As Ray and Lilly approach the city walls that once again annoying guard approaches them

“You just love bringing humans in here don’t you, you weirdo.”, he spits.

However he sees Lilly with him and knowing the power she has within this city, looks away and allows them through, Ray snickering on his way out.

“One day, I’m going to gut you, you red haired bastard.”, the guard whispers under his breath.

As they walked towards the castle the group received a lot of strange looks from the other beast-men, some displayed hostility, whilst others displayed curiosity. Ray watched Tia’s expression, to see how she would react when being in such proximity to other beast-men, however she simply walked along with them, expressionless.

As they reached the castle and went inside, they were greeted by a busy Claire, she was walking with a stack of books. As she looked their way she dropped the stack of books.

“W-what... who is that?”.

“We’ll explain it later, for now we can um... call her a guest?”, Ray states.

“Where are my family?”, Lilly asks.

“They all here... why? Does this have something to do with her?”. Claire asks as she picks up the books she had dropped.

“Yeah.”, Ray says as he bends down and helps Claire pick up the books. He reads the front cover, and it reads “Demonic powers”.

“Are you doing research on the demons' powers in hopes of finding a cure for humans against the hypnosis?”.

At this Tia looked up briefly, confusion in her eyes, but when catching Claires eye who smiled at her, she looked back down at the ground.

“I’m trying to, though there's not much about demons or their powers recorded down. It's almost as if they wanted to completely put behind this history.”, She sighed

Ray skimmed through the small book called “Demonic powers” and though it mentioned a few demonic abilities, none were explained in a lot of detail, nor was there any counter measures recorded.

“Any way, I think what I’ve discovered will be quite useful, we need to gather everyone in the conference room. Can you do that for me.”. Ray said, asking Lilly and Claire, who agreed and rushed off in their seperate directions.

“Who was that human woman? Is she a slave of yours?”, Tia asked Ray.

“No, unlike you humans we don’t take others as slaves. Though I can’t blame you too much, you have no idea what you're doing.”.

“I’ll have you know that not ALL humans partake in slavery.”, she said quite aggravated.

“And yet your new King, made it a law to do so to all Demi-human species?”, Ray asked eyebrows raised.

It appeared this question had bugged out her brain slightly, from the hypnosis she believed it to be lawful and natural to do so even if she didn’t wish to part take in it, yet deep down in her subconscious she knew it was not right and had no idea why their king would do this. She was by far their best option at trying to break this hypnosis.

Ray stands in the conference room and unties Tia who looks at him shocked.

“Are you underestimating me? You may beat me once but who’s to say I won’t attack someone else in this room when they come?”.

“You’ll see why.”.

As the rest of them entered the room, it was very evident to Tia why she had been permitted freedom in this room, Ray was powerful enough to easily beat her, however there was a variety of other imposing people here too, there was a strange presences in the air and aura, that caused her to sweat.

As they rest got seated in the conference room, Ray stood in the middle with Tia the meeting began.

“Welcome back Ray, I see you’ve brought quite an intriguing guest with you.”, Mary states, smiling at him and then looking questioningly at Tia. The others nodded at Ray as a form of greeting but as to not interrupt this meeting.

“Yes, I think I’ve discovered something about the hypnosis and its potential weakness.”. Ray stated seriously.

The others looked at Ray in shock and Claire was the first to say something.

“A-are you sure?”, Claire stammered

“If this is true Ray... then you’ve once again done something great.”, Regi states.

“So, what is it?”, Luke asks eagerly.

Ray smiled and the addresses Claire.

“Claire, you travelled for 5 years after the incident within the capital. In those 5 years, have you ever tried to tell other humans the truth?”, Ray was being very careful on how to word it without accidentally triggering the events too early.

Claire catching on followed suit, “Yes I did, however most of the people thought I was crazy and just a traitor.”.

“And I’m assuming, that those you spoke too you wouldn’t consider having a particularly strong mental fortitude, would you?”.

Claire thought to herself for a second then replied.

“Probably not no, I only ever spoke to bandits, regular towns folks and maybe the occasional Knight. Those with a higher mental fortitude would probably be a knight of a higher class or maybe like.... a bandit lord or something like that? Someone who has an incredibly strong sense of self you know?”.

“I know exactly what you mean and that where she comes in. Tia, the captain of the knights at the Armstrong household.”.

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At this, the rest of them gasped but kept silent, wanting to see what would happen.

“Claire, maybe if you say this the message will hit home better than it did when I said it.”, he said beckoning her down.

When she descends Ray whispered into her ear. Claire, looked at Ray as if wondering what the point of all this was, but when he nodded at her, she walked over to Tia and kneeled before her; she looked up into Claires face.

“W-who are you?”, Tia asked, but Claire ignored this question.

“Did you know that our king, the king of humans is a demon?”.

At these words, Tias eyes rolled back as she screamed in agony, loader and more intensely than she did on the battlefield, she grabbed her head in pain as her eyes rolled back.

“HELP ME PLEASE.... I-IM NOT MYSELF, DEMON, HPNOSIS, DEMON, KING, HYPNSOSIS, NOT HUMAN, DEMON, DEMON, DEMON, HELP.”.

The whole room was in complete and utter shock. Suddenly the red and purple mist leaked out of her eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

“TELL HER THE TRUTH!”, Ray shouted over Tias loud rambling.

“When the king died the demons infiltrated the capital and hypnotised all of the humans who were there, I’m sorry we didn’t arrive in time to help, we were too late... I truly am sorry but when we arrived... we weren’t strong enough. That demon tried to hypnotise us too but when it didn’t work, he decided the heroes weren’t needed... I was the only one who escaped.”, Claire said, fist clenched.

At these words Tia began to scream even louder, and her body began to writhe on the floor. The mist that was now covering her face was beginning to rise and evaporate.

“This didn’t happen last time look, the mist is disappearing. Claire, as a fellow human I believe you're the only one that can reach her at this point. It's up to you.”.

Claire nodded, she grabbed Tias hand.

“Please, please fight this, Tia. Don't let that demon control and poison your mind. YOUR STRONG, DON’T LET THOSE DEMONS TOY WITH YOU. SHOW THEM THE MIGHT OF A KNIGHT, THE MIGHT OF A HUMAN. DON’T LET THEM TURN US AGAINST EACH OTHER, YOU KNOW HUMANS AND DEMI-HUMANS ARE EQUAL. WE LIVED TOGETHER IN HARMONY FOR CENTURIES, WE THOUGHT AGAINST THESE VERY DEMONS THAT POISON YOUR MIND TOGETHER. FIGHT TIA, FIGHT.”.

Ray was shocked, she had never seen Claire so desperate, yet so hopeful and motivating, she would make a great politician... No, a great queen. By the time the demons have been ridden from this world. She should take the throne.

At Claires words, Tia stopped writhing on the floor, in fact she seemed tense, like she was about to give birth and then she spoke, in a mighty voice.

“DAMN DEMONS... GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!”, with a mighty roaring push, all the mist evaporated from her face. Tia took a deep breath and then fell unconscious.

Ray fell to the floor, that was the most intense thing he had seen so far. But what was most important, was it seemed like it had worked. Only time would tell, when Tia finally awoke. If the hypnosis had been lifted.

The room was silent until Arthur spoke.

“What the hell did we just witness.”, he asked, slack jawed.

And so, Ray explained everything that he had witnessed on the battlefield.

“I was completely shocked myself. I knew I had to bring her here as proof and explain my findings. I also believed that if anyone would be able to free her, it would be a fellow human who wasn’t affected by the hypnosis.

“So, you believe that the stronger the humans mental fortitude is, then the more resilient that they are too the hypnosis?”. Luke said.

“That would make sense, remember when Claire told us about what happened in the capital with her. She stated she heard voices but was able to shake them off. So, if Rays hypothesis is correct, the heroes' mental fortitude's were strong enough to completely block out the hypnosis. And from what we’ve just seen... it may be possible to free those who are strong minded too.”, Anna sates.

Mary leans back in her chair and sighs.

“I don’t know how you do it Ray. I feel like I need to offer you another reward. You've managed to find out a way to break hypnosis. This could help us get some humans on our side in this war as well as potentially freeing all humans from the demon's control.”.

“It may only work on the strong minded, but if they can use their connections to talk to those, they are close to that may be weak and use their bonds to convince them more. We could free all the humans.”, Claire states.

Ray nods and smiles, “That what I believe Claire.”, Ray says as he puts a hand on her shoulder. She stands up and dives into his arms, giving him a huge hug. As she does the pair fall to the floor, Claire hugging him from above.

“Thank you, Ray. If it wasn’t for you, I would have never been able to come here and tell my truth and find people willing to help. And now, now you’ve discovered a way to free the humans. How, how can I ever repay you.”, she sobs into his chest.

Rays face turns red.

“I-it's Okay, honestly, I didn't do much all i did was ask her a question and stumble into it. It's not like I developed a cure.”. Ray says sheepishly.

“Still. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”.

Ray smiles, he wriggles one of his arms out and pats her on the head, Ray had to admit it, normally she was cool, calm and collected, an elegant yet fierce beauty. But right now, she was really quite cute.

“Ehem...”, Lilly said coughing, looking away.

This brought the two back to reality and the 2 quickly separated.

Just then. The sound of shuffling could be heard, as the group looked towards Tia, she sat herself up, holding her head.

“Where am I?”, She asked bewildered.