****************************** Authors Note ******************************************

Hey guys, 

Sorry about the slow update this week. I'm preparing to move to another state and my job, not wanting to lose me, is making me work some crazy OT to get as much done as possible. And what little free time I had i spent on The Division...

Anyway, this week will be a bit longer than normal. As a way to apologize to those who are liking the story and offering the support. Again, to those who are it means a lot to me.

Cheers,

Karma

************************************************************************************************************

Next thing Drake realized, he was in a hospital room connected to an I.V and other sensor equipment. He looked around the room to see it looked just like his room; perfectly square with white walls, a window on one wall to his right and on the opposite side, to his left, was the door; which was also white. He tried to shift his body position to get comfortable, but a sharp pain shot through his entire body. The last thing he remembers was rolling down the hill with that girl, and seeing her grab his sword. Everything after that is completely blank. Then he saw Alina sleeping on the side of his bed. She was sitting in a chair with her head resting next to him. He didn’t want to wake her up, so he just relaxed as best he could. A few seconds later, he fell asleep again.

Alina woke up quite a while after Drake had woken up. She lifted her head, still groggy, and felt a wet spot on her cheek. As she wiped it away, she realized she had drooled in her sleep, but it didn’t bother her in the least. She grabbed a part of her sleeve and dried her cheek. Unaware of how long she had been out, she looked out the window to see it was now dark outside. So she knew she had slept most of the day. Her face was still stinging from when she clawed her own face a few days ago, even though she couldn’t remember anything after watching Drake stop breathing. Everything was a blank up until she woke up in the hospital with her face bandaged up. Any other wounds she had received were superficial and required minimal treatment; all thanks to Drake keeping her out of danger as much as possible. Everything was already healed up except for her mind; as soon as she had realized Drake wasn’t around when she first woke up she started to panic. Her fear of losing, or not being around Drake had taken a turn for the worse after the shock of thinking she had already lost him. She had tried to get up and find him when Will walked in and had to stop her. As frantic as she was, he was able to calm her down long enough to have a Doctor check on her. When she got the all clear physically, she took off to look for Drake. Mentally though, both Will and the Doctor knew something was off. Her monophobia was bad before, but now… now it was out of control and she desperately needs to see someone about it.

Somehow, Alina knew exactly where Drake was resting and has been by his side since. But her moving about after waking up also woke Drake up again. With Alina up, he was finally free to get comfortable. As he tried to adjust his body position, he was attacked by a sharp wave of pain throughout his whole body. His small whimper was enough to snap Alina back to reality.

“Are you ok? Do you need anything?” She asked in a panic.

“No… It just hurts to move.” Was Drakes quiet reply.

“Well I’ll be here for you if you need anything.” Alina said to comfort him.

“Thanks love. But you can go back to the room to get some rest if you need it. Seems like you got pretty beaten too.” Drake pointed out noticing the gashes on her face.

Alina violently shook her head in protest. Drake knew she wouldn’t leave, but he offered anyway. She looked beat and like she could use some rest. And sleeping hunched over like she was isn’t helping any. After a few minutes of silence, Alina pulled the chair next to Drakes bed, rested her feet on the bed and started to nod off. She knew she was exhausted and needed rest to recover properly, but leaving the room would only make her restless and paranoid. So she rested her right hand on the bed, and then rested her head on her left hand and tried to rest. She felt Drake put his hand on top of hers, and she smiled. She kept it hidden from Drake, but her heart started to race and she blushed. She wasn’t stupid, she knows what these feelings are, but what she doesn’t know is what Drake feels.

On the other hand, Drake was feeling the same way. He too knows what his feelings mean, and knows that Alina hates being away from him. But even still, he was unsure of her actual feelings. Maybe she would find someone else to move on too when she found the right person. Maybe it’s only because he was the first person she knew and therefore became very attached, but not in that way. Hundreds of possibilities ran through his rampant and anxious mind, but when she didn’t pull her hand away he smiled a small smile and calmed down again. But just in case, he pretended to be asleep. So if she asked him about it he could say he was sleep if she seemed upset by it.

A few hours later, Drake was woken up by the light coming in through the window. It was hitting his eyes and bugging him so we went to shift his body. He went to move his arms to shift his weight when he realized that Alina was now holding his hand. When he went to sleep he had just rested his hand on hers, but now she had a full clasp, while his hands were loose. He closed his hands and heard an approving moan from Alina, who was otherwise in a deep sleep. He noticed she was drooling a little bit and smiled. After a small chuckle on the inside he shifted his weight using his right hand instead, but doing so caused Alina to wake up. Completely groggy and clueless as to what was going on, she slowly lifted her upper body that had slouched down in the chair. As soon as Drake realized this, he pulled his hand away, which upset Alina.

“Why did you pull your hand away?!” She asked.

“Well… I uuuhhh…. You see…. Uuummm.” Drake stuttered out.

Alina gave him a quizzical and angry look trying to get an answer, which put Drake into more of a panic.

“Well?!” She demanded.

Drake was at a loss. So he just dropped his head in defeat and told her the reason.

“It made me feel better when you were holding my hand, but I wasn’t sure if it would upset you or not, so when you woke up I pulled it away to not bug you.” He explained.

Alina gave a slight smile that Drake missed since he was still looking down and avoiding eye contact. So she slipped her hand into his and grabbed it once again.

“So how’s this?” She asked him.

He looked at his hand; at least he knew it didn’t bother her, and hell maybe she felt the same way he did. But he didn’t know, while Alina on the other hand had pretty much figured it out. From his reactions, she figured his feelings are the same as hers, and that made her happy. She loves teasing him though, so she figured she could play with him a little longer before he figures anything out since he is bad at taking a hint.

With the two being as exhausted as they are, they fell asleep again within a few minutes. Both of them had never been in a fight like that, and the stress of fighting for their lives compounded the fatigue of the constant fighting. Plus for Drake he had severe wounds that he was recovering from, and that drained all his energy as well. Their rest was short lived however, when their room was rushed by ten armored personnel. Groggy and exhausted, they were dragged from the room, unhooked from any machinery, and forced to walk to the stage they met Dr. King at since the original meeting hall had just been blown up.

When they got to the meeting they noticed a lot of high ranking cat tails and fox tails were present. Still exhausted though, most of the crowd just blended together for Alina; Drake, on the other hand, started to panic. It wasn’t so bad when he was in the back of the crowd, but as more and more showed up, he became surrounded. Panicked, he started to hyperventilate and shake violently. Alina noticed the shaking and looked at Drake who was ghostly pale. Seeing him in that state snapped Alina wide awake. She grabbed his hand, pushed everyone out of the way and brought Drake out of the crowd. But it was too late, his anxiety had gotten the best of him and he was now in fight or flight mode, which he obviously chose to fight and started thrashing around. To prevent any harm, Alina countered his wild attacks and pinned him to the floor until he calmed down.

Much to her surprise, he calmed down almost instantly. He tried to look up at her to signal he was calm now, but her hold was too good. So he tapped the floor to signal he was done since he was no longer surrounded; so the two of them just chilled out in the back until Doctor King showed up.

“As you all know, we were attacked a few days ago.” King started.

“We managed to fight them back, even with the absence of some of our strongest members. But we lost a lot of good lives that day, and they will never be forgotten for their sacrifices.” King continued in a solemn tone.

“We will be holding a memorial service for those who have been confirmed dead, and will continue searching for those still missing.” King confirmed with everyone.

“However, we shall fight back; and we will make them suffer!” King started back up with excitement.

The crowd started a loud applause and cheering.

“We know it was the Ridgeback power group that attacked us, and we also know part of the reason. Thanks to the work of some very skilled teams, we managed to capture a few of the soldiers and GenOpS that had tried to invade us.” King led on.

“They were hired by a private contractor to make us suffer, but the reasons as to why and who the contractor is, they don’t know.” King explained.

“So today, ladies and gents, you, the strongest we have on base, will begin the plan to wipe them out. We now even have the backing of the Russian government to aid us!” King finished with an electric energy.

As the crowd riled up, King raised then lowered his arms to signify them to quiet down.

“We will be handing out your mission orders in a moment. We will be doing an all-out assault on their main base along with the Russian military! So prepare yourselves, and meet up with your handlers to receive your orders. Except for one four four, and four four one, please come see me personally for your orders.”  King finished his brief but rallying speech.

It took Alina and Drake a second to realize he had called them. They hadn’t referred to each other nor been referred to as their numbers in several years. So they had totally forgotten about them, then it clicked for Drake after a few seconds. He started to walk away when Alina grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.

“Where are you going?” She asked him.

“Doctor King asked to speak with us. Remember? Those are our ID numbers he called.” Drake explained.

Then it hit Alina and she remembered. So she grabbed Drakes arm as she always does and they walked over to meet with Doctor King. For the two, Alina holding onto Drakes arm worked as a benefit for both of them. For Alina, she got to stay as close as possible to Drake, and for Drake, it helped him to deal with crowds. Feeling her close by took his mind off of what was going on around him at that moment, and made him focus on Alina who was right next to him.

Along the way, the couple noticed a GenOpS, with five fox tails, that had both arms completely tattooed. When they asked him about it, he lifted his shirt and showed them the full upper body tattoo. It depicted a black and grey battlefield with several bodies and skeletons littering the ground, collapsed buildings and fires gave it an even darker scene, and on top of a mountain of bodies sat one lone silhouette. The smoke from the fires then faded into sacred geometry tattoos that ran all the way down his arms onto his hands, and on the top of both of his hands he had a sacred geometry scull. They liked the tattoo so they asked him what it meant.

“Well for a long time, I kept a tally of everything I killed. And after a decade of missions, I counted the tally and got this tattoo. The skeletons represent GenOpS I killed, and full bodies represent ten humans I killed on my missions. And the lone silhouette on the top is me, signifying I lived and was victorious. As for the geometry tattoos, all the different shapes have different meanings, but they are basically saying that I am the dark reaper, which was my nickname since I use a reaper style scythe.” He explained.

That satisfied Alina and Drake, and gave Drake an idea.

“I want to do the same thing as him, only add pieces after each mission.” Drake explained.

“Me too.” Alina agreed.

For the remainder of their short walk to meet with Doctor King, the two discussed tattoo ideas. Drake was drawn to the ideas of Dragons, and wanted those on his arms. As for his body he couldn't decide in the short time he had. Alina on the other hand wanted a sacred geometry tattoo on her arms, and was also undecided about her main body. When they reached Doctor King he started talking;

“Since you two don’t work well in a team with others, as evident by your incident the other week Drake.” King started bluntly.

Drake couldn’t help but smile, remembering what had happened. He had gotten mad at a seven tail, and beat him into critical condition. He will probably never recover from the injuries and brain damaged Drake had caused; even with their accelerated healing.

“Yah and those personalities you two have are a major turn off for everyone else. No one wants to work with you guys, so you will work as a rare two man team.” King explained getting aggravated.

“Why are they so rare?” Alina asked in a calm demeanor.

“There is only one other permanent two man team. Like you, they both woke up much more powerful than anyone else, but unlike you two; they actually get along with other people. They are just too strong to work with anyone else and would be held back.” King explained.

“Not what I meant.” Alina stated coldly.

King was taken aback by her stare. He always thought that Alina was the calmer of the two, yet her glare at him was one of a thoughtless and indiscriminate killer, almost like she would kill him just for annoying her.

“When did this happen?” King thought to himself.

“Even when she was annoyed in the past, it was always Drake who gave off the killing intent. Alina always kept her cool, but she just lost it there.” He finished his thought.

“What I meant was why two man teams are rare. We can move faster, and quieter as a two man team.” Alina explained.

“Correct and incorrect at the same time. While yes two man teams can move quicker, and they are the best option for missions where time and stealth is of the essence, having a backup two man team close by, or performing a second job greatly increases success rates in missions, but a six or eight man team becomes too large and coordination becomes difficult. So we have found that a four man team works the best. There are exceptions though, usually for V.I.P protection, and depending on how much they are willing to pay, smaller two man teams or larger six or eight man teams are brought in.” King explained.

“But in your case, not only would you two not help your teammates; you might actually enjoy watching them struggle. Thus you are completely negating any benefit to having other teammates, and are in fact hurting your chances for success. So you will work as a two man team only.” King finished his explanation.

“That’s fine. Wha’da we gata do?” Drake asked lazily.

“Since you guys are both at the end of the cat tails and are almost fox tails, you guys will be the spearhead of the Russian force. They will mainly be dealing with ordinary human soldiers so they shouldn’t cause you much trouble. But expect to encounter other GenOpS that aren’t distracted by our own GenOpS, and that is why you two will be joining them. There will be other GenOpS teams in the main force, but you will be the spearhead, engaging the enemy first before the main force comes in. Your combat ability far exceeds your tail ranking, and your combined powers exceed those of most other teams.” King explained as he passed the two a folder with the mission description and orders.

“I know you guys are under eighteen but should you pull this off, and with your power it won’t be very difficult, the job will pay very well.” King explained.

This was the first time the two had even heard of being paid in a long time. They remember Jeff saying something about money a while ago, but they weren’t sure how or when they would start getting paid.

“But after this you will receive more jobs and we will no longer provide you with anything. You will have to pay for your own living expenses and anything else you may want.” King finished.

This kind of shocked the two. They weren’t expecting that at all, and had no idea of what to even do. So they figured they would ask Gabby and Will for help after the mission. King then dismissed them and they went to pack their stuff. On the way back to the room Alina decided to change things up, and try to help Drake figure things out. So instead of clinging to his arm as she usually does, she this time grabbed his hand and leaned against him. It was new for Drake, but it still fit into Alina’s normal behavior. As long as she is close to him, she is fine and happy. So to Drake it didn’t make the slightest difference, and he continued walking normally.

“You are a friggin idiot!” Alina said in anger after a few minutes of no change.

Now Drake was confused. He didn’t do anything wrong, yet she was calling him an idiot.

“You can't even get simple clues! You are a fuckin’ idiot!” She yelled at him.

Some random GenOpS heard the yelling and walked over to see what was happening. When she got to Alina and Drake she saw Alina yelling at Drake, and Drake looking confused.

“Yo, you gata treat yur girl better, or this be the consequence.” She said with a weird accent.

“But she’s…” Drake started.

“Right! Help me get this block head to understand!” Alina cut him off.

“Get me to understand what?!” Drake said getting annoyed.

Alina looked at Drake with teary eyes. Now Drake felt bad for getting annoyed.

“To understand that I love you!” Alina said on the verge of balling.

The other GenOpS, now feeling really awkward, tried to sneak away inconspicuously and succeeded. Drake was completely taken aback by the sudden news from Alina. In his heart he was happy though, and now he knew she felt the same way he did. Alina started to sniffle and started to say something but before she could get anything out, Drake lifted her head and kissed her. She was shocked at first, but after a few seconds of being tense, she relaxed and kissed back. A few tense seconds later they split apart, both completely red in the face. Not really too sure what to say, they just awkwardly looked at each other, then looked away.

“I guess we should… uuummmm… get some rest before tomorrow?” Drake said unsure of what else to say.

“We have our mission orders, maybe we should pack our gear first?” Alina suggested.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

She then handed over the orders to Drake that basically said what Doctor King had said. When the signal is given, spearhead the attack on the enemy’s main force while the other, more powerful GenOpS deal with the stronger forces. This should help them gain some experience in all forms of combat, and even better if they can fight other GenOpS. As a team they would be very difficult to deal with.

“All I need are my swords, my Temooras, and my MissionStatement.” Drake proclaimed proudly.

“How would you know dumb ass? The most we have ever fought was six humans at one time. Now we have to take on an entire army. It would be best to set up a sabotage to kill off as many as possible, then once a group has gathered, pick off as many as possible with high caliber weapons and then slaughter the rest when they get into close quarters… if they ever get into close quarters.” Alina explained.

Drake was amazed. On the spot like that, she came up with a calm, albeit basic, plan using what would be provided, or what they could make. In the orders it was also mentioned they would be given just a little over eight thousand ruble for expenses and items they may need, including bullets, the materials needed to make the explosives, food, water and so on. As for weapons, if they wanted to upgrade, they would have to buy them on credit, whatever that is.

“What’s a ruble?” Drake asked.

Alina just shrugged. They also didn’t know what credit was. Since the programming only covered need to know info, survival and fighting techniques, physics to calculate different things, the math skills to calculate such things, and some basic human sociology to help them understand how their opponents will act. The couple was unaware of anything more advanced such as money and living expenses.

“We should probably hunt down Gabby or Will and see if they can fill us in on these things.” Alina suggested.

“Ssssooo just wait by one of their rooms?” Drake asked.

Alina just nodded her head and they walked to Wills room first since it was the closest. On the way to the room, Alina got curious about Drakes new tails. He now had nine of them, and she wondered how he suddenly grew four so quickly.

“Hey… how did you grow four tails already?” She asked him.

As usual, he had no idea what she was talking about, so he looked back to see that he now had nine tails with all of them having eight red rings around them.

“Woah!” Was all he could muster as he grabbed the new tails to make sure they were in fact real.

Alina just laughed at his simplistic response and waited for his answer.

“It must be because I somewhat learned to control the eye power when I was fighting that one girl… Man was she strong. I wonder how I survived.” He wondered aloud.

“You almost died moron.” Alina said.

“But you had heavily wounded her and so she wasn’t paying attention to me, or anyone, just you. And I managed to get the kill before she dealt your final blow.” Alina finished explaining.

But everything after that was fuzzy for Alina too. She couldn’t remember what happened after, or how she ended up in the hospital, or how Drake had survived. She had thought he was dead, and that was where her memory had cut off.

“Huh… Well thank you.” Drake said with a big smile as he stopped walking to give her a big hug.

“Anyway, you can control the power now?” Alina asked restarting the conversation after an awkward silence.

“Kind of. I can turn it on and off at will, but apparently it isn’t at full power yet.” Drake explained.

“How do you know that?” Alina asked.

“That girl I was fighting said something along the lines of that it was only half awoken, and that eye powers are the real deal since they are not something you can train, but are born with. And during the fight, I was able to not only see her aura, but her internal energy so I could see how she was going to move before she actually moved.” Drake replied.

“How do you turn it on?” Alina asked genuinely curious.

“I don’t know. It feels like I focus my energy on my eyes, though I can only focus it on my right eye right now, so maybe that’s why she said it was only half awoken.” Drake replied.

“Huh… Wonder if the other energy was your complete power. But how could she tell?” Alina asked.

Drake just shrugged. He had no idea how she could tell.

“Let me see!” Alina demanded.

Drake knew he wouldn’t win the fight, so he reluctantly showed her. He stopped, closed his eyes, and focused his energy on his eyes. When he opened them, Alina gasped.

“What?!” He asked her.

“Your right eye… It’s… It’s not silver anymore.” She replied stunned.

“What do you mean?” he asked her back.

“It’s now blood red instead of silver. Well the color of your eyes are, the whites are still… well white.” She replied.

Hearing that amused Drake. Now he wanted to see what his eyes looked like, but when he looked at Alina he noticed her aura was weird. It was unstable, shifting around rapidly, and it was black. Not just any kind of black, but an evil, bone chilling kind of black. And it was also huge, even compared to other GenOpS. And that made Drake want to see his own too. He wondered what the different colors meant but he figured he would learn in time.

The rest of the walk was quiet with the couple walking hand in hand. They had a lot they wanted to say, but didn’t really know how to say it. When they got to Will’s room, they knocked on the door. And when no one answered, they sat down and rested a bit. They were both still exhausted from earlier, and fell asleep leaning against each other. Only a half hour later, Gabby and Will returned to the room to see Alina and Drake sleeping outside the door. They thought it was cute and carried the two into the room and laid them down on the sofas. Within a few minutes however, Alina had a nightmare and jumped awake. In a panic she screamed, only to relax after seeing Drake sleeping on the sofa next to her. Relieved she fell back asleep and started a light snore within seconds.

Gabby and Will were just shocked at the whole event, and couldn’t understand her thought process or reasoning. They thought that if she was a human before, she had to have already been messed up in the head to be this bad after the genetic alteration that should calm or eliminate any defects. But in a way, they were used to it, and nothing could be as bad as what they had seen just a few days ago with her clawing her face off.

After a cup of coffee, Gabby and Will woke the two up since they had to get ready for the battle. Drake was groggy and half asleep when they woke him up and it took him a little while to realize where he was, Alina though was up and ready to rock from the get go.

“So why are you here?” Gabby asked the two.

“Well we have a lot of questions about things that weren’t explained to us…” Drake said in a still groggy tone.

“Like what?” Will asked.

“What are rubles and credit? How are we paid for missions, and what do we need to do now that we will have to start buying everything?” Alina asked bluntly.

Gabby and Will just looked at each other in confusion.

“They never explained those things to you?” Gabby asked shocked

Drake yawned and shook his head.

“They never explained anything to us, other than that we will start receiving missions and we will have to pay for our own stuff now, and in the report it said that if we do not have money for weapons we have to get them on credit.” Alina explained.

Gabby and Will were just wide eyed at the situation. How do they expect anyone to do anything, if they have no idea what they need to do?

“Well first, ruble is money. It is what you use to buy things like weapons, food, housing and stuff. Credit is a loan of money that you have to pay back. But you two are more than powerful enough as five tails to handle this mission without any weapons other than what you already have. And lastly, once you get paid, find an apartment to rent out like we do here to live in, and use the leftover money to buy food to eat and stuff. We will be more than happy to help you guys out when you get back.” Will explained calmly.

“Well we actually can’t do this mission without some ammo at the least. Way too many people to fight.” Alina started.

“Aaaannnddd secondly, Drake here has nine tails now” She finished.

Both Gabby and Will leaned over to count Drakes tails and sure enough he had nine and was pretty close to having a fox tail.

“Wha… How?” Will asked shocked.

“I somewhat learned how to….” Drake started.

“Wait can I look into your mirror real quick?!” He asked with excitement.

Surprised by the sudden outburst of energy from the lethargic Drake, the two just simply nodded and pointed to the mirror behind him. Happy with the answer, Drake jumped over the sofa and looked into the mirror; he focused on his eye again and watched it change from silver to blood red like Alina had said. He also saw his aura, but it was totally colorless. He saw a shifting over his right eye, but no color or anything. But when he looked at Gabby, she had a warm and comforting yellow color. And when he looked at Will, he had a bright and brilliant white aura.

“You… have an eye power?” Will asked surprised.

“Yep, I can see auras and energy.” Drake explained.

“Is that all? And why is only one eye affected?” Gabby asked.

Drake just shrugged.

“I dono. When I was fighting that one girl, I was able to read her movements for a while, but then she started to move her aura on its own or something and it completely threw me off. But she said the same thing, that it was only half awakened. But then I was able to see a different energy that she didn’t change so even when she manipulated her aura, I could still see what she was going to do.” Drake answered excited.

“Do you really know how to control it?” Gabby asked.

“I focus my energy on my eye and it activates. And when I looked in the mirror I saw that my aura was focused around my eye, so I guess I use that to activate it.” Drake replied.

“Correct. But that also means you are doing it wrong too. When you activate your ability, your aura should return to normal after activation, otherwise you can’t use it for more advanced fighting techniques.” Gabby explained.

“Whad’ya you mean?” Drake asked intrigued.

“There are advanced fighting techniques, the ones you guys where supposed to start in a week, that use your aura, or energy, bloodlust, whatever you want to call it to confuse your enemies. That Gold Ridge you fought was using it against you as well, and people who have eye powers like yours or energy sensitivity are especially susceptible to these techniques. But even people who don’t have such powers can be fooled by them.” Gabby explained farther.

“Aaahh I get it… kinda…” Drake said with some confusion.

Then it hit him. He himself gained four tails just learning to somewhat control his power, yet Gabby seems to have a great knowledge of the techniques. If she herself is able to use them, then why is she not more powerful?

“If you only have three tails, how do you know about these then? I gained four tails just from half-assed knowledge of them.” Drake questioned.

“I never said what kind of tails I have.” Gabby replied.

Drake just looked at Alina for some kind of clue as to what she meant, but Alina was just as lost and in deep thought, so she didn’t notice Drake.

“I have fox tails you moron.” She said getting annoyed at Drakes stupidity.

Alina’s and Drake’s mouth just dropped to the floor with shock. All this time they had been completely underestimating her. But it all made sense now, when she was fighting the Gold Ridge, she didn’t have a scratch on her, but she also had no weapons and was trying to protect Will who was seriously wounded at the time. The list of things that would seem odd, but they passed off as experience just kept piling up.

“Wait so you were in on hiding her true power then weren’t you Will?” Alina asked.

He nodded in agreement.

“You don’t piss off your lover; even more when she is several times stronger than you.” He said in a laughing manner.

That only served to get him a punch in the arm, but once Gabby realized she punched one of Will’s still recovering wounds, she quickly apologized.

“Well anyway guys. Your mission is simple. You are giving normal humans too much credit, and with your eye powers Drake, your mission will be easy. Explosives will help for destroying the structures or setting up traps, so if you need or want some, me and Will have plenty we can share with you, but again, you're giving humans too much credit, your skills are more than enough to dispatch most of the army without any kind of subterfuge.” Gabby started.

“And when you two return, I will show you both how to control your auras.” She finished.

Hearing that made Alina and Drake really happy, though, they figured they should run it by Jeff just in case he had any plans to teach them himself. The two said thanks, and left to return to their room. It was now ten at night and they had to be up and ready to go in just under six hours. Will said he would meet up with them before they shipped off to give them their explosives they would borrow. And with that they happily walked back to their room. They packed some cooler clothes, their weapons, and some ammo for their guns they did have on them. For Drake, he just has a pair of Temoora 2020 .45 semi-auto pistols and the MissionStatement, a unique rail sniper rifle that fires a special .50 slug for insanely long distance shooting. Jeff had given him the rifle as a gift for perfecting the sniper marksman test by hitting the final target that was over a mile away dead center. He was hesitant on bringing the rifle, but he decided to bring it just in case. So he broke it down and packed in into its case. As for Alina, she has twin Ragnorak 945’s, a lightweight, reliable automatic .45 pistol, and the Ragnorak A10-R; an Assault Rifle that fires a .303 bullet that Jeff had given her for her perfect score in the rifleman’s test and being a second shy of setting a new record.

The two thought of how good Jeff has been to the them. He worked out individual training regiments for the two to strengthen their weaknesses, and improve their strengths. He always took them out for food after training, and every year he would give them both gifts on their ‘birthday’ or the day they both woke up from their tubes. All in all, he has always been there to help them, and that made them feel bad that they went to Gabby and Will for help. So they decided that if Jeff is capable of showing them how to use their aura to fight, they would stick with him. Especially since he knew the two better than Gabby or Will, he might be able to work out a better training for them.

It only took the couple an hour to pack all their weapons and gear for their mission, and they left room for the explosives Will was going to let them have. But after some discussion, they decided they wouldn’t really need them. They would be fighting up close and personal for much of this battle. But it was too late to contact him so they will just tell him in the morning. They decided on taking a nap once they finished packing. As Drake undressed to change he realized that many of the deep cuts and gashes he got from fighting that Gold Ridge had scarred up and now covered several different parts of his body. When Alina finished changing, she turned around to see Drake feeling some of his scars and saw that he had them even on his back.

“What, did you run away from her at some point?” She asked jokingly.

“Huh?” Drake asked not too sure what she was talking about.

“The scars on your back. Did you turn your back to her and get hit?” She said sarcastically.

She knew better, Drake would never turn his back to anyone and that the most likely reason for them is she took his back with her speed, or they are stabbing scars from her blades piercing completely through him.

“Not even!” He replied angrily.

“Her weapons were weird. They had strings attached to them, so they would swing around my body and stab me that way or they would completely stab through me.” He said before Alina could say anything.

Now Alina felt bad for messing with him too much.

“I’m sorry, I was only joking. I know you would never willingly give someone your back, and I saw you stabbed by your own blade. So I know what this scar is from.” She said as she walked up to Drake and touched the largest scar he had.

“Huh?” Drake asked wondering what she meant by that.

“This one is from your own sword. She stabbed you with your black sword and almost killed you.” Alina explained with a broken voice.

That was news to Drake. He remembered the fight for his sword but not how it ended. It made sense that the biggest scar on his body came from his sword, which is several times bigger than the daggers the gold ridge was using.

Drake snapped back to reality and realized Alina still hadn’t moved. She was still looking down touching his scar and was quietly crying, thinking of that image of Drake being impaled by his own sword.

“Hey it's ok.” Drake said calmly not realizing she was crying.

He brought her in for a hug and she held him tightly, face buried in his chest. Drake rested his chin on the top of her head and let her stay there until he realized she was crying. Not really too sure what to do, he lifted her up and brought her to the bed and laid down on his back with her laying on his chest. A few minutes later, he realized she had fallen asleep like that. He chuckled, rolled over so she was on her side, set an alarm and went into the other bed.