- Texas Wardens -
Henry looked down and the pitiful remains of the once vampiress. The once lady, still smoking before him, requested an audience with him while Jen was away and thought to take control of his mind. Not only did he already anticipate people with mental abilities appearing, but had taken measures to ensure they would fail with a mental resistance passive he had developed working with other mental path users, but his wife's passive protected those she viewed as part of her household and the moment she sensed the intrusion she used another skill to teleport herself to one of her family members.
Henry had just shook off the attempted mind control and was about to rip the woman in half with an aether constructed blade that resembled an orange omniblade from a game called Mass Effect, when the ghostly sacred flames he had grown accustomed to, slammed into the woman practically incinerating her without so much as a peep.
"Nice try bitch." Jen said as she turned and smiled sweetly at her husband, who slowly allowed the blade he conjured to slowly vanish as he smiled back.
- North Carolina, Sage -
Chris was watching his wife snap her fingers over and over again. His wife Elena caught the woman sneaking around their property due to her sound mastery and now was using the sound of her snapping fingers to bludgeon the woman with amplified sound waves. The woman who, after Chris invaded her mind with his own aether, was sent to mind control him and weaponize him.
His impulse was originally to stop Elena, but they had been married long enough to know that there were times he should mind his own business. This woman had invaded the sanctuary of Elena Shephard and that was more or less a death sentence. Chris had however, called the hunters to come and take her away and politely asked his wife not to kill her.
Elena naturally agreed, but with the condition she is going to catch a beating until the hunters did arrive, which they did an hour and a half later. As the black and blue woman was led off one hunter came over.
"There have been a few of these going around Sage. The Seraph was temporarily captured, an attempt was made on the Texas Wardens, and the last was Warlord known as Brandon Newland who was captured. His wife and daughter reported him missing a few days ago. Cameras saw a woman meet with him at the guild in Worcester shortly before his disappearance." The hunter explained.
"That's worrisome. The Warlord path is an all out offensive combat class with insanely powerful long range lethal strikes not to mention, last I heard Mr. Newland constructed a state of the art aether empowered .50 sniper rifle capable of dropping a rift champion in a single shot." Chris said.
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"We have every piece of surveillance tech looking for the man. We absolutely cannot have him targeting officials be they guild masters or even higher." Came the reply.
"No. Definitely not."
- Clarksville -
Kyrain, Brittanie, Mitch, Kody, Kassie, Kalypso, Ana, Julee, Tobias, and Sebastian sat around the guild conference table a few days after Brittanie was returned home after her abduction.
"Clearly, one of us is wanted by these vampires according to information we have been able to obtain from the vampires and recent events." Mitch said opening the meeting.
"Vampiress is what they are called Mitch." Sebastian said quickly correcting his uncle.
*smack!*
Sebastian's head went forward almost to the table as a whip of water retracted back to Kody.
"Two things." Kody said holding up one finger.
"One, it's Uncle Mitch to you and two, nobody cares about stupid nerdy details like that." He said throwing up the second finger and glaring at his nephew.
Rubbing his had from the smack.
"Yes sir." Sebastian said turning red from scolding as his mother, Ana, smacked him on the back of the head next.
"As I was saying....we have discovered why they didn't go after either myself, Kody, and Kassie, but now they may know Kyrain. They might not bother for reasons we all know, but its hard to say. We have also found out that Brandon Newland, and weapons master with the path known as "Warlord" has been captured. This presents a problem as assassinations are now on the table, until he is either free or put down." Mitch continued.
"What are you thinking then?" Julee the youngest of the Ekart siblings, and mother of tobias spoke up.
"We essentially circle the wagons. With Kody and Kassie and the other Ekarts in the north we should have good coverage there, but we should all remain out of sight and the open. We need to mask our movements until Newland isn't a threat anymore." Came the reply.
"Those of us who can't such as Kody, Kassie, and Kyrain need to stay out of long sight lines whenever we can and keep constant vigil. Also make sure your family locator apps are active and hide the smaller location beacons on yourselves in case anyone tries to capture one of us again. Questions?"
Nobody moved or had any questions so Mitch nodded and stood.
"We have Kyrain as our point of contact for the hunters to let us know when they have located and freed Newland." Mitch finished as Kyrain opened rifts to send his family back to Washington.
Once everyone who was headed back to the Pacific Northwest had gone, the ones remaining left.
Kyrain went into the main guild hall where he found Nyx siting in the recliners in the lounge area of the guild scrolling through her phone.
"How did the family meeting go?" She asked.
"Fine. We just need to be extra careful until that Warlord gets found and freed. Apparently he has the perfect assassin skill set. Everyone in the country is on high alert for the man and I wouldn't be suprised if a bounty for him comes out. It won't be for us, but probably of level 5. The guy is apparently powerful too." Kyrain replied sitting down next to her.
"I have a question." Kyrain said after a contemplative pause as something had been on his mind for a while.
"What is it?" Nyx said not looking up from her phone.
"What was the crackling aether you had on you in Seattle? It wasn't the same as your time power?"