Nathan strolls down the urban-rural street leading to his home, the path is desolate, quite enough to allow him sink in thought, pulled out only by the sound of a ramping engine, a vehicle, a car, from that vehicle steps out a tall muscled teen in black,

"What business do you have here?",

"I have a proposal" Duke replies,

"Not interested" Nathan replies turning away,

"Money, enough to leave, to finally go somewhere peaceful, you know MERCHANTS are going to come for your family sooner or later, make the right choice" Duke states,

(It's always my family with you bastards!), Nathan teeth grind against each other, "I don't need your money, i'll tell you this out of concern for yours, you can't win this war, not against Dexter",

"We wont know till we try" Duke grins, "better than bending over and getting fucked" he quips, Nathan sighs, he turns away slightly contemplating momentarily before giving a shake of his head,

"We joined MERCHANTS" he replies, Duke's mouth that'd been ready ti retort freezes in place,

"What?",

"You heared me" Nathan replies, Duke frowns,

(He doesn't trust him, but wait why would he....), "Why are you telling me this?" Duke inquires,

(Surely it would be more beneficial to play along, lead us on),

"Well that's for you to figure out" Nathan replies turning away to leave, watching Nathan turn to leave Duke's thoughts race to find a convincing argument to secure their help,

"If we do go to war, if i can get your family safe, will you help us?",

"What do you mean by safe?",

"Leave the UWA" Duke replies staring Nathan in the eyes, the latter holds silence as the former watches nearly seeing the gears turning in the latters head,

"I......."

Little Raven sits cross legged somewhere deep in the woods, several miles to his north is Kevin's mansion, steam roles around and ejects from his person in a constant stream, the metallic sent of heating blood, burning blood mixed with the heat of rising steam, several hours fly by in this manner when Silver speaks up breaking his trance,

{Feel the breeze, the cold, let it pervade you, your body is one forged from heat, it will be a sickeningly slow process to turn this body into that if a cold shifter},

"Is that why there's a fucking river filled with liquid Nitrogen in the middle of the forest?!, How is it even still there, i'm no scientist but it definitely should've evaporated by now",

{You can thank him latter},

"Who?, Kevin?, How'd he accomplish this?" Raven inquires curiously,

{It seems this body is still to weak to notice, and you've got deserts lengths to go before you're up to snuff, take a look at the trees}, Raven takes a keen look at the trees before noticing something peculiar, he shifts his sight down to the ground to see the ants frozen in place,

"They're static, 'Force'!" Raven exclaims in astonishment,

{There's a Domain placed over us, the only reason why sound travels is because he's letting air in},

(Air...wait... that's how he's doing it),

{Seems you've figured it out, yes, he's repelling heat outside while isolating cold air within the bounds of the domain}, Raven despite his ignorance could tell instinctively,

(Doing something like this.... how strong is Kevin really?, Something like this would take a god's control),

{We don't have time to dally, cycle your 'Force', ignite your Enforcer technique if you must}, Raven accedes igniting his Enforcer technique: 'Ejection', rather than shifting an ample amount of 'Force' to his desired area he ejects a thing film of 'Force' in the form present in his advancement level, a steady translucent stream of steam rolls of his body, immediately the cold forest breeze is heated away, Raven hops to his feet then into the freezing pool of Nitrogen, immediately the searing freeze and instinctive fear of freezing to death cause him to instinctively increase his output, several more grueling hours of forcing and holding searing cold inside his body while practising the contraction exercise that helped him in becoming a Shifter, what had made the experience even more horrifying where the instances where the cold penetrated his defenses freezing parts if his body in seconds, trying to perform the exercise with rapidly freezing muscles was excruciating as his the frozen parts of his muscles fought against his strain to compress almost tearing from muscle.

Raven despite his worn mental and physical could tell instinctively when Kevin lifted his domain, he staggered forward stumbling downward when a pair of arms catch him,

"You've done good kid, have a rest",

{Agreed}

Night fall, the city buzzes with life, neon lights and party sounds, stepping through the sea of grating bodies with an entourage in tow are formally dressed individuals, each with varying nationalities and races, at their step-ways end is a pair of doors, beyond the pair of the now open doors is a room, eerily lit, devoid of sound, most attention grabbing is the round table with chairs placed for every invited attendant present, the attendants take seat, the doors close, seated facing towards the entrance in the only seat designed with any distinction is a shaggy haired blonde teen, with hair like lion and a menacing grin to match, to his left is a stern faced teen in a blue suit, his frame small but muscled, his eyes lined by black mascara, standing behind his seated form a tall slim teen with a kitana at his waist, the Japanese, seated clock wise a girl in a suit shirt, a stunning frame, long blonde hair and blue eyes as typical of the Russians, standing behind her a rough looking hard faced teen puffing on a cigarette, going clock wise still, seated is a Chinese lady, black eyes, black hair, a petite sultry frame, full read lips and porcelain like skin, his eyes had lingered, she smirked, she'd caught him, so had the average heighted middle aged faced teen behind her staring him daggers, he smirks in return, to his right a tall blonde spaghetti haired teen with a chiselled jaw and green eyes, behind him a beautiful blonde haired woman with brown eyes, the Italians, counter clock wise from him was a similarly heighted blonde blue eyed teen, he'd come alone, the German and lastly to his counter clock wise sat a burly latin teen with short dark hair, full brows and a shaved beared, behind him an even more burly male with thick shades and a shaved head sporting several twisting cobra tattoos, both from the USSA (United States of South America),

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"It seems we have new friends, i believe were in line for some re- introduction" the lion mane teen speaks,

"Leonardo" the lion maned teen states, ,"Just call me leo" he grins staring towards the Chinese lady,

"Katuro" the short teen in the blue suit states,

"And your subordinate?" Leo questions,

"That's unnecessary" Katuro's subordinates states,

"C'mon now, we're all friends here" he states with a feral grin,

"I...", Katuro interrupts with a wave of his hand,

"Shingi" the tall teen states,

"Ellsy" the seated Russian states, "and my subordinate over here is...",

"Ryker" he states puffing on his cigarette,

"Nuwa" the Chinese lady smiles,

"Chang" the teen snarls,

"Matteo" the Italian teen smiles, "this here is Lara" he stares introducing his subordinate,

"Gerhard" a cold baritone voice calls next,

"Juan",

"Arturo", the two state each after the other,

"Now that the introductions have been concluded, let's get down to business, those of you who have been present on this council are well aware, additional information has been provided in the files before you" Leonardo states gesturing to the files placed before each chair on the table, "the first phase will begin soon, i'll have to deal with the request from the kid first",

"Can't we just dispose of the kid?" Katuro questions still surveying the documents,

"He serves an important purpose, and the force behind him is not one we can handle, not on their home turf",

"I see" matteo exclaims after surveying his documents, "it would seem their are quite a number of formidable forces in the center states", the two from USSA sneer, similar to Chang,

"This is far from all the forces present, the center states are theming with monsters",

"Bah!, You're just scared!" Chang retorts,

"Careful, i might kill you" Leonardo grins as his feral 'Force' expands outward, Nuwa releases her protecting Cheng whose face contorts at Leonardo's strength from the impact,

"You disgrace me" her light voice rings,

"My lady!, Forgive me!" he bows m, she dismisses him with a wave, turning to Leonardo she gives her piece,

"So far getting any form of tangible information from the center states especially the central state has been nigh impossible",

"That would be due to the i formation control, companies like Hide entertainment are actively controling the information getting in and out of the country" Ellsy states,

"You're very knowledgeable ms Ellsy" Matteo states,

"For now we focus on infiltration, once we can get a foot hold in the weakest of the Central states Zagreb we'll then focus on ruthless expansion as we attemot to get a foothold, once achieved we'll dominate the state, it'll become sort of like the embassy we use to stake our claim once the first 'Tomb of the Ends' rises, what we need to achieve this is a united front",

"Then we bring many men from south america, they hold state", Aturo states,

"No can do" Ryker replies,

"That's bordering on an international conflict, we should operate with the belief the upper echealons are well aware of our presence" Matteo replies,

"Agreed" Nuwa states,

"Then the solution becomes to take over and unite the existing forces in Zagreb under a single banner, our banner" Katuro states, "Who holds power in that state" Gerhard questions,

"He's absent, he has no crew, and holds no loyalty, that's exactly why Zagreb is key" ,

"Very well then, it is decided, finish the kids task, there's much more to accomplish, have you looked into the target",

"Yes, i've been able to gather quite a bit of information on him, but nothing enough to indicate that he'll be a problem" Leonardo responds, "Very well then, i can conclude this meeting adjourned" he grins.