“A plan?” Sylas asked.

“Yes. This obviously went disastrously. We need a plan or we’ll be either captured or killed.”

“What did you have in mind?” he asked as he crossed his arms.

“First of all, we need allies. Compared to most ithrax, we are weak and honestly, I don’t understand how we won that last fight. I don’t remember it but it feels like they should’ve sent a more experienced group. We won’t be able to keep getting away with that.”

“We’re not weak!” he retorted. “There were six of them and we won.”

“That’s strange. Not even talking about our individual capabilities, there’s no way on Jowy we should have won that. Regardless, we can’t rely on victory against future ithrax cells. We are a small cell of three, including me, and they were a larger team and yet we somehow won. In the future, they’ll undoubtedly send stronger teams. By ourselves, we don’t stand a chance.”

“Well what do you want us to do? Suddenly grow another member?!” he demanded.

“No, of course not. We need to find allies.”

“How will that help?” She gave him an incredulous look before considering it.

“If The Academy gets serious and sends out their powerful teams, it may not help. Not unless we plan on starting a war or something like that. And if we do that, who knows how many nations will back up The Academy. No, fighting is not how we survive. In our case, allies will provide us information and help us hide ourselves. Just a few people would already help as The Academy will not focus on them like they would us. That would allow for higher levels of misdirection that we can’t achieve on our own.”

“And if we get a large group like an organization or something, we could use their resources,” Sylas finished.

“Exactly.” Sylas’ face, which had turned hopeful soured.

“And how do you propose that?” Sylas asked dryly. Helianna paused for a moment, wondering what had happened during the battle. Sylas was still being difficult, but didn’t seem quite as hostile as she remembered.

“First off, do you have any allies that we can use? Family? Other relevant connections?” Sylas gave her a flat look.

“Unlike you nulls, the rest of us ithrax were discovered and taken when we were much younger. I don’t know anyone outside The Academy aside from my parents and I don’t remember them well.”

“How? How did they know who you were from so young?” Helianna asked.

“Aside from the nulls, ithrax inherently know where each other are. And when we’re little kids, we naturally try to find each other, often putting ourselves in danger in the process. You seriously didn’t know this?”

She ignored his question.

“Alright, so that’s out. The man from the caravan could possibly be willing to help. This would be a lot to ask of him, but he seems like the kind of man that has lots of connections so he might be able to help even if he doesn’t want to get involved himself.”

“Are you kidding me?” asked Sylas derisively. “You talked to him, what? Three times? Four? That’s a terrible idea. He won’t help us. That’s a terrible plan.”

“You don’t understand. Wulvinians help each other.”

“Not that much. I don’t care what you think was going on with him or your people or whatever. Nobody is willing to take on the world after talking to someone a couple times.”

“It is a last resort.”

“Fine,” Sylas snapped. “I sure as hell hope you have a better idea.”

She thought for a few moments. Two things immediately came to mind. The first was the strange man in green armor that she’d met on her first assassination mission. He had been unusual, containing unique detection technology and had clearly tried to get her to question The Academy. He was what first caused her to start doubting The Academy on that mission. She remembered something about him belonging to some other organization and simply being hired out but she couldn’t remember any details. She had no clue how to contact him or his people so that was out of the question. The next that came to mind was the city that she had rescued Sylas and Isela in.

“I do have an idea,” she said hesitantly.

“Well, out with it.”

“You won’t like it,” she warned.

“Hard to be worse than your last idea.”

“It’s the place you got captured and I had to rescue you.”

“What?! What about that damn city?!” he nearly shouted.

“They were against The Academy. And they had an incredible level of technology.”

“It doesn’t matter! They were trying to kill us!”

“Yes, but not because of you guys. They were anti-Academy, not necessarily anti-ithrax. At least that’s the understanding that I had. They were mad about their technology being suppressed.”

“Oh, because a team of ithrax that they already tried to execute coming back for help will totally work.”

“There will most definitely be intense moments, but I think we can convince them. They’re desperate to get out from under The Academy. What better tool than former Academy members that turned against them?”

“And if we can’t convince them?” he demanded. “Then we’re dead.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Not necessarily. One of us can be outside the city so if they kill or capture the rest of us, the people inside can die and whoever is outside won’t. Of course we won’t know what happened inside, but it will keep us safe.”

“It’s still on the other side of the world! We just made the massive trip here and you want us to go back?”

“It will make us slightly unpredictable, hopefully. It’s harder to track people over sea than it is over land.”

“That means we’ll be spending multiple weeks over the ocean again. You’ll have to deal with seasickness again.” He smirked slightly.

“I’m trying to not think about that.” Sylas rolled his eyes.

“This is a stupid idea. We’re wasting so much time on the ocean.”

“Maybe it is,” Helianna remarked. “But it will hopefully get them off our trail and it’s for something beneficial. Besides, do you have any better ideas?”

He pursed his lips, trying to think of something. After a solid minute of silence with Helianna staring at him pointedly, he made an annoyed grunt.

“The only thing I can think of is going towards the island continents. The communities may be smaller, but trying to send teams after us would be much more difficult.”

“We’d have to sail again anyways for that. That also sounds miserable and if they do send a team after us, then our escape routes are limited. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Sylas grumbled in response, but acquiesced.

“Fine.”

“We should leave as soon as possible, then.”

“What? Why?” Sylas demanded.

“Because we don’t know how far away other teams are and we don’t need to put a bigger target on these people’s backs.”

“A day or two won’t matter. It takes a month to travel to this continent, at least. There’s no way they can get someone here in just a couple days.”

“Unless they already had people on the way or nearby. We have no idea on the true scope of The Academy’s resources,” she explained.

“Oh come on, it’s not like they have strike teams hiding across the world or something. Stop being paranoid.”

“Well, I have a question for you. What do you think my role was? Why did I rescue you as a null?”

“Well, you’re just a separate agent. A tagalong unit for when your nullification is useful.”

“Wrong. Did you wonder why I had a disguise? My job was an assassin. Nobody was supposed to know my name or my face, not even my allies. My guess is that I never even knew my instructor’s true face. I have no idea how far-reaching it is, but The Academy is not above using subterfuge. Much of the public displays they have are just for show. I don’t know their reach, but it’s more it seems. There’s no way I was unique or special to them. Think about it.”

He glared at her for a few moments before looking away, chewing his lip as he thought.

“Why are you so opposed to this?”

“Why? You’re asking why?!” His face was only inches away from her as he screamed out of nowhere.

“You’re asking why I’m so opposed to this?! You’re asking me to go back to a place that captured me, beat me, and then planned to execute me. I had to be rescued!”

She leaned away before gently pushing him back as he fumed.

“Alright. I get it. You don’t have to go. As I said, someone has to stay back and that can be you. If it bothers both of you, then I can go in on my own. How does that sound?”

Sylas narrowed his eyes, feeling as if he were being looked down on and Helianna could tell that he could blow up at any moment.

“I’ll give you some time to think about it. I’m going to go talk to my mom.” She immediately beat a hasty retreat, not wanting to deal with Sylas. Despite being less hostile than before, he was still clearly antagonistic towards her.

She walked towards the temporary shelter and as she got closer, she clearly saw a large-scale meeting occurring in the center of it. Easily half the people that had been living at the shelters, with her mother at the head, were there. Not wanting to interrupt or distract her mother from the meeting, she decided to wait by one of the shelters until they were done, eavesdropping instead. Only catching the tail-end of the meeting, she realized they were voting on something. And whatever it was, they were almost unanimous in their support. Her mother announced that they’d meet again the next day for the initial decision, whatever that meant, and that they were done.

Conversation then started amongst the people staying and she realized it was just socializing as opposed to conversation about the meeting. She walked up to her mother, who smiled sadly at her.

“When are you leaving?” Jana asked.

“I don’t know. Soon. Probably tomorrow morning if I had to guess. Sylas needs to come around. He’s being stubborn, so I’m leaving him to think about it. What was that meeting about?”

“Honestly, nothing. It was basically just about me getting some people to step forward to help lead this mass of people. It helps calm everyone down in a situation like this when people step forward like that. It helps reduce the panic and makes it easier to direct their anger.”

“So what were you guys voting on?” Jana rolled her eyes.

“Getting people to step up is important, but in this case, some of them let the leadership get to their head. Basically, we just decided that we’re going to let the people decide their future instead of these so-called leaders.”

“It sounds like you’re back at square one. And where do you come in in this situation?” Helianna asked.

“Well for now, I’m just trying to get people to calm down. Considering the quality of people that are stepping up, I may take a more active role.”

“And what’s your plan?”

“I’m not sure yet. But I’m probably going to take some people and leave this place.” She gave Helianna a worried look. “Given what you’ve told me, I don’t trust The Academy not to send people here to try to obtain information from who stays. I don’t want to be here for that.”

“Do the townsfolk know enough to help The Academy?” Helianna asked with a cold voice that sent a shiver up her mother’s spine. To Jana, it sounded almost like Helianna was considering their knowledge a threat to eliminate.

“No!” her mother said slightly more forcefully than intended. “No. All they know is some basic information that The Academy would already have on you.

“Alright. How many do you think will go with you?”

“Well. That’s the point of the meeting tomorrow.”

“When do you think you are all going to leave?” Her mother sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

“Probably not for a while. It takes time to deal with the logistics of moving the amount of people that we’re going to move. And people are slow.”

Helianna grunted her acknowledgement and they fell into silence for a few moments before her mother spoke again.

“Do you guys have what you need for traveling? I know you have a carriage, but do you have any bedrolls? Cooking-ware?

“Mom.”

“Wait, you’re probably going to need new clothes, aren’t you? But you can buy that. You can buy all of that.”

“Mom.”

“Do you have the money for it? Oh! Do you have a mercenary license with JWAW? That could help you quite a bit in travel and if you need to make some money.”

“Mom!” Helianna lightly yelled as she grabbed her mother’s shoulders. “It’s okay. We’ve done this before. We got this.”

“I know, I know. I just can’t help it,” Jana replied as she pulled Helianna into a hug. “I’m your mother. I can’t help but worry, especially now that I know what’s going on. And I want to help in any way I can.”

“I know, mom.” Helianna smiled just slightly as she pulled away. “You just can’t resist being a mama-bear.” Her mother chuckled.

“You always used to call me that when I was being overly-motherly to you. You sure you don’t need something?”

“We’re out of money but-” Helianna started hesitantly.

“I’ve got plenty of money I can give you. We did pretty well saving up all these years.”

“Are you sure you-”

“Of course I’m sure! I can’t fight off The Academy for you and I may not be able to be there in person for you, but I can at least fund your efforts!”

Helianna sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be helpful. We currently have nothing in terms of money.”

“Well, I can help. I’ll actually go work on that right now. Pretty sure I’m not going to be the only one withdrawing money right now.”

“You don’t have to…” Helianna started, but her mother was already gone, desperate to help Helianna in any way she could. “...right now.”