After Maxine had finished teaching her class and picking up more silk up from Silky, she swiftly made her way to where she saw that essence beast while scanning the area with her spiritual sense. She found it's tracks, but not the beast itself. It would take her awhile. Fortunately, she had told her driver she could take alot longer than normal, so she had plenty of time to track the beast down.

Maxine followed the day old tracks as fast as she could manage while looking for that essence beast with her spiritual sense. She crossed the same river several times and found that the trail had backtracked just as many times. This thing is way too smart to be just an ordinary essence beast. It might be a rare variant. Maxine found what appeared to be it's den. It was a small cave hidden behind a massive rock. Maxine looked for the freshest tracks and followed them. It didn't take her long to find the essence beast. It was actually waiting for her as if it knew that she was following it. It wasn't about the same size as a mountain lion. It's fur was black as midnight and had golden eyes speckled with green. However she didn't sense any fear or hostility from it. 

She only got to look at it for a moment before it started running. It wasn't running away from Maxine, since it wasn't moving at full speed. It almost seemed as if it was trying to show her how it moved. Maxine wasn't going to miss even the smallest detail. She used both her eyes and her spiritual sense to monitor it's every movement no matter how subtle or seemingly meaningless. She quickly noticed that it was twitching various muscles throughout it's body. Could that be the secret to it's speed? However there was more. Every step seemed to reinforce and enhancede the grip of every following step. Watching it move was like art in progress. As she kept watching it, she came to realize that trying to convert all of those things into her own technique would take her more than just a few hours to figure out. It might take her weeks or even months. However she had the time to do it before the next essence beast horde.

After dedicating all of that to her memory, Maxine rushed ahead of the strange essence beast and placed a couple bronze essence cores on the ground infront of it. She wanted to show her gratitude to it for allowing her to observe it's movements. It stopped and looked at the essence cores before snatching them up and heading back to it's cave. Maxine bowed down to it in respect before checking the time. It had almost been two hours since her hunt for the essence beast began. She determined it would be better to had back than to let her driver wait any longer.

Maxine quickly reached the car and got in as soon as she got there. She apologized to the driver and started to think about why the essence beast hadn't been afraid of her. Essence beasts always tried to run away from her before as if they knew that she was out of their league. She couldn't figure out why that particular beast didn't. Every time she remembered it's fearless gaze, it felt like something was trying to surface in the back of her mind. It was almost like she had met someone or something that had eyes similar to that essence beast, but she just couldn't remember. She didn't try to force the memory to the surface.

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Maxine became alert when she noticed that they were not heading to her house. They were going towards the military base. She asked her driver why they were going there, but he just remained silent. Maxine tried to think of every possibility as to why they would be going there. Unfortunately her own paranioa kept her from thinking of any good scenarios.  

After getting to the base, Maxine was led to General McKenzy's office. She began to worry since the general never worked this late on a sunday. Her brow became covered in sweat as she thought they might be onto Patrick and wanted her to subdue him. Maxine was hoping that she was wrong as she walked into the generals office.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Levings. Take a seat," General McKenzy said and Maxine sat down into the chair infront of his desk, "I apologize for bringing you here, but I have some concerns about a certain young man that 'saved' you yesterday." Maxine's original concern appeared to be only half right. General McKenzy knew about Patrick, but she wanted to know how much he actually knew. Maxine found herself wishing the general wasn't as competent as he was.

"I couldn't exaclty show off my powers infront of him. Wouldn't that have wasted your effort to keep my identity secret?" Maxine said while trying to maintain the facade that Patrick had made.

"Indeed. However Sergeant Randall had gotten some impressive readings from that young man as he drove past him. It makes his heroic story quite difficult to believe," General McKenzy said and he gave her a disappointed look as he continued, "I don't care what actually happened in those woods. All that I need to know is if he is a threat or not. Is that understood?" Maxine suspected that the general knew more than he let on.

"Yes, and he isn't a threat," Maxine said. At least not anymore. 

"How certain are you of that?" General McKenzy asked.

"Very. I just can't see him hurting anyone without them trying to hurt him first," Maxine said. He seemed to study Maxine's face for some time. She knew that her statement would be worthless if she didn't add something and quickly said, "He was in some of my visions of the future and he always tried to help people when things got really bad." 

"Fine. I will have Amanda bring him in after the end of your class tomorrow," General McKenzy said, "You may go."

"Umm.. could I go with her?" Maxine asked hopefully, "It might make him more cooperative if he saw a familiar face." General McKenzy seemed to be slightly surprised at that request. Maxine was only concerned that Patrick didn't get blindsided. She wanted to convince him that General McKenzy wasn't an evil man before he got too excited.

"Very well," the general said, "Now get going. Your mother will undoubtedly worry if I keep you any longer." Maxine didn't waste any time and got out of his office. On the way home, she began to get worried about tomorrow and had wished once more that General McKenzy had been just alittle less competent at his job. Hopefully there wouldn't be any more surprises, and only at that moment did she realize that there was a high possibility her former self, Maxwell, might be hanging out with Patrick tomorrow.