Maxine was smiling in the backseat as she reminisced about last night while Amanda drove her car. She hadn't experienced any pain while cultivating with a bronze essence core. The pain she had experienced while cultivating before was from over straining her body. No matter how fast she healed certain injuries always took some time to heal from. Now that she didn't feel pain, it was a sign that her injuries from absorbing too much essence at once had healed. It had put her in a good mood, but she was alittle annoyed that she hadn't been able to visit Silky earlier.

Maxine's class on the other hand had made vast improvements from before with their aim and essence control. She was going to teach them the variations of essence darts after they finished mastering her previous lessons. However she was dreading teaching them how to use their spiritual sense. It was one of the harder things to even figure out how to use. 

However Maxine didn't forget what she needed to do. She had been searching for Patrick with her spiritual sense as Amanda got closer to their destination. They had already been on the road for more than an hour and she should soon be able to contact Patrick. It didn't take long before she found him at the very limit of her spiritual sense's range. He in his room watching a movie on his computer and thankfully Maxwell wasn't there. His left arm was wrapped up in a caste and in a sling. Maxine noticed his mother doing chores around the house as well. 

"Patrick, I need to talk to you right now," Maxine sent to him through her spiritual sense.

"Huh? Maxine? Why are you near here?" Patrick replied.

"I don't have much time to talk. I just need you to listen and not interrupt me. Ok?" Maxine told him.

"I don't like the sounds of that, but alright," Patrick responded.

"General McKenzy is on to you and I need ...," Maxine sent but was interrupted by Patrick. "WHAT?! I need to get the hell outta here. Thanks for the heads up." She sensed him getting up to head for his mother. It was obvious he was going to tell her that he had to leave.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT, DUMBASS!" Maxine roared through her spiritual sense, and Patrick reeled for a moment. Maxine realized she may have sent the message alittle too forcefully and stunned him. She felt alittle bad for doing that, but she didn't have the time to be nice. "As I was trying to say, he isn't going to put one of those exploding collars around your neck. If he was, you would have just woken up with one on you."

"Then why did you tell me that he was on to me?" Patrick sent.

"I told you that so you wouldn't do something stupid," Maxine replied, "I was about to tell you that the most  that he do is require you to wear an ugly grey bangle to keep track of you and maybe be poked at by some scientists." 

"How the hell do you know that?" Patrick sent using his spiritual sense.

"Because I got found out already. That's how," Maxine answered, "The only difference is that you don't have to go through a god damn test to prove that you are not crazy or violent." Maxine felt it was unfair that General McKenzy wasn't going to test him when he had tested her, but came to a sudden realization almost an instant later. Oh shit! He is being tested. Me and Amanda are the test. If he attacks and/or runs, he fails and the clever bastard counted on the fact that I would want to go with Amanda. Maxine would have felt enraged at being tricked like that, but she had her own agenda that the general was ignorant of. The best part was that Maxine didn't even have to tell Patrick about the test. Her current actions didn't need to be changed for him to pass it anyways.

"What kind of test did he put you through?" Patrick asked as he moved back to his room. Maxine thought for a moment before relaying what had happened in as much detail as she could. 

"Damn that sounds rough. At least you passed though," Patrick sent to her.

"There is that," Maxine replied and noticed that Amanda and herself were less than five minutes away from him, "Looks like we're almost there. See you in a few." Maxine retracted her spiritual sense and she saw Patrick's house on the left side of the street in the distance. When they got there, Amanda parked accross the street from it.

Maxine and Amanda walked up to Patrick's front door and Amanda knocked on the door a couple times. It took a few moments for Patrick's mother to open the door.

"Good evening, Mrs. Mason. I am Amanda Mueler and this is Maxine Levings. We am here to talk to you about your son and his gift," Amanda said, "May we come in?" Maxine wanted to say hello, but Amanda had made it clear earlier that she would be the one doing most of the talking. Maxine settled with smiling and waving at her when her name was mentioned. 

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Patrick's mother tensed for only an instant at the word 'gift.' She apparently knew about his identity as an essence cultivator or at the very least the owner of a strange power. Maxine was impressed that she noticed that. Her own mother wasn't nearly as perceptive, but Maxine hadn't made it easy for her since she acted only alittle different around her than the other Maxine did. However Mrs. Masons eyes locked onto Maxine's hair and she looked thoughtful for a moment. Did she recognize me just from my hair?

"Yes, please come in," Mrs. Mason answered as she let them in. Maxine had been worried that Patrick's mother would have noticed Maxine's age, but apparently she was too concerned about Patrick to notice.

"Thank you," Amanda said as she came in. They were lead to the living room and Maxine took a seat on a chair as Amanda and Mrs. Mason took a seat on the couch. Maxine felt Patrick's spiritual sense as he watched them.

"What is the name of the division of the goverment that you work for called and what does it do?" Mrs. Mason asked.

"I work for The Evovled-Human Observation and Study, or EHOS if you prefer. We are tasked with the observation, study and in rare cases confinement of enhanced ability users like your son," Amanda answered.

"What sort of gift do you think my son has?" Mrs. Mason asked. Maxine didn't blame her for playing stupid, but infront of her and Amanda's perception it was useless.

"He is stronger, faster and much more durable than ordinary people for starters. As for the rest I do not know, but my superiors are quite eager to find out more about his abilities. He is the among strongest ones that we have encountered thus far," Amanda answered.

"How do you know that he can do what you say that he can?" Mrs. Mason asked.

"You see special people like your son give off a unique energy and we have devices that can detect and measure that energy," Amanda answered, "Your son just happened to get close enough to one of the operatives that was carrying one. I have one of them on me if you want to see it." Amanda pulled out a small tablet that showed three distinct dots close together and one of them was moving. It was Patrick and he was coming to them. Apparently he had heard enough. However Amanda seemed unaware as she continued, "I know you are worried, but I assure you that the division that I work for only wants to observe your son to ensure he doesn't partake in any criminal activity."

Mrs. Mason seemed overwhelmed before Patrick came into the room. Patrick spoke before his mother could, "Observe me how exactly?" Maxine knew he was just trying to relieve the pressure on his mother by asking the question himself.

"With this," Amanda said as she pulled out a much more masuline looking bangle than her own, "It can monitor your GPS location at all times as well as monitor your power and vitals." Patrick looked at it with scrutiny after he took it from Amanda. He seemed to be waiting for his mother to talk.

"You just want him to wear that thing and nothing else?" Mrs. Mason said hopefully.

"Not exactly. There are some scientists that may want to examine your son, but don't worry. It won't be anything invasive like surgery. They will just do a few tests on him and that shouldn't take more than a couple hours. Everything beyond what I have mentioned is entirely voluntary," Amanda answered. Mrs. Mason looked very hopeful, but her expression soured after a moment.

"Are you saying that you would have made do those things even if I said no?" Mrs. Mason asked incredulously.

Amanda looked down as she answered, "I wouldn't, but yes he would have to. There are many that consider enhanced ability users as not human. Wearing these things and letting them study us is a concession that we must make to live with normal people." Amanda lifted up her left arm to show a bangle wrapped around her wrist. Mrs. Mason looked towards Maxine and her eyes locked onto an identical bangle on Maxine's left wrist. 

Mrs. Mason deflated as Amanda gave her an sympathetic smile. Patrick put the bangle on as if to say he agreed with those terms. Maxine felt tension leaving her body that she wasn't even aware existed.

Amanda and Mrs. Mason talked for a few more minutes on some of the finer details before Amanda and Maxine left. Maxine was grateful things went so smoothly and even asked Amanda if it was always that easy. It wasn't. Some people reacted less than pleasantly to news of that nature.

Maxine insisted they go and visit Silky on the way back. After nearly an hour and a half of driving, they arrived. Maxine led Amanda to where Silky's nest was. On the way there, Maxine warned Amanda not to get too close when they arrived. Maxine didn't want Amanda to startle her pet. However when they got there, Maxine became worried. Silky hadn't come out to greet her. Maxine knew she was alive and in her nest because the spiritual mark on Silky's mind was intact. Maxine used her spiritual sense to investigate and found a full spool of silk just beyond the first layer of spider webs. However when she found Silky, she couldn't believe her eyes. Silky was in the midst of a metamorphosis. Her fangs had disappeared and what replaced them looked like stumps of some kind. Her eight eyes had shrunk and moved to the face portion of a large growth that vaguely resembled the upper body of a child coming out of the top of her thorax. Is Silky turning into an arachne? All of the arachne that Maxine had ever heard about in her past life were iron stage. Although they were powerful, their upper bodies were just as fragile as a humans and were no match for some of the stronger essence beasts like the Terror Bear outside of their webs. 

There was nothing she could do now in any case and crawled into Silky's nest to retreive the spool of silk while being mindful not to damage or get caught in it. Maxine left a bronze core where the spool had been sitting and crawled back out. She tried to explain to Amanda what was going on with Silky, but it's not very easy to explain how and why essence beasts evolve as fast as they do. 

They left since there was nothing else that they could do for Silky. There were few essence beasts courageous enough to attack her nest and the ones that were would get caught in her layers of spiderwebs encasing her nest. Maxine guessed that Silky would finish with her metamorphosis either tomorrow or the day after at the rate she was going. Maxine could hardly wait to see Silky as an arachne.