Arthur lay in bed since the girls brought him home to the Vanderbilt estate.

The girls sat a distance away. Ema sat demurely with her baggy sports outfit. Dani sat near Arthur to keep an eye on him.

Telaga the little faerie flitted back and forth over Arthur. "What's wrong with him? Is he dying? Will he get me more french fries? I don't want to go home yet."

"Why aren't you invisible?" asked Danistrae.

"Why should I hide from a kitsune? They are mystical foxes. They have one of the strongest magical sights that even faeries have trouble hiding from them. I rather not waste my mana." said the little faery but concern showed on her face even though she acted like she didn't care.

Amy looked from the two then right back at Ema. "Thank you for saving him. Did you find out who they work for?"

The long red-orange hair reminded Amy of an actual fox, but the red in Ema's hair was similar in shade to Arthur's. "No, I did not. I was concerned with getting Arthur away from them."

"How did you two meet?"

Ema glanced at Arthur before back to Amy. She decided to tell her what happened in the past. Ema has been watching from afar to know what Amy and Dani's relationship was with concern for the young man.

"I don't know much about kitsune. The only thing I know about your race is that you are a magical fox based on the stories from Asia. What is this about blood and how does tasting it bind you to Arthur?"

"Let me give you a normal way among the kitsune. A kitsune train since they are kits. They master their basic skills and abilities before their second tail. As they grow, they eventually grow their third tail which marks them as adults. Normal blood does not bind kitsune to a person. Blood with a concentration of mana is the only way a binding occurs or a special ritual. When Arthur saved me, I licked his face in gratitude and tasted his blood. I didn't know he was special until then. The blood caused my second tail to grow way before I was supposed to. My mother attempted to break the binding a few times and failed. This is why I have returned now that I am an adult. I chose to return to keep my promise and to take my place by his side. Will this cause a problem with you and Dani?"

Dani looked over and smiled, "I don't know much about your race either, but I do know that you showed concern and saved him. If you are staying, I would rather have you as a friend than a foe."

Amy smiled and patted Ema's hand, "We have a hierarchy. Arthur is the king of Camelot. I am his queen. Dani is his consort. If you choose to stay and Arthur accepts you. We would be more than happy to have you be a part of Camelot."

"I hope he does. My grandmother has a message for him and I was told to only tell him," a worried look passed Ema's face as she looked over at the sleeping man.

"He will be alright. The doctor already said that he has to sleep the drug off."

Telaga flew over a little indignant, "Don't I have a say in all of this? I'm his companion too."

Amy poked at Telaga, "I think Tela likes Arthur."

"I DO NOT!" harrumphed the little faerie and flew back over Arthur buzzing like an angry bee.

The other three girls smiled knowingly.

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The windows were boarded and sealed preventing it from letting any light in. The dark room had an overhead light shining down on a man tied to a chair. The injuries on the man were severe and the blood dripped down to the ground.

"Did he reveal who he worked for?"

"Negative."

"And the other attacker?"

"He escaped."

"Is someone assigned to continue the search? What of their target?"

"Someone is continuing the search. A young man named Arthur Crown, the leader of the group Camelot. He is with his people and was saved by an Asian woman."

"Failure is not an option."

"I understand." The sound of a handgun fired and the sound echoed through the room then a thud of a body hitting the ground.

"Leave no trace."

"And the building?"

"Leave no trace, including yourself," said the voice in a very irritated tone.

"A...affirmative."

The news reported a rusted gas pipe caused an explosion that incinerated the building and everything in it.

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"Vhargus, you and your two sub-commanders have humiliated the Imperium. You allowed a human to beat you and take away resources that we were preparing to use for an operation. For the record, the three of you are taking a leave of absence effective immediately. During your downtime, we want you to reflect on what you have done. You must remove the stain that you inflicted on the Imperium or you will never return to reclaim your ranks. Is that understood?" Ordered the general.

Vhargus looked up from his knelt position. "I understand general. Remove the stain or never return." The hobgoblin glanced at the two bodies beside him. The three of them have been the punching bag of the military since their return. A punishment and a lesson from the general but all the trials only fueled their hatred for the human Arthur Crown.

The general tossed him a flash drive. "There are enough credits there for you to survive. You will get no other assistance monetary or otherwise until you return or your bodies return."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Vhargus picked it up and pocketed it. Without a word, he shouldered the two unconscious hobgoblins and left the Imperium labyrinth.

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Two large tubes stored two human bodies. The water glowed with an unnatural light. Paul looked out at the people milling about. The other tube contained Ben and both appear to be alive again.

No, not alive, but not dead. Paul couldn't feel any pain. He looked at the reflection of the glass to see glowing blue eyes staring back at him. He had become an undead.

"Hello, Paul. I see that you have regained consciousness."

"Who are you?"

"We'll start with, We don't know each other. We do have a common enemy though. You remember Arthur don't you?"

Paul growled sending bubbles up the water in his tube. "Now that you agree, I will give you a choice. Merge with me and I will give you the power to better fight our enemy."

"Who are you?"

"It does not matter what my name is, because when we merge we will be Paul."

Paul looked at the people outside the tank and didn't see anyone paying any attention to him. "I accept the merge, but I want the two bitches to die too."

"That is acceptable. You will feel pain just bear with it."

Paul looked over at Ben's tank to see his friend writhing in pain causing the water inside to churn. It was then that he felt like he was getting ripped into a million pieces.

When the water in both tubes calmed, Paul and Ben looked composed and their eyes glowed green.

One of the lab coat-wearing people walked over to Paul, "Is it complete?" Paul nodded. The same person walked over to Ben and asked the same question. Ben nodded.

She walked over to a console and sent a message. "The two are complete. Go recruit another who has hate for the target."

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The brawny man sat staring at his empty glass. He looked at the bar in front of him with the empty shot glasses that he had consumed.

"Bartender, get the man a bottle of whatever he has been drinking," said a man in a suit. "I saw your fight with the scrawny boy in the arena. "

Brawler looked at the guy with his alcohol-red eyes then waved the bartender, "Tequila."

The bartender puts a bottle in front of the drunk man.

"What do you want?" he asked the suit while pouring his glass full and downing it like a shot.

"Just wanted to know if you would like an opportunity to have some payback," the man smiled as he sipped his drink.

"What's in it for me? There's a restraining order against me," slurred the man.

"Ten million in credits and if Arthur is dead, you can take his woman. The restraining order is only when you are on Earth. What if you were in a labyrinth? Or somewhere that no one is around?"

"Good point," Brawler drank directly from the bottle. "And who am I working with?"

"You should know them quite well. Paul and Ben."

"I thought they were dead."

"The reports of their death are overrated."

The Brawler tilted the bottle until he finished the whole thing. He gave a loud ugly belch, "I'm in."

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A large refrigerated warehouse stored several servers inside a glass room. Outside the glass room were twenty terminals with a user on each one. A woman walked from one terminal to another checking on the progress.

"Have we found signs of the program yet?"

"Not yet Maam."

"We finally had a working copy and then it gets deleted and the one who stole it is still out there."

"Maam, call for you."

"No results yet. I think we need to go ahead and hire some extra help. Find who stole the program and see if they have a copy."

"I'll have someone start the search, you focus on the program," said the woman on the other end of the phone.

"I am running low on sustenance. Would it be possible to order some more?"

"Don't worry, it will be arriving soon. You take care of Project Umbra. I'll see what I can do about finding the thief."

"Thank you."

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"Increase the recruitment inside the GM and outside. I'm done treating the invaders with kid gloves. They killed three of our men who were guarding the prison cells," said a grumpy blonde man as he slammed the phone down onto an old-fashioned phone.

A woman sips tea in a chair waiting for the blonde man to calm down. "We have suffered casualties during the mission and we need to recuperate that number too."

A Japanese man sat cross-legged on a tatami with a sword rack beside him holding three blades. The man had his eyes closed but was aware of the conversation. "The world is ours. It is a human world, not for others to steal our land, women, or jobs. We should look at creating issues between two or more non-human races."

"This is not hard to do. Find which race hates each other and then frame an attack so the blame is on the other race," offered an accented Russian with a generous beard.

The blonde man looked around the room as he took a deep breath, "Thank you for coming. I know everyone has a busy schedule so I won't take too much of your time. The GM is working to consolidate the votes. When they get it done, we will be able to overturn the accords. When that happens we need to be ready to go to war."

The woman placed the teacup down and looked at the man. She pulled up her black hair into a ponytail. "I understand that not all of us could attend today, but the four of us need to gather the strength of the others. And probably need to get more people."

"Perhaps it is time we push more rewards for the adventurers on all the continents. Something that we can provide outside of the GM benefits. Like a sponsorship for sports teams." Said the blonde man.

"Unlike the non-humans here in America, the ones in Japan have worked more collaboratively. I would suggest leaving them out of the interracial war so that we can still gain some benefits until it is time to take them out." said the kimono-wearing samurai.

"Good good. We will surprise the Veiled and they will have nowhere to run," laughed the Russian as he raised his vodka-filled shot glass.

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Arthur opened his eyes and felt his head feeling normal. Telaga was asleep on top of his chest. He looked at the little faerie and noticed how pretty she was. He couldn't help but wonder how she would look as a normal human.

Amy was asleep on the right side of the bed, her head on the mattress while the rest of her body was on the chair.

Danistrae had her legs propped on top of the blanket and rested her head on the back of the chair.

He looked at the foot of the bed and watched as a woman sat in a chair looking right back at him. The red-orange hair flowed out of her head like a fox's tail and her amber eyes stared deeply into his. She brought her finger to her lips and glanced at the two sleeping women, then pointed to her head then to his.

"We can communicate directly. We could have done this a long time ago but I was afraid to reach out."

"Ema, thank you again for saving me."

"As I told you, you saved me first. I am just returning the favor."

"Let me see if I got this right. I was badly hurt and you licked my cheek and tasted my blood. Even back then my blood was enriched with mana and it caused you to grow your second tail. How many tails can you have?"

"The most powerful kitsune could have nine tails but we have not seen any of that nor heard of that except for when our original realm."

"How many tails do you have now?"

"I have four. It should be three when the kitsune are considered adults but because I started with a second tail, I was able to grow my fourth. The strongest kitsune in this world has six tails."

"If you got a second tail when I wasn't even as powerful as I am now, what would happen if you had some of my blood again?"

Ema blushed, "It is likely that I might grow another tail, and if it has grown more potent... I... might not... be able to control myself."

"What do you mean?"

"Let me say it in a way you would understand. It might trigger my mating instincts."

"Oh...OHHHH," and it was Arthur's turn to turn red. "Um... I am working on completing something first. I suspect when it is complete, maybe we can try to do the bonding then."

"Are you asking me if I want to renew the bond?"

Arthur looked at her and couldn't stop himself from gazing from top to bottom, "I would be willing. Would you?"

"I have been yours since we were children. I would be happy to renew it and be yours as an adult," she mentally responded while her cheeks were so red that she looked down at her feet to compose herself. "Now that we had our chat, there is a message for you from my grandmother. She is our six-tail kitsune and our strongest seer. She wanted me to tell you that with each step you take to achieve your goal, you need to follow your heart. There is no escaping that you will have enemies in every corner."

Arthur nodded and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "Let's get some more rest, Ema, normally we wake up in another three hours."

"As you wish my bondmate," she smiled as she closed her eyes while sitting in her chair.