It was friday the 29th and Maxine had been watched almost constantly for the past few days by those two men. It grated on her nerves and she had to force herself to remain calm. However she did find out that they had five other members in their group when she followed them to their base the other day. All of them were men, but three of them carried more authority than the other four. Those three were rank 9 bronze stage essence cultivators and they had obviously been trained for combat by how they moved. She wouldn't be able to fight them and defend her mother at the same time if it came down to it. In fact, she would be on the loosing end of that fight if they fought her when she didn't have her newly forged blades.

The remaining two men were watching her mother. The fact that two of them were watching her mother made Maxine even more nervous. Those four that weren't essence cultivators were observing Maxine and her mother to figure out their routine. Their activities and the fact that they brought such strong cultivators strongly suggested they were going to try and abduct her mother in order to control Maxine or to lure her into a trap to kill her. However after considering the weaponry and essence cultivators presence, she figured they were preparing for both scenarios. She called General McKenzy and informed him about the force that the russians had brought. However she didn't want to be caught flat-footed and tried to figure out a way to carry her newly forged Twilight Iron Blades around with her. While experimenting, she found out that as long as she fed a steady stream of her shadow essence into her blades that she could store them in her shadow. She felt better after solving that particular issue and sought distraction.

When Emily broke through the the bronze stage, Maxine had gotten a good distraction by teaching both Emily and Amanda how to form essence armor. The two of them had caught on how to form their essence armor far more quickly than Maxine had anticipated. Maxine was caught off guard by the appearance of their essence armor.

Amanda's essence armor looked like a cross between leather and platemail and almost looked like it was carved out of blue-green opal. Emily's essence armor formed into the shape of flowing white robes with gold ornaments. With the addition of a slight white glow, she looked the very picture of a goddess of healing. Maxine felt alittle depressed since her own essence armor looked so ugly in comparison. She knew that most essence armors were rather dull looking and some even looked worse than her own. However she couldn't understand how she ended up with friends that had such beautiful essence armor. It was almost as if some cosmic being had arranged all of this to mock her.

However Maxine pushed those thoughts out of her mind as she walked towards Silky's nest. Today was the day that Silky would be examined by those scientists. She had heard from Amanda that they had called in a skilled entomologist to assist them in understanding Silky's anatomy. Maxine had already told Silky about this event in advance so she wouldn't be too nervous about those scientists poking at her. 

As always Silky noticed Maxine before she could announce herself. "Mama, I'm ready to go," Silky said as she came out of her nest. Silky was wearing a dress that she had made herself. It was in the same style of the dress that Maxine had made for her, and was almost as good as that one as well. However it was miles apart from Silky's first attempt. Her first attempt had been misshapen and had the gaps for her forelimbs in the wrong place.

"Good. Now follow me, Silky," Maxine said as she walked to a secluded spot where a van was waiting. This was being done to avoid anyone from spotting Silky and figuring out she lived in this area.

It didn't take them long before they arrived to the van with tinted windows. Maxine opened the back of the van and got into it herself before beckoning Silky to enter. Silky awkwardly got into the van. It was her first time getting into a vehicle of any kind. A short ride later, they arrived at the same warehouse as when Maxine had to go through when Maxine had been examined by the scientists. As they got out of the van, Maxine could hear an older woman yelling from inside the warehouse, "I don't care why you brought me here. You bastards took me away from a three foot long scorpion. Do you have any earthly idea what that would mean for my carreer? At this rate, that bastard Henderson will get all the credit for discovering it because of your bullshit." 

Maxine smiled to herself knowingly while they walked towards the entrance to the warehouse. Silky seemed to be nervous and the yelling wasn't helping. When the large double doors opened. Maxine got to see the back of the woman that had yelled earlier. She was a short, skinny older woman and appeared to be of hispanic descent. She was currently facing the head researcher who had a slowly forming smirk on his face as soon as he laid eyes on Silky. 

"What's so damn funny?!" the woman roared.

However instead of answering her, the head researcher pointed at Silky and said, "Carla, I suggest you look behind you before you continue expressing your displeasure." 

From Carla's body language, she appeared to be quite angry as she turned around. However when she saw Silky, her expression immediately shifted from shock. Maxine wasn't surprised by Carla's reaction. Silky was an even more impossible existence when compared to that scorpion.

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"My god," Carla said as she slowly approached, "I thought that those pictures were a hoax." Silky seemed to curious as she stared at Carla. 

Maxine wasn't too concerned as Carla started to walk around Silky. Silky turned her upper body around to keep an eye on Carla, but otherwise did nothing to impede the woman. "Incredible" was all she said after she finished walking around Silky. However when she reached towards Silky's skirt, Maxine grabbed Carla's wrist while glaring at her.

"Are you intending to expose Silky to all of those men," Maxine said softly while nudging her head in the direction of the other scientists, but it was clear that Maxine was angry. It took Carla a moment to realize her error.

"Do you mean to tell me that it has human genitalia?" Carla asked with a suprised expression.

"Yes, she does and if you want to look you have to do it behind closed doors," Maxine asserted. She had a hard enough time teaching Silky the importance of modesty without someone flipping her skirt infront of a bunch of men. It was one of the few concepts that Silky just didn't seem to get.

"Oh, I am sorry. I was so excited that I forgot about they were there," Carla apologized. Maxine didn't believe her, but she still let her go. Carla had already refered to Silky as an it. It was obvious that Carla didn't view Silky as a person.

"Just be sure you don't do it again," Maxine said angrily. Carla didn't appear to have heard her as she started meassuring Silky's legs and other arachnid body parts. Silky was struggling not to giggle while the woman worked.

"Mama, she is tickling me," Silky complained while restraining her laughter as Carla moved.

"Try to put up with it, Silky," Maxine said calmly, "Remember they may give you some chocolate if you are especially good." 

"Okay, Mama," Silky replied happily while trying to hold still. Silky really did enjoy eating chocolate candies. Maxine was even amazed she prefered it over essence cores as a reward. That had surpised Maxine after she went through the trouble of harvasting six more essence cores the other day.

After Carla was done with her measurements, Silky had to be subjected to almost every imaging test known to man. She wasn't a fan of needles either and had to be reassured by Maxine in order to even allow the scientists to draw some blood from her. Carla did get to examine Silky completely like she wanted and she asked Silky a few questions about her eating habits. Silky was curious about everything herself and kept asking the scientists what everything in the room was during her many tests. 

Patrick had arrived sometime while Silky was getting a full-body MRI. Maxine hadn't been aware that they made a model machines big enough to accomodate Silky. Silky did not like being in it as it made her feel dizzy and nervously called for Maxine. Patrick teased Maxine about being a teenage mother when he heard Silky call her mama. She felt like hitting him for that, but he wasn't wrong in a sense.

Maxine tried to soothe Silky so that she would stay still. Otherwise this would take longer. Fortunately that was the last one they decided to run on her. Silky was already quite tired from all the excitement. After Silky got out of the MRI, she got a small chocolate bar from one of the scientists. Silky grabbed it and savored every bite of it.

However Maxine saw that after Silky finished her chocolate bar, she started staring at Patrick. A few moments later, Silky walked up to Patrick, whom was sitting patiently while the scientists were waving a collection of devices around him, and she looked at him curiously. It seemed to make Patrick uncomfortable. 

"Are you going to become my daddy?" Silky asked innocently. Maxine's face turned beat red from embarressment. Patrick on the other hand looked dumbfounded by that question. Maxine didn't even know where that question came from. She had only said a few things about him and didn't think she said anything that would put that idea in Silky's head. 

"No, he won't," Maxine asserted as she grabbed Silky's hand and led her away. Silky looked disappointed, but Maxine wasn't attracted to men. Even if she were, she wouldn't persue Patrick of all people. Maxine already had Emily in any case. Although Maxine had to admit, she hadn't even attempted to kiss Emily since Maxine gave her that tongue kiss.   

It was about an hour until dinner time when Maxine checked the clock and Maxine knew Silky wanted to see her mother. However she didn't dare do that. Those men were watching her house. Maxine would take her mother up to visit Silky another day when they weren't being followed around. 

After dropping off Silky at her nest, she noticed those two men were no longer waiting for her where Sergeant Randall was supposed to pick her up. In fact, they were quite some distance away, but still within the city limits. She immediately panicked and ran home at top speed without telling her driver. 

Her mother's car wasn't home and she diverted to where her mother worked. It only took her a few minutes to reach the parking lot where her mother parked her car while she was at work. However her mother wasn't at work and there was a large crowd surrounding several dead men as well as her mother's car. Most of them were from the protection detail assigned to her mother. Her mind flooded with worry and fear for her mother. She should have known something like this could have happened. Maxine could only think of one reason why they would abduct her mother so soon. It had to have been one of the general's men got discovered while investigating those men spying on Maxine and her mother. 

Maxine just now realized that her cell phone had been ringing for quite some time. She pulled it out and saw that it was General McKenzy. He was trying to calm her down and tell her not to do anything rash. Her driver must have seen her speeding off into the distance and called the general. However Maxine barely heard the general. He had already failed to protect her mother after she had informed him about the bronze stage essence cultivators and she wasn't going to give him the chance to perform a rescue that may end up killing her mother.

Maxine locked onto the spiritual marks she left on those two men. A murderous rage quickly replaced her fear as she formed her essence amor and retrieved her blades from her shadow. She didn't care if anyone saw her or that she was probably going to run straight into a trap as she started running towards the spiritual marks that she had left on those men.