I did what I needed to do. Trillion Biggs, Ashley Sullivan, was told about the conference. Those who were around me, didn't want her to know about the press conference; but I went to her apartment two days ago, just to make sure she was aware of it. The tracking spell Witcher Cailie Wells used on me, to check my location, pinged back to her every half hour. I left the hook on my self as to not alarm her, just as she had left the hook of a similar spell attached to herself for the same reason.

For the third time, in as many days, the most powerful of magic society would be gathered. Only this time, it would be in front of cameras. I glanced at the monitors in the security room, and noticed the press hall was filling up quickly. Ms. Fern, and our new Wilder were present already, drawing a lot of attention from the other channels for her presence, and using this opportunity to get images on their channels of her without having to pay Channel 8 for the screen time, as an outing such as this was stated in the contract as 'fair use.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My hair was becomming annoying. The entire time on the ship, my hair hardly grew. Since Delana cut it, a few months ago, it has grown four and a half inches, and was getting in the way. The stylist Beth uses for her broadcasts, Trinity, worked on it for about twenty minutes today, and managed to make it look somewhat stylish for its current length, and she brought out the shine of the strands that are much brighter than my, otherwise, brown hair.

I sat down in the press room, and immediately realized that every camera was aimed at me, not the stage.

"Ms. Sullivan; would you mind if I asked a couple of questions?" a reporter I didn't know approached me, I looked at Beth.

"I can't interfere here. Since you are in a press room, they can use any image of you they get, and ask any questions of you they want; provided, you give permission beforehand. It's the fair use clause of the exclusivity contract." she says, her feelings on the subject were all over the place. I look back to the room of reporters, and give my desicion.

"I will answer only one question from each reporter, provided it is not a repeat, or rewording, of another question; and I will ignore any questions about Serindipity, or the events that occorued there, as I haven't finished discussing those things with Channel 8."

With my response being in the positive for some of these guys, a reporter from the public television station came forward to ask the first question; A refreshing baratone voice poured from the skinny man, making me wonder how his body could produce the sound.

"Mike Chamberlain, Intersystem Broadcasting Systems; What brought you here, a press conference from the Mage Society heads, it doesn't seem like something that coincides with where your talents were before the cruise?"

"Well, I am what magic society considers a Wilder, a person who has not studied any of the four diciplines, however has come to control magic to some degree. So when Channel 8 told me of this conference, I figured I should be here, instead of watching in my own home."  I answered somewhat cryptically. Because my status as a Wilder had not been released to the general public yet, several of the reporters were now discussing amongst themselves as to what questions to ask, as each reporter would only get one; as thats all I gave permission for.

"Alice Winters, Magi Magazine. Wern't you afraid that your Wilder status would get you forcibly enrolled into a dicipline?" an obviously novice reporter asked from behind me. Because the group of television reporters stopped talking, It was easy to guess one of them was about to ask that question, and were now releived that their question wouldn't be wasted on this.

"No." I answered while turning to face her. "While I was recovering from my injuries, each dicipline sent people to my room, once they were notified, to see if my particular talents fell within the way each group taught the use of magic. My methods do not align with any dicipline that sent visitors to me." I answered as truthfully as I could, and not lead myself to being questioned about the Planet Fall itself.

"Kyle Brishner, Channel 11; If I may, what have you been doing since the event that pushed you into the limelight; and are there any intentions of reclaiming your former name?" an older man jumped in as I finished the previous question.

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"Thats two questions, Mr. Brishner. choose one for me to answer, the other, I will not answer no matter who asks it now." I stated, firmly setting my foot down about the established rules.

"Ehm.... then, I would ask about your name." he replied, almost immediately getting jostled away from me as I answered.

"I am unsure, right now. When the litigations against my grandmother's former attourney are completed, I will revisit that question myself." I answered completely truthfully. As another reporter was going to ask me a question, the press secretary for the Magi Council walked on stage, making all the other reporters leave me for the time being.  As we took our seats, I leaned over to Beth, and whispered to her. "would you mind if I teleported out of here once the conference is completed?"

"Only if you take me with you." she grinned. "I don't want to deal with those sharks either. just because, I generally don't act as agressive as they did, doesn't mean I don't get what I want, I got exclusive rights to interview you after all."

"Gentlemen, and Ladies of the press." The press secretary called out, as the eight most promenant figures of the Magic Council stepped onto the stage behind him. "Today, the Council of Mages wishes to adress the members of the press directly. I will field questions after the announcements."

It was nearly thirty minutes of fluff-speaches from each of the people, along with drawn out introductions, and lists of accolades for each person, before the real reason for the meeting today was even broached. Dean was the person to announce the reasons. The loosening of the standards of the mid-level ranking exams was listed first, the removal of the ban on interdicipline daiting was second; to which the members of the press begain talking to one another quickly; it seemed the aged Wizard had epected the reaction, and waited for them to get quiet again, ignoring any questions thrown out to him.

That distraction paled in comparison to the uproar created by him announcing that the wilders would be, for the most part, left alone, on our planet for the forseeable future; provided they stay out of jail. and then it was my turn.

"How do you plan to give confidence to the Wilders, who wish to live openly, after this announcement?" Beth shouted above everyone.

"Ms. Fern;" Dean began, "your agency has tasked you with following a Wilder, have they not? Are you fearful of their presence? Do you worry for your safety, of the safety of your loved ones while around your charge?" he asked leadingly; obvious to everyone, was that he wanted no response from these questions.

"Who would represent the Wilder's viewpoint to your council?" I asked before he could continue, I then stood up. "How do those of us, who are Wilders, know you will keep good on your word to leave us be? Mage Society recives jobs as mages because of the backing of your council, and they recive fair wages because of that, how would a Wilder be able to take advantage of that, to be able to legally use their ability to earn a wage for their familes?" I rapid-fired questions until Witcher Wells stood up, and Dean's hand guesture waved her back down.

"All good questions; Wilder Biggs. since you broached these questions, surely you have a solution? I am familiar with your grandmother's mantra: know of a solution before pointing at problems in public."

"I have a couple of possible solutions, however none with favorable conditions for myself, or the council." I answered forcibly; all members of the press eerily quiet for the time being. I think they realize they were seeing history in the making here. "One solution would be to assign a member to the Grand Council whose sole purpose was to defend the positions of the Wilders, but this not only takes away power from the council members, it also removes the freedom of the Wilder who takes, or is appointed the position, thus no longer making them a Wilder, but a legitimate member of the magic society as a whole." I paused for a couple of seconds, and picked up a pad of paper that Beth had at the ready for me.

"Another possible solution would be to create a seperate school that taught every awakened mage the basics of each dicipline, before forcing them into one, in which the current rules state they would have to remain within the bounds of for the remainder of their lives. In this way, a set amount of control would be guaranteed to non-magic society from anyone who had attended these courses; and if an individual chose not to progress further along any dicipline, they were no longer mandated to, however they would also not have a say in publicly voted actions of the diciplines, nor would they be allowed to bennifit from the current systems set forth by each discipline."

As I flipped the page of the notepad, which was blank, I was asked to stop by Witcher Wells.

"Ms. Biggs; how many of these 'possible solutions' to the Wilder problem do you currently have?"

"About seventy." I answered. I made actions to look as though I was annoyed by her actions, and had every intention on continuing on to my next, as of yet imaginary, solution to the 'problem' of the Wilders; some of which had been tried in the past, and failed.

"Ms. Biggs; would you mind discussing those ideas with this council in private?" she asked.

"I would mind." I said flatly. "I am one of those Wilders, that you speak of; and I have no intention of secluding myself in a room with 8 of the most powerful mages on this planet. I will do this in public, or not at all." she looked as though she was going to interrupt, so I ended at almost a shout, "or, do you plan on forcing this Wilder into one of the diciplines in public, showing a public retraction of the policiy you just announced?" I tightened Dean's noose.

The room fell silent. it seemed everyone realized my true purpose here: to challenge the Grand Council of Mages.