The Wolves Ch. 030

"Sorry I wasn't here until now," I said to them softly. "How are you two doing?"

"We're fine," Lucille said. "Both of us were able to get our shields up in time, but Aleena didn't react in time."

"What's going on? Why were people shooting at us?" Alexis asked.

"I'll fill you all in shortly. Give me a few minutes, okay? I need to talk to Yuki."

They both nodded, letting go and walking back over to the chairs they had been sitting in.

"A word, Yuki," I requested, walking out of the room and over to one of the chairs in the waiting area I had seen on my way in. When I sat down, I saw her come around the corner. Gesturing to the chair opposite me, I had her sit down.

"I want to thank you for protecting my sisters," I said once she had taken a seat.

"Thank me for protecting them? I almost got Aleena killed!" she insisted.

"We both know that isn't true. Everyone tells me that you're better than anyone they'd ever seen at using Precognition. What did you see?"

She hesitated before responding, "Two bolts hitting her, cauterizing the wounds open as they went through. The first would have went right through her spine while the other would have went right through her heart. I deflected the one that would have hit her spine, but I couldn't move quick enough to block the other one in time."

"She would have been dead without your intervention, so thank you. That isn't what troubles me, though. The thing that troubles me is that they were put in danger because they were with you," I said, gesturing for her to stop before she interrupted me. "What reason would Kaldrus Dhir have to put a bounty on your head?"

"What do you mean? You're saying the people we killed weren't after your sisters?"

I shook my head. "The group that attacked me and my friends were called Hellraisers, and answer to a parent group called The Storm Bringers. The leader of The Storm Bringers, a N'ardil Vilos, said that the bounty was for me and Zuni Alnanan. That's your real name, right?"

"Yes," Yuki answered, standing up and beginning to pace back and forth while she was thinking. After a minute or two she stopped and turned toward me. "The only reason I can think of as to why he would want me dead is because of my ability with Precognition. How would he know I'm here, though? How would the bounty hunters even know what I look like?"

"It isn't too much of a leap to think that Spectres might be here if I am. As for how would the bounty hunters know what you look like? Maybe they don't. Machines can recognize a person's mana signature. Could they have been scanning for yours?"

"They could have but I have never met Kaldrus Dhir. Where would he have gotten my mana signature from?"

"Xorin Nydror. You worked with him, right? He would have been able to supply Dhir with that information, would he not?"

"He would have, but if he did then that means that a lot of the other Spectres here will be able to be tracked by their mana signatures. Only the ones we started training after we got here will be undetectable."

"If that is the case then you need to find people you trust to guard my sisters when they're out in the open. They were lucky this time, but next time they might not be."

Yuki sat back down before looking at me with a serious look on her face. "I'll assign six of the best we have that weren't Spectres back then. I've been talking with Selalea's head of security for the last two days, and will also ask her to assign a couple of dragonkin she trusts to watch over them."

"Good. Abi will be creating two more shuttles identical to the one I had her make for me this morning. They'll be ready by tomorrow morning and flown down to the facility in Toronto. I want you to form two fast response squads of around eight Spectres each that will follow my sisters or myself whenever we go somewhere. Once you've picked enough people, take them over to the facility and have them familiarize themselves with the shuttles."

"What about me?"

"Well, until that bounty is taken down or we find a way to mask your mana signature, you'll be stuck on the base."

"If I can't protect the girls, then I want to be one of the ones going to Pygmaean space to get stronger. It's been a long time since I leveled up, so I'll use the next six or seven months to get as strong as I can."

"I'm not in charge of that, so you'll have to convince my dad. Make sure you set my sisters up with some good security before you go, though."

"I will. There is another Spectre that is very good with Precognition, and I'll make sure that she is one of the ones helping protect the girls."

"Alright. If my dad gives approval to go, then you should be aware of something. Abi captured the group that attacked me, and I'm going to use them to help train the Spectres traveling to Veria to level up. All of them are very high level, and obviously work very well together considering some of the bounties they've taken down. I want you to be with me when I meet with Ercan Warvyn to have a team setup to surveil them."

"Why would they do that? I would expect them to try to escape at the first chance they get."

"Because I offered them an obscene amount of money if they will do it. You know how much they were getting if they had taken us out? Two point two million credits, each. That's it. They would have had to give up ninety percent of the bounty to their parent group, The Storm Bringers. Who knows, maybe they'll like the job I'll have them doing by the time those six months are over. They'll never be able to kill me, or you, for that matter, so I have no problem letting them go afterwards."

"What do you mean they'll never be able to kill us?"

"They're going to be injected with a modified version of the Inhibitor Nanites that will shut down their abilities if they get within a certain distance of us, which means the only way they could take us out would be short range with a firearm, or in a melee. Abi will also be the only one able to remove them, the regular deactivation device the Pygmaeans made to go along with their nanites won't work."

"What kind of range are we talking about?"

"If you're going to Veria to level up as well, then it will probably be one hundred kilometers or something like that. In the case of my sisters and myself, probably somewhere in the range of one million kilometers. You'll also be immediately notified if one of them crosses the edge of the max range."

"That's a pretty good way of neutralizing someone. Not as good as killing or imprisoning someone, but pretty good nonetheless."

"I thought so when Abi told me she made them," I said while standing back up. "Come. I wanna take a look at my sister and then go and eat dinner. Some assholes interrupted my friends and I just as we were eating some good pizza."

Yuki laughed. "Mason was saying something to that affect when he suddenly teleported out of the room. I'm sure they'll accompany you. I'm going to stay with Aleena until she is out of the med chamber, though."

"Fair enough," I said, leading the way back to the room Aleena was in.

*****

The Moon

Spectre Moon Base

August 15, 2019

20:45 EDT

Illia and Alexandra had moved over to one of the benches against a wall and were chatting like the long-lost friends they were. There were still Spectres standing around them keeping an eye on Alexandra, but they were now much more relaxed now than they had been when Jonathan left. She now wore an Inhibitor Band around one of her wrists, rather than the Inhibitor Cuffs she had been wearing when she arrived.

"...happened?" Alexandra asked.

"I was on my way to the restaurant when I was hit in the back of the head by something. The next thing I remembered was being naked except for an Inhibitor Band like this one in a small, poorly-lit room without any windows and only a single door. The only things in the room were a small bed in one corner and a toilet in the other," Illia answered, pausing for a moment before continuing. "Shortly after I awoke, two Ork men entered my cell and dragged me away. I tried to fight them, but there was nothing I could do with the Inhibitor Band affecting me. They brought me to a shower and sprayed me down before grabbing me again and bringing me to a large opulent bedroom. After throwing me on the bed, they left the room."

"A couple of minutes after they left, the door opened and another Ork man entered the room, this one dressed in much finer clothing than the other two I had seen. He explained that he had spent a great deal of money to acquire me and that I would be serving him until he got bored of me. He proceeded to undress, raping me repeatedly before calling in the two guards and having them take me to another room."

"The next day, a woman who had been a slave for hundreds of years came to my new room and brought me clothes and began teaching me how the man liked things done. During the day I would be cleaning or doing jobs, and at night I would be summoned to the man's room where I would be ordered to pleasure him before being taken back to my room."

"My duties had changed over time, but that was my life for the next two hundred thirty-six years. I tried to kill myself many times, but there was always someone keeping an eye on me, and the man, it turned out, was a very good doctor. I had never learned his name, despite trying, until one night when I was woken up by the building shaking and the sound of explosions. It sounded like fighting went on for hours before things finally went silent."

"I sat there, huddled in a corner for hours before the door to my room shattered open and a group of people entered, the leader of those people being a Jotunn woman named N'ardil Vilos. She explained that there was a bounty on Noz'ok Dronnev, the owner of the estate I was in. They had killed him and all of his men before going through the estate and looting everything they could, finding many slaves along the way."

"She saved all of us and offered everyone the chance to be returned to their families. You know my parents are dead, so the only person I had to turn to was you and the rest of our team. I tried contacting you, and that was when I found out that the king and queen had been murdered. I called Myllu, Kade and Sygnil, but they didn't know where you were, and that they hadn't heard from you since. All of them had families as well, and I didn't want to impose. While all the other slaves were returned to their families, I was the only one to stay with The Storm Bringers, where I have remained for the last thirteen hundred years," she finished.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that. I used every resource I could to track you down, but there wasn't a trace. I'm also sorry that I wasn't there when you were finally freed. I had a duty to protect the king's children, so I was forced to take them and flee."

"That man is one of the king's children? The one that capture me and my team? Why does he call you mom?"

"He was only three years old when his parents were killed, and his doesn't remember them. He has been raised for the last fifteen years on Earth, by my husband and myself. We didn't tell him about his heritage until very recently."

"Your husband?! When did you marry?"

"Almost six hundred years ago, here on Earth. Would you like to meet him?"

"Meet the man who finally tamed you? Absolutely!"

Alexandra laughed. "C'mon. He's probably eating dinner right now, and I'm sure you're hungry too."

Illia nodded and locked her arm with Alexandra's, following her as she led her down the hall.