraforming of course began with converting the ocean life, which then eventually spread to the shorelines and from there every plant. Then finally the adaptation was made to go live with infecting and altering the mobile lifeforms.


    From there she watched the planet grow, populate, and spread the enhancements wide.


    Everything was going to plan.


    Or it had been, there were a few minor hiccups recently, the random discharge and solar flare that caused a worldwide disruption. Of electrical impulses to the mind. Followed by what had to be one of the craziest eruptions of power that Col¡¯inte ever seen.


    Even reading past manuscripts of other station managers she never came across a violent eruption of Bakshee at that level before one.


    One that threatened to reveal the Bakshee threat before it had reached a critical 51% mass of the population.


    Fortunately, fail safes were installed for a reason.


    By slightly adjusting the amount of UV light that was able to filter through the planet on the near side, while increasing the density on the other side, the planet was able to create both a super summer for the southern hemisphere, while creating a super winter for the northern hemisphere. The result was that both sets of populations had a hard time getting proper energy. Most of the planet¡¯s sentient population chose to remain indoors. While those that did go out, only did so sparingly and with specific goals in mind.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Also, a faint but noticeable increase in ambient electrical energies was provided, to help pacify the population.


    Col¡¯inte always found it odd how most populations instinctively built rudimentary circuits to provide first tier conveniences. With the use of electrical energies to provide initial tier conveniences, the species inherently created a system of pacification. Just as newborn infants were drawn to a pacifier, so too were primitive societies drawn to using electricity to appease their mental systems. This made it so that the organo-tech devices that were trying to take root in the entire population had a steady baseline to both charge itself and assimilate to on the target host. Furthering the effectiveness of the transformation process as a whole.


    All of this was to say that Col¡¯inte managed to placate the potential powder keg of Bakshee integration into this planet by doing two minor conditional changes.


    Now, monitoring the readouts from six months ago, when there was a spike in noted activity, to now, everything seemed to be kosher. This was also the time when the planets¡¯ odd axis would shift once more. For a moment Col¡¯inte debated whether she should switch the planetary anomalies, making the northern part of the planet excessively warm, while making the southern part colder than necessary.


    For a moment she evaluated this decision and ultimately decided against continuing. Instead, she plotted that the changes would gradually taper off until they were at their expected normal measurements.


    These adjustments would be catalogued and recorded, for both her own reference should anything similar occur in the future. Additionally, these records would prove as a testament to Col¡¯inte¡¯s strength and initiative into helping a planet assimilate at what is currently projected to be a 5.9% deviation from the typical timeframe.


    Her successes would likely be taken down due to favorability of initial sample provided, and other matters brought up by the opposing dynasties, but for now her everything was going beyond expectations, which was all she could really hope for at this time.


    The world had faced the true knowledge of Bakshee classes, and had seemingly dismissed the occurrence as just a blip in the non-converted species¡¯ short attention span.


    In fact, if Col¡¯inte had it her way, she would use this minor disturbance as a way to hopefully push integration methods further ahead.


    Debating for herself, she saw the markers.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 78.1622%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 22.7524%">Planet Interface:</td>


    <td style="width: 77.2476%">


    Converted Native Species: 100%


    Converted Sentient Species: 100%


    Dominant Sentient Species Conversion Rate: 31%


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Those numbers were a little misleading, for all the first two noted was that the Bakshee organo-tech had managed to take root in every species, and then been adapted to enhance the sentient species as well.


    Now the last objective, and the final one keeping Col¡¯inte on this planet was the last one, the complete and successful conversion of the dominant sentient species.


    Pausing for a moment, Col¡¯inte debated if anything more was needed. At this rate she would easily make her intended quotas, but to obtain a rate that was truly undeniable she needed a faster explosion of final planetary conversion. This was where she decided to use a catalyst.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 13.2973%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Access denied.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    But there was a problem with the catalyst in question.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 35.3514%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Unable to directly apply catalyst effects to planet.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the message, Col¡¯inte paused. Then she read, and reread the instructions. She was unable to apply the catalyst to the planet directly, which meant that there was a way to do so with indirect methods.


    At that thought, her mind recalled the transcripts of a prior leader of her dynasty, one who provided their complete and unbridled reports to Col¡¯inte to help expedite the terraforming of the planet they were assigned to oversee, before they became head of a major family within the dynasty.


    ¡°Computer, access secret archives for any references to apply indirect catalyst effects to a planet.¡±


    ¡°Searching.¡±


    ¡°Searching.¡±


    ¡°Found.¡±


    ¡°Family Head Tark¡¯inte references the need to use a discontinued model of Bakshee to implement Catalysts to a planet. While the effects were chaotic, it did help ultimately achieve the goal of a 12.2% faster conversion ratio of the planet, but at cost.¡±


    Hearing that Col¡¯inte¡¯s ears began to burn as she heard the desired effect. Also, the goal of over 10% faster conversion ratio, something unheard of in recent terraforming endeavors and one she wished to replicate, so she too could make a name for herself. Then she


    ¡°What was this discontinued model of Bakshee?¡± Col¡¯inte pressed.


    ¡°The secret archives state that it was a model of Bakshee called the Reaper model. One that had been discontinued due to future descent and crisis caused by overly protective links formed from the Reaper to other models connected to.¡±


    Hearing that, Col¡¯inte immediately brought up her interface showing the exact breakdown of different Bakshee classes.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 26.3784%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Warrior Class Members: 64.4%


    Worker Class Members: 27.9%


    Leader Class Members: 7.699%


    Reaper Class Members: >0.001%


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Just as she expected, she did in fact have a Reaper contingency somehow. Seeing the breakdown a slight smirk came to Col¡¯inte¡¯s lips as she realized she had a chance to spark a massive change. For a further breakdown showed that she had not one, but two of the discontinued Reaper class members on her planet.


    Realizing this sudden change, Col¡¯inte paused for only a moment. Remembering the warning given by the ancestor. Such remarks were not meant to be made lightly.


    Then looking deeper, Col¡¯inte realized that the planet was still young. The odds of any model right now reaching a state of Immortality to pose a true problem would be minor. Especially with the effective training wheels being applied to the models available, as at most Tier VII models were available to the people of the planet currently, and only a few had reached that vaunted height. Each of those had multiple deficiencies that would make the path of obtaining Immortality impossible, for there was no way the Bakshee coding for Immortality would be made available to a defective model.


    With all these facts in place, Col¡¯inte knew that correcting an overly taxing Reaper would be as simple as killing it and eliminating the problem at its source.


    Seeing that there were contingencies in place, and figuring that no long term issues could arise from this utilization of her Reapers, Col¡¯inte felt her mind open up to new possibilities as she pressed on.


    ¡°Tell me, how did Tark¡¯inte utilize Reapers to act as planetary catalysts?¡±

 Chapter 78 Plans for the Future

    Chapter 78


    Plans for the Future


    The world had gone on, things that had at one point been very important to many people passed. Things that were one time deal breakers, suddenly seemed to be minor inconveniences at best.


    True to their founder¡¯s word, the Jarnic foundation gave back to the community, particularly for people who used the Surreal application on their phones.


    How the company doled out scholarships, and what levels of insight were exactly needed to gain a free scholarship were unknown.


    All that was known was that for whatever reason, those that registered as a super cluster apparently gained more experience than others.


    The fact that super clusters were even possible was something that was missed on almost everyone. There were no blatant commands on how to join as a super cluster, nor why exactly 17 members was the exact number of people to generate a super cluster.


    That said, it was amazing how the entire high school women¡¯s basketball team, along with a few ardent fans of the sport were all gathered up in this so called perfect super cluster. Gaining experience for not only what they did, but what everyone else in the cluster did on top of their own actions. One person more, and one person less would have negated this lucrative option.


    When asked why this was in there, the developers were at a loss, as it was apparently something that the creator, Ms. Jarnic herself had added just before production went live. An apparent easter egg to her favorite number, along with a few other important dates in the company¡¯s founding. All of this made it so that the number 17 was a prime number of importance, and one that was recorded as such in team activities.


    This meant that when Surreal began doling out part of their profits for their expressed dividends, giving out seventeen scholarships was both a drop in the bucket and great advertisement for the brand and company as a whole.


    ¡°So now that you have your own scholarship and don¡¯t need to worry about getting a Basketball Scholarship, which college will you be going to?¡± Amoni found herself asking.


    As she spoke a faint note of vulnerability seemed to momentarily cross her face as she asked.


    This was an important question. By all rights, there was of course only one true answer for a native of West Virigina, and that was to choose WVU in Morgantown WV. Yet, Misha didn¡¯t feel the connection to West Virginia as others did, this was just a place. Part of her realized that this was just her Psycher mentality coming through, not being drawn too much to one area or location.


    However, with that in mind, Misha still wanted to be closer to her family, which put her at odds as Jackson West Virginia was exactly in the middle of nowhere. Somehow it was eighteen miles closer to go to the Ohio State University, than to WVU. Similarly, University of Kentucky and Virginia Tech were both options due to being similarly comparable in range.


    In the end, the only true deciding factor in what school Misha went to came down to her one and only visit. Where an assistant for the University of Tennessee happened to be in the area scouting the team, during that time they handed out cards to everyone on the team, even Misha.


    The card didn¡¯t mean much, but it was an open invitation to at least compete in the open tryouts to make the team.


    While apparently everyone could join the open tryouts, very few made it onto the team.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to go to the University of Tennessee,¡± Misha noted, having immediately applied for admission right after receiving the card.


    ¡°Ten, Tennessee?¡± Amoni replied a bit bewildered.


    At that Misha just nodded.


    ¡°Why there?¡±


    ¡°They were the only ones that tried,¡± Misha noted.


    ¡°Ah, I could get you a tryout with the team?¡± Amoni pressed, her words sounding slightly desperate.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, in fact, probably better this way,¡± Misha noted.


    This of course was not the first time Misha had this conversation. The first time had been with Phil, her grandfather, who had been vehemently opposed to the idea of leaving the state entirely.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Only after pointing out that this was the only school that showed a modicum of interest in her, and the only one that gave her the effective time of day as Phil would have put it, Phil could not argue. Instead, all he did was sigh in frustration.


    ¡°I guess this means we will also have to shut down the garage,¡± Phil noted.


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t, people are now coming here first.¡±


    ¡°Only because you are here, besides who else am I going to get to do all the work for me, while I just sit back and look pretty.¡±


    ¡°You were never pretty, old man,¡± Misha retorted. This form of conversation was odd to Misha, only after studying dynamics and seeing the clearly jovial reactions from Phil afterward did she realize that he actually liked this type of response.


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯ll have you know that back in my day¡­¡± Phil began, but was quickly cut off by Misha.


    ¡°Gas was nine cents a gallon and you could sell a child for $2.50, no questions asked.¡± Misha replied, remember the sight of a few black and white photographs from back in the day.


    Hearing that Phil could only smile, ¡°yeah, while I originally wanted to sell your mother, I¡¯m kind of glad I let Grandma talk me out of selling her. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t get to put up with your smiling face everyday.¡±


    With that, the subtext was clear, Phil would miss her. That was as close to admitting that point as Misha could ever get him to truly admit.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like you won¡¯t be alone,¡± Misha pointed out.


    ¡°Oh, I know. Probably for the best that you are moving out. That way your mother and her new baby daddy can move in,¡± Phil replied.


    That was the state of affairs.


    In fact, her mother Andrea had already moved back in. She did it subtly too, well subtly for Phil, Misha saw the power play for what it was.


    Originally, she just moved in for a few weeks to try to save money during the pregnancy.


    Then time went on and somehow the father finally introduced himself to Phil. Then after a night of drinking, he was about to leave, but Phil forbade him from leaving in that condition, and next thing they knew, there were suddenly two extra guests within the Tulley estate.


    This was even more impetus for Misha to quote unquote leave the nest and try to find her own way in the world.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me,¡± Amoni¡¯s words cut through the memory and all but forced Misha to realize where she was.


    ¡°What?¡± Misha managed to respond.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me that you were at least applying for Tennessee?¡± Amoni asked, her voice rising to nearly a shout.


    ¡°You never asked, until now,¡± Misha pointed out.


    That was the other odd part of this whole ordeal, ever since Misha¡¯s assistance with Amoni and the renegade Ms. Clayton, AKA Ms. Jarnic, Amoni had seemed different. While Ms. Jarnic¡¯s case was officially still open, the leads had gone cold.


    What was known was that Ms. Jarnic, who was posing as Ms. Clayton was abducted by two former students.


    While the remains of the two students¡¯ bodies were found, nothing other than bloody prints leading off into the cornfields nearby were identified.


    At one point, a group of search hounds found their way to the Tulley estate, but soon found themselves doubling back after not much luck.


    Amoni never asked what happened to the body, a fact that Misha was immensely thankful for. Instead, Amoni seemed to show her appreciation for what happened in other ways. The most notable way was that from that point onward, she was Misha¡¯s biggest fan both on and off the court.


    Then to seemingly make matters worse, she came right at that exact moment.


    ¡°Hey bestie,¡± a bubbly Darcy exclaimed as she all but intruded on Amoni¡¯s conversation with Misha.


    The interruption was annoying enough, but then Amoni¡¯s eyes went wide as she saw what the girl, the interloper, was wearing. It was a white shirt, with a giant orange ¡®T¡¯ on it, something completely innocuous and something that would normally mean nothing. But in this instance, that shirt suddenly meant everything to Amoni.


    ¡°Get ou...¡± Amoni began, but quickly stopped herself as she took in the apparel that Darcy was now wearing. Seeing the shirt, she couldn¡¯t help but see it as the affront to everything she held dear at that moment.


    ¡°Wait, did you apply?¡± Amoni asked, while pointing to the shirt, well not quite the shirt, but the giant orange ¡®T¡¯ and what that ¡®T¡¯ represented.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Darcy responded with a slightly predatory smile to her lips, one that noted a sense of one-upmanship against her.


    ¡°Did she tell you?¡± Amoni asked, trying to identify how far the betrayal went. Did Misha purposefully apply for a college that Amoni didn¡¯t?


    ¡°No, I just watched,¡± Darcy explained, while pointing to her right eye before continuing. ¡°I also saw the way all the scouts went after you and the team members that were known before this, but seemed to avoid Misha. That is except for the one recruiter from Tennessee who held back and spoke to Misha while she waited for the rest of the team to be able to speak.¡±


    Hearing that, Amoni¡¯s blood ran cold, as she didn¡¯t realize what exactly happened. Thinking back, she did remember the one time she heard a coach from Tennessee speak to them, it was after they had won state and when Misha was particularly active with locking down on defense and distributing the ball. It was one of the few times when she scored less than ten points, but only due to the team already having a wide margin of victory. In fact, the coach even stated that they were to try to run out the clock as much as possible and be good sports about the lead and seemingly inevitable victory.


    That was when Amoni also had her best game, while being paired with Misha who worked the entire game, but mainly relegated to defense, something that Amoni knew was her favorite part of the game, though she didn¡¯t quite know why.


    ¡°You only got the one?¡± Amoni asked, figuring that she had her choice to join almost any major program in the region, which was why she settled for Tech, OSU, and WVU as her three primary targets. Then it would just be a matter of following Misha, but Tennessee never factored into that equation.


    Misha for her part just nodded.


    Panicked, Amoni pulled open her clutch, trying to find the card that was spoken of, but realized quickly that the card from the Tennessee scout was not with her. Thinking back, she remembered putting it in her pocket and all but forgetting about it, until the card turned into a thick wad of cardboard lint that had to be thrown away.


    Remembering the card, Amoni could kick herself for the oversight.


    ¡°Do you still have the card?¡± Amoni asked, a note of desperation in her tone.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the card,¡± Misha replied. As she did, a note of reluctant resolve washed over Amoni, only to then be raised once more as Misha continued. ¡°But I can give you the details on the card.¡±


    With that Amoni was once again impressed by the sheer photographic memory that was owned and operated by Misha.


    After that, Amoni received a text with the exact contact details and date and time of the meeting. Almost as if Misha could read her mind as to what she now planned to do. Not that her plans would be any real secret, she would call up, beg for help in applying and hope that she would get pushed through, along with Misha, and apparently also with Darcy.


    For a moment Amoni felt a slight cringe of annoyance at the idea of including Darcy in her thoughts about Misha, but soon gave way. They had been through a lot apparently, at least that is what J-Sweep had said about their Hasty concert. Never quite going into detail, but saying she had a lot of respect for Misha after that.


    Speaking of, only now did Amoni realize that J-Sweep was also wearing more orange than usual in her clothing. Could it be that she too had known? She had known and not told her?


    ¡°Thank you, I need to go real quick,¡± Amoni responded by shaking her phone as she left to go make one of the craziest and potentially life altering decisions of her life.


    With everything needed, she left to the parking lot got into her recently repaired car that seemed to run better than ever thanks to Misha, and taking one breath to calm herself. She paused, and then hit ¡®call¡¯ on the number in her text thread.


    Brrrinnggg.


    ¡°Hello?¡± A female voice answered.


    ¡°Hi, my name is Amoni Jacobs and I was given your card after our state championship game¡­¡±


    And like that, Amoni also tried to change her fate.


    For a moment, she felt fear and anticipation rise up inside her, but a quick caress of her car¡¯s clean dashboard and she felt a wave of tension release from her body. She could do this, no, she would do this.

 Chapter 79 The Move (Darcy Renolds)

    Chapter 79


    The Move


    (Darcy Renolds)


    It was happening.


    The world was changing, and yet it was all still staying the same. Darcy was so excited at playing the field, and actually guessing right, that she was on cloud nine about what she had done.


    There was of course just one speedbump in the way of her going to be with her friends.


    ¡°Are you sure that you want to go to Tennessee?¡± Darcy¡¯s father, Malcolm Renolds asked. ¡°I could pull a few strings and get you accepted into a prestigious school like Dartmouth, or even into WVU, like your mother.¡±


    Hearing these statements didn¡¯t even bother Darcy anymore.


    Instead, she was just forced to go through the same Groundhog Day argument over and over again. The only difference being that, in this case the day changed, but the subsequent arguments for why she shouldn¡¯t go didn¡¯t.


    There was first the argument of being a Legacy.


    ¡°You know you could be part of what would be a seven generation Legacy for Dartmouth, your great-great-great-great-grandfather Daniel Maximus Renolds was the first to attend,¡± her father began.


    ¡°Should have had a son, now even if I do graduate, I won¡¯t be remembered as a Renolds,¡± Darcy explained, commenting on the way that her last name was bound to change, thanks to the archaic practice of forcing the female to change their last names to match the boys.


    Hearing this, her father¡¯s face slightly changed as a look of almost hope seemed to appear on his face.


    ¡°Wait, does this mean you are back into guys again? Is that Rider kid going to Tennessee? Is that what this is about?¡± By now her father had completely gone off script.


    ¡°Eww, no. His name is James, and he and I are so over. Not that there was much of us to begin with,¡± Darcy began, and then answered the last question ¡°though I don¡¯t know where he is going.¡±


    At that, the father just nodded his head.


    ¡°So it is that basketball girl again?¡±


    Badump, badump.


    At this, Darcy felt her anxiety rising, though she knew her father always preferred honesty to outright lying.


    ¡°Yes, the basketball girl as you call her is my main reason for going. She¡¯s a friend, and someone who I trust completely.¡± At that, memories of how crazed monsters chased after them outside of the Hasty concert. How despite everything, she seemed to do things that were otherwise impossible.


    Hearing the honesty of her words, her father could only nod his head in understanding.


    ¡°Okay, and this is the same girl who got you out of Pittsburg?¡± He asked, referring to the location of the incident and not the exact incident itself.


    At that Darcy could only nod in agreement.


    Despite how long ago it was, and how real it all felt, there were true horrors that still sprung to her mind every time she closed her eyes.


    In fact, her insomnia often got so bad, that the only time she could get sleep was at sleepovers at her house. Not that she could explain it, nothing happened, not that she didn¡¯t want anything to happen, just that it didn¡¯t happen. Instead, they just stayed up, watched shows, played basketball, despite how bad she was, and generally just hung out.


    Oddly enough, despite how technically proficient Misha was at seemingly everything, it was odd to see her grab a book and sit and read for hours on end. Not on an e-reader either, but on solid books that had physical pages that needed to be flipped, and required lighting sources to be fully enjoyed. Even better was the fact that dead air was accepted. That is, they didn¡¯t need to constantly talk to feel comfortable together. Silence was just as important as the times that they spoke.


    This was great, for when she fell asleep there, knowing she was nearby, she felt safe. Her mind could relax and she didn¡¯t feel flustering anxiety when she awoke to think she was vulnerable.


    Only after many, many meetings with her psychiatrist did her father finally accept the platonic relationship between the two.


    At first, he thought Misha was only after her inheritance. But after meeting her and having his own investigators look into her and the family, it was clear that his concerns were unfounded. Or at the very least lessened with this honor student that seemed to come out of nowhere.


    ¡°All right, since you are so insistent, there are a few things that I need to warn you about,¡± The father began.


    ¡°While it might have been better for you if you went to Dartmouth, where you could join my alma mater, where I could introduce you to a number of fraternities that would help you out in the future.¡±


    ¡°I already told you, that I don¡¯t need your help dad, at least not with getting accepted by others.¡± Darcy was no stranger to this process, she knew that she would still need her father¡¯s assistance financially. She wasn¡¯t completely na?ve enough to start declaring her independence now.


    ¡°I understand that, but know that what I am telling you needs to remain a family secret,¡± Malcolm began, and as he spoke, he held out his right hand.


    The hand itself was completely uninteresting, it showed the well-worn calluses of age, and of a person who used their hands for precision procedures. Her father was a surgeon, not the best, but by far the best in the region. In fact, at his prime, before he semi-retired and moved out here to the sticks, he was a major surgeon for one of the largest hospitals out east, though he never would say which one.


    There was apparently an infight, and a potential disbarment. While he had ultimately been allowed to keep his license, the stigma of the event caused the entire family to move out here and start over again.


    Later the family won a defamation lawsuit against his former employer, but the damage had been done to his reputation. This was why, despite his apparent skills, he had chosen to live a life of relative seclusion.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    Now it seemed that her father would finally shed some light on that situation.


    Darcy again nodded, feeling tension rise up in her, as she could almost feel an intangible surge of energy around her.


    ¡°As you know, I am a Legacy doctor, for seven generations the blood of surgeons has run through our family. What you may not know, or be aware of, is why we have all felt the calling to become doctors,¡± Malcolm began. As he spoke, the tension in the air continued to rise. Then a faint green light began to glow from the palm of his outstretched right hand.


    ¡°You are a legacy, someone who is likely going to awaken soon, which is why I wanted you here, or at least near people that could help. That said, you will soon come into your own. Like clockwork, everyone from the great Daniel Maximus Renolds, to your grandfather, and even me awakened on our eighteenth birthday. When we did, we all found ourselves attuned to life energy. Only while at Dartmouth, in the secret fraternities there did we find that we were not alone. That we were not truly unique.¡± The father began and paused at that, letting that revelation sink in.


    As he spoke, Darcy recalled images of the crowd going crazy, of seeing them do things that should not have been possible. Flames erupting, storm clouds raging, even snow falling in sharp piercing shards. Everything that could happen did.


    Recalling those images, remembering how helpless she was, how it was only thanks to the help of Misha and Jasmine that they all managed to get out of there alive. Worse, Darcy had been knocked out for most of it, so only faint fuzzy memories of horrors existed in her mind, but what she did see and recall, were truly the notes of nightmares.


    The events were so prolific that even Jasmine chose not to go by her nickname anymore, preferring to go by just Jasmine.


    Everyone changed after that trip. Well, everyone but Misha, she looked as calm and stoic as ever.


    This was why, if there was to be a change, she wanted to spend it with Misha.


    She alone seemed to be able to stand up against the horrors of the night. Even Jasmine had a newfound respect for her.


    ¡°The way you are reacting even now to the increased pressure of energy, it shows that you are at the very least sensitive to this energy. Energy that you will be able to wield once you awaken. This is why, I implore you to go to Dartmouth, or even WVU, where your mother went.¡±


    ¡°Mother is awakened?¡± Darcy found herself asking.


    At that her father just nodded, ¡°yes, though she is part of a different faction. Meaning you could either awaken as a healer, or with the ability to wield the elements like she can.¡±


    There was an awkward silence as that comment went through.


    ¡°You will find that, often times prodigal bloodlines are encouraged to blend together. I was supposed to be betrothed to a separate, more influential bloodline than your mother¡¯s who is by all accounts part of a relatively unknown bloodline, consisting of just her, her mother, and her grandmother.¡±


    ¡°Memaw?¡± Darcy found herself asking.


    At that, Malcolm just nodded.


    Once again silence ensued, as she was given time to process this new information.


    ¡°Is that why you were forced out of your practice? The fact that you chose mom, over some other legacy?¡± Darcy asked.


    Hearing the question, Malcom just clenched his jaw for a moment, before managing to relax.


    ¡°Yes, and perhaps you are correct about breaking the legacy tradition,¡± Malcom began, as he looked away and seemed to recall his own past mistakes. ¡°Also, I would be hypocritical if I told you to avoid your infatuation, and walk the path already laid out before you.¡±


    Hearing that, Darcy¡¯s ears perked up.


    ¡°Does that mean?¡± Darcy began, but held her question short, letting her father fill in the rest. Let him fill in the words that are left to be said.


    At that, her father just nodded.


    ¡°Yes, you have my blessing to walk your life how you want to. But know, that should it get out about your power and position, you will likely be pushed into situations that will push you to choose between the easy life, or the life you choose to live for yourself.¡±


    There as a slight pause, before he added in contrition.


    ¡°That said, once you make your choice, stick with it, put your blood, sweat, and tears into it, and you too can find true happiness.¡± He said, while holding up his hands and gesturing to the lavish house around them. It wasn¡¯t the best house ever, and would be considered a modest vacation house by the rest of her family, but it was clearly a home. A home that was built on complete faith that the person and life he wanted to live lay elsewhere than the beaten path.


    ¡°Oh, thank you daddy,¡± Darcy exclaimed as she lunged forward and hugged her father.


    The two held the embrace for a moment, then finally he leaned back.


    ¡°I just hope she is worth it,¡± her father responded.


    ¡°Oh, she is, and more,¡± Darcy replied, hugging him tighter.


    Finally, the moment ended, and both looked at each other expectantly.


    Malcom was the first to break, ¡°do you need help packing?¡±


    At that Darcy just looked slightly sheepish at the comment, ¡°I kind of already packed.¡±


    Hearing that, Malcom found himself expecting no less from her, as she had all but been in a complete chaos of nervous energy and frantic delights over the past few days.


    Ding.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s her,¡± Darcy began.


    ¡°That¡¯s who?¡± Malcom found himself asking, as he got up.


    ¡°My ride to school,¡± Darcy explained.


    At that Malcom wanted to ask more, but in his heart, he already knew.


    ¡°Go get the door, I¡¯ll get my stuff, and thank you,¡± Darcy explained, while giving her father one last hug.


    At that moment, Malcom knew he was being manipulated. That if he tried to resist or cut back on her plans at this moment, all the goodwill he had just built up would be ended.


    Instead, he found himself moving forward mechanically to the doorway, to see her.


    Even from the slightly raised stoop of his front door to the front porch, she was one of Darcy¡¯s few friends that he still had to look up at to lock gazes with.


    ¡°Hello, Dr. Renolds, it is a pleasure as always,¡± she responded instantly, even giving a bow of her head. Worse, he could not feel any contempt or mocking tones within her speech or mannerisms, nothing but respect and well-practiced manners.


    Even when he wanted to hate her, he couldn¡¯t.


    ¡°Hello, Ms. Tulley,¡± he replied, this was as close to sarcasm as he would allow himself with the otherwise completely cordial friend of his daughter¡¯s.


    There was a momentary silence that filled the room, as he gestured for Misha to come in.


    As requested, she came in the few feet, into the foyer and allowed Malcom to close the door while the two waited.


    Once they stopped, she seemed to nervously move her hands and then looked up to gain eye contact with Malcom.


    ¡°You know, researchers are saying that a lot of financial thefts are happening to the medical industry,¡± the girl began, speaking about technology, something that was clearly her preferred field of study.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Malcom asked, not really interested but trying to play along for the sake of this encounter.


    ¡°Yes, in fact they say that people might not even realize it, but when they used shared accounts with their co-workers, those passwords can be tested for similarities with other accounts owned by the original account holder. If one has an account for a financial institution that requires a similar password, they might find unexpected monthly payments going out for services they are not aware of.¡±


    At this, Malcom couldn¡¯t help but feel that there was something she wanted to tell, but couldn¡¯t quite tell him, which was why he asked.


    ¡°Any particular institutions I should be aware of?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Wells Truist accounts, the automatic payments that were set up were for odd numbers as well. For the price of $1,452.32, and $587.77,¡± the girl responded.


    Hearing those numbers, Malcom¡¯s eyes grew wide, as he remembered seeing those same payments set up, but then saw that they were listed as being for home loans and assumed that they were set up by his wife. He had meant to ask, but never got a chance to do so.


    As these thoughts were going to his mind, she continued.


    ¡°Kind of sloppy if you ask me, as the money just goes to a separate account with a different bank, that then pays the actual mortgage, a mortgage with a clear name of the person who set up the initial transaction.¡±


    Hearing that, Malcom who had looked away, suddenly looked back and locked gazes with Misha.


    ¡°I take it, this isn¡¯t a singular event?¡± He pressed.


    ¡°No, it could happen to anyone you know,¡± Misha continued, her voice calm but there was a note of resonance that seemed to stick.


    Hearing her speak, not for the first time he wondered if she was a new breed of cyber witch, for her insights into computers and the like were uncanny.


    At first, he thought most of these comments were strictly her telling of her hobbies and interests. But he had quickly learned to heed such advice.


    ¡°Um, would you mind waiting here, while I check on a few things?¡± Malcom asked.


    ¡°No,¡± Misha answered, while casually shaking her head.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Malcom replied as he nodded his head and quickly headed to his computer room. From there it was a few clicks, before he could see the two exact payments from his account made monthly to a separate account.


    Badump, badump, badump.


    Seeing the information right there, in the exact amounts meant. Well, it meant quite a bit. First, she was right in that his account was likely hacked, and apparently had been so, for at least the past three months. At least that was as far back as his currently listed records would go.


    Then there were other ramifications as well, namely how did she know?


    But that was besides the point, he needed to correct this, immediately.


    ¡°Bye dad, I¡¯ll call you when we check in,¡± Darcy called out from the foyer.


    ¡°One second!¡± Malcom exclaimed, and then got up and went to see the pile of packed and wheeled suitcases that Darcy had chosen. Once again, Misha never ceased to impress, as she was clearly prepared to carry out five, while Darcy carried two and a backpack.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Malcom replied.


    At that Misha just nodded, ¡°figured it was an interesting article to talk about.¡±


    Then pausing for a moment, he asked.


    ¡°Any recommendations?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d first change your passwords, everywhere, then contact the bank¡¯s fraud department, along with the local branch of the FBI. As there might be more to this than they are aware of.¡± Misha noted.


    Hearing that, Malcom could only nod his head in agreement, though the tasks seemed to be harder.


    ¡°Should I change my password first?¡±


    ¡°Yes, do them in that order, otherwise the person who set up the payments might have a chance to change some of their information.¡± Misha replied.


    And like that, Malcom realized that Darcy had chosen a great friend to trust.


    ¡°Darcy, I take it all back,¡± he exclaimed as he ran forward to give one final farewell hug to his daughter. Then leaning in closely he spoke, ¡°you can stay with her as long as you want. I will support you now and always.¡±


    Hearing that, Darcy looked momentarily confused, but then just shrugged and decided to leave before he once again changed his mind.


    Only once they were fully packed and on the road did Darcy dare to ask, ¡°what was that about?¡±


    Misha for her part just shrugged, ¡°who knows. Old people and technology don¡¯t always get along.¡±


    At first, Darcy wanted to accept that, but then found herself asking, ¡°so what was that part about the FBI?¡±

 Chapter 80 Open Tryouts

    Chapter 80


    Open Tryouts


    ¡°Today, we open our doors and our floors to every student here today. Everyone with a wish, will, or intent to try out can and will be given a shot. Those that make it through this process are gunning for your spot, for your position. They all want what you have, and they are willing to push themselves further and farther than ever to get your spot. And I¡¯m going to let them, that is, unless you show me you have what it takes to be a member of this team,¡± Coach Shimms stated, giving what she hoped would be a fiery speech to her scholarship students.


    The more she spoke, the more emotion she could see rolling off her lineup.


    As usual she gave the speech, fully intending for her ladies to demolish every opponent who dared to challenge these hand selected students for their spots. Of course, coach Shimms also made sure to pad her roster with two free spots, just in case any of these walk-ons impressed her.


    Mainly though, this was a way to evaluate her current roster. She wanted to see who they were, what fired them up, and what to expect from them as time went on.


    Just as expected, everyone was fired up after hearing her comments. Everyone but the one Freshman that still looked as cool and calm as the first time she saw recordings of her.


    At first glance, it was easy to see why everyone else shied away from her.


    The talent and fundamentals were there, but the fire wasn¡¯t.


    While all the other students could seem to dig deeper, to pull at rage and anger to fire them up and propel them forward. This girl never did that.


    Instead, she just remained even keeled throughout, never going emotionally too high or too low. Like a machine she just worked everything to rhythmic perfection. That was what had likely cost her a lot of scholarship opportunities, for she was clearly the motor of a Championship contending team. A team that lost, but only due to severely corrupt officiating, and the fact that their coach was actually ejected midway through the game for arguing with the seemingly corrupt officials.


    An investigation had been made into the referees, and while nothing official had been noted, those same referees were unceremoniously let go.


    Their bad officiating got under everyone¡¯s skin, everyone but hers.


    Yes, she did have emotions, but she never let emotions get to her. This was partly why Coach Shimms chose today to push her newest class of students to their maximum.


    This was a test, a crucible. One that should hopefully do two things. First, it should prove to the students that make the roster that they do in fact deserve the spot they have earned. Second, this should be a good wakeup call to show how their spot can be taken at any moment by someone waiting in the wings.


    With that, Coach Shimms decided that enough was enough and it was time to start putting all of the students trying out, against her own starters. The first and easiest way to weed out the weak, was through calisthenics, if these students who were trying out could not even pass the basics of conditioning, then they had no reason to be on the team.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    Everything about college was mildly off putting, to say the least.


    At first, everything felt the same. Things even appeared to be the same, but they were different, slightly bigger. Life moved just a bit faster and slower.


    Her teammates were fast, all Tier IIIs or better, but their fundamentals were lacking. Seeing them, Misha knew she could easily knock them all the way down to the basics, where they would have a solid Tier I rating, but that would likely mean they would fail this trial.


    That option was tempting, as many of the Seniors were particularly harsh to the newer students. Thinking that either they would wash out or be replaced by many of the incoming students.


    Scuffle, shirk, squeak.


    The sound of new shoes sliding against the recently waxed floors could be heard echoing around the practice gymnasium.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Come on, you don¡¯t even care for the game,¡± a walk on heckled Misha as she easily poked the ball free and began trying to gain control over the loose ball.


    Misha for her part just stayed quiet, opting not to trash talk as the other girls put it. Part of this was the fact that nothing these people said or did bothered her. She had after all been on a ship that had hundreds of people yelling at her at one point or another. People who were in charge of her, but had no reason to be there.


    This was where her hardened resolve was formed, for as long as she put her head down, learned, and improved she would stay on. Those others, the ones that couldn¡¯t adapt, change, or improve, those were the people that were cut.


    With this precedent in mind, Misha pushed herself.


    ¡°Why are you even here,¡± another student heckled. This girl was older, and from what Misha had picked up, she had tried multiple times to be a walk-on player, and nearly made it every time. That was why she seemed particularly pushy this time, she was older, meaning she had more time to gain strength and skills. Worse, she was clearly a Warrior Class of Tier III. While this was the same Tier rating as Misha, their skillsets and strengths were at vastly different levels.


    That said, the question was a profound one.


    Why was Misha here, playing Basketball. A game, something meant to waste time and hopefully burn off a bit of excess energy, nothing more. Yet, the more she moved and performed the game, a game that was completely outside of her standard skill set, the more she enjoyed the sensation.


    It took her a while to figure out why she was inexpertly drawn to this odd sport.


    There were no fundamental truths of the world posed in it, while movements over time could be considered a form of movement art, it was still something that ultimately served little purpose once the moment was over.


    Worse, it had nothing to do with her specialty of talking to machines. There was nothing mechanical about this sport, aside from the exterior lighting, and the scoreboard there was nothing that could be impacted by the skill that had defined her for nearly a millennium.


    Then thinking about it further, Misha slowly began to understand why this game was so important to her, it was the first thing that showed she was more than an engineer. An engineer who was forced to live, die, and be reborn for the purpose of performing one menial task, keep the flagship of her fleet running.


    Now though, this game it was something else, and she was something else through this game. With the game, she could show another talent she could be good at, if she just applied herself. This was something that proved that she was more than just an engineer.


    For these reasons, and so many more, Misha now found herself playing this game. Playing the game and being given a free education to do so.


    The education was also important, for it was yet another way that Misha could form and shape her own destiny, the way she wanted.


    This was why she pushed herself.


    She remained silent, letting her play and movements do her talking for her.


    Out here, on the court, it was like floating through space.


    Only once in her life, had she felt the horror and complete freedom of her consciousness floating freely in space. It was simultaneously the scariest moment, and most exhilarating moment of her life. That time when she was expelled from the hull of her ship, and forced to find this world to tether her psyche to.


    Relating that moment of freedom and weightlessness to now was not tough for Misha. Instead, she used it to form parallels.


    Out here, on the court, she could be weightless, all alone, with nothing but her own movements directing her forward. The lights shining down on the floor, those were just stars that shone one for eternity. The people blocking her, that was just space debris floating aimlessly in space, trying to hinder her, but ultimately unable to stop her completely.


    Out here, she was able to truly find herself.


    ***


    (Darcy Renolds)


    Campus life was so odd.


    Everything seemed to thrum with energy. Just being here, she felt more alive and energetic than she had, possibly ever.


    Just breathing in, she could almost see and begin to feel the flow of energy that her father and mother had both hinted about. These were the feelings she would slowly come to depend on, while she began to awaken her latent potential.


    This was part of most older Universities, the fact that they drew in legacies, that is students who had multiple family members who all previously awakened.


    The awakening of students left a residual trace of energy, that over time slowly built up and would form first pools, then lakes, and eventually what some would refer to as laylines of power.


    Yet, despite the name, these lines were never actually lines. That is, they didn¡¯t go straight from one spot directly to another, with no impediments to their progress.


    Instead, these laylines roamed freely, slowly snaking outwards into the wild, before finally stopping where the energy began to die off or be absorbed into the nearby soil.


    This was also why most older universities tended to have trees and natural wilderness nearby, this was a natural byproduct of pooling layline energy.


    These were all facts that Darcy had been told, but had never fully experienced, until she got here.


    Now that she was here, she could feel the difference. She could feel the pull of why Universities were the perfect cover for Magi.


    Also, it was clear that many junior mages all came here, likely for the very same reason that Darcy herself now did. That is, to awaken and find more like her.


    There was an unnatural and inexplainable bond that seemed to form between her and other students. Everyone seemed nicer, more real, and somehow more vibrant than anyone at her High School ever did. Well, anyone other than a few. The number one person that always stood out, despite how low key and even keeled she tended to keep herself was Misha.


    Misha was subsequently the only reason why she found herself on the University of Tennessee to begin with.


    It should also be noted that Misha was now the reason why Darcy found herself crammed into what was effectively a metal oven. For Misha was apparently playing a scrimmage game against people trying to earn a spot on the team, as such they played here, in the women¡¯s auxiliary gym.


    If Darcy thought women got the hand-me-downs and old property of the men¡¯s team, then the practice squad, which Misha now found herself a part of, had it far worse. The building didn¡¯t even have air conditioning. That or if it did, the coach purposefully left it off, to help make the players work just that much harder.


    Had it been for anyone else, Darcy herself would have gone outside to cool off. Yes, on a brisk 97 degree day, it was cooler outside than it was in the heat box of a gym she now found herself.


    Still, Misha was playing, which meant, there was a distraction.


    Better still, Misha was in her silent killer mode. This was the mode where she was the most focused, not talking, not going to verbal sparring with other players. Instead, she just out played everyone. Her arms and legs were constantly moving, she forced defenders away through the use of her long elbows. She also was seemingly unbreakable wall on defense.


    Darcy didn¡¯t even like basketball.


    At least, she thought she didn¡¯t like basketball, until she saw her play.


    In fact, it made no sense why she would find any of this entertaining at all. Yet, she the more Darcy watched, the more she found herself getting caught up in the moment of everything.


    It wasn¡¯t until Darcy tried to watch a few professional games that she realized how special Misha was. For only now that she was awakening to her talents, only now could she see the way that the others she went against were monsters.


    All while Misha appeared to be a blossoming mage like herself.

 Chapter 81 Making the Team

    Chapter 81


    Making the Team


    (Darcy Renolds)


    College was amazing.


    People were so nice to her. Better still, Misha and Jasmine both managed to make the team, which filled her with an odd sense of pride, seeing as they all came from the same High School.


    Not that they had done anything yet, but they had earned the right to do something. That was what today was, a note that they had earned the right to be on the team.


    Speaking of which, Darcy herself was working towards a traveling assistant job as well.


    Just as she was always there with Misha and Jasmine both, the coach had noticed.


    Even when she tried to go through the fundamentals, the same ones that Misha had tried to teach Darcy while sweating in the basketball court in her back yard.


    While Darcy could not get her body to make the sets of coordinated movements that she wanted to, that were required to play basketball, at least at Misha and Jasmine¡¯s levels, she did pick up what she was supposed to do.


    Which was huge, as she would often be giving the other girls pointers from the sidelines. Ways to post up, to create enough separation to shoot. It helped in so far as it made the competition of the remaining eighteen students that much tougher to compete against.


    All the while she was teaching the others from the bleachers, she could feel the gaze of Coach Shimms on her, seeming to bore into her.


    At first, Darcy swore that the coach would yell at her, but instead she just made eye contact with the scary coach, where they seemed to have come to a mutual agreement of some kind.


    After that one long, but completely silent stare down, Darcy was allowed to attend practices. Even being allowed to get off the bleachers and walk the students through the footwork that she was talking about. While she never had the speed and coordination to work the drills the way Misha could, she had been pushed through the paces enough times to have her body naturally settle in the movements.


    Actually, it was her paces that helped a number of students who had no shot of competing at all to quit.


    Not that Darcy was rude or belligerent in any way, but her ways of showing what to do, then using Misha as her real life sped-up example, proved to many competing for a free scholarship that they had no chance of catching up to even the slowest pack members.


    This was how, the group of close to sixty walk-ons and incoming freshmen participants were slowly whittled down, one casualty after another.


    ***


    (Misha Tulley)


    ¡°Four, that is how many Full-Ride scholarships I had left for you incoming Freshmen. These scholarships are a two-way commitment, one from this University to you. And more importantly from you back to this University. By getting this scholarship, you are being entrusted to represent this University as one of its vaunted members. Being granted the right to wear their uniform, meaning you must express yourself with pride, honor, and most importantly grit.¡± Coach Shimms began.


    As she spoke, she made sure that the remaining twenty-two Freshmen and walk-on participants for open try-outs heard these words.


    Then she began calling out names, ¡°Jasmine Sweet, a freshman who attended on nothing more than a spoken word to give you a fair shake if you tried out. Well, here you are, your size, power, and tenacity will do wonders for our team. Come forward and be recognized as one of the elites who made it through our summer tryouts.¡±


    With that Jasmine strode forward, excitement filling her body as she could barely contain herself. Moving forward and getting a rolled-up parchment that symbolized the full tuition that could be offered by the coach.


    ¡°Next, we have someone who is not averse to these tryouts. Having attended the last four tryouts with nothing more than heart and a love for this school to motivate her. For that, there will always be a place for someone like that on our team, who will push themselves to be better each and every day and hopefully push our team to be better overall. Kelly Botchman, Senior and new anchor of the bench, step forward and be recognized.¡± Coach Shimms stated.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    With that, Kelly made the team. Excitement bubbling up from her as she all but burst out of the formation to join coach with a sweaty hug, and a beaming smile.


    What had helped with this decision was that Kelly would only be a one-year commitment from the scholarship, meaning that a roster spot would only be taken up for one year to host the exuberant Senior. That and the fact that she was a Straight A student, and destined to graduate in the summer, made her ideal for keeping up the team¡¯s averages for grade point average, graduation rates, and other superlatives that are tracked and monitored by each program.


    Similarly, ¡°Antoinette Diovik, another senior¡± was also called up for similar reasons.


    On the surface, this type of commitment and grandstanding looked good to the participants. As it showed each participant that even if they didn¡¯t have the skills to make the main team, the top ten, they could make it to the bench with hard work and commitment to excellence.


    ¡°And lastly, someone who we expect to make an immediate impact, both on and off the court, Misha Tulley, a Freshman, and someone who we hope to see in these halls for years to come,¡± Coach Shimms exclaimed as she held up the last of the honorary scholarships to.


    For her part Misha smiled brightly, and came forward to accept her token scholarship, knowing that records of these decisions had already been made and pushed by Coach Shimms and her staff to the registrar¡¯s office.


    This was how, despite everything, Misha managed to remain calm and poised during the readouts, knowing that she was going to be one of those called.


    As for the others, that is the eighteen other students who did not get a scholarship from the coach, they would soon find themselves as potential recipients of Jarnic Foundation scholarships.


    That¡¯s right, while the original Ms. Jarnic was in the process of being reincarnated for a new life, her scholarship and infrastructure that she had built up was still active and surprisingly easy to access.


    This was why, part of her plan was to use this foundation to both pave the way for students who could then give back to companies that made up the Jarnic conglomeration.


    Another important thing that Misha did was shore up some of the easier entrance and egress points of the security systems. While she didn¡¯t close the doors entirely, she did make it so most of the paths were at least obfuscated.


    This was why the University of Tennessee would soon find a massive math and science grant, that would primarily be used to help build a new stadium for women¡¯s sports.


    Yet, as she stood there, at the front of the group, looking back at the eighteen students who didn¡¯t make the cut, Misha felt an odd wave of something.


    It wasn¡¯t fear that she felt, for she was not afraid of those girls standing before her.


    Still, the very act of looking back at the girls, the fellow teammates that she just came from did make her question something.


    Looking at them, she tried to understand what exactly was wrong.


    There was something off, or at least her mind swore that something should be off, but for the life of her, she couldn¡¯t explain the sensation. Or rather, she couldn¡¯t explain why she suddenly had this ah-ha moment of something being wrong.


    They all looked normal.


    Unlike many of the students who came here with alternate sets of clothing, and most importantly shoes, some just came in wearing their shoes straight from their campus apartments.


    Not that there was anything wrong with not having a separate set of shoes to change into and out of. One for the court, and one for live outside of the court. It wasn¡¯t the fact that some of the girls likely didn¡¯t have money to buy a second pair of tennis shoes.


    No, the issue that she felt was much deeper.


    The differentiation of those who had a second set of tennis shoes was easy to determine, as they were students who had stains on their shoes. Stains caused by dirt, by running through mud and muck.


    Again though, such occurrences would not annoy her senses, there was something deeper that her mind was trying to tell her. Something that her mind was trying to tell her, but she was as yet unable to fully understand the process.


    Tingling.


    The more she focused on this odd occurrence, this discrepancy that her mind was trying to tell her about, the more her mind began to feel like tiny ants were coming alive and stinging parts of her.


    Then just as she swore she was bout to make an epiphany, for it wasn¡¯t all the girl¡¯s with dirty shoes that bothered her.


    In fact, only seven of the remaining eighteen had such dirty shoes. From those seven only three truly annoyed her, but she couldn¡¯t explain why.


    ¡°Congratulations!¡± Darcy exclaimed, coming over to embrace both Jasmine and Misha.


    With Darcy¡¯s excitement, Misha found her mind being able to move on from the glaring distraction that was before her.


    Little did she know that this moment, this incongruity in time would come back to haunt her later.


    ***


    (Kelly Botchman)


    Four years.


    For four years Kelly had worked, pushed herself and strived for this very moment, and she finally got it.


    Relief.


    No, not just relief. But joy, perseverance, and above all the fact that now she could watch every game from courtside. Not just the home games either, but the away games as well.


    This was without a doubt, one of the greatest moments of her life.


    Holding the rolled-up parchment, in her hands, she gave it a cursory glance, but soon realized that this was to serve as little more than a physical reminder for the real scholarship.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 93.8378%; background-color: rgba(230, 126, 35, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Not an official Scholarship.


    This is a promissory note from Coach Patty Shimms, Head Coach of the University of Tennessee¡¯s Women¡¯s basketball team, that you Kelly Botchman, will be granted a full-ride scholarship until the day you graduate.


    Guarantees from the University to the recipient:


    Full Tuition paid, until graduation.


    Full room and board paid, until graduation.


    Textbooks and other essentials paid for, until graduation.


    The noted guarantees above are yours so long as you do the following requirements:


    Maintain a 3.5+ GPA.


    Graduate in Summer, next year.


    Maintain the morality clause of the Team.


    On this I swear,


    Coach Shimms


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    There, in the text was her name, handwritten by the same coach Shimms who signed her name at the bottom.  That signature alone would make this document priceless. Mentally, she made a note to get this document framed.


    This document, along with her degree would be the two physical artifacts that she would need to prove to herself and others that she did in fact deserve to be here.


    In fact, she was so excited that rather than going back her typical way to her dorm room from practice, that she instead made a quick stop at the framing store. Well, it had a different name, but it was the store that was right outside of campus that sold nothing but frames that would be used to display one¡¯s degrees.


    While this parchment was in no way a truly binding contract, it did signify the fact that Coach Shimms had seen her hard work and recognized her efforts.


    That was why she decided to go off campus, a fact that might have saved her life.


    For what she didn¡¯t know, what no one knew right now, was that there was an enraged killer running loose on the campus, at this very moment.

 Chapter 82 Chasing a Future (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 82


    Chasing a Future


    (Misha Tulley)


    Sinus pressure.


    It was odd, the way Misha¡¯s sinuses now seemed to scream at her every time she went outside. At first, she though it was allergies, but by all means and methods available her body was fine.


    Actually, according to the staff, her body was beyond exceptional.


    Which only begged the question, why was it that there was a perceived buildup of pain right at the front of her forehead, right where her sinus cavity was located.


    Yet, despite tests and other checks, nothing seemed to work.


    Even the odd nasal spray that smelled like rose particles wasn¡¯t working.


    While she could still move and function normally, it still had a long lingering effect on her, particularly with how long her day went.


    Of particular concern was the way her body seemed to react when at the dark sections of campus. These were the areas of campus that seemed to be dead to recording equipment and the like.


    Part of an effort of keeping the campus green and vibrant meant that one could expect to see fewer cameras and recording equipment in these locations. This was especially the case for the section of campus that Misha chose as her morning wake-up route.


    While she did feel an odd increase in the pressure on her sinuses while she entered the area, her sinuses never seemed to stay irritated after making her route.


    In fact, if anything her sinuses seemed to clear up after her runs, which was why she kept this route, despite it being one of the places most likely to have foreign pollen or irritants to her senses.


    Tingle.


    Despite her sinuses feeling better after the run, there were parts that always sent her instincts to a heightened alert.


    At first, she thought that these sinuses were a symptom of her Heightened Danger Sense (9) that like most of her abilities had met their maximum increase for her Tier ranking.


    In her mind this limitation made sense, as it was three times the original cost of three. Being as she was now on Tier -III it seemed that most of her harvested abilities would be capped at the third-tier rating. Just as her Improved Harvesting (3) was also capped at this rating which seemed to be predicated based on her Class Tier rating.


    There might have also been another, far more obvious reason for her sudden discomfort.


    Namely the fact that no matter what she did, she could not seem to increase her ability points available, nor improve her body any more than she already had to this point.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 56.1081%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Name: Misha Tulley


    Reaper: Tier -III


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    Improved Harvesting (3)


    Harvested Slot: Heightened Danger Sense (9)


    Additional Harvest Slot: NA


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Physical Characteristics:


    Strength: 16.9 / 16.9


    Dexterity: 25.0 / 25


    Agility: 25.0 / 25


    Stamina: 16.9/ 16.9


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 79.6757%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Tier Evolution point met. (Candidate must choose additional Harvest Slot advantage, before proceeding).  </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Candidate must choose from the following system skills available: Current Ability Points Available (27).</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That was right, she was now a Tier III reaper who had met her true potential in this form. At first she had hoped to be able to keep the open slot and accumulated Ability Points after the evolution. But this was apparently not allowed by her class.


    Now when she ran, she found herself being drawn to a place, where she could stop and think about things for the day. It was clear that her choice for the future was drawing near, and she would not be able to put it off for much longer.


    There were obviously a few concerns, namely why was she only allowed to have and store an additional 27 Ability Points? From what she could tell the answer to this was simple. The highest Tier III Ability that she had found thus far cost 9 points, thus purchasing that ability three times would only cost 27 Ability Points.


    Part of why Misha also held off was due to wanting to have the greatest listing of possible Abilities to utilize.


    It was logical that by her coming out to a larger school with a wider exposure level of people and cultures, that she might run across more interesting Abilities.


    While she was not wrong in her assessment of being able to find more, or even Tier III examples of previous Abilities, she did find the selections to be rather underwhelming, in the end.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 62.4865%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Feral Weapons (2)Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Lethal Adaptations (5)


    Increased Durability (1)


    Enhanced Toughness (3)


    Enhanced Comprehension Speed (4)


    Enhanced Senses (1): Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell


    Ultra Senses (4): Increases all Senes


    Increased Attribute (1): Dexterity, Agility


    Improve Attribute (3): Dexterity, Agility


    Warrior Class: Alpha (5)


    Worker Class: Coven Leader (5)


    Ruler Class: Primal Matriarch (5)


    Increased Physique (7): Increases your physique while in alternate form.


    Shaman (5): Fire, Water, Earth, Air


    Elementalist (9): Enhanced proficiency and Control over: Fire, Water, Earth, Air.


    Mind Shield (7)


    Mind Bastion (9): your mind is a protected armory from attacks.


    Rapid Healing (4): Halves normal species recovery times


    Exponential Healing (9): Further reduces healing and recovery times down to a quarter.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Logic dictated that grabbing one of the Abilities that cost nine ability points would be ideal for her future growth, but the problem came with choosing which one of those three to focus on?


    For the Elementalist, it seemed to be a waste as she already had at least Fire and Electricity covered thanks to her Psycher acumen. And while she knew that praising one¡¯s own abilities over others was the height of folly, she still felt that her ability to control flames and lightning were almost as good, if not better than what an Elementalist path could offer. Particularly as they couldn¡¯t be used in conjunction with one another. The only element that seemed to be able to assist her already powerful Psycher side would be Air, but that would only help with larger flames and explosions. Something that she for the moment was trying to avoid.


    This left Mind Bastion, which again seemed to be something a Psycher should be naturally capable of on their own. Which left Exponential Healing.


    While injuries were important to avoid, particularly life threatening injuries, this did not seem to be the way she wanted to go with her evolution.


    Which was why for now, she found herself waiting and contemplating what to do.


    Obviously, she wanted to maximize her gains from this potential Ability, while also identifying future flaws in these Bakshee designs. Flaws that could thus be exploited in the future.


    Deep down in her mind, she knew that the war with the Bakshee was over. That said, she still had a hard time breaking her own mind away from the mentality that let her continue to push forward with this new set of challenges that had arrived.


    There was also the fact that she was simultaneously relieved and saddened by the seeming lack of diversity available to all three classes of Bakshee here on the planet.


    Their seeming lack of diversity implied that there was still a chance to resist, to fight back. To at least save this planet from being completely corrupted.


    As a Reaper, she found herself at a unique ability to correct most of the corruption that had taken root in this planet.


    That or, she could make it so the corruption that eventually conquered this planet was somehow susceptible to future Psychers. That was a dream goal after all, being able to resurrect in an enhanced Bakshee body.


    Pulse.


    The pressure within her sinuses began to almost burn.


    For a moment, she wondered if there was something nearby, some form of atmospheric meteorite fragment that was nearby and causing her senses to go wild with pain and anticipation.


    It would make sense.


    This theory would also explain why she felt a greater pull to the odd pressure when she was out in these woods.


    Though she could never exactly pinpoint the area of the greatest irritation.


    Following the meteorite theory, it would then make sense for the inability to pinpoint the exact location of the meteorite because it was buried or otherwise hidden from the surface of this forested path.


    With that theory in mind, she decided it would be best to at least test this out, but later. Right now, her head was pounding with undue tension.


    Then almost as if to exemplify why she was feeling off, she read a system message.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 47.2432%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning: Tier Evolution Requirements met. Tier evolution imminent.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.7568%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning: Candidate must choose Ability for unused Ability Slot.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 74.4865%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Warning: If Candidate does not choose an Ability for unused Ability Slot, one will be chosen at random.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 51.2432%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


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    <td style="width: 100%">Warning: Randomly chosen Ability can be seen as an unwanted mutation.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 47.7838%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Time Remaining Until Random Ability Chosen: 14:59, 14:58¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Seeing the message, Misha stopped her jogging entirely as her mind began evaluating the messages in her mind.


    Then to her surprise, she felt around with her enhanced Psycher abilities, and realized that something interesting was now happening. For there, in the fields of random code that were being awakened to be chosen from, Misha realized that some of these paths were truly unique.


    For the moment, Misha dropped ideas of additional Bakshee terraforming pillars being buried somewhere in the woods surrounding her campus, and instead focused on the messages, their meaning, and what her Psycher senses were now telling her was possible.


    In these newly revealed, but still hidden slots, she found the three main branches, that is branches that reached out for each of the three primary classes of the planet. Each offering their own unique Abilities that can be harnessed as a native of that class by her Reaper class. In there, she also could feel the hidden branches of each group. These were branches that had not as of yet been unlocked by people of this planet. Or at least, these were special branches that had not been opened by people she had come into contact with to this point. Given her relatively small exposure to the world, she figured that some of these unique branches might have been identified and curated by powerful families.


    Yes, the Bakshee who pride themselves on diversity and allowing for the natural selection to take its toll in progressing a planet, still had their own form of hubris. That is, the powers and abilities that were only made available once a planet got to the final stages of their evolution.


    Of course, it was now that Misha realized exactly why her Reaper class was a broken class, for in her quick exploration of random sequencing that was made available, there were two flaws.


    First, there was a probability index that opened up every current and possible future evolutionary path to the Reaper.


    Now this isn¡¯t to say that the chances of getting one of the rarest form of powers, including powers for reapers was high. In fact, by all accounts their random sequencing should be considered so low as to be all but impossible to achieve.


    Yet, that was exactly what drew Misha¡¯s attention to those odd sequences.


    Sequences that should be impossible to reach, but were now available due to the way Reapers were meant to enhance the ability, frequency, and capability of evolving a planet.


    This of course led Misha to discover the second reason why her class was considered to be broken. Namely the fact that she could herself alter the noted probabilities, from any random number, to a 100% certainty.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 44.7568%; background-color: rgba(186, 55, 42, 1)" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Time Remaining Until Random Ability Chosen: 4:32, 4:31¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    This exploration didn¡¯t come without its own drawback, in that it took time to decipher most of the code available.


    There was a chance she could stop this timer, and give herself indefinite time to decipher each noted branch and possible evolutionary path available, which was in fact all of them. Not just every evolutionary path for the Warriors, Workers, and Rulers. But she also had the paths available for ever Reaper evolution possible as well.


    While she could stop the timer, she felt that this might be the mechanism that finally broke the already fragile Reaper system. One that would forever keep her locked at Tier III.


    This was why, she decided to ultimately allow the changes to happen, despite not being able to fully comprehend the possible changes.


    From everything she could tell the higher the mutation, the more powerful and more impactful they would be.


    That is why, following the trails, she saw multiple endings. Branches breaking off and dying quickly. The Warriors were the first to die off, somewhere around the seventh evolution. Followed next by the Warrior¡¯s branch, which seemed to break off at the eighth evolution. Followed by the Rulers at the ninth. Only Reapers went on, following trails and paths that were otherwise unknown to Misha.


    Following the path, she paused for only a moment, as she debated with herself about whether this was the smartest of decisions.


    After all she had no idea what this mutation would do to her.


    The only thing she knew for certain was that if it truly got terrible, she could shed this body and find another.


    It was that final thought that pushed her to choose, to explore the loosely formatted evolutionary path and accept it.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 28.6486%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">New Ability Selected: ??? <Cost 27></td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Class evolution requirements met. New Tier rating commencing.


    And like that, a burning sensation filled Misha¡¯s brain, as she felt her entire body beginning to burn as if being swallowed up in lava. Lava that was consuming her from the inside out.


    Fortunately, the pain was only physical, meaning her mind was able to cut itself off and shelter itself, as she felt the power of the newly selected and clearly broken Ability fuse with her body in some unknown way.

 Chapter 83 Reboot

    Chapter 83


    Reboot


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 15.3514%" border="1">


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    <td style="width: 100%">¡­ system online.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 15.3514%" border="1">


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    <td style="width: 100%">System rebooting.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Those were the words that rang out in Misha¡¯s mind.


    While her psyche had been able to be aware, aware, and most importantly present during the entire metamorphosis of her body, she was only now able to slip back into her body.


    Burning blood.


    Worse, her mind felt like it was on fire.


    Her muscles were burnt and frayed.


    If anything, she felt like she had somehow lost muscle mass in the conversionary process.


    Mentally, her psyche understood that had she not been a Psycher, had she not been able to detach her cognitive thought processes away from her body, then she would have died.


    That or her cognitive faculties would have been rendered to a state of inability to process. Her mind, the tissues that made up the mind were overtaxed and frayed.


    For a moment Misha let the finality of such a fate wash over her.


    A fate worse than death for a true Psycher, one where their mind was lost and damaged, unable to be used while the body they were in forced a slow constrained death.


    This was part of why the art of rebirth was so important. So that she could shed away old or otherwise defective bodies, for those that would operate properly.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 15.3514%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">System rebooting.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Once again, the system message scrolled in her mind, though this time it felt less like daggers and more like sharp fingernails scraping against her cerebral cortex.


    Interestingly enough, Misha could feel the neurons in her mind repairing themselves. If she managed to maintain her mental connection to her core processes, a minor function of a Psycher, then she would be able to survive this process.


    All she had to do right now was focus.


    Her mind remembered her struggles in space, where traveling for hundreds and thousands of sectors had its toll on her outer layers of mental protection.


    By comparison, this level of detail was nothing.


    In fact, the act felt oddly comforting.


    Almost like she found an old worn pair of shoes that fit her feet perfectly. Or a glove that had once been too big, only to now fit exactly right.


    These were the way her body now felt to her.


    It wasn¡¯t until the third time of seeing the now slightly annoying message that Misha was able to place a reason to why this suddenly felt so nostalgic.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 15.3514%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">System rebooting.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    This was almost identical to the way her new bodies would feel when she was reborn.


    Realizing this, Misha felt panic set in, as she mentally went through the test list of features that such a rebirth entailed.


    There was the scoping of the muscular system and the cardiovascular system. The rewiring of the body¡¯s energy supply to ensure that the brain receives the majority of generated energy. Finally, there was the neural re-writing of her brain that was made to better suit her own psyche.


    This last part, the neural re-writing was the most important feature, and one that all Psychers were told to over-clock during.


    Realizing that this might be a similar function, Misha herself began to over-clock her mind.


    That is, take and exert her will at an astronomical level to help direct change on the outside world.


    Her watch, her phone.


    She connected to both and began working both independently of each other. From the phone, she found that the area was a dead zone, or at least it should have been. Rather than letting her phone die, she changed the frequency of the energy being transmitted. Forcing her phone to transmit in the 6GHz range, using her mind to both sully the extra energy and support the extra strain that would normally be enough to fry a phone.


    With the extra energy, she was able to push a signal through the trees and surrounding forest to reach out to a nearby cell tower. From there, Misha¡¯s mind was able to momentarily reach out to the information of the world.


    Like a vast ocean finally being allowed to fill a small but open fissure, Misha stared at the ocean of knowledge for a moment, letting information flow over and through her.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    This was tough, but something that Misha knew must be done, if she was to fully push this body as hard as she thought it could go.


    Having gone through a similar process multiple times before, Misha was aware of her mental tolerance and what was enough.


    Then once her mind finally adjusted and flexed out enough to reach this level of knowledge, she stretched one further. Heading out and connecting from the communications pole that she was now connected to and pushed her mind forward to a base station controller.


    Flood.


    That was when the true knowledge of the world came to and flowed through her mind.


    She didn¡¯t have to know or be able to understand any of the information that was now flowing past her. Instead, she knew she just needed to be able to stand there, and let the waves of knowledge flash over and around her. Much like sitting in a fast flowing current, she just needed to sit there and force the information to flow over and around her. She was an unmoving bolder in the sea of campus information, and yet her presence would only show up as a minor blip, to the local campus. A minor delay in loading times, a forced momentary refresh of an article or video.


    Everything and nothing was around her.


    Then finally once her mind was to the part where she felt comfortable, she pushed her mind one step further.


    Initially, she wanted to push her mind to connect to a second base station from a different network, but ultimately chose to stop at a different cell tower of a competitor.


    While this wasn¡¯t the full flood of information, she had hoped to be able to withstand, it was still substantial and ultimately what she felt her mind could currently endure.


    Only now, once her mental stretching was complete, did she stop her mental exercises. She stopped her forced strain for information and pulled back within herself, slowly.


    She didn¡¯t retreat from the waves of information, rather she fortified her mind to be able to expand out and contract back just as efficiently.


    Once again, there was the taste of burnt copper in her mouth, as her mind was pushed beyond its reasonable standards. But even still, this was nothing, as she could already feel the processes that her mind and body were going through right now repairing the mind, making the entire thing more stable for continued future use.


    Panting.


    There was of course one problem, her body was clearly running out of resources. Even now, she could feel her already taxed and compacted fat cells being burned away at an alarming rate. Her body was still converting the older proteins of her inefficient form into newer fuel sources, but even that was not enough.


    This was why, with the last of her fading consciousness, Misha used her last connection to the cell tower to send out an alert, a call for help.


    Ping.


    Her phone even managed to give out the exact geolocation of her current position. Somehow during this she managed to send out a call for help.


    Then slowly her over clocked mind began to fade, as even her Psycher reserve of energy was pushed too far.


    She was still alive, still stable, but she needed to retreat inward on herself, to fully protect the core of her consciousness, before she lost it entirely.


    Even now, she wondered if she pushed this shell too far too fast. This was a Bakshee shell, and despite clearly understanding the resurrection processes of Psychers, this shell was lacking in some clear ways.


    Still, it hadn¡¯t entirely been for naught, as Misha could feel the effects and changes to her body and mind. Improvements that pushed the previously conceived limitations to new heights and limits.


    Though now, it would be a test to see if all her changes would have been in vain, as she now found herself stranded in the middle of nowhere.


    Well, not nowhere, this was a used nature trail, but one that might take time for someone to find her. But that was an issue for future Misha.


    As it was, she was almost certain that without help, she would be able to get back to consciousness in time, once her body had burned away and converted more excess fat and muscle into useable energy sources. Energy that she would then use to get to safety.


    But only after she had a moment to rest.


    This shouldn¡¯t take too long.


    Darkness.


    ***


    (Darcy Renolds)


    Fidget.


    Darcy found herself fidgeting in the waiting room area of the Campus¡¯s emergency hospital. Honestly for such a large campus, Darcy was still impressed with the facilities here, but that was to be expected with one of the most prestigious campuses of the world.


    Off to her right Jasmine also sat quietly.


    The TV was on, but the volume was down so low that the TV really just offered flashes of bright colors every once in a while. Flashes that would momentarily catch Darcy¡¯s attention and reveal a giant yellow square, and a bright pink character designed for kids.


    Darcy¡¯s mind would wander to the images for only a moment, particularly after the white and pristine waiting room floor would flash with colors and technicolor violence, drawing your attention once again to the big screen, only to then realize it was the same uninteresting image that seemed oddly unimportant at the time.


    Then again compared to her, everything seemed to be unimportant.


    Especially compared to the condition that she was in when they found her.


    It looked like she got attacked by a wild bear.


    Dried blood and slime congealed itself under her nose and around her mouth. Her shirt was covered in blood.


    The entire thing was enough to cause Darcy to have nightmares.


    When she first got the distress call from Misha, she had thought it to be a mistake.


    Yet, there was something odd about the message that clearly came from Misha¡¯s phone.


    One word and coordinates.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 24.3243%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Misha: Help.


    35.95..¡ã North, -83.93¡­¡ã West


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    At first the entire thing seemed like a bad joke. Something one would send as a prank. For it took Darcy¡¯s mind a moment to realize what those numbers were. They were her exact geolocation.


    Again, had it been sent by anyone else, Darcy would have likely dismissed the message, but this was Misha. She never joked.


    Actually, she almost never texted either, which was odd as the girl lived and breathed machines.


    This was why Darcy took a minute before attempting to call Misha, only to find her call was unreachable.


    Then when she blankly stared at what to do next, Jasmine called her.


    Ring.


    ¡°Hello,¡± Darcy replied, confusion in her voice as she could count on one hand the number of times that Jasmine would call.


    ¡°Did you get the message too?¡± Jasmine instantly cut in, her voice filled with panic.


    ¡°Yeah, but I don¡¯t know what those coordinates mean,¡± Darcy said, explaining what she had gleamed from the longitudinal and latitudinal numerals that were displayed before her.


    ¡°Her geolocation, that makes so much sense,¡± Jasmine replied, before hanging up abruptly.


    Call ended.


    Darcy was lost and confused for a moment, just staring at her phone that showed a time call of :37 seconds flashing in red lettering.


    Finally, after a few minutes, Jasmine called back, that¡¯s when Jasmine said the three words that would both send chills down Darcy¡¯s spine, and simultaneously leave her slightly relieved.


    ¡°They found her,¡± was all Jasmine said.


    From there, a story was told as Darcy found herself instinctively grabbing her keys, her wallet, and heading out the door before she even knew what was happening.


    As she left, Jasmine filled her in on what had happened in those few minutes where Darcy just stared confusedly at her phone.


    Jasmine had been all over it, calling into campus security, relaying the coordinates. Stating that they were geo coordinates. That is when the operator said they already got the message and had a patrol heading out to the area.


    There was also something else that was concerning.


    Something that now caused this unsteady silence between the two.


    ¡°Yes, apparently this is not the first female student to be attacked. And the campus security, and police will want to question us, about what might have happened,¡± Jasmine responded.


    Hearing the words, they still felt unreal.


    This wasn¡¯t the only instance of such an attack on campus?


    Also, who would go after Misha, she was a juggernaut of power. The very embodiment of strength to Darcy.


    Then a worse thought came to her mind, if these people could get Misha, then they could easily get her as well.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t they saying anything?¡± Darcy asked, but as soon as she spoke the words, she already knew the answer.


    ¡°Why do you think?¡± Jasmine responded.


    And like that, it was clear that she and Jasmine had come to the same conclusion. That the campus didn¡¯t let this information out, as they didn¡¯t want to start students panicking.


    Yet it was already too late. As there was Misha and at least one, maybe two others who had been targeted.


    Flash.


    Once again images of explosions flashed across the floor, drawing Darcy¡¯s attention to the screen where animated violence was once again unfolding. Darcy watched the violence with an incomprehensible stare for a moment, before once again dismissing it, letting her mind try to filter out every other distraction so she could just focus.


    Clip-clop.


    That is when the sound of polished shoes impacting the smooth tile floors could be heard, echoing throughout the open reception area.


    Hearing the new sound, Darcy and Jasmine both turned to stare at the source of the sound.


    There standing at full height was an officer in their mid-to-late thirties with a bald head heading towards the reception desk.


    Seeing the officer, Darcy¡¯s heart froze as she knew why he was here. That he would do as Jasmine had said, he would come to talk to the two of them.


    But seeing his interaction with the front desk clerk, it was clear he would want to talk to the victim first. A victim that Darcy saw being wheeling in on a gurney right in front of her. That was how she knew where to wait here, for her to return.


    This was also how Jasmine also knew that this was the right area.


    Just as Darcy thought the officer would be heading in to talk to Misha, she saw the clerk point past the officer right at Darcy and Jasmine.


    With that, the officer turned to look at them, and Darcy felt her heart stop as she realized on officer would come and ask questions. Questions that she did not have any answers to, though she wished that she desperately did.


    ¡°Hello, I am officer Traver with the Knoxville PD, I need to ask you a few questions¡­¡±

 Chapter 84 Multiple Part Investigation (Fifteen Minutes Ago)

    Chapter 84


    Multiple Part Investigation


    (Fifteen Minutes Ago)


    (Elijah Traver)


    Officer Elijah, not Eli, Traver sat in his cruiser, preparing mentally for the questions he would need to ask.


    He was Elijah because Eli, the traitor, was an Ole Miss Rebel, not like his more prestigious brother, who was a True Volunteer. For that reason alone he was always called Elijah and never went by the shortened version of his name.


    Which proved handy, as it often helped him determine if people had ever met him before, as those that didn¡¯t know him, might be tempted to shorten the name to the first few syllables.


    That wasn¡¯t his problem.


    Right now, his problem was that he had been called out to a hospital on the University of Tennessee campus to inspect a potential first witness for the possible missing person cases that were springing up all over campus.


    So far, there were just a few reports of missing students.


    This happened from time to time.


    Kids going to college, getting swept up in everything. Finding out that they are no longer the center of the universe, and some go off the deep end.


    The fact that there were now so many missing students was the only real concern.


    Again, according to the data analytics people the number of missing students was slightly higher, but within a statistical average that was acceptable. Nothing to get too alarmed about.


    Those same data analytics guys were also the ones who were baffled not being able to see any signs of these missing students¡¯ online profiles.


    Most who went dark, still had some connection to their media platforms, at least checking in, or otherwise seeing what people were saying about them. Even if they chose not to respond.


    This particular case however was different, in that they actually had a victim.


    An alleged victim.


    So far there was no way to note if there was even a crime that had been committed. Well, a physical crime, for all there was supposedly a distress text burst sent to everyone who supposedly had contact with the nearest cell towers. Yes, not one, but multiple towers that even covered the dead zone.


    Apparently, despite there not being enough connectivity for a full-blown call with streaming, there was enough bandwidth for the victim, to have sent out a massive broadcast alert.


    How such a thing was possible, Elijah didn¡¯t know. Heck, Elijah still felt excited when he managed to type in the family group text and switch out before he could send any compromising pictures of himself.


    That happened once, he forgot to switch out tabs. Had it not been for seeing his Aunt Betty¡¯s post about the 4<sup>th</sup> of July he would have made a fool of himself in front of his entire family. After switching, he just made a fool out of himself to his girlfriend instead, a far better person to be considered a fool by.


    Though that picture had paid off, as he was now married to that woman. But he still hated sending out massive text threads.


    Chirp.


    The radio comms from dispatch came to life, signifying that work was still calling and that Elijah still had more to do.


    ¡°Traver, you there?¡±


    Not proper radio comms, but this was a close knit community of people that knew each other like a co-ed brotherhood.


    ¡°Yes, Traver here,¡± Elijah responded.


    ¡°Traver, just so you know, you might have company,¡± dispatcher Jones responded.


    ¡°Company?¡± Elijah asked.


    ¡°Yeah, turns out a spook might be joining you,¡± the dispatcher responded.


    ¡°CIA?¡±


    ¡°Nah, FBI, apparently some people got their knickers in a squeeze over the way the alleged victim managed to send out a distress message to everyone within a ten-mile radius.¡± The dispatcher responded.


    ¡°Ten miles?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it might have gone farther, but that is what we are tracking at the moment,¡± dispatcher Jones answered.


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    ¡°So they aren¡¯t here for the missing persons?¡± Elijah found himself asking. It was never good to have the FBI enter your crime scene. Often it meant all your files and information would be passed over as part of information ¡°sharing¡± then you would be politely asked to leave the case. All the while your leadership would press for updates from you, acting like you should still know what was happening.


    It was a mess, and a potential headache that Elijah didn¡¯t need. Though actually, if the FBI came in for this case, it might make his life a bit easier.


    ¡°Not at the moment, their angle seems to be more anger at the misuse of commercial communications channels. Sounded like they were confused how such a technology even existed, and why a student chose to use it,¡± Jones replied.


    Hearing that, Elijah could only nod to himself as he understood the implications.


    This was a revolutionary procedure. Had it not been a medical emergency, then this would likely be a felony of some kind. Maybe a misuse of public communications platforms, or something to that effect.


    Again, the whole idea of being able to mass text everyone within a what, ten mile radius seemed like it would be able to be abused easily.


    Thinking about it, he wondered if Subway had one, as he almost always got ads related to Subway seemingly whenever he drove past their shop.


    ¡°Am I good to go and talk to the victim?¡± Traver asked to confirm. It was always good to get confirmation one way or another on these calls.


    ¡°Yeah, you are clear. Just know the spooks will likely want to talk to her as well about her communications hijacking.¡±


    ¡°Roger, in that case I am going in now,¡± Elijah responded.


    ¡°Noted, over.¡±


    With that, Elijah just stared at the communications piece for a moment. Then taking a breath he got up and forced his way into the hospital.


    He always hated the smell of hospitals, they always smelled clean. Well not clean, but empty.


    The entire thing felt unnatural.


    Giant building filled with hundreds of people each day, that all smelled like bleach and cleaner.


    Then again, Traver always had a superior sense of smell, and could pick up on things from the smells around him.


    Going in, he found the receptionist, even behind her glass casing, the scent of overapplied perfume could be smelt coming off of her.


    ¡°Hello officer,¡± she responded.


    ¡°I¡¯m here to talk to one Misha Tulley,¡± Traver began, while flashing his badge, and credentials.


    There was a momentary pause as the receptionist began typing for a few minutes.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, she is here, but she is still receiving treatment,¡± the receptionist began.


    ¡°Is there any family I can speak to?¡± Elijah began, flashing his bright smile.


    This was shameless and close to flirting, but it was something he had learned early on. A smile and a cordial attitude went a long way.


    ¡°Not that I am aware of, but you can see her friends right there,¡± the receptionist replied, and pointed to two girls in the back.


    Turning, Elijah saw two women. One a petite female that was barely over a hundred pounds and looked to be at or just below the national average for height, though it was hard to tell with her sitting. The other woman was large and imposing.


    Instantly, Elijah felt his hackles rise while looking at the second girl. She was strong and looked almost like a predator who was ready to strike. Seeing her, Elijah knew that if an altercation went down, he would likely lose the fight. Worse, he knew it would get back to the precinct that he lost to a woman.


    This was why, Elijah decided to go for the complete de-escalation from the start. Besides, any crimes conducted by the suspect were not his concerns. He was here to investigate a possible attack on a female student. One that forced her to call for help.


    Anything after that would hopefully be taken care of by the spooks.


    ¡°Hello, I am officer Traver with the Knoxville PD, I need to ask you a few questions¡­¡± Elijah began, but was cut off as a loud and audible ding could be heard.


    Hearing the sound, both girls turned their attention from officer Traver to inspect the person coming off the elevator.


    Seeing the person in question, it was clear that this was the spook. That or there was an impromptu casting for Men In Black Eight right here in the hospital lobby area.


    The man was a prototypical spook. Black trousers, shining bright glossy black loafers that have seemingly never been worn. White shirt over a scrawny frame, accentuated by a black tie and complementary black dress jacket. A matching black leather briefcase. This seemed to match his gelled back jet black hair, his completely clean-shaven baby face. Oh, and shades, can¡¯t forget the shades being worn in doors. This guy was hitting all the stereotypes.


    Yep, never had to see a see a spook to realize that this was definitely one of them.


    Seeing the man, Elijah just felt he would wait.


    He watched as the spook made his way from the elevator to the nice receptionist, who after a few seconds just pointed to Elijah and the girls.


    The entire process seemed to take a few seconds, but was closer to a minute. Still, Elijah knew it would be rude to make these girls repeat everything twice. Also, if this was going to be taken over by the spook, he figured he would let the spook hear everything himself and write up his own report. Rather than having to write one up for him, that would then be transferred to the spook who could try to shoot holes in his memory.


    ¡°Hello?¡± The spook said coming over, as he did he transferred his briefcase to his left hand, and used the right to shake Officer Traver¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Hello, I¡¯m officer Traver,¡± Elijah responded.


    ¡°James,¡± the spook replied.


    ¡°Just James?¡±


    ¡°Uh, Rick James,¡± he began, then seeing the look in Elijah¡¯s eyes he shook his head, ¡°clearly not that Rick James.¡±


    Seeing the look of contempt on Rick James¡¯ face, Elijah felt like he understood. Similar to the not being Eli thing, but maybe his was worse.


    ¡°Yeah, I take it you get that a lot?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, though one of my co-workers gets it worse,¡± he deflected.


    ¡°He does?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, his name is Murphy,¡± Spook James began.


    There was a pause, as Elijah tried to make the connection, before dawning realization hit him, ¡°Charlie?¡±


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯ve met him?¡± James responded with a faint smile.


    Hearing the guy speak, it took Elijah a moment to realize he was joking. A spook with a sense of humor? This seemed out of place.


    Chuckle.


    Elijah let out a nervous kind of chuckle, before realizing that there were still two girls staring at them like fishes caught out of water.


    ¡°Well, we just started, would you like to listen in?¡± Elijah began.


    ¡°Sure,¡± Spook James said with a open gesture to interview the two girls.


    ¡°As noted, I am officer Traver, and this here is Mr. James, here about the communications that were sent?¡± Elijah raised his voice at the end, making sure this was why he was here.


    ¡°That is correct,¡± James replied.


    ¡°Okay, so are you aware of what manner of distress your friend was in and why she needed to call for help?¡±


    ¡°No, I just saw her when they wheeled her in, she was bloody and covered in what appeared to be wounds,¡± the taller girl began.


    ¡°And you are?¡±


    ¡°Jasmine, Jasmine Sweet,¡± the tall girl responded.


    Hearing that, Traver nodded.


    ¡°Is there anything you can tell me about what you saw?¡±


    They both shook their heads no.


    ¡°Have you seen anything, or anyone threatening your friend?¡±


    Again both shook their heads no.


    Following this line of questions, he got into a stone wall. The only other important detail he got was that the other friend was named Darcy Renolds.


    At this rate, it looked like Elijah would have to wait for the victim to wake up or become available for him to get more to go on. Though it would have been nice to have something to go from. Realizing he was hitting a dead end, he decided to turn it over to Rick James.


    ¡°That¡¯s it for me, you have anything Mr. James?¡± Elijah asked, nearly breaking decorum by calling him Rick.


    ¡°Yes, in deed I do,¡± Rick said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out two cards that he then handed out to the two girls. Then after giving the girls a second to read his card he began.


    ¡°I am Rick James with Aspirant Communications, and I am here to find out what exactly your friend did to send out this emergency communication,¡± the not-spook began.


    ¡°Wait, you are with Aspirant?¡± Elijah asked, realizing that this was the phone company that he and the force just switched to this year.


    ¡°That is correct, I am here to investigate what, and more importantly how your friend made that emergency communications burst,¡± Rick James, the not-spook, began.


    Hearing that, Elijah felt his head go light, as he could have sworn this guy was a spook. Though a well-dressed Aspirant worker did seem to fit.


    ¡°Wait, then who is the spook?¡± Elijah asked, his mind inadvertently slipping in the word he was thinking versus the one he should have said.


    ¡°Spook?¡± James asked.


    ¡°The Federal Agent?¡± Elijah clarified.


    Ding.


    At that the elevator once again dinged to the floor, and once again everyone¡¯s attention went to the now open elevator that revealed a person wearing a golf shirt, khakis with a matching belt, and sports shoes.


    The man looked like he first wanted to go over and talk to the receptionist, but instead saw the group of four people and made his way over.


    ¡°You all working the emergency response task?¡± He asked as he headed over to them and held out his hand to Rick James first.


    ¡°Special Agent Kirkland,¡± the man said as he held out his hand to Rick first.


    Seeing that, it was clear that Elijah was not the only one to draw the wrong conclusion. But this felt like it was something bigger.


    ¡°Wait, why would you be here?¡± Elijah blurted out, his mind still running loops to keep up with what was happening around him.

 Chapter 85 A Smiling Devil (Darcy Renolds)

    Chapter 85


    A Smiling Devil


    (Darcy Renolds)


    ¡°They¡¯ve been in there a long time,¡± Jasmine mumbled.


    Hearing her, Darcy could only nod in agreement, as her own frustration began to take shape.


    ¡°So, how long have you two known this Misha?¡± The man in the suit who even wore shades asked.


    Just being near the man, this Mr. James guy, caused an odd sort of tension to build within Darcy. While she got no overt vibes that he was hostile, there was a seeming underlying tension of power that he seemed to exude nonetheless.


    Watching him, Darcy couldn¡¯t help but sense that the reason he wore his glasses had to do with magic. That if she somehow pulled his glasses off in conversation, she swore that she would see sparks coming to life just under his eyes.


    That said, with the power and energy coming off of him, even Jasmine seemed to be guarded. If the normally talkative Jasmine had her hackles up, then Darcy knew that she too would need to be careful.


    ¡°What exactly do you wish to know about her?¡± Jasmine shot back, somewhat angered by the way this man in a suit barged his way into their conversation.


    ¡°Oh, right.¡± The well-dressed man began, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out not one but two business cards perfectly from his inside pocket of his jacket. The move was so smooth that Darcy couldn¡¯t help but feel impressed with the act. Even the way he grabbed the cards and separated them with but a twist of his thumb.


    Darcy played cards, at least she tried to, but she never perfected such movements and precision. Being able to reach into a pocket and smoothly separate the exact number of cards needed without bending the cards in question was a skill.


    Seeing that act was when Darcy too felt nervous.


    Anyone that was that smooth at pulling out cards from his pocket had to be shifty, her mind instantly going to a man playing poker in back water rooms where such a skill to get and transfer cards one handed would be needed. Why else would you practice such actions, as it clearly was not a most skill people would practice.


    Thus, she saw the heightened dexterous movements as being something done with sleight of hand or deception in mind.


    Out of reflex, Darcy held up her hand towards the card, but then quickly pulled her hand back when Jasmine stood up next to her and didn¡¯t make a move towards the man.


    ¡°Right, no problem. Cards are old anyways.¡± The salesman quipped, never missing a beat as he flicked his hand up and cased the two cards to disappear right before Darcy¡¯s eyes.


    They had to have gone into his jacket sleeve, but the process was so smooth that Darcy couldn¡¯t track it at all.


    Jasmine on the other hand crossed her arms in front of her large chest and just glared at the man.


    While the man seemed to be frightened or at least put back about the gesture, Darcy noticed something. The look was almost fake.


    Yes, the career dressed salesperson did seem to be intimidated by Jasmine¡¯s outright refusal to listen or work with him, it was forced. At least that¡¯s the way his actions appeared to be to Darcy.


    He was pandering, offering a false hollow smile as a way to relieve some of the tension. Yet, there in his eyes, through his dark shades, Darcy swore she saw defiance.


    Defiance that was highlighted by micro sparks of energy.


    Seeing the sparks, Darcy winced as the sight she saw was unnerving. Worse, it seemed that Darcy was the only one to notice his stare, as Jasmine remained firm. That or she wouldn¡¯t back down knowing the setting and place.


    While these observations and more were going off in Darcy¡¯s mind, the man seemed to regain control over his facial features. Within the span of a heartbeat or a single breath, the anger that had been there just moments ago was gone. The tension leading to and around his shade-covered eyes was no longer visible and he was back to being a calm and meek-looking high-profile accountant, or whatever his job title was.


    Darcy still didn¡¯t know, as she never had a chance to see the card the man tried to present.


    From what she had gathered, it seemed that the first officer had confused him for being one of the alphabet agencies, but that quickly changed when a real alphabet agency person arrived.


    ¡°Sorry, perhaps I set myself up on the wrong side of things here.¡± The man began, as he spoke, Darcy could almost feel him trying something. There was something oddly rhythmical about his words. ¡°I know this must be a lot, your friend, gets injured, then a lot of people come to investigate.¡±


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    He began, and as he spoke, Darcy knew that he was paying particular attention to their reactions when he said friend. As if gauging to see if there was something more to their relationship.


    ¡°That said, those two that asked a lot of questions, they won¡¯t tell you anything. Claiming an ongoing investigation and yadda-yadda-yadda.¡± The well-dressed man continued.


    ¡°Now, I¡¯m going to tell you freely what I know, without any requirements from you two.¡± He began, it was clear that he almost looked like he wanted to throw in something else but quickly caught himself and began.


    ¡°So cards on the table,¡± the man began.


    As he said that, Darcy¡¯s mind instantly rang in triumph as she was certain he played cards and that admission right there all but proved her to be correct. Her excitement was short lived as what he said next came as a sort of shock.


    ¡°Now, I can tell you why I am here. Your friend, might have possibly broken a few Federal laws or statutes. At least that is what those two back there,¡± he said, pointing towards the door that the two officers went into. This was also the same set of doors that kept Misha away from them.


    ¡°¡­That said, in order for it to be a true crime, the company offended, AKA mine, would need to want to press charges. Which we don¡¯t. See, we see this as a business opportunity. A feel good story, and one where all sides can come out ahead.¡±


    At this, Darcy knew his powers of articulation were hard at work. Here he was painting himself as being on the side of Misha, and against any potential charges that the two officers might have against her. In fact, hearing him speak, Darcy suddenly felt a panic arise within her, as she realized that there might be some truth to his words. What had first just been a worry about whatever had attacked Misha, now turned into an attack and possible federal charges, at least if this man was to be believed.


    ¡°See, what she did might have been illegal. That is taking over our networks to push out an emergency response, in a ten-mile radius directing people for help. In this, she effectively overrode our networks and momentarily pushed out a request for help. Now, I think such a charge would be thrown out before it made its way to trial, but it would still be a legal nightmare for anyone without a mountain of resources to fight. And while the Federal government might want to use us as wedge to further injure her. We want to do something completely contradictory to that.¡±


    He was good, his words flowed like honey and there was nothing that Darcy could see wrong at the moment.


    ¡°Okay, and what is it that you are here to discuss?¡± Jasmine asked, her larger frame and intimidating presence clearly making her the one that would need to be calmed down should things escalate.


    ¡°I want her and you to be the face of safety,¡± he quipped as he let his hands go wide as he seemed to try to get both Jasmine and Darcy within some unseen portrait view of a snapshot. With a practiced grace, he paused just long enough for Darcy to feel like she needed to ask the next obvious question, which was when he continued.


    ¡°What she did, might have been against some obscure FAA regulation, but its intent, the purpose of saving a life. Directing medical resources to an area in the wilderness and sending out a distressed beacon in all directions is nothing short of miraculous. Even being able to send out a signal when no towers should have been able to reach or cover that area. When you consider how many people end up going missing or dying after falling off a cliff, her technology could save lives.¡±


    The more he spoke, the more Darcy thought he was right. There were always stories about hikers going and getting lost, or falling from trails, only to die slowly, or worse spending hours and hundreds of thousands in resources searching for an overly broad area in the attempts to find said person.


    ¡°Also, this could possibly help with missing persons cases, or any number of other incidents that we read about. Imagine, with just the click of a button, the ability to force your phone to send a distress signal, and your exact geolocation to everyone within a ten-mile radius. We could save lives.¡± He then paused, ¡°she has already saved a life, her own. Now all we want to do is to take her technology, one that clearly works with our own networks, patent it, and give her a royalty for every time someone is saved.¡±


    There was likely something in there that Darcy was missing, but his pitch, or at least his noted reason for being here, was convincing.


    The more he spoke, the more Jasmine¡¯s rigid posture began to loosen up as well.


    ¡°That¡¯s all you want to talk to her about?¡± Jasmine asked, a note of caution in her words.


    ¡°Honestly, no. The more I hear about this girl, the more I think she is an asset that would revolutionize the cellular industry. Our researchers are still trying to figure out how she managed to send such a message, which speaks volumes. Both for our own security, which she could help with, and the relative ease that such a safety implementation to our system would cost. Quite frankly, I am amazed that such a service hasn¡¯t been automatically input into our phones already, but this is why you pay innovators. They do simple things that seem like it would normally be impossible, but come up with a clear and easy solution and boom, the world is a better place.¡±


    As he went on, it was clear that he either had true respect for Misha, or he just enjoyed innovators in general.


    Darcy was about to ask how he was getting all this information, when she noticed the tell-tale sign of a white earbud sticking out of his left ear, no doubt relaying most of the information he was now excited about.


    ¡°So, the idea is, that you talk to her, and if she doesn¡¯t agree to sell to you, you what turn her over to the Feds?¡± Jasmine asked acidly.


    Hearing her question, Darcy instantly nodded her approval, as that was not an angle she had considered. Fortunately, Jasmine was there to ask these hard questions. Ones that Darcy herself was apparently too na?ve or too trusting to ask.


    She knew this was a problem, particularly the longer she stayed here on campus. Which was why she valued her connection with Jasmine and Misha so fervently, as they were people who didn¡¯t seem like they were going to take advantage of her. Heck, after the Hasty concert, she didn¡¯t feel safe unless she saw either of them. When they were both together, she knew that she would be fine.


    ¡°No, nothing like that. That might be what other providers would do, but I guarantee you, that if you two speak to her on my behalf and set up a meeting, no charges from the use of Aspirant networks will be able to be used against her in court. Furthermore, we will go out and publicly state that this was a witch hunt for a student that created valuable life saving technologies.¡± The man said and with the flick of his left hand, his opposite hand from the one that originally held the cards flicked upwards, revealing two cards.


    If Darcy didn¡¯t know any better, she would swear these were the same two cards from before. That or he had a second pocket with two cards spring loaded and ready to go, should he get this far in negotiations. The idea that he planned that far in advance to fail, get a second chance, and be able to have a magic trick ready to go spoke volumes about her perception of the guy.


    With the two cards in hand, Jasmine and Darcy both hesitantly reached out to grab the two pristine cards. These have to cards made with a pearl finish, how Darcy instantly knew that, well it was a matter of dealing with all of her father¡¯s business partners and executives over the years.


    She was just about to ask more about this man who seemed to have dropped in from out of nowhere, a virtual CEO, or high ranking executive for a mobile company that happened to be on hand at campus? It didn¡¯t make sense, but before she could get too lost in her own thoughts, there was a slight stirring.


    Nothing much at first, but then first one, then two of the nurses behind the desk began to move. These girls didn¡¯t even stand up on their apparent breaks, so the fact that they rose up now spoke volumes.


    Before Darcy could even inquire, even the well-dressed man seemed to shift his focus, and as he did that magnetic pull that he had. The one that pulled you in and helped you believe that you were the most important person in the world vanished. Revealing eyes that once again seemed to glow with a bright sort of intensity that could be described as supernatural.


    Ding.


    Just as Darcy was about to say something, to speak out the world erupted as the elevators once again charged to life as no less than five people surrounded a gurney, on which a very bloody and beaten girl lay.


    Seeing her, Darcy instantly froze as she had seen the girl somewhere, but her mind couldn¡¯t make the connection as the face she saw was mangled, blurry, and covered in blood. But she had seen her, somewhere.


    Then before anyone could say anything, the man seemed to visibly deflate.


    ¡°Right, well, with that, I am going to take my leave. Best of luck to your friend¡­¡± then the well dressed man left, making Darcy feel like she was somehow defiled for believing in the creep. That or, maybe she was just projecting her own insecurities onto the retreating man who quickly made his way to the now open elevator and left the floor.

 Chapter 86 Scaffolding (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 86


    Scaffolding


    (Misha Tulley)


    Misha¡¯s mind was filled with parameters, schemas, and evolutionary flow charts.


    There was just one problem, she didn¡¯t speak the language. Well, she spoke two of the three noted languages.


    The first and base language was what Misha now guessed was the streamline and user-friendly version of the Bakshee commands. This layer of programming allowed for nuanced control, blood flow rates, conditions for adrenaline, proper distribution of resources acquired, etcetera.


    This language was the most recognizable to Misha. First it had been the language of her organo-tech. Second it was the coding provided to her to reverse engineer parts for the ship, to help improve efficiency and designs.


    Honestly, the Bakshee were the most progressive of the species that the Psychers went against, and seeing their developments was always a fun part of her day.


    Of course, her work came with obligations, while she would be allowed to keep whatever she worked on, she would need to provide detailed reports on what she saw, how she penetrated the defensive measures, identify potential traps, and most importantly list her own areas for improvement.


    Thinking back, all those times she was given the scraps of previous battles to sift through made it so her current life was just that much easier. It had been years since she last received anything new to work with, which Misha had been offered to look at any new pieces of Bakshee technology.


    At the time, Misha came up with three probable courses for this, one the self-destruct sequences that Misha had identified had been perfected. The second possible outcome was that the Psychers were now losing more and more ground, making the ability to salvage pieces tougher and less of a priority. Or the third was that the Bakshee had failed to come up with anything new worthy of her time.


    There was of course the fourth option, the idea that Misha was not as good at dissecting Bakshee systems and that other more competent teams had taken on this role, allowing Misha to focus solely on her maintenance job, which by this time was her full-time fleet occupation. This meant that her spending hours or sometimes complete solar cycles to delve into and dissect Bakshee devices, while completely enjoyable, like a never-ending puzzle cube, were seen as extraneous to her.


    Further down the list of languages she now had to interact with, thanks to her upgrade was an older more antiquated version of Bakshee that often seemed superfluous, but still effective, if somewhat generic with capabilities. This language was basic, nowhere near as imaginative, or self-fixing as the newer version of Bakshee that she had come to expect.


    This second language gave her body¡¯s ideal form and measurements: body size will be 195 centimeters tall, wingspan set to 203 centimeters long, leg length set to 107 centimeters tall, etcetera. Which was what her body was now set to, its ultimate and peak condition form.


    It took her a bit to get that much from the lines and lines of text. Redundancy was the standard for older Bakshee, as they made sure three strands of each line of code was presented, due to the idea that one or multiple lines of the code were broken, or otherwise damaged.


    This redundancy and lack of versatility is why the Bakshee were not taken as seriously by the Psychers. Once Misha broke down the language, and its processes, many higher ups concluded that Bakshee were millennia off the pace of catching up to them or becoming a real threat.


    The newest form of Bakshee only came about a few centuries ago, not much in the time of a living language, but that didn¡¯t mean much to the Bakshee.


    As an engineer, learning the new variation of Bakshee was simple, as it was all formulaic and was easily testable and repeatable based on the components she was asked to inspect, along with other functions performed by the various devices.


    Some of the larger weapons did frighten Misha. This fear was heightened with the way her psychers provided the items to her, often not caring about cutting into or near power cells. A recipe waiting for disaster, particularly with most psychers not seeming to understand the basic changes that the Bakshee were making to their designs.


    Still there had been a clear and concise development, one that could easily go down from old Bakshee to new Bakshee, and back.


    This is where the third and final language that seemed to appear out of nowhere initially caught Misha off guard. Particularly with the way the layers that Misha had built upon to now were supposed to be the structured scaffolding that held this core concept bundled in one giant and intricate glyph of a language.


    In a way, the new language was like seeing hieroglyphics for the first time and trying to understand the language.


    The glyph itself was beautiful, a circular language that was made up of hundreds of tiny micro-glyphs that all formed together in one singular glyph. Had she not seen it with her own eyes, she would not have expected the Bakshee to have created such a language. It was so alien in both design and functionality from their current language model that it would have been nearly impossible to decipher.


    Only the fact that Misha had known the older form of Bakshee did the translation of what her newest upgrade was, become possible.


    It really didn¡¯t help that she had unlocked the Tier X version of her power. Looking through the logs, it was clear that there was a weaker and more distorted version of this power that could have been available to her on Tier IX, or at least that is what her mind told her the two spots could be.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Her current ranking was the third run, and completely filled out, ready to take on the fourth rung, but for whatever reason she had managed to bypass everything and select options that normally wouldn¡¯t be possible at her level.


    Apparently, this should have killed her, but she had managed to maintain conscience long enough to send out a distress signal for her survival, which allowed her mind to focus on fixing what she broke.


    As an engineer, this was not the first time she broke something by experimenting and seeing what could happen if you did ¡®X¡¯.


    Though this time, there was no safety net. She would die, and likely have to go through life once more trying to avoid the same issues she had undergone this time. Though she was fairly certain that unless she somehow found her body and was able to access the organo-tech that had merged and evolved with her body, she would not get this chance to experiment with Bakshee tech.


    Engineering was often easier when you had a known and secure starting point, and an end point in sight. Everything else was up to the imagination, resources, and tenacity of the engineer to create the final solution.


    The solution in Misha¡¯s case was simple, force organo-tech coding to open up and blossom with imperfect struts.


    Imperfect in this case meant that there were open pathways, with nothing connecting to them. Sort of like having multiple horizontal wall mounts, where one could insert and house future items, likely evolutionary upgrades, while not filling them in. Just having them there, waiting for a flag or other item, but knowing that it would be years before they would be utilized for their intended purposes.


    This was what Misha mentally referred to as the scaffolding phase of her operation. Because the design when constructed, went straight up, with multiple supporting and primary pillars that all supported and worked together to ultimately support the final glyph.


    The pillars were as follows:


    Primary Pillar: Harvester


    Twin Supporting Pillars: Speed and Accuracy Build


    Primary Focus: Double Growth Rate (Doubled)


    Those three pillars were what Misha forced open, and almost force copied each layer to have those direct pillars reaching up, until they finally reached up and ended with a standard connection to the final glyph.


    At least they were supposed to, and this was where her knowledge of ancient Bakshee paid off, for the triplicate coding made finding and creating supports easier, particularly as the extra layers of coding were then used to wrap around key areas to support the weight of the overall structure.


    Honestly, connecting the lines of code from old Bakshee to the final glyph was the easiest part of the whole process. For her three pillars reached up, no longer having ability to create or host empty mounts where her future expansions would be hosted. Instead, it seemed that this tenth and final stage would be the ultimate expansion.


    All three pillars ended in three slots for expansions that could either be looped down to reinforce an older accomplishment, or used to fully activate this final glyph.


    In a way, it was a good thing that Misha only had the one option, otherwise her mind would have at least forced her to contemplate what could have happened with infusing extra powers into Tier IX powers.


    Only after she made the first connection, connecting her primary pillar of being a Reaper class to the giant ovular glyph did Misha realize that she made a mistake.


    Well not a mistake, a mistake would have been going further and not realizing the true purpose of the extra-long old Bakshee coding that was made in triplicate. Coding that oddly reminded her of old 50 pin scsi cables that she had read about in textbooks and museums. The cables, or coding extenders for this last and final stage were somewhat flexible, allowing for some movement.


    This was also where Misha realized she lucked out, for the connection once made was inseverable. Meaning, had she had a Tier IX power she wished to test out, her testing would have forced her into a possibly untenable position.


    Yet, with the first cord attached, the glyph only barely sparkled with energy. It was clear that one strand, and likely two would not be enough to fully engage this glyph, meaning it was an all or nothing structure. With this realization, Misha realized she was now all but forced to complete connecting all three cords to this one glyph. For it was clearly meant as a great power, but currently she had no other options.


    First there were no other Tier IX powers to attempt to connect to, the cords were not long enough to reach the powers that she had already unlocked, meaning that this was it. Either attach all three cords and see what she could gain from this or hold off and wait for something that might never come.


    In the end, the answer was simple. Particularly as she wanted to know what this glyph was, for only once it was awake and activated would she be able to try to understand this oddly beautiful scripting language.


    It was also clear that there were multiple ways to connect and secure the final glyph into place. The easiest would be to attach the three cords to the underside of the glyph and be done with the whole process. As the Glyph did look like it could move and somehow fall off.


    This was when Misha realized her mistake, and the need for the longer cable, as the three cables, one from each of the three pillars, would be able to reach over top and around the glyph and hold it into place.


    Working with that design concept in place, Misha slowly turned the connected glyph upside down. Or at least down from the position she started thinking was the top. Then she proceeded to connect the second cord. As she expected, this too was not enough to fully activate the glyph. While a few processes began to come alive within the coding, this was all an internal to the glyph process. Almost as if the glyph had its own internal processing center, that would need to be charged and activated, to then read and process the code around it.


    Excitement.


    That was the only way to describe Misha¡¯s feelings at this point, for this was a language at a level she had never seen nor tried to comprehend before. The fact that the Bakshee had created, or most likely stolen, somehow only caused more questions within her mind.


    How could they steal it? Where did they steal it? If they stole it, then did they assemble the original creators of this language? Are there any native speakers of this language still in the universe? These questions and more poured through her head, but they were all muted by what happened next.


    Click.


    There was an audible spark of connection within her mind, as the third and final cable snapped into place. The moment it did, all of the cords were first pulled tighter to the pillars, causing any remaining slack to be removed.


    Then with awe and wonderment, Misha saw how the cords themselves began to fuse with the surface of the glyph, causing more glyphs characters to appear.


    Working quickly, Misha remembered the Bakshee coding on the cords she used to connect to the glyph. They were essentially three lines that all stated the same exact thing, Reaper Connection Supply, Speed and Accuracy Build Supply, and finally Double Growth Rate Supply.


    As they fired up, the outer layer of the glyphs came to life, infused by the now constant stream of energy provided by all thee pillars, that¡¯s when cascading waves of data began flowing down the entire structure.


    Like an overflowing fountain, the glyph at the top sparked to life and began pouring energy downward, throughout the entire structure of the makeshift scaffolding that Misha had just constructed within her body¡¯s organo-tech designs.


    Sparking first with the primary center, and then cascading outward, Misha felt a pulse of power radiate from her core and reach out to her extremities and back.


    Her mind read the lines of text or at least tried to. Like trying to find one zebra in a running herd, it was tough, for there was no start or end to the data. Furthermore, each line of data was repeated three times, making following the logic trail difficult, but finally, her mind began to grasp that the final glyph was a concept.


    A concept that used all the data and input to perform one overall limited, but powerful function.


    That concept was Immortality.


    Then finally, the trickling down of data came from old Bakshee to finally modern Bakshee where she could easily read and understand the processes and nuances that were currently taking place within her body.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 41.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Immortality System Engaged: Identifying perfect host conditions¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 41.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Perfect host conditions identified¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 41.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Implementing changes to perfected form¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 41.5135%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">Body synchronization to perfected stage commencing¡­</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Then Misha felt pain course through her body as it was being forcefully stretched and pressed to new positions and limits.


    Darkness.

 Chapter 87 Start of The Investigation (Misha Tulley)

    Chapter 87


    Start of The Investigation


    (Misha Tulley)


    Beep, beep, beep.


    The machine that Misha was hooked up to stated that her vitals were now in order. There were multiple hours of concern, all registered and recorded by the monitor, but now she was fine.


    From the other feed on her body, Misha was able to access her MyChart page, seeing everything that had been done to help her body. Three bags of saline solution, or salt water. One bag of hextend to stop her bleeding, and a scan made to check if her type of blood was on hand.


    Fortunately, it didn¡¯t come to needing blood, but the options were there.


    There were other anomalies that were detected but ultimately dismissed while the patient came through. Her oxygen levels increased to nearly one hundred percent. Her heartbeat and blood pressure both evened out to 90/60, with a resting heartrate of 60 beats per minute.


    Ultimately, every system now spoke to her body being set to optimal conditions.


    Using her will, she made sure to deny the automatic ping that would set off when she began moving. Instead, she used this time to gather herself and try to understand why things felt off.


    There were a lot of unnatural devices here.


    In the labs and other areas, it was clear that there was a certain pattern to the level of mechanical devices. A few devices had updated features, but most were simple modified data cells and information collection devices.


    That was why the special equipment was being used by a few of the people nearby. Drawing attention to the fact that they didn¡¯t belong. First, they had their phones, phones that were modified with programs and communications applications that spoke volumes, but not about healthcare.


    Officer Traver¡¯s Encrypted Group Chat Message Board:


    Mills: Any word on whether the victim is related to the ongoing homicides?


    Ski (the name is clearly an abbreviated version of Olondovski from the contacts list): Same area, same pattern. Unable to see any signs of a fight or struggle though.


    Carp (short for Carpenter): Could the body have been moved?


    Ski: Unlikely, the perp showed no signs of lacerations.


    Mills: Any word on what hand the attacker was to create the wounds?


    Me (owner of the phone, officer Traver): Doctors are saying no weapons used.


    Ski: Did she just fall?


    Me: It¡¯s odd, but this looks to be a dead end. No wounds or lacerations. No bone punctures.


    Carp: What caused all this blood Olo and I are seeing?


    Me: No clue.


    Carp: Do you think its her time of the¡­


    Mills: Don¡¯t finish that, this can still be FOIA¡¯d.


    ¡­


    On the messages went.


    Most seemed to explain a lot to Misha, whose mind was only now managing to keep up with everything.


    There was an ongoing investigation into multiple attacks. Mills was in charge, Olondovski and Carpenter were crime scene technicians on scene where Misha had her awakening. Meanwhile, Officer Traver was here to confirm whether she was part of this ongoing investigation or not.


    Similarly, there was another person next to Officer Traver who worked for a completely different organization. The other person was Special Agent Kirkland, apparently of the CIA. At least, that was the cover he was going with for this operation.


    He too was interested in this activity, but not as a crime investigation. At least that was not what the deleted messages from his encrypted communications chats noted.


    Deleted Encrypted from Special Agent Kirkland¡¯s phone:


    01227: Any explanation for how the message was sent to every device within a ten-mile radius?


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Me (Agent Kirkland¡¯s phone): No, still waiting for patient to awaken.


    01227: You determine a motive for the act?


    Me: Seems to have been an emergency distress call.


    01227: Interesting.


    Ten minutes later.


    01227: Confiscate the method used to mass transmit. Management needs this. Cite federal crimes if needed, but don¡¯t leave without that code. Leadership is very interested in what is happening.


    Me: Understood.


    And like that, the message trail was deleted but not written over from the phone.


    A few quick searches through the dead memory of both phones revealed patterns of life, habits, the fact that Kirkland might have a gambling addiction. While Traver was apparently pretending to be single on the side, an odd fact considering he had a wife and two kids.


    There was more.


    There was always more that one could find if they looked hard enough.


    Fake profiles.


    Banking details, loan applications, the works.


    Misha had it all, and then mentally forming a plan in her head, she acted.


    Bing.


    The first stage of her plan was to let her diagnostic machine inform the nurse of her awakening.


    Within minutes, the nurse was in, checking on her.


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯ve awoken. How do you feel?¡± The nurse asked as she darted around, clicking off alarms. Checking and recording vitals, then finally turning to face Misha.


    For her part Misha just played along.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. Any idea what happened?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, we were hoping you could tell us the same thing.¡± The nurse answers, and after checking a few more vitals responds, ¡°I¡¯ll let the doctor know that you have awoken.¡±


    With that she left.


    As she did, Misha got a glance at the two people who were outside waiting for her. They had taken up position on the far side of the wall, so they could see her as the door opened. While both tried to pretend like they had just noticed the movement of the door opening there was something off, something predatory about their gazes.


    It was clear from the way they looked past the nurse and towards Misha that they wanted to get eyes on her. That and the one wearing the police officer uniform stared just a bit too intently.


    For a moment Misha thought about trying to get out of here, without having to interact with the two officers with vastly different agendas, but soon realized that wherever she was, she was in the middle of the floor.


    A quick glance at the emergency escape route on the back of the door all but stated that she would have to get out, turn right and then make her way out of the building.


    Then realizing that she would need a bit of assistance if she was in fact to leave, she decided it was best to sit through the meeting with the two, see what they were interested in, then delete anything incriminating.


    Her mentality was simple, humans are exceptionally reliant on their data sources for notes and data retention. If it wasn¡¯t for computers telling them what they remember seeing and doing, keeping track of specific times, most would lose and forget everything.


    That was why Misha¡¯s plan for dealing with the two was simple. Tell and give them everything they wanted to hear, then leave. Once she was gone, she would change, alter, or completely corrupt the available data so that it would be unusable. Then when they inevitably went back to look for her, they would mistake her for someone different.


    Only her knowledge of herself and her capabilities helped her keep her calm and stay seated. Even when the doctor came in, giving her a cursory glance over, checking her vitals, and saying what the nurse effectively stated earlier.


    ¡°Wow, I don¡¯t know what higher power was out there protecting you, but you appear to be in perfect health.¡± The Doctor stated.


    Peering at the readouts of her vitals proved interesting.


    Her body condition had changed, and not just from a standpoint of being able to regulate itself at optimal levels.


    No, she was taller. While all her clothes had been removed sometime during her operation, it was clear to her mental mappings that her body size had increased in some way. Unfortunately she would only know this, once her clothes were provided to her, at the end of her stay. For now she had the loose fitting gown, and a few gauze bandages around her waist and torso that held her body in place.


    Her feet were now larger, how much larger she didn''t know, but she was fairly certain that her already large feet would have a hard time and likely press against the boundaries of her shoes. Even the change in the height of her chest rising and falling with each breath was now easily noticeable to her. Her skin felt tight and almost painful to move. If she looked in a mirror, she''d swear that her skin now boasted stretch marks.


    All of this was to say that her body had undergone drastic changes while she was unconscious. While she was dealing with the aftermath of her scaffolding techniques.


    For a moment she queried her organo-tech, trying to see her layout and design.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 40.5405%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Tier -III+


    Alternate-1: Speed and Accuracy Build.


    Ability Bonus: Double Growth Rate.


    Improved Harvesting (2)


    Harvested Slot: Heightened Danger Sense (6)


    Additional Harvest Slot: <Glyph of Immortality>


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    There it was her final slot was now filled with something that didn¡¯t fit. At least not with the original pieces she was given. Fortunately, she made it fit.


    She soon found herself wondering exactly what the glyph of Immortality provided.


    That was of course, when the doctor noted, ¡°there are a few law enforcement officers here who would like to talk to you for a moment. Is that okay?¡±


    Finally, she heard the true question that the doctor had wanted to ask.


    This lone question implied that Misha did have the ability to kick out the officers, that if needed the doctor might put her reputation on the line to force the officers to give her the moment to leave.


    Pausing for a moment, Misha looked at the doctor and paused trying to make sure there were no signs of deception.


    The only thing that Misha saw reflected in the doctor¡¯s gaze was pure confidence in what she was now talking about.


    Seeing her steadfast determination, Misha to realize that the doctor would make good on her implied offer. One that said if she didn¡¯t want to speak to the officers, then she wouldn¡¯t have to.


    Of course, doing so would only make her stand out more in the mind and eyes of the officers, which was not what she wanted at that time.


    Instead, what she wanted was obscurity through over information.


    The ability to hide in plain sight, due to camouflage or over diluting a source with excess information.


    ¡°I should be fine,¡± Misha replied.


    ¡°You sure?¡± The doctor asked, concern evident in her voice.


    Misha again paused, wondering if she was in fact ready for this, but only nodded.


    Even now she was tracking signs of how far her information on this event had spread.


    Right now, details of her actions are still within the geographic confines of this local area. But if she let this information get out or drew extra attention to it by trying to hide, it might spread in profound ways.


    With that, Misha just nodded.


    After which point the doctor went out, closing the door behind her and spoke to the officers representing two distinctly different agencies.


    Out of curiosity, Misha took the moment to tune into the outside conversation. Focusing on one of the phones and using it as a listening device was rather easy.


    ¡°She just woke up. She says she is willing to talk to the two of you but be calm with her. She just went through severe trauma and might need to be eased into things. If I notice you two harassing my patient, I will kick you both out of here, and make you wait in the lobby for her to exit. Do I make myself clear?¡±


    Hearing the impassioned speech from the caregiver, Misha was impressed.


    ¡°You can¡¯t just¡­¡± The officer began.


    ¡°Look, the only reason. And I mean the only reason why you all are allowed to talk to her is because of those attacks going on. If I get the feeling that you are going to get pushy, victim blame, or anything other than trying to solve the active assault cases her on campus you two are out. Then you can either wait in the lobby or get a warrant that will allow you both to come back. Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± both officers reply, but their level of acceptance seemed to be tested.


    Still, they had been given permission by both the doctor and the patient, but it was clear that the doctor would be ready to kick one or both out if they pushed her patient too hard.


    Perhaps they did this to an earlier victim? Misha mused to herself, as she tried to understand why a doctor would stand up for her rights this vehemently.


    Then again, Misha realized she had not done anything wrong.


    While the three-letter agency representative, Kirkland, might have grounds to assume something happened. They have no proof that anything illegal happened.


    Knock, knock.


    Before Misha could think too much about her plan of defense, her moment for self-introspection and preparation were over, as the two officers entered the room not waiting for a reply.


    That¡¯s when Misha saw the two men enter and surround her bed, all but blocking her into the room.


    ¡°We have a few questions that we would like to have answered,¡± the officer wearing the local police uniform began.


    And like that her interrogation into how she became a victim began.

 Interlude VIII (Dave Hill)

    Interlude VIII


    (Dave Hill)


    The supernatural, the occult, honestly everything and anything that could send a shiver down your spine, Dave had read it, practiced it, and likely experimented with it at least once.


    His wife¡¯s lineage had come from the occult.


    Nothing too overt, there were never any stories that would stick to the family.


    Of course, Dave had to find out on his own, when anything truly odd happened. Only after going through secret journals written in languages that the good Doctor herself could not read, only then did he find out the odd peculiarities of the Grier family.


    For the Grier family had long been associated with the occult, then when anything odd or mystical happened. When anything so odd and unconventional that rumor couldn¡¯t help but be drawn to such events, that was when the whole family would pack up and disperse like rats fleeing a sinking ship.


    Apparently, it was not uncommon for the family members to flee through multiple countries, laying low for years. Then slowly over time reaching out, appearing at odd places and times.


    Before the age of electronics, such things were more ritual than not.


    There were rules and regulations that the family as a whole would follow and implement.


    For three years the family would keep their head low, starting a new life and be completely docile. The silent pillar of a community.


    Then by year seven the group will try to meet up. Generally, these meetings would occur at a central location, or at the family member who had managed to establish themselves the most during their time away.


    Dr. Lauren Grier, or Dr. Hill as she was now known, was apparently chosen as the clear successor.


    As a Doctor of Psychiatry, she quickly established herself. Only moving to the University of Tennessee once a career opportunity became almost impossible to pass up.


    Dave had also been busy during this time.


    After reading the old tomes of his wife¡¯s ones that were held in the old shed. A shed that Dave was never supposed to enter, until the very move that sent them here.


    Only after he stumbled upon the grimoires of his wife¡¯s family did he also find his purpose in life.


    It was clear that the seven-year mark was the demarcation line.


    For three years they started a new family, kept their heads low. By year five they became pillars of the community. Then by year seven they were allowed to leave their households that they had established. Or finally step out into the realm of the occult again.


    Dave was no fool. He could see the changes happening slowly at first, but ones that had become more pronounced as time went on.


    It was clear that Dr. Lauren Hill would soon move on from her life.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    While she hadn¡¯t done anything to violate the marriage code yet, it was clear that she had her machinations on such an event.


    Though Dave was prepared, as he found the grimoires and translated them by hand.


    Grimoires that proved their worth almost instantly, letting Dave achieve his ultimate desire. Something he always knew was available to him, if he but tried.


    He had opened his own magical powers.


    By following the rituals in the texts, he realized the true world that his wife had fled from. A life that he was certain she didn¡¯t fully understand, at least she didn¡¯t understand the way he did.


    Which was good, because he now did things that his former self would have cringed at.


    Yet, when faced with the chance of true power he went greedily drank in the tomes and their dark tales of power. At first, he thought that the lore was fake, but he soon found that not only could he awaken the power in himself, but that he could soon find those who were nearing their own awakening.


    At first, he helped to awaken others to the gift.


    That¡¯s when Dave found the most dangerous tome, one that spoke of how to steal the unawakened power from others.


    Normally, such an act would be impossible to perform, to find so many people right at the cusp of making personal and monumental changes in their lives.


    That was until he found himself on the University campus, surrounded by many unawakened.


    Only once he got here did he realize that if he played his cards right, not only could he steal the powers of unawakened witches, but he could hopefully pin these acts and others on his wife. A wife who was even now acting as if she was ready for a change.


    ***


    Bakshee Developmental Observation Station T&$5*# - (TASSOH)


    Planetary Ambassador Col¡¯inte sat in her throne, her eyes going wide with the readings from the planet.


    On the planet, there was a message that seemed to boggle the mind.


    An inconsistency that was theoretically impossible.


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    Tier X Candidate Identified: Focus (Perfect Immortality)


    Class: Harvester


    Time until planetary control can be transferred: 2 years, 365 days, 23 hours, 47 minutes¡­


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    Yes, despite how long she stared at the message the prognosis was clear. Someone had done the impossible.


    Worse, if they kept this position as a Tier X candidate for the next three years then Col¡¯inte would need to step down. From there she would be reassigned.


    While she could possibly get reassigned to watching another planet, there was no real way to know this for certain.


    For over twelve minutes she stared at the monitor, seeing her fate counting down.


    As an immortal being, time was almost irrelevant, until cases like this were it was suddenly very relevant.


    For a moment Col¡¯inte thought about cutting off the feed, but then realized that even a hint of tampering would lead to even more galactic oversight and supervision than she could almost expect now.


    Three years.


    The thought of only having a guaranteed job for the next three years was staggering. There was a panic that built up within her, for while she had been stationed here, she had not advanced. She had done little to take advantage of the free courses and training program offered to those stationed at the fringes of the universe, like she was.


    From her estimates she still had a millennium of time left before she even needed to think about preparing herself for advancement.


    As it was, right now she had wasted her time.


    Why shouldn¡¯t she relax while she had a chance.


    Now though, now it was clear that her logs would clearly show that she had not studied. While she might be able to make some progress towards learning new skills that would be useful for her in the future, she would be incomplete at best.


    No, what she needed was a way to reset the timer.


    Col¡¯inte needed a way to fix the anomaly that now presented itself before her.


    That¡¯s when the lightly smaller sub bullet before the Tier X harvesting monster appeared.


    Seeing the odd blip, Col¡¯inte realized that there might be a way that she might be able to fix this error before it became a true issue.


    ***


    (Hasty)


    Hasty was done touring, possibly forever.


    Even now, months after the show she couldn¡¯t help but see monsters. Monsters that came from out of nowhere to attack her.


    Officially, she was done touring as she had found someone and was trying to settle down.


    Who this significant other was, was a point of contention. For Hasty herself didn¡¯t know who this significant other was either.


    Just drama generated by her publicist.


    ¡°Any word on finding her?¡± Hasty asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Ms. Delaney, Hasty¡¯s right hand woman began as she apologetically shook her head.


    This was expected, or the type of news that Hasty had grown to expect.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we will find her, I promise.¡± Ms. Delaney cooed empathetically, as she hugged the superstar to her chest and gently massaged her far shoulder.


    Chime.


    Then before Hasty knew what happened, as her head pounded with the sound of not one but, but two system messages.


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    <td style="width: 100%">Reaper Two: New Mission, Reaping a Reaper: You must find and dispose of the other reaper candidate, immediately. Deadline: 2 years, 365 days¡­</td>


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    Seeing the first message, Hasty felt her blood run cold as she suddenly felt the world spinning at her new mission. One that she couldn¡¯t even do with a six month head start.


    So lost in her own thoughts, that she almost missed the second system message.


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    <td style="width: 100%">Reaper Two¡­</td>


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