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  "description": "Book 5 in the Raven Wolf series.\n\n[i]Due to human negligence the world as we know it has ended and been reborn. The animal spirits that guide man giving them the forms of animals so that they would be able to survive in this new wilderness. Though now carrying the form of beasts man has not forgotten the place they once had, as an existence greater then just what nature wanted of them, an existence above all.\n\nThose that worked to gain their humanity are known as domestics, while those who wished to follow the rolls the spirits had given them were known as wilds. Both groups grew arrogant and hateful of one another, the wilds saw the domestics as selfish monsters, for they were returning to the ways that had once destroyed the world, while the domestics saw the wilds as primitive beings afraid of progress, they no better than wild animals.\n\nThe raven and the wolf spirits grew tired of the destruction and fighting, and sided with the wilds in their ideals, the domestics only capable of further destroying nature. In their anger they marked a tribe of wilds with a curse, they being removed from the sacred circle of life, unable to hunt or grow their own food, their souls never able to move on while their bodies are unable to return to the earth when they died. The curse upon them only broken once the domestics are gone once and for all. The cursed tribe now known to all by the name of the spirits whom cursed them. ‘Raven Wolf'[/i]\n\nNote: Last chapter to book 5 =)",
  "description_bbcode_parsed": "<span style='word-wrap: break-word;'>Book 5 in the Raven Wolf series.<br /><br /><em>Due to human negligence the world as we know it has ended and been reborn. The animal spirits that guide man giving them the forms of animals so that they would be able to survive in this new wilderness. Though now carrying the form of beasts man has not forgotten the place they once had, as an existence greater then just what nature wanted of them, an existence above all.<br /><br />Those that worked to gain their humanity are known as domestics, while those who wished to follow the rolls the spirits had given them were known as wilds. Both groups grew arrogant and hateful of one another, the wilds saw the domestics as selfish monsters, for they were returning to the ways that had once destroyed the world, while the domestics saw the wilds as primitive beings afraid of progress, they no better than wild animals.<br /><br />The raven and the wolf spirits grew tired of the destruction and fighting, and sided with the wilds in their ideals, the domestics only capable of further destroying nature. In their anger they marked a tribe of wilds with a curse, they being removed from the sacred circle of life, unable to hunt or grow their own food, their souls never able to move on while their bodies are unable to return to the earth when they died. The curse upon them only broken once the domestics are gone once and for all. The cursed tribe now known to all by the name of the spirits whom cursed them. &lsquo;Raven Wolf&#039;</em><br /><br />Note: Last chapter to book 5 =)</span>",
  "writing": "[b]Chapter Twenty One[/b]\n\nMort watches Alistair as he searches the streets near the Cadrey museum, the Captain has  not been able to talk him out of pursuing his target and leaving the city. He turns away from him for a moment to look over the rain drenched city, never having seen Cordella in such a frighteningly pitiful state.\n\n“Louis Mort.” Mort turns to the road upon hearing his name being called, a jeep comes to a stop near him, Marshal Williams steps out of the vehicle to speak with him. “What are you still doing in the city? I thought you were keeping an eye on that intelligence model until he recovered, you should be out of the city along with him by now.”\n\nMort explains the situation. “Vaan discovered the location of another Super Soldier, I went to retrieve him.” He looks over to Alistair who is now searching through his surroundings for clues regarding the direction he wants to go in, the two of them are now near the Cadrey family museum. “He is heavily wounded and his performance is suffering because of it but he will not leave the city, he is too focused on finding his target.”\n\nThe large bull laughs as he crosses his arms. “So you’re keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed. That’s cute.”\n\nMort gives his superior an annoyed frown. “Don’t mock me.”\n\nWilliams shrugs his shoulders. “Why would I make fun of you, you’re performing your task as a babysitter excellently.”\n\nMort ignores the comment looking from Williams over to Alistair. “Did you find out anything about the targets at the museum? It would help him out if you could share what you learned.”\n\nWilliams crosses his arms, there is nothing of interest at that location. “None of the targets were there when we arrived, though that’s no surprise seeing as reports of them have been popping up from the North of the city, meaning that they’ve already took their leave long before my men and I got there.” He continues it not as if they have found nothing though. “There was evidence that they were staying at that location. The Cadrey family denies knowing anything about it but I’m not going to waste any more time on them, the targets will just get further and further away if I do. Judging from the reports I suspect they are heading to the north exit of the city, perhaps they’ve even already left as the soldiers are more focused on getting people out of the city and may not have been able to recognize them as people we need to keep in.”\n\nHe glances over to Alistair, the super soldier stops his search for a moment to stare back at him, Williams is still speaking to Mort as he watches Alistair. “When you’re done with him, I want you on the search and rescue team. It’s painfully clear at this point that we’ve lost this city, so we need to remove everyone from it to prevent any more casualties than there have already been.” He turns back to Mort continuing his orders. “If you find anyone take them to the recovery camps that have been set up outside of the city. The outside Terrain militaries will be sending reinforcements this way soon, also expect to see the Avian’s send another General to clear up the diplomatic mess the falling ships have caused, although this is only speculation of course, who knows if there are any members of the Avian military left, from the information that we have received from them so far their ships dropping out of the sky seems to have been a worldwide phenomenon.”\n\nMort is uncomfortable with this information. “Why send another General if their entire army is facing this very serious problem? Has something happened to General Jovina?”\n\n“Shortly before the Avian’s ships started falling, General Jovina caught her target but as they were preparing him for transport he made an attempt on her life. She is currently in critical condition and is unable to take control over the soldiers that remain. The fact that our medical staff is trying to deal with an entire city of wounded and half dead people that need help is not making things any better for her.”\n\nMort is about to say something when a violent tremor interrupts him and throws him off balance, the whole city shaking as several already weak buildings begin to topple to the ground.\n\nAlistair turns to see several pillars of earth rise from the ground in the distance. “That must be the Earth Source I’ve been hearing so much about.” He immediately starts to head in the direction of the disturbance, the Earth Source is a target that the True Bloods would definitely be after, no doubt he would find Levi there.\n\nWilliams gets Mort’s attention before he is able to follow Alistair. “There’s been a change of plans, you’re coming with me.”\n\nMort frowns, it is clear at this point that Williams does not want him to go near the strange disturbance. “You expect me to just ignore something like that?”\n\nWilliams nods his head. “You will do as you’re told, is that not what you were trained to do?”\n\nAlistair glances back towards Mort there is no need for him to get in trouble over his behalf. “I can deal with this on my own, Captain. I don’t need you babysitting me.” He runs ahead, quickly running in the direction of the rising earth.\n\nMort yells after him. “You can’t handle this on your own you’re going to get yourself killed if you try!” Williams grabs onto Mort’s arm, preventing him from following the Super Soldier, Mort bares his teeth at Williams. “Why are you holding me back?! What is out there that you do not want me to see?”\n\n “The situation is bigger and more complex than you could possibly imagine, it would be much better for someone such as yourself to stay out of it.”\n\n“What kind of information is so important to be kept from me that I am demoted from my position and thrown into the dark as so that I do not discover it? What is so unique about me that makes me unqualified to know what others of my former ranking already knew even when I was still among them?!”\n\nWilliams chooses not to explain himself. “You can come with me obediently or I can have you arrested and taken out of the city by force. I would go with the first option if you do not wish to sully your reputation within the military any further than your incompetence has already brought you. It’s your choice.”\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nThe earth shakes violently as it raises from the ground, breaking through the cement and causing buildings to topple, soldiers and civilians alike are running and scrambling to try and avoid being caught up in the attacks.\n\nGeneral Bourne watches the landscape as it twists and distorts, the city almost unrecognizable anymore, he glances back toward General Dmitri “Are you even attacking anyone or are you just flailing about hoping to hit him?”\n\nDmitri lets out a snarl as he swings his arm forward, another stalagmite of earth piercing through the streets and rising high into the air. “He’s difficult to spot, the rain gives him away when he stands within it so he avoids the rain when he can, making those moments of visibility brief.”\n\nBret lets out a terrified scream when earth tears apart the city buildings once again, his whole body is soaked through as he shivers in both fear and from the cold rain.\n\nTahki moves next to the boy, keeping as low to the ground as possible to avoid being seen, she places her hand on his shoulder as she speaks softly to him to get his attention. “You need to come with me, if we don’t get out of here you’re going to end up getting killed.”\n\nBourne glances back towards Bret, spotting the woman that has come to get him. “So what about the kid? What are you going to do with him?”\n\nDmitri’s eye catches a glimpse of movement from Levi, he throws another attack forward in response to it. “The boy is of no concern to me.”\n\nBourne nods his head understanding the logic in that. “What about the Super Soldier he’s with?”\n\nDmitri quickly turns around spotting Tahki, the earth raises around the two and circles  them, Tahki grabs onto Bret with her good arm and taking him with her as she quickly moves, climbing her way out of the walls that have been forming around them and escaping the prison that Dmitri had been on the verge of making.\n\nGeneral Dmitri is about to throw another attack at her when he is hit in the arm with two projectiles, Dmitri lets out a threatening growl as he reaches back pulling out the metal darts that have hit him. This type of ammunition is used to knock out targets. “Just great.” He looks over toward General Bourne it's pretty clear that he has to deal with Levi before anything else. “Get her while I deal with the True Blood.”\n\n“Why? She’s not my target.”\n\n“It’s very likely she does have information on your target. It is in your best interest to subdue her.”\n\nBourne turns towards her. “That’s good enough reason for me.”\n\nTahki places Bret on the ground motioning for him to run. “Get out of the area, if you stay here you’ll be in danger.”\n\nBret looks reluctant to leave. “I don’t want to be alone!” He lets out a terrified scream when several shots are fired in their direction, Tahki avoids the bullets as simply as any Super Solider would, she now turns from the boy and towards the threat.\n\nThe young wolverine reluctantly turns away from her and begins running, he didn’t know what to do or where to go, all he knows what that he doesn't want to be here.\n\nTahki lifts her hand towards Bourne, motioning for him to come and attack her. “I’m going to require a less ranged approach.”\n\nBourne lowers his gun as he bares his teeth while letting out a laugh, even if she was a Super Soldier she is still clearly wounded, a broken arm, gashes in her flesh, bruises, in fact she looks like she is hardly able to stay standing for much longer. “No one lasts long against me when I get up close and personal, are you sure that’s how you want to play the game?”\n\nTahki doesn’t let his cocky attitude get to her. “I hope you’re right, it would be rude of you to get my hopes up like that for nothing.”\n\nBourne lets out a bellowing yell as he rushes forward to attack her, Tahki preparing for the advance, leaping forward to attack him as well, the two meet and exchang blows.\n\nBret runs as fast as he can through the streets, his leg catching onto some rubble and tripping him bringing the young boy to the ground with a surprised scream.\n\nThe young wolverine begins to sob as he pushes himself from the ground, his whole body is shaking from the cold wet rain. He looks down to his leg, blood runs from it and onto the ground, Bret has cut himself deeply on the debris he has tripped over, the pain seems to grow the longer he looks at the large gash in his leg.\n\nHe crawls over to a building sitting down next to it in an attempt to keep dry, sobbing loudly as he curls up hugging his legs. He is scared, hurt and alone, and he doesn't know where to go or what to do.\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nDmitri scans the area around him for any signs of his opponent, his vision starts to slightly blur in and out of focus. He lets out an irritated growl as he lightly shakes his head, placing the palm of his hand against his forehead.\n\n“Getting tired big guy?”\n\nDmitri reacts to the voice, pillars of earth rise from the ground and fill the area he thinks the voice have come from. Levi though is not hit by the attack as he continues to speak to Dmitri in his mocking tone. “You’re done for, you realize that don’t you?”\n\nDmitri continues to search his surroundings. “You’re rather cocky for someone about to be killed by me.”\n\n“You can’t even find me even to land a blow, not even with the help of all this rain! How do you expect to kill me?” He lets out a laugh. “Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t be fully prepared to deal with something like you?”\n\nDmitri holds his ground, not moving from his position. “I’m not alone, I can have soldiers here to aid me in no time.”\n\n“Go ahead and call them why don’t you? It looks to me like you need the help.” Dmitri doesn’t react to the suggestion, Levi is not surprised. “I didn’t think so, if you call them here that means you wouldn’t be able to use your powers, and what would your chances be against me if you couldn’t do that?”\n\n“You’re only human. Not much is needed to crush you.”\n\nLevi lets out a loud laugh at the comment. “Only human? I am a pure and untainted True Blood. An elite in both combat and status, I am superior even among my own people in every way you can imagine! What chance does a mere animal have against the likes of me? Even one as unique as you...”\n\nThe earth surrounding Dmitri begins to rise, lifting from the ground and hurling towards the area Levi is currently in, Levi taking a different weapon he had on him, points and fires a barrage of bullets at the pillars of earth before they hit him as he quickly makes his way to safety, the bullets hit and dig into the stone, they stay there for only a moment before all of them start to explode, shattering the stone into small shards of earth and dust, the heavy rain that falls from the sky quickly turns that to mud.\n\nDmitri spots a transparent break in the water as Levi’s unseen figure runs through the rain, he reacts quickly as he once again focuses his attacks on him, the earth shakes violently beneath Levi as it rises into the air with him on it.\n\nLevi rolls off the side of the pillar, taking a blade implanted in the arm of his suit and stabs it into the side of the rock to slow his descent, he then braces himself and leaps off the side and lands upon the ground, taking a moment to catch his balance and prepare himself to attack again. He would only have to endure this a little bit longer before the tranquilizers completely tale effect on Dmitri, he just has to keep the Source fighting so that he never feels comfortable or safe enough to call for backup. A thing that Levi learned that is a simple enough to do with someone of Dmitri’s personality.\n\nHis attention is taken off of Dmitri when he hears the sound of splashing footsteps rapidly approaching him, Levi looks in the direction of the sound and spots Alistair rushing straight towards him. Levi lets out a frustrated groan as he braces himself for impact, catching onto Alistair’s attack and pushing back against him, his feet slide back upon the wet slippery mud as the force of impact causes him to slide back a few feet, the True Blood manage to keep his balance as he speaks to the Super Solider that has just attacked him. “I’m in the middle of something right now, if you would be so kind as to wait your turn!”\n\nThe earth trembles violently beneath them, the both of them thrown off balance as several pillars and stalagmites raise from the ground around them, Levi deals with them the same way as before, the bullets that hit the rocks explode and fill the air with dust and debris.\n\nAlistair closes his eyes and shields his face, coughing from the dirt as he makes his way back from the area, he squints trying to see through the dust that is surrounding him, looking for the opponent that he had just had. Though he does not know the reason the earth is moving so violently he had his assumptions after hearing what Bret had had to say about the sources.\n\nDespite the danger he is in Alistair is still set on settling things with Levi, even if it puts him in the middle of the Earth Source’s path of destruction.\n\nThe earth continues to shake violently as the pillars of earth continue to rise, destroying everything unlucky enough to be in the way. Alistair moves to avoid the attacks while keeping an eye out for his opponent, Alistair lets out a painful yell when his wound puts another surge of pain through his body.\n\n“You know I didn’t expect this from you. From what I understand Super Soldiers are not supposed to be self destructive, so I’m a little bit confused on why you are trying to get yourself killed. Don’t tell me that I’ve run into another ‘I’d rather be dead than captured’ scenario like that Wind Source, if all my targets end up having this mindset then what the heck am I supposed to take back with me?”\n\nAlistair is thrown back by the earth violently shifting and rising from the ground once again, he hits the cement hard, the water around him starts to turn red when mixing with the blood from his wound. It was near impossible to locate his opponent with the earth constantly rising and falling as it is.\n\nLevi continues to speak to Alistair in a playful, almost mocking tone. “And here I thought you would be the one most willing to cooperate with us.”\n\nAlistair pushes himself back to his feet. “What the hell would possibly make you think something like that?”\n\nThe rain parts as it splashes against an invisible figure that stands ahead of Alistair. “Zero.”\n\nAlistair gives a loud angered yell as he rushes forward attacking the figure and grabbing onto his neck tightly. “Don’t you ever talk about him!”\n\nThe sound of gunshots fill the air, Alistair letting out a painful gasp as his grip upon Levi is lost, he took several steps back as he now holds his hands over two bullet wounds in his abdomen.\n\nLevi shakes his head as he watches Alistair fall to the ground. “I don’t think you’re in the position to tell me what to do.” He walks away from him there other important matters for him to deal with. “Take your time healing, I’ve got a source to deal with and I would appreciate you not interrupting me.”\n\nAlistair lays on the ground, his vision becoming blurry. “Zero…” Why would Levi have said his name, was it just to trigger him into attacking, or had it been an actual answer to the question? He closes his eyes, he can tell without looking at his newly acquired wounds that the situation is bad for him, he is still recovering from the stab wound he had received earlier, he doesn't know if he will be able to heal from this as well. Was this really how things are going to end?\n\nThe earth violently shifts and lifts Alistair’s body being thrown roughly to the side, Alistair lets out a painful cry from the beating. He slowly tries to push himself up, if he stays in the midst of Dmitri’s attacks then there is no doubt that he will be killed here.\n\nHe begins to move away, slowly dragging his feet as he tries to distance himself from the attacks while thinking over the name that Levi has mentioned. Zero, how did Levi know that name would have been important to him, did he hear him say Zero’s name when he was having the hallucinations? That must have been it, how else could be possibly know the significance in such a word?\n\nHe tries to remember, thinking back to if he had mentioned that name during his hallucinations when Levi had been around to hear it, Alistair gasps in shock when he recalls something else, something that Genesis has said after examining him.\n\n[i]“I took the liberty of examining you while you were unconscious. I have to say I was surprised, you’re smaller than you should be, you should be taller and more filled out. I assume this was due to the poison you were injected with, you were given it when your body was still in the process of ageing so your physical growth in concerns to muscle and height could have been stunted.”[/i]\n\nHe comes to an abrupt stop over the realization that has just hit him. “He was comparing me…” He looks over toward the invisible figure that is managing to hold up against Dmitri, he is barely visible with the help of the rain. “He was comparing me to another member in my batch…”\n\n[i]Levi speaks to Alistair in a playful almost mocking tone. “And here I thought you would be the one most willing to cooperate with us.”\n\nAlistair pushes himself back to his feet. “What the hell would possibly make you think something like that?”\n\nThe rain parts as it splashes against an invisible figure that stand ahead of Alistair. “Zero.”[/i]\n\n“They were comparing me to Zero… he’s alive… and they still have him.”\n\nAlistair is thrown to the ground one again when the ground shifts violently once more, his own cries of pain are interrupted by a loud frightened scream. Alistair looks toward the direction of the sound, spotting Bret as pieces of the building he has taken shelter by hit the ground around him, the building starts to fall over and threatens to crush him.\n\nAlistair lets out a painfully struggled growl as he forces himself back to his feet, using all the strength he has left to dash forward towards the boy, grabbing onto him as soon as he reaches him and picking him up and running with him out of the way of the building, the two barely make it out of the building’s shadow before it hits to the ground, Bret screaming loudly in fear as the two of them are enveloped within a large cloud of dust and debris.\n\nThe heavy rain beats down helping to clear the dust and dirt that is in the air, Bret screams and cries loudly in fear. Alistair kneels upon the ground as he pants heavily for breath, he is unable to move his legs anymore after that, there is no strength left in him.\n\nHe forces his heavy eyelids open as he looks towards Bret. “Hey… it’s okay, you’re fine. I got you.”\n\nThe young boy stops his terrified screaming, taking a moment to look at Alistair and realizing the situation, he wraps his arms around him tightly and cries loudly as he buries his face into his chest.\n\nAlistair hugs the child back, his vision is growing cloudy and dark. This is it… after everything that he has done he has finally reached it, the limit to what he is capable of. Why he spent the last of his energy saving a boy that holds no importance to anyone he does not know, he has acted out of instinct and without thinking, but where had that instinct come from? It didn’t make any sense.\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nTahki and General Bourne are thrown to the side when the earth beneath them shifts and rises, Bourne yells out his frustration in Dmitri’s direction. “Watch what you’re doing! You’re going to kill me!”\n\nTahki pushes herself back to her feet, stumbling for a moment as she struggles to keep herself standing, though she has been taking quite a beating until this point she still managed to keep fighting, how much longer she would be able to do that though is uncertain to her.\n\nBourne calls out to her before continuing his attack, he can tell that she is tired and weak. “You know you don’t have to make things worse for yourself. Dmitri may want you but I only want information. Just tell me what you know about my target and I’ll leave you be.”\n\nTahki frowns at the request, though it is a tempting offer information can be deadly depending on what it is and who it is given to. She knows though she can not continue fighting in the condition that she is in. “Who is your target?”\n\nBourne grins, happy to have Tahki at least hear him out. “The Water Source, who are they and what do they look like?”\n\n“And what would you do with this information?”\n\n“Track them down of course, what happens after that is anyone’s guess, maybe I’ll capture them, maybe they’ll kill me off, I’ll find out once I get to that point I guess. Come on, cooperate, what do you have to gain from protecting them anyway?”\n\nTahki thinks this question over, he is right, her duty is to protect Shiya and the other members of Raven Wolf, it is not to protect Naida. Then again, Shiya is gone, she is separated from him once again leaving Tahki uncertain if she will ever see him again, with him gone what is her purpose? Who is she to protect?\n\n“So? You going to give me the information I want or am I going to have to force it out of you.”\n\nTahki frowns as she looks back to him, from what she understands they already have the Wind Source, so it was only a matter of time before they found out anyway. “Naida Kelpie, and I don’t think I have to bother with her description.”\n\nBourne turns away from her. “I assumed as much, getting confirmation helps me much more than an assumption though.” He lets out a laugh. “Good luck running away from Dmitri.”\n\nTahki watches him leave. “You’re not going to help your comrade with the True Blood that is attacking him?”\n\nThe shark shakes his head no, it is not really something that is high up on his to do list. “I have my own priorities to take care of, if he gets caught then his own military can deal with it. I’m not here to protect him after all, I’m just here to do the job MY military assigned to me, which was to find and bring the Water Source into custody while aiding the Avian’s with the Wind Source. None of that includes babysitting Dmitri or looking after the entitled Terran army.”\n\nTahki turns away from him, running away from him and taking her leave before he might change his mind on letting her go, her escape soon comes to a stop when she sees two figures lying upon the ground, Bret sobs in fear as he tries to get Alistair to get up and move, he does not respond to his pleas.\n\nShe runs over to them, kneeling down next to the child and looking him over, he is wounded badly and terrified, his whole body shaking. “Are you alright?”\n\nTahki lets out a shocked gasp when Alistair grabs onto her wrist, he slowly opens his eyes and looks up to her. “I need you to do something for me.”\n\nTahki seems both confused and defensive. “We’re enemies, what could I possibly do for you?”\n\nAlistair tries to speak, it is getting more difficult with each breath. “You understand…”\n\n“Understand what?”\n\nAlistair tries to explain. “When the other Super Soldiers and I attacked the trials, I shot you… because you got in the way when I had tried to kill someone else… you understand what it is to protect someone… to care about them more than you do yourself. I need the help of someone who understands that…”\n\nBret tugs on Tahki’s clothes as he sobs louder. “Please! You gotta help him, please!”\n\nTahki is confused by the situation, she is unsure of what to do or who to listen to first, Alistair speaks up to get her attention. “I want you to look after someone for me, I’m not able to protect him anymore.”\n\n“Who are you talking about?” She kneels closer to him the coyote whispers to her ear.\n\nBret lets out a frightened gasp when he sees movement within the rain, the droplets stops when they hit an unseen figure. “One of them is here!”\n\nTahki quickly gets to her feet looking towards the form the rain is revealing, she looking down to the boy and grabs onto him to pull him along with her. Bret screams as he forcefully pulls away from her and stays by Alistair’s side. “No! I’m not going! We can’t leave him behind!”\n\nTahki shakes her head. “There’s nothing that we can do for him, we have to go now!”\n\nBret refuses to go with her. “If you’re not going to help him than leave! I don’t need your help! I’ll find someone else to help me!”\n\nTahki tries to talk some sense into him, staying behind a death sentence. “This isn’t a game! I can’t help him, you can’t help him either!” She looks back to the figure that is getting closer to them, she is unable to tell witch of the two True Bloods it is, but if that is the same one that she had fought at the museum then she won't  have a chance. “He’s as good as dead!”\n\n“He’s not dead! He can’t be!!”\n\nTahki lets out an aggravated groan staying put and preparing to fight the figure that isapproaching them, she can't just leave this stubborn boy here to fend for himself.\n\nBret looks up to her and yells. “Go away! You’ll just get caught too! He wanted you to look after someone for him! He needed you to do it! You can’t help him if you get caught!”\n\nTahki is hesitant to leave, Bret lets out an angered growl as he continues to yell. “Get out of here!!”\n\nTahki looks once more to the figure that is approaching them, she then looks once more to the boy before turns around and runs away, reluctantly leaving him behind.\n\nBret looks back to Alistair who continues to remain motionless on the ground, he wrapping his arms around him and burying his face into his fur. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He takes a deep breath to try and calm his nerves down as he looks back over to figure that is approaching him, his body trembles more with each step the figure takes.\n\nAlistair had acted cold and mean to him the entire time they had been held captive, but at the same time he had done a lot of things to keep him safe, Alistair could have triggered himself to lose control and escape a lot sooner if it hadn’t been for Bret, the Super Soldier instead waited until someone else was captured that was capable of protecting the child from the uncontrollable state he would have fallen into, and even after that he had used the last of his strength to keep him from being crushed by crumbling city. He couldn’t just leave him behind like this.\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nA soft green light surrounds Jovina, the hawk stands still as she stares out into the nothingness that stretches as far as the eye can see, this same view is presented to her no matter where she turns.\n\nShe holds her head as she thinks back, trying to remember where she could have been before coming here, she had just caught her father’s murderer, and she had been in the process transporting him to her ship.\n\nA cold wind blows through her feathers, a voice that sounds exactly as her own speaks up. “My intent was to kill you along with me.”\n\nJovina looks around her for the source of the voice. “So I’m dead?”\n\n“No, my plan did not go as intended, else I would not be here talking to you. The spirits decide when your time will fall, and despite my will to make it so they have kept you here, alive. They want you to be my vessel.”\n\nJovina continues to search for the source of the voice. “Who are you?!”\n\n“I could not allow it to be you… you who allies with the enemy and seeks to control me and the others for your own means. I wanted you dead! Not to be a keeper of my power!”\n\nJovina frowns, though the voice sounds like her own it speaks in an ominous melody, while the tone in which it speaks and the things the void said belong to someone else. “Aither?”\n\n“If my knowledge is bestowed upon you then everything would be over, the faces and names of the sources, the identity of the love of my life, of my family, of the places that are our homes and havens. I could never let you have them, they were too precious to me, and I would protect them with my all of my strength, even if it meant ripping myself in two.”\n\nJovina calls out to the voice. “What are you talking about?”\n\n“Do you know why your family hunted me down as you did? Your family is compatible, chosen by the spirits to be my host should the time of need come, but your ancestors were difficult, they would deny me the control that I wanted from them, tell me that now is not the time and then leave me to suffer in pain at the hands of the True Bloods trying to control me, and as they denied aid to mine I grew ever weaker with each attempt the True Bloods made to control me.”\n\n“I thought my suffering and fighting would never end, and then… that fox came… that boy… he was more than willing to accept me, to let me use him to escape and to survive, to help me do the same, and in return I granted him great power, and he accepted and made use of it more than I thought him possible.”\n\nThe wind continues to circle around Jovina’s figure as the voice continues to speak in it most haunting tone. “Your family labelled him a thief, and pursued him to try and get my powers from him, but your family had denied me of what I needed for long enough, and neither he nor I felt your family worthy nor responsible enough to harness my power.”\n\n“But the chase has inevitably come to an end, and you have finally caught me, but you will not win, because you have only managed to obtain half of me, half of my power, half of my knowledge, and only half of my memories. The other sources, and my companions are safe, and you will not get that information without a fight.”\n\n“Her vitals are improving.”\n\nJovina slowly opens her eyes, she in a very busy room filled with doctors and wounded patients, one of the doctors near her notie this as he brings it to the attention of the some of the others. “She’s regaining consciousness.”\n\nJovina tries to sit up, one of the doctor’s quickly move to hold her down. “Don’t move, you’ve been critically injured.” He pauses for a moment looking at her open eyes, they are soft green “It says on your file that you have grey eyes…”\n\nHe turns away from her, presenting this problem with several other doctors unsure as to if this should be a concern or not, they are too confused by it. Jovina slowly turns towards her left hand slowly forcing it open, a light green crystal that looks similar to the one she had found on Aither yet only half its size sitts in the palm of her hand.\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nDmitri staggers as he falls to the ground, the wolverine struggles and resists the urge to fall asleep. He can't lose this fight, he has to win somehow or everything, his ambitions, his goals would be over. He tries to look his surroundings over, from what he can tell he is alone, Bourne had left in pursuit of that super soldier leaving him with no others that will come to his aid.\n\nThe memory of a woman’s voice begins to haunt him.[i] “You will regret everything you have done to me Ebon.”\n\n“You think you are strong because you have no one to slow you down, but you are wrong. You are weak because you choose to be alone, because you are afraid of not being alone, so you push others away, you destroy lives to make people who would care about you hate you, and you continue the lonely path you created for yourself under the false pretence that this road will make you strong. But it does not make you strong, it makes you weak, and it makes you hateful, you will live and die alone, and you have no one to blame but yourself for that.”[/i]\n\nLevi lets out a chuckle as he now begins to approach Dmitri. “Run out of juice have you?”\n\nDmitri responds with a threatening snarl, Levi laughes at the response. “Oh come on, is that all you have left? What happened to all those mountains you were throwing at me? Surely you have at least one more of those left in you.”\n\nDmitri looks up to Levi with a grin. “Don’t think you can keep me trapped for long, I escaped the True Bloods once, I’ll be able to do it again.”\n\nLevi smirks at the comment as Dmitri slouches forward, falling unconscious to the ground. “Yeah, we’re not stupid enough to have that happen again, trust me this time you will be well contained.”\n\n“Stop where you are!”\n\nLevi turns away from Dmitri, several soldiers are now approaching their location. “So you did call for back up… that’s surprising.”\n\nMarshal Williams moves to the front of the soldiers, this is not the result of any order from Dmitri. “That was my call actually, and honestly, we didn’t really need to wait for a call, as it was clear from destruction that could be seen around the city that something was happening here.”\n\n“I can see your point.” He points the weapon he had been using against Dmitri’s attacks in their direction, firing and letting out a spray of bullets into the ground in front of them, but the bullets explode shortly after impact and cause them to quickly back away.\n\nMarshal Williams stands his ground. “We will not be chased back. The domestic military will not be handing over such a powerful weapon so easily.”\n\nThe soldiers that accompany the Marshal take their places once again, each one search out the person that he is talking to that had fired upon them, most not able to find anything, only some of their eyes stop  upon a strange distortion in the rain, the droplets hit a figure that can not be seen by them.\n\nLevi sighs to himself as he stares at the soldiers that are now starting to collect in the area, things are going to be more difficult if they interfered. “I’m doing you animals a favour. Look what your inability to control the Sources has done to this city? It’s clear that these weapons are not meant for your hands.”\n\nMarshal Williams argues back, these small setbacks are something that will be dealt with. “If the True Bloods were truly been able to control the Sources then they wouldn’t have let them escape to be found by us in the first place.”\n\nLevi laughs at the comment. “You think you can control the Sources better than us? Then by all means, have him. I don’t feel like fighting an army of Domestics anyway.” He approaches Dmitri’s unconscious figure kneeling down next to him and grabbing onto the necklace he wears forcefully pulling it from his neck, the crystal disappears as the camo of his suit affected it, \n\nLevi uses his weapon to fire at the rubble and structures around him, causing multiple explosions that fill the area with a thick cloud of sharp rocks and dust, Levi mumbles to himself as he uses the soldier’s lack at visibility takes his leave from the scene. There were other ways to obtain the Earth Source, after all, the option that him having a child provided is still a possibility, all Levi needed to do was find them. For now the Domestics can keep the Earth Source, though he will prove much more difficult to control without the crystal the Sources used to keep themselves mentally strong enough to control their own powers. “You’re ignorance towards the power you are dealing with will be your downfall. We’ll see how good you are at controlling him once he no longer has this.”\n\nThe Marshal looks back to his men who are coughing and trying to wave the airborne debris out of their faces. “What are you waiting for?! Don’t let him escape, either capture or kill him!”\n\nThe men all look to one another, most of them have not seen any person to capture, only hearing a voice, while the few that do see the distortion in the rain do not seem too thrilled about chasing after an invisible target in an environment that compromises their vision even more, the threat such a thing might cause them is unknown and capable of bringing them quick deaths.\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nKane is far outside the Raven Wolf village, the tiger preparing a boat to take him across the waters so that he can begin his journey. His task interrupted when he hears a voice calling out to him.\n\n“Hey!! Wait!!”\n\nKane stops as he looks back to the voice that has spoken up, spotting Yula running up to him in an attempt to catch up, the frail wolf with black fur and white eyes pants for breath as he stops near him, he takes a moment to catch his breath and he slouches over and starts breathing heavily.\n\nKane stares at him for a moment, looking from side to side to see if anyone had come with him, it looks as if Yula has arrived alone. He looks back to the wolf who is still in the process of catching his breath from running here. “What are you doing here?”\n\nYula holds his hand up signalling for Kane to wait a moment, he takes several more deep breaths before standing upright and looking to Kane. “I’m coming with you.”\n\nKane stares at him in silence for a moment before turning away from him. “No.”\n\nYula runs to the other side of Kane so that he would be back in his line of vision. “Oh come on! I won’t be any trouble at all! Teddy was always able to look after me no problem and would never complain about it ever! So that means that I must be really easy to take care of!”\n\nKane gives Yula a frown. “I think you misread Conner. Just because one does not complain about the work they are forced to endure does not mean that their tasks are easy or enjoyable.”\n\nYula jumps into the canoe that Kane has pushed into the water. “Come on, just like you have a journey. I do too. You want to complete the spirits tasks right? Well, I want to stop the world from ending.”\n\nKane is not sure if he can take what he has just heard seriously. He grins while letting out a deep laugh, Yula looks insulted by the reaction. “What’s so funny?!”\n\nKane tries to shoo the wolf out of the boat. “Go back home before they realize you’re missing and accuse me of kidnapping you.”\n\nYula crosses his arms having worked everything out. “I left a note behind telling Iuana where I was going, so that she and everyone else will know where I am.”\n\n“Get out of the boat.”\n\nYula continues trying to both beg and explain why it is such a great idea for Kane to bring him along. “Please let me come, I can’t just sit back in the village and do nothing! Not when my visions are giving me such ominous futures. I mean, visions of the future are warnings, and can possibly be changed, so I’m going to change them! I’m going to make sure both Shiya and Teddy come back home, and then my sister can live happily ever after cause she’ll have both her father and her betrothed back, and then Teddy will be my new brother and probably have like… a bazagillion kids with Iuana. I mean, just THINK of how many kids you could have when you’re cursed not to die! A BAZAGILLION!”\n\nKane lets out a heavy sigh as he throws the supplies he had packed himself onto the small boat. “I don’t think that’s an actual number…”\n\n“What I’m saying is that things don’t have to end up bad, and if there’s something I can do to help Shiya and Teddy come back home then I want to do it! I may not know much about saving the Shiya and Teddy’s lives, but I at least know that I can’t do anything when I’m stuck in the village, even the messages I try to send to Shiya to try and help don’t go through!”\n\nKane shakes his head no it is obvious what will happen if someone as inexperienced and naive as Yula tags along behind him. “If I bring you with me. you’re going to die.”\n\n“No I won’t, you’re a Super Soldier, that means that you’re stronger than Teddy, and if Teddy was able to keep me alive you can do it too. Besides, who better to take on a spirit quest than someone who is the messenger of the spirits? I bet I could help you out too.”\n\nKane sighs as he thinks the information over, it is true that he hardly understands the messages from the spirits, nor what it is the spirits wants him to achieve, so perhaps an oracle will help with that. “Fine… but before I take you anywhere, are you sure your sister and the rest of your tribe knows that you have made the decision to join me?”\n\nYula nods his head. “Yup, I left the note where it could be easily found, she won’t miss it!” He looks to the side. “I didn’t ask direction because yeah, that would for sure be an obvious no.” He moves to the front of the boat. “We should move fast so they can’t catch up to us if Iuana sends someone after me to bring me back because she doesn’t agree with my decision.”\n\nKane lets out a both tried and heavy sigh as he pushes the boat out into the water, this decision is one he is already regretting.\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nMay hums to herself as she lays across a bench in a locker room, holding her hand in front of her face as she paints her nails, her comrade October lets out a smirk when she walks past her, pushing her off the bench and causing her to mess up her work and hit the ground, May lets out and angered shriek as she quickly sits up glaring towards the bear. “What is your problem?!”\n\nOctober sits down on the other side of the bench, eating a sandwich that she had brought with her, she and her companions that are currently in the locker rooms already dressed in their armour and prepared to move out as soon as July returns with the orders to do so. “You’re supposed to be a soldier, it’s seems stupid for you to be doing something like that.”\n\nMay frowns at the comment. “Hey, just because I’m in the military doesn’t mean I have to ignore my hygiene and personal appearance!”\n\n“Isn’t that against our dress code?”\n\nMay begins to fix the mess on her fingers that October has caused. “Actually it’s not. As long as it matches our uniform it’s all fine. I would know, I know our rules and regulations better than all of you combined.”\n\n“That doesn’t surprise me seeing as you have a computer for a brain.”\n\nMay looks to October annoyed by the comment. “Only the right side of my brain is a computer, the left is perfectly normal. Besides, I’m not surprised you don’t know about any nail polish regulations seeing as you don’t have fingernails or even real arms.”\n\nOctober frowns at the comment as she places her food down and punches one of her mechanical arms into the palm of the other in a threatening manner. “I’ll give you a set to match mine if you’re going to be like that about it.”\n\nMay finishes with her polish, and she then looks over to December who is now reading a book as she waits for her orders. “Hey December, want me to do your nails for you? I know you can’t do them yourself cause you only have one real arm, you’re not very graceful with that mechanical arm of yours so you can’t do it yourself.”\n\nThe spaniel looks up from her book, though she is flattered by the offer now does not seem like the time to be doing these things. “Oh, maybe next time. As soon as our team leaders get here we’ll be heading straight out. I wouldn’t want to start doing something that would contradict with our punctuality.”\n\nMay lets out a bored sigh. “You guys are never any fun… it’s always so serious with you Super Soldiers…”\n\nDecember argues her point, it is important for them to not fall behind. “You know how the True Blood soldiers are towards our squad, we don’t need another reason like showing up late to add to the things they already say about us.”\n\nMay lets out a sigh, that is indeed true. “Yeah I guess…” She thinks their current situation over, they are practically waiting to be called to participate in a small war. “I can’t believe the Commander General actually put the fortress into a lockdown. I mean, I understand the practicality of it and why he would, it’s just… you know, kind of a shocking realization.”\n\nOctober grins at the reminder. “I like the idea, it means that we can go all out against Twenty-Six without having to worry about civilian casualties, or even about stealth, just an all out war against a Super Soldier and a god Who wouldn’t have fun with that?”\n\nMay frowns at the comment. “Uhhh, me? I’m not like you Super Soldiers! I don’t get off on fighting people, especially so called gods.”\n\nDecember speaks up in her defence. “I don’t like nor hate fighting, so not all Super Soldiers see this as fun… just… as something that needs to be done I guess.”\n\nOctober lets out a laugh at the comment. “You’re probably the only one that doesn’t see it as fun.”\n\nThe door to the room they are in opens, the three quickly fall silent as July waits within the entrance to the locker room the three are waiting in. “We’re heading out, now.”\n\nThe three stop what they are doing, each getting to their feet and making their way to the door and making their way past July, the lemur explains the situation as they made their way down the hall. “There’s a problem with the lockdown, there are about forty names that have not checked in.”\n\nDecember is surprised by this information. “Forty? That’s a pretty big number of people to misplace.”\n\nJuly continues to explain. “It’s believed these missing members may be members of the resistance that have been causing the military so much trouble.”\n\nMay is somewhat impressed. “The resistance has at least forty members? And here I was thinking it was only a few handfuls worth of people.”\n\nJuly nods her head. “Their ranks are steadily growing, and it’s very likely that their numbers are even higher than that. These are just the ones not complying with the lockdown.”\n\nOctober holds her hands behind her head. “I’m not that surprised, normal people can only be locked up for so long without losing it.”\n\nJuly continues with her briefing. “You’ll be given a list of names and ID’s, if you run into any of these individuals you are to subdue them and bring them in alive.”\n\nMay sighs at the order. “Great… Domestics arresting True Bloods… that’ll go over well…” She looks over to July curiously. “What does the boss man have to say about all this?”\n\nJuly shakes her head with a sigh. “The ‘boss man’ says to try and capture them while inflicting as little harm as possible… the True Blood soldiers will be able to use any method of force they want but we are going to be watched very carefully, and every action we take is going to be judged.”\n\nOctober lets out an annoyed groan, the group reaches the buildings exit and reaches the groups of soldiers that are starting to gather outside of the base. “I don’t do gentle well.”\n\nA voice speaks up in response to what October has said. “In concerns to the True Blood resistance members you will hold restraint whether you like it or not.”\n\nThe group looks out to the figure that is standing in wait for them, he’s the last member and leader of their group. May grins at him as she waves to him. “Hey boss man! Long time no see.”\n\nDecember elbows May. “Don’t tease him like that! You know he doesn’t like it when you call him that!”\n\nMay looks to December like she is stupid. “Of course I know that, that’s why it’s so fun to call him that duh.”\n\nDecember walks next to him with a shy smile on her face. “It has been a while, the last few missions we’ve had have been stealth so you haven’t been unable to accompany us.”\n\nThe figure turns around to face her and the rest of the group with a cocky grin, both of his arms and legs replaced with robotic limbs, the right side of his face is also replaced with metal and mechanics, the features that remain are that of a handsome coyote. “The way you talk makes it sound like we only see each other on missions.”\n\nDecember looks to the side. “Well… we’ve been on call ever since the targets escaped… so we’ve hardly had any personal time since then.” She looks back to him smiling warmly. “The team just never feels the same when you’re not included in the missions, it’s actually a relief to be working with you like normal again...Zero.”\n\n[center]*******[/center]\n\nChogan holds a letter in his hand reading it over once more, it a note from Yula meant to be received by his sister, the elder folds the parchment and hides it within his clothes when he sees Iuana enter his home.\n\nIuana holds a tired look on her face, she never enjoys confrontation with the elders, she approaches and sits across from him respectfully. “You needed to see me?”\n\nChogan nods his head, he quickly gets right to the point. “Yula has gone missing.”\n\nIuana nods her head. “Yes… I know, he wandered off as some point yesterday, the village is searching for him but no one has been able to find him yet. He must have gotten himself lost.”\n\nChogan stares at Iuana as he begins to explain. “You and I both know what happened. Your brother has not gotten himself lost. That Super Soldier that left the village yesterday, Yula went missing the same time he left, I do not think that is a coincidence.”\n\nIuana listens in disbelief, Chogan is outright blaming Kane for her brother’s disappearance. “No… that can’t be right…” Her ears fall back as she looks to the side, even if she doesn't want to she has to consider it, it is a reasonable scenario after all seeing as taking Yula from them is something he had warned them was an order he has been given.\n\nHe continues to think the situation over, though Kane is difficult to approach and had come from their enemies ranks he seemed as if he had been making genuine efforts to become part of the tribe. “He was trying to understand us… and trying to complete the spirits trials. He would even question me in hopes of finding some clarity or understanding.”\n\nChogan washes away any trust that Iuana might hope to keep in the solider. “It was all simply a way of gaining your trust so that he would be able to reach and take Yula without facing resistance from our warriors.”\n\n“You must face the facts Iuana. He took advantage of your naivety and ignorance, and as a direct result to your failure to see the situation for what it actually is the Domestics have betrayed your trust in them and invaded our home.\n\n“You were a fool to think that soldier could ever be trusted.”\n\nChogan to speak in his condescending tone, each word he says makes Iuana more unsure and insecure with her decisions when it came to her leadership to her people. “How long do you intend to allow the Domestics to walk all over you? They have taken your father, his first warrior, and now your brother. Do you intend to turn the other check just as your father did? To be seen as a fool and taken advantage of? The Domestics are our enemy, and their attacks upon us are escalating with every move they make. If you do not act now then they will destroy us.”\n\nHe continues to talk down to her. “The domestics see you as a fool, a wild animal that doesn’t know any better, as a weakling afraid to retaliate against anything they do to you and your people. If you do not do something our tribe will be destroyed.”\n\nIuana thinks quietly to herself, an uneasy silence hangs in the air for several minutes before she finally speaks up with her decision on the situation. “I will have Eleven gather the warriors of the village and prepare for battle.”\n\nShe gets to her feet, this constant deception has gone far enough, she still remembers when they had tried to take her away from her father and people. “The Domestics have hurt us for the last time, we will destroy them, and we will force them from these lands just as the spirits requested of us, even if it means killing each and every last one of them.”\n\nShe lowers her head, with Yula being taken she was the last of her family left, her mother, father and all her brothers taken or killed by the Domestics. She was not her father, she was not and could never be as kind or gentle as him, and she was no longer able to over look the ones that are doing her, her family and her people harm.\n\n“We go to war with the Domestics, and even if it is a battle we cannot win, it will be a war they will regret, and one that will cause them so much pain, that they will never forget it.”",
  "writing_bbcode_parsed": "<span style='word-wrap: break-word;'><strong>Chapter Twenty One</strong><br /><br />Mort watches Alistair as he searches the streets near the Cadrey museum, the Captain has&nbsp;&nbsp;not been able to talk him out of pursuing his target and leaving the city. He turns away from him for a moment to look over the rain drenched city, never having seen Cordella in such a frighteningly pitiful state.<br /><br />&ldquo;Louis Mort.&rdquo; Mort turns to the road upon hearing his name being called, a jeep comes to a stop near him, Marshal Williams steps out of the vehicle to speak with him. &ldquo;What are you still doing in the city? I thought you were keeping an eye on that intelligence model until he recovered, you should be out of the city along with him by now.&rdquo;<br /><br />Mort explains the situation. &ldquo;Vaan discovered the location of another Super Soldier, I went to retrieve him.&rdquo; He looks over to Alistair who is now searching through his surroundings for clues regarding the direction he wants to go in, the two of them are now near the Cadrey family museum. &ldquo;He is heavily wounded and his performance is suffering because of it but he will not leave the city, he is too focused on finding his target.&rdquo;<br /><br />The large bull laughs as he crosses his arms. &ldquo;So you&rsquo;re keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn&rsquo;t get himself killed. That&rsquo;s cute.&rdquo;<br /><br />Mort gives his superior an annoyed frown. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mock me.&rdquo;<br /><br />Williams shrugs his shoulders. &ldquo;Why would I make fun of you, you&rsquo;re performing your task as a babysitter excellently.&rdquo;<br /><br />Mort ignores the comment looking from Williams over to Alistair. &ldquo;Did you find out anything about the targets at the museum? It would help him out if you could share what you learned.&rdquo;<br /><br />Williams crosses his arms, there is nothing of interest at that location. &ldquo;None of the targets were there when we arrived, though that&rsquo;s no surprise seeing as reports of them have been popping up from the North of the city, meaning that they&rsquo;ve already took their leave long before my men and I got there.&rdquo; He continues it not as if they have found nothing though. &ldquo;There was evidence that they were staying at that location. The Cadrey family denies knowing anything about it but I&rsquo;m not going to waste any more time on them, the targets will just get further and further away if I do. Judging from the reports I suspect they are heading to the north exit of the city, perhaps they&rsquo;ve even already left as the soldiers are more focused on getting people out of the city and may not have been able to recognize them as people we need to keep in.&rdquo;<br /><br />He glances over to Alistair, the super soldier stops his search for a moment to stare back at him, Williams is still speaking to Mort as he watches Alistair. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re done with him, I want you on the search and rescue team. It&rsquo;s painfully clear at this point that we&rsquo;ve lost this city, so we need to remove everyone from it to prevent any more casualties than there have already been.&rdquo; He turns back to Mort continuing his orders. &ldquo;If you find anyone take them to the recovery camps that have been set up outside of the city. The outside Terrain militaries will be sending reinforcements this way soon, also expect to see the Avian&rsquo;s send another General to clear up the diplomatic mess the falling ships have caused, although this is only speculation of course, who knows if there are any members of the Avian military left, from the information that we have received from them so far their ships dropping out of the sky seems to have been a worldwide phenomenon.&rdquo;<br /><br />Mort is uncomfortable with this information. &ldquo;Why send another General if their entire army is facing this very serious problem? Has something happened to General Jovina?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Shortly before the Avian&rsquo;s ships started falling, General Jovina caught her target but as they were preparing him for transport he made an attempt on her life. She is currently in critical condition and is unable to take control over the soldiers that remain. The fact that our medical staff is trying to deal with an entire city of wounded and half dead people that need help is not making things any better for her.&rdquo;<br /><br />Mort is about to say something when a violent tremor interrupts him and throws him off balance, the whole city shaking as several already weak buildings begin to topple to the ground.<br /><br />Alistair turns to see several pillars of earth rise from the ground in the distance. &ldquo;That must be the Earth Source I&rsquo;ve been hearing so much about.&rdquo; He immediately starts to head in the direction of the disturbance, the Earth Source is a target that the True Bloods would definitely be after, no doubt he would find Levi there.<br /><br />Williams gets Mort&rsquo;s attention before he is able to follow Alistair. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a change of plans, you&rsquo;re coming with me.&rdquo;<br /><br />Mort frowns, it is clear at this point that Williams does not want him to go near the strange disturbance. &ldquo;You expect me to just ignore something like that?&rdquo;<br /><br />Williams nods his head. &ldquo;You will do as you&rsquo;re told, is that not what you were trained to do?&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair glances back towards Mort there is no need for him to get in trouble over his behalf. &ldquo;I can deal with this on my own, Captain. I don&rsquo;t need you babysitting me.&rdquo; He runs ahead, quickly running in the direction of the rising earth.<br /><br />Mort yells after him. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t handle this on your own you&rsquo;re going to get yourself killed if you try!&rdquo; Williams grabs onto Mort&rsquo;s arm, preventing him from following the Super Soldier, Mort bares his teeth at Williams. &ldquo;Why are you holding me back?! What is out there that you do not want me to see?&rdquo;<br /><br />&nbsp;&ldquo;The situation is bigger and more complex than you could possibly imagine, it would be much better for someone such as yourself to stay out of it.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;What kind of information is so important to be kept from me that I am demoted from my position and thrown into the dark as so that I do not discover it? What is so unique about me that makes me unqualified to know what others of my former ranking already knew even when I was still among them?!&rdquo;<br /><br />Williams chooses not to explain himself. &ldquo;You can come with me obediently or I can have you arrested and taken out of the city by force. I would go with the first option if you do not wish to sully your reputation within the military any further than your incompetence has already brought you. It&rsquo;s your choice.&rdquo;<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />The earth shakes violently as it raises from the ground, breaking through the cement and causing buildings to topple, soldiers and civilians alike are running and scrambling to try and avoid being caught up in the attacks.<br /><br />General Bourne watches the landscape as it twists and distorts, the city almost unrecognizable anymore, he glances back toward General Dmitri &ldquo;Are you even attacking anyone or are you just flailing about hoping to hit him?&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri lets out a snarl as he swings his arm forward, another stalagmite of earth piercing through the streets and rising high into the air. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s difficult to spot, the rain gives him away when he stands within it so he avoids the rain when he can, making those moments of visibility brief.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bret lets out a terrified scream when earth tears apart the city buildings once again, his whole body is soaked through as he shivers in both fear and from the cold rain.<br /><br />Tahki moves next to the boy, keeping as low to the ground as possible to avoid being seen, she places her hand on his shoulder as she speaks softly to him to get his attention. &ldquo;You need to come with me, if we don&rsquo;t get out of here you&rsquo;re going to end up getting killed.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bourne glances back towards Bret, spotting the woman that has come to get him. &ldquo;So what about the kid? What are you going to do with him?&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri&rsquo;s eye catches a glimpse of movement from Levi, he throws another attack forward in response to it. &ldquo;The boy is of no concern to me.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bourne nods his head understanding the logic in that. &ldquo;What about the Super Soldier he&rsquo;s with?&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri quickly turns around spotting Tahki, the earth raises around the two and circles&nbsp;&nbsp;them, Tahki grabs onto Bret with her good arm and taking him with her as she quickly moves, climbing her way out of the walls that have been forming around them and escaping the prison that Dmitri had been on the verge of making.<br /><br />General Dmitri is about to throw another attack at her when he is hit in the arm with two projectiles, Dmitri lets out a threatening growl as he reaches back pulling out the metal darts that have hit him. This type of ammunition is used to knock out targets. &ldquo;Just great.&rdquo; He looks over toward General Bourne it&#039;s pretty clear that he has to deal with Levi before anything else. &ldquo;Get her while I deal with the True Blood.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Why? She&rsquo;s not my target.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very likely she does have information on your target. It is in your best interest to subdue her.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bourne turns towards her. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s good enough reason for me.&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki places Bret on the ground motioning for him to run. &ldquo;Get out of the area, if you stay here you&rsquo;ll be in danger.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bret looks reluctant to leave. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be alone!&rdquo; He lets out a terrified scream when several shots are fired in their direction, Tahki avoids the bullets as simply as any Super Solider would, she now turns from the boy and towards the threat.<br /><br />The young wolverine reluctantly turns away from her and begins running, he didn&rsquo;t know what to do or where to go, all he knows what that he doesn&#039;t want to be here.<br /><br />Tahki lifts her hand towards Bourne, motioning for him to come and attack her. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to require a less ranged approach.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bourne lowers his gun as he bares his teeth while letting out a laugh, even if she was a Super Soldier she is still clearly wounded, a broken arm, gashes in her flesh, bruises, in fact she looks like she is hardly able to stay standing for much longer. &ldquo;No one lasts long against me when I get up close and personal, are you sure that&rsquo;s how you want to play the game?&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki doesn&rsquo;t let his cocky attitude get to her. &ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;re right, it would be rude of you to get my hopes up like that for nothing.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bourne lets out a bellowing yell as he rushes forward to attack her, Tahki preparing for the advance, leaping forward to attack him as well, the two meet and exchang blows.<br /><br />Bret runs as fast as he can through the streets, his leg catching onto some rubble and tripping him bringing the young boy to the ground with a surprised scream.<br /><br />The young wolverine begins to sob as he pushes himself from the ground, his whole body is shaking from the cold wet rain. He looks down to his leg, blood runs from it and onto the ground, Bret has cut himself deeply on the debris he has tripped over, the pain seems to grow the longer he looks at the large gash in his leg.<br /><br />He crawls over to a building sitting down next to it in an attempt to keep dry, sobbing loudly as he curls up hugging his legs. He is scared, hurt and alone, and he doesn&#039;t know where to go or what to do.<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />Dmitri scans the area around him for any signs of his opponent, his vision starts to slightly blur in and out of focus. He lets out an irritated growl as he lightly shakes his head, placing the palm of his hand against his forehead.<br /><br />&ldquo;Getting tired big guy?&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri reacts to the voice, pillars of earth rise from the ground and fill the area he thinks the voice have come from. Levi though is not hit by the attack as he continues to speak to Dmitri in his mocking tone. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re done for, you realize that don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri continues to search his surroundings. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re rather cocky for someone about to be killed by me.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t even find me even to land a blow, not even with the help of all this rain! How do you expect to kill me?&rdquo; He lets out a laugh. &ldquo;Do you honestly think that I wouldn&rsquo;t be fully prepared to deal with something like you?&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri holds his ground, not moving from his position. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not alone, I can have soldiers here to aid me in no time.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Go ahead and call them why don&rsquo;t you? It looks to me like you need the help.&rdquo; Dmitri doesn&rsquo;t react to the suggestion, Levi is not surprised. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think so, if you call them here that means you wouldn&rsquo;t be able to use your powers, and what would your chances be against me if you couldn&rsquo;t do that?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;You&rsquo;re only human. Not much is needed to crush you.&rdquo;<br /><br />Levi lets out a loud laugh at the comment. &ldquo;Only human? I am a pure and untainted True Blood. An elite in both combat and status, I am superior even among my own people in every way you can imagine! What chance does a mere animal have against the likes of me? Even one as unique as you...&rdquo;<br /><br />The earth surrounding Dmitri begins to rise, lifting from the ground and hurling towards the area Levi is currently in, Levi taking a different weapon he had on him, points and fires a barrage of bullets at the pillars of earth before they hit him as he quickly makes his way to safety, the bullets hit and dig into the stone, they stay there for only a moment before all of them start to explode, shattering the stone into small shards of earth and dust, the heavy rain that falls from the sky quickly turns that to mud.<br /><br />Dmitri spots a transparent break in the water as Levi&rsquo;s unseen figure runs through the rain, he reacts quickly as he once again focuses his attacks on him, the earth shakes violently beneath Levi as it rises into the air with him on it.<br /><br />Levi rolls off the side of the pillar, taking a blade implanted in the arm of his suit and stabs it into the side of the rock to slow his descent, he then braces himself and leaps off the side and lands upon the ground, taking a moment to catch his balance and prepare himself to attack again. He would only have to endure this a little bit longer before the tranquilizers completely tale effect on Dmitri, he just has to keep the Source fighting so that he never feels comfortable or safe enough to call for backup. A thing that Levi learned that is a simple enough to do with someone of Dmitri&rsquo;s personality.<br /><br />His attention is taken off of Dmitri when he hears the sound of splashing footsteps rapidly approaching him, Levi looks in the direction of the sound and spots Alistair rushing straight towards him. Levi lets out a frustrated groan as he braces himself for impact, catching onto Alistair&rsquo;s attack and pushing back against him, his feet slide back upon the wet slippery mud as the force of impact causes him to slide back a few feet, the True Blood manage to keep his balance as he speaks to the Super Solider that has just attacked him. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in the middle of something right now, if you would be so kind as to wait your turn!&rdquo;<br /><br />The earth trembles violently beneath them, the both of them thrown off balance as several pillars and stalagmites raise from the ground around them, Levi deals with them the same way as before, the bullets that hit the rocks explode and fill the air with dust and debris.<br /><br />Alistair closes his eyes and shields his face, coughing from the dirt as he makes his way back from the area, he squints trying to see through the dust that is surrounding him, looking for the opponent that he had just had. Though he does not know the reason the earth is moving so violently he had his assumptions after hearing what Bret had had to say about the sources.<br /><br />Despite the danger he is in Alistair is still set on settling things with Levi, even if it puts him in the middle of the Earth Source&rsquo;s path of destruction.<br /><br />The earth continues to shake violently as the pillars of earth continue to rise, destroying everything unlucky enough to be in the way. Alistair moves to avoid the attacks while keeping an eye out for his opponent, Alistair lets out a painful yell when his wound puts another surge of pain through his body.<br /><br />&ldquo;You know I didn&rsquo;t expect this from you. From what I understand Super Soldiers are not supposed to be self destructive, so I&rsquo;m a little bit confused on why you are trying to get yourself killed. Don&rsquo;t tell me that I&rsquo;ve run into another &lsquo;I&rsquo;d rather be dead than captured&rsquo; scenario like that Wind Source, if all my targets end up having this mindset then what the heck am I supposed to take back with me?&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair is thrown back by the earth violently shifting and rising from the ground once again, he hits the cement hard, the water around him starts to turn red when mixing with the blood from his wound. It was near impossible to locate his opponent with the earth constantly rising and falling as it is.<br /><br />Levi continues to speak to Alistair in a playful, almost mocking tone. &ldquo;And here I thought you would be the one most willing to cooperate with us.&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair pushes himself back to his feet. &ldquo;What the hell would possibly make you think something like that?&rdquo;<br /><br />The rain parts as it splashes against an invisible figure that stands ahead of Alistair. &ldquo;Zero.&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair gives a loud angered yell as he rushes forward attacking the figure and grabbing onto his neck tightly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you ever talk about him!&rdquo;<br /><br />The sound of gunshots fill the air, Alistair letting out a painful gasp as his grip upon Levi is lost, he took several steps back as he now holds his hands over two bullet wounds in his abdomen.<br /><br />Levi shakes his head as he watches Alistair fall to the ground. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re in the position to tell me what to do.&rdquo; He walks away from him there other important matters for him to deal with. &ldquo;Take your time healing, I&rsquo;ve got a source to deal with and I would appreciate you not interrupting me.&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair lays on the ground, his vision becoming blurry. &ldquo;Zero&hellip;&rdquo; Why would Levi have said his name, was it just to trigger him into attacking, or had it been an actual answer to the question? He closes his eyes, he can tell without looking at his newly acquired wounds that the situation is bad for him, he is still recovering from the stab wound he had received earlier, he doesn&#039;t know if he will be able to heal from this as well. Was this really how things are going to end?<br /><br />The earth violently shifts and lifts Alistair&rsquo;s body being thrown roughly to the side, Alistair lets out a painful cry from the beating. He slowly tries to push himself up, if he stays in the midst of Dmitri&rsquo;s attacks then there is no doubt that he will be killed here.<br /><br />He begins to move away, slowly dragging his feet as he tries to distance himself from the attacks while thinking over the name that Levi has mentioned. Zero, how did Levi know that name would have been important to him, did he hear him say Zero&rsquo;s name when he was having the hallucinations? That must have been it, how else could be possibly know the significance in such a word?<br /><br />He tries to remember, thinking back to if he had mentioned that name during his hallucinations when Levi had been around to hear it, Alistair gasps in shock when he recalls something else, something that Genesis has said after examining him.<br /><br /><em>&ldquo;I took the liberty of examining you while you were unconscious. I have to say I was surprised, you&rsquo;re smaller than you should be, you should be taller and more filled out. I assume this was due to the poison you were injected with, you were given it when your body was still in the process of ageing so your physical growth in concerns to muscle and height could have been stunted.&rdquo;</em><br /><br />He comes to an abrupt stop over the realization that has just hit him. &ldquo;He was comparing me&hellip;&rdquo; He looks over toward the invisible figure that is managing to hold up against Dmitri, he is barely visible with the help of the rain. &ldquo;He was comparing me to another member in my batch&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br /><em>Levi speaks to Alistair in a playful almost mocking tone. &ldquo;And here I thought you would be the one most willing to cooperate with us.&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair pushes himself back to his feet. &ldquo;What the hell would possibly make you think something like that?&rdquo;<br /><br />The rain parts as it splashes against an invisible figure that stand ahead of Alistair. &ldquo;Zero.&rdquo;</em><br /><br />&ldquo;They were comparing me to Zero&hellip; he&rsquo;s alive&hellip; and they still have him.&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair is thrown to the ground one again when the ground shifts violently once more, his own cries of pain are interrupted by a loud frightened scream. Alistair looks toward the direction of the sound, spotting Bret as pieces of the building he has taken shelter by hit the ground around him, the building starts to fall over and threatens to crush him.<br /><br />Alistair lets out a painfully struggled growl as he forces himself back to his feet, using all the strength he has left to dash forward towards the boy, grabbing onto him as soon as he reaches him and picking him up and running with him out of the way of the building, the two barely make it out of the building&rsquo;s shadow before it hits to the ground, Bret screaming loudly in fear as the two of them are enveloped within a large cloud of dust and debris.<br /><br />The heavy rain beats down helping to clear the dust and dirt that is in the air, Bret screams and cries loudly in fear. Alistair kneels upon the ground as he pants heavily for breath, he is unable to move his legs anymore after that, there is no strength left in him.<br /><br />He forces his heavy eyelids open as he looks towards Bret. &ldquo;Hey&hellip; it&rsquo;s okay, you&rsquo;re fine. I got you.&rdquo;<br /><br />The young boy stops his terrified screaming, taking a moment to look at Alistair and realizing the situation, he wraps his arms around him tightly and cries loudly as he buries his face into his chest.<br /><br />Alistair hugs the child back, his vision is growing cloudy and dark. This is it&hellip; after everything that he has done he has finally reached it, the limit to what he is capable of. Why he spent the last of his energy saving a boy that holds no importance to anyone he does not know, he has acted out of instinct and without thinking, but where had that instinct come from? It didn&rsquo;t make any sense.<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />Tahki and General Bourne are thrown to the side when the earth beneath them shifts and rises, Bourne yells out his frustration in Dmitri&rsquo;s direction. &ldquo;Watch what you&rsquo;re doing! You&rsquo;re going to kill me!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki pushes herself back to her feet, stumbling for a moment as she struggles to keep herself standing, though she has been taking quite a beating until this point she still managed to keep fighting, how much longer she would be able to do that though is uncertain to her.<br /><br />Bourne calls out to her before continuing his attack, he can tell that she is tired and weak. &ldquo;You know you don&rsquo;t have to make things worse for yourself. Dmitri may want you but I only want information. Just tell me what you know about my target and I&rsquo;ll leave you be.&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki frowns at the request, though it is a tempting offer information can be deadly depending on what it is and who it is given to. She knows though she can not continue fighting in the condition that she is in. &ldquo;Who is your target?&rdquo;<br /><br />Bourne grins, happy to have Tahki at least hear him out. &ldquo;The Water Source, who are they and what do they look like?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;And what would you do with this information?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Track them down of course, what happens after that is anyone&rsquo;s guess, maybe I&rsquo;ll capture them, maybe they&rsquo;ll kill me off, I&rsquo;ll find out once I get to that point I guess. Come on, cooperate, what do you have to gain from protecting them anyway?&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki thinks this question over, he is right, her duty is to protect Shiya and the other members of Raven Wolf, it is not to protect Naida. Then again, Shiya is gone, she is separated from him once again leaving Tahki uncertain if she will ever see him again, with him gone what is her purpose? Who is she to protect?<br /><br />&ldquo;So? You going to give me the information I want or am I going to have to force it out of you.&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki frowns as she looks back to him, from what she understands they already have the Wind Source, so it was only a matter of time before they found out anyway. &ldquo;Naida Kelpie, and I don&rsquo;t think I have to bother with her description.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bourne turns away from her. &ldquo;I assumed as much, getting confirmation helps me much more than an assumption though.&rdquo; He lets out a laugh. &ldquo;Good luck running away from Dmitri.&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki watches him leave. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not going to help your comrade with the True Blood that is attacking him?&rdquo;<br /><br />The shark shakes his head no, it is not really something that is high up on his to do list. &ldquo;I have my own priorities to take care of, if he gets caught then his own military can deal with it. I&rsquo;m not here to protect him after all, I&rsquo;m just here to do the job MY military assigned to me, which was to find and bring the Water Source into custody while aiding the Avian&rsquo;s with the Wind Source. None of that includes babysitting Dmitri or looking after the entitled Terran army.&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki turns away from him, running away from him and taking her leave before he might change his mind on letting her go, her escape soon comes to a stop when she sees two figures lying upon the ground, Bret sobs in fear as he tries to get Alistair to get up and move, he does not respond to his pleas.<br /><br />She runs over to them, kneeling down next to the child and looking him over, he is wounded badly and terrified, his whole body shaking. &ldquo;Are you alright?&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki lets out a shocked gasp when Alistair grabs onto her wrist, he slowly opens his eyes and looks up to her. &ldquo;I need you to do something for me.&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki seems both confused and defensive. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re enemies, what could I possibly do for you?&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair tries to speak, it is getting more difficult with each breath. &ldquo;You understand&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Understand what?&rdquo;<br /><br />Alistair tries to explain. &ldquo;When the other Super Soldiers and I attacked the trials, I shot you&hellip; because you got in the way when I had tried to kill someone else&hellip; you understand what it is to protect someone&hellip; to care about them more than you do yourself. I need the help of someone who understands that&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />Bret tugs on Tahki&rsquo;s clothes as he sobs louder. &ldquo;Please! You gotta help him, please!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki is confused by the situation, she is unsure of what to do or who to listen to first, Alistair speaks up to get her attention. &ldquo;I want you to look after someone for me, I&rsquo;m not able to protect him anymore.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Who are you talking about?&rdquo; She kneels closer to him the coyote whispers to her ear.<br /><br />Bret lets out a frightened gasp when he sees movement within the rain, the droplets stops when they hit an unseen figure. &ldquo;One of them is here!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki quickly gets to her feet looking towards the form the rain is revealing, she looking down to the boy and grabs onto him to pull him along with her. Bret screams as he forcefully pulls away from her and stays by Alistair&rsquo;s side. &ldquo;No! I&rsquo;m not going! We can&rsquo;t leave him behind!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki shakes her head. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing that we can do for him, we have to go now!&rdquo;<br /><br />Bret refuses to go with her. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re not going to help him than leave! I don&rsquo;t need your help! I&rsquo;ll find someone else to help me!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki tries to talk some sense into him, staying behind a death sentence. &ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t a game! I can&rsquo;t help him, you can&rsquo;t help him either!&rdquo; She looks back to the figure that is getting closer to them, she is unable to tell witch of the two True Bloods it is, but if that is the same one that she had fought at the museum then she won&#039;t&nbsp;&nbsp;have a chance. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s as good as dead!&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not dead! He can&rsquo;t be!!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki lets out an aggravated groan staying put and preparing to fight the figure that isapproaching them, she can&#039;t just leave this stubborn boy here to fend for himself.<br /><br />Bret looks up to her and yells. &ldquo;Go away! You&rsquo;ll just get caught too! He wanted you to look after someone for him! He needed you to do it! You can&rsquo;t help him if you get caught!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki is hesitant to leave, Bret lets out an angered growl as he continues to yell. &ldquo;Get out of here!!&rdquo;<br /><br />Tahki looks once more to the figure that is approaching them, she then looks once more to the boy before turns around and runs away, reluctantly leaving him behind.<br /><br />Bret looks back to Alistair who continues to remain motionless on the ground, he wrapping his arms around him and burying his face into his fur. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry, I won&rsquo;t let anything bad happen to you.&rdquo; He takes a deep breath to try and calm his nerves down as he looks back over to figure that is approaching him, his body trembles more with each step the figure takes.<br /><br />Alistair had acted cold and mean to him the entire time they had been held captive, but at the same time he had done a lot of things to keep him safe, Alistair could have triggered himself to lose control and escape a lot sooner if it hadn&rsquo;t been for Bret, the Super Soldier instead waited until someone else was captured that was capable of protecting the child from the uncontrollable state he would have fallen into, and even after that he had used the last of his strength to keep him from being crushed by crumbling city. He couldn&rsquo;t just leave him behind like this.<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />A soft green light surrounds Jovina, the hawk stands still as she stares out into the nothingness that stretches as far as the eye can see, this same view is presented to her no matter where she turns.<br /><br />She holds her head as she thinks back, trying to remember where she could have been before coming here, she had just caught her father&rsquo;s murderer, and she had been in the process transporting him to her ship.<br /><br />A cold wind blows through her feathers, a voice that sounds exactly as her own speaks up. &ldquo;My intent was to kill you along with me.&rdquo;<br /><br />Jovina looks around her for the source of the voice. &ldquo;So I&rsquo;m dead?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;No, my plan did not go as intended, else I would not be here talking to you. The spirits decide when your time will fall, and despite my will to make it so they have kept you here, alive. They want you to be my vessel.&rdquo;<br /><br />Jovina continues to search for the source of the voice. &ldquo;Who are you?!&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;I could not allow it to be you&hellip; you who allies with the enemy and seeks to control me and the others for your own means. I wanted you dead! Not to be a keeper of my power!&rdquo;<br /><br />Jovina frowns, though the voice sounds like her own it speaks in an ominous melody, while the tone in which it speaks and the things the void said belong to someone else. &ldquo;Aither?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;If my knowledge is bestowed upon you then everything would be over, the faces and names of the sources, the identity of the love of my life, of my family, of the places that are our homes and havens. I could never let you have them, they were too precious to me, and I would protect them with my all of my strength, even if it meant ripping myself in two.&rdquo;<br /><br />Jovina calls out to the voice. &ldquo;What are you talking about?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Do you know why your family hunted me down as you did? Your family is compatible, chosen by the spirits to be my host should the time of need come, but your ancestors were difficult, they would deny me the control that I wanted from them, tell me that now is not the time and then leave me to suffer in pain at the hands of the True Bloods trying to control me, and as they denied aid to mine I grew ever weaker with each attempt the True Bloods made to control me.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;I thought my suffering and fighting would never end, and then&hellip; that fox came&hellip; that boy&hellip; he was more than willing to accept me, to let me use him to escape and to survive, to help me do the same, and in return I granted him great power, and he accepted and made use of it more than I thought him possible.&rdquo;<br /><br />The wind continues to circle around Jovina&rsquo;s figure as the voice continues to speak in it most haunting tone. &ldquo;Your family labelled him a thief, and pursued him to try and get my powers from him, but your family had denied me of what I needed for long enough, and neither he nor I felt your family worthy nor responsible enough to harness my power.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;But the chase has inevitably come to an end, and you have finally caught me, but you will not win, because you have only managed to obtain half of me, half of my power, half of my knowledge, and only half of my memories. The other sources, and my companions are safe, and you will not get that information without a fight.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Her vitals are improving.&rdquo;<br /><br />Jovina slowly opens her eyes, she in a very busy room filled with doctors and wounded patients, one of the doctors near her notie this as he brings it to the attention of the some of the others. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s regaining consciousness.&rdquo;<br /><br />Jovina tries to sit up, one of the doctor&rsquo;s quickly move to hold her down. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t move, you&rsquo;ve been critically injured.&rdquo; He pauses for a moment looking at her open eyes, they are soft green &ldquo;It says on your file that you have grey eyes&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />He turns away from her, presenting this problem with several other doctors unsure as to if this should be a concern or not, they are too confused by it. Jovina slowly turns towards her left hand slowly forcing it open, a light green crystal that looks similar to the one she had found on Aither yet only half its size sitts in the palm of her hand.<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />Dmitri staggers as he falls to the ground, the wolverine struggles and resists the urge to fall asleep. He can&#039;t lose this fight, he has to win somehow or everything, his ambitions, his goals would be over. He tries to look his surroundings over, from what he can tell he is alone, Bourne had left in pursuit of that super soldier leaving him with no others that will come to his aid.<br /><br />The memory of a woman&rsquo;s voice begins to haunt him.<em> &ldquo;You will regret everything you have done to me Ebon.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;You think you are strong because you have no one to slow you down, but you are wrong. You are weak because you choose to be alone, because you are afraid of not being alone, so you push others away, you destroy lives to make people who would care about you hate you, and you continue the lonely path you created for yourself under the false pretence that this road will make you strong. But it does not make you strong, it makes you weak, and it makes you hateful, you will live and die alone, and you have no one to blame but yourself for that.&rdquo;</em><br /><br />Levi lets out a chuckle as he now begins to approach Dmitri. &ldquo;Run out of juice have you?&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri responds with a threatening snarl, Levi laughes at the response. &ldquo;Oh come on, is that all you have left? What happened to all those mountains you were throwing at me? Surely you have at least one more of those left in you.&rdquo;<br /><br />Dmitri looks up to Levi with a grin. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think you can keep me trapped for long, I escaped the True Bloods once, I&rsquo;ll be able to do it again.&rdquo;<br /><br />Levi smirks at the comment as Dmitri slouches forward, falling unconscious to the ground. &ldquo;Yeah, we&rsquo;re not stupid enough to have that happen again, trust me this time you will be well contained.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Stop where you are!&rdquo;<br /><br />Levi turns away from Dmitri, several soldiers are now approaching their location. &ldquo;So you did call for back up&hellip; that&rsquo;s surprising.&rdquo;<br /><br />Marshal Williams moves to the front of the soldiers, this is not the result of any order from Dmitri. &ldquo;That was my call actually, and honestly, we didn&rsquo;t really need to wait for a call, as it was clear from destruction that could be seen around the city that something was happening here.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;I can see your point.&rdquo; He points the weapon he had been using against Dmitri&rsquo;s attacks in their direction, firing and letting out a spray of bullets into the ground in front of them, but the bullets explode shortly after impact and cause them to quickly back away.<br /><br />Marshal Williams stands his ground. &ldquo;We will not be chased back. The domestic military will not be handing over such a powerful weapon so easily.&rdquo;<br /><br />The soldiers that accompany the Marshal take their places once again, each one search out the person that he is talking to that had fired upon them, most not able to find anything, only some of their eyes stop&nbsp;&nbsp;upon a strange distortion in the rain, the droplets hit a figure that can not be seen by them.<br /><br />Levi sighs to himself as he stares at the soldiers that are now starting to collect in the area, things are going to be more difficult if they interfered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m doing you animals a favour. Look what your inability to control the Sources has done to this city? It&rsquo;s clear that these weapons are not meant for your hands.&rdquo;<br /><br />Marshal Williams argues back, these small setbacks are something that will be dealt with. &ldquo;If the True Bloods were truly been able to control the Sources then they wouldn&rsquo;t have let them escape to be found by us in the first place.&rdquo;<br /><br />Levi laughs at the comment. &ldquo;You think you can control the Sources better than us? Then by all means, have him. I don&rsquo;t feel like fighting an army of Domestics anyway.&rdquo; He approaches Dmitri&rsquo;s unconscious figure kneeling down next to him and grabbing onto the necklace he wears forcefully pulling it from his neck, the crystal disappears as the camo of his suit affected it, <br /><br />Levi uses his weapon to fire at the rubble and structures around him, causing multiple explosions that fill the area with a thick cloud of sharp rocks and dust, Levi mumbles to himself as he uses the soldier&rsquo;s lack at visibility takes his leave from the scene. There were other ways to obtain the Earth Source, after all, the option that him having a child provided is still a possibility, all Levi needed to do was find them. For now the Domestics can keep the Earth Source, though he will prove much more difficult to control without the crystal the Sources used to keep themselves mentally strong enough to control their own powers. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re ignorance towards the power you are dealing with will be your downfall. We&rsquo;ll see how good you are at controlling him once he no longer has this.&rdquo;<br /><br />The Marshal looks back to his men who are coughing and trying to wave the airborne debris out of their faces. &ldquo;What are you waiting for?! Don&rsquo;t let him escape, either capture or kill him!&rdquo;<br /><br />The men all look to one another, most of them have not seen any person to capture, only hearing a voice, while the few that do see the distortion in the rain do not seem too thrilled about chasing after an invisible target in an environment that compromises their vision even more, the threat such a thing might cause them is unknown and capable of bringing them quick deaths.<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />Kane is far outside the Raven Wolf village, the tiger preparing a boat to take him across the waters so that he can begin his journey. His task interrupted when he hears a voice calling out to him.<br /><br />&ldquo;Hey!! Wait!!&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane stops as he looks back to the voice that has spoken up, spotting Yula running up to him in an attempt to catch up, the frail wolf with black fur and white eyes pants for breath as he stops near him, he takes a moment to catch his breath and he slouches over and starts breathing heavily.<br /><br />Kane stares at him for a moment, looking from side to side to see if anyone had come with him, it looks as if Yula has arrived alone. He looks back to the wolf who is still in the process of catching his breath from running here. &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo;<br /><br />Yula holds his hand up signalling for Kane to wait a moment, he takes several more deep breaths before standing upright and looking to Kane. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m coming with you.&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane stares at him in silence for a moment before turning away from him. &ldquo;No.&rdquo;<br /><br />Yula runs to the other side of Kane so that he would be back in his line of vision. &ldquo;Oh come on! I won&rsquo;t be any trouble at all! Teddy was always able to look after me no problem and would never complain about it ever! So that means that I must be really easy to take care of!&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane gives Yula a frown. &ldquo;I think you misread Conner. Just because one does not complain about the work they are forced to endure does not mean that their tasks are easy or enjoyable.&rdquo;<br /><br />Yula jumps into the canoe that Kane has pushed into the water. &ldquo;Come on, just like you have a journey. I do too. You want to complete the spirits tasks right? Well, I want to stop the world from ending.&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane is not sure if he can take what he has just heard seriously. He grins while letting out a deep laugh, Yula looks insulted by the reaction. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s so funny?!&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane tries to shoo the wolf out of the boat. &ldquo;Go back home before they realize you&rsquo;re missing and accuse me of kidnapping you.&rdquo;<br /><br />Yula crosses his arms having worked everything out. &ldquo;I left a note behind telling Iuana where I was going, so that she and everyone else will know where I am.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Get out of the boat.&rdquo;<br /><br />Yula continues trying to both beg and explain why it is such a great idea for Kane to bring him along. &ldquo;Please let me come, I can&rsquo;t just sit back in the village and do nothing! Not when my visions are giving me such ominous futures. I mean, visions of the future are warnings, and can possibly be changed, so I&rsquo;m going to change them! I&rsquo;m going to make sure both Shiya and Teddy come back home, and then my sister can live happily ever after cause she&rsquo;ll have both her father and her betrothed back, and then Teddy will be my new brother and probably have like&hellip; a bazagillion kids with Iuana. I mean, just THINK of how many kids you could have when you&rsquo;re cursed not to die! A BAZAGILLION!&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane lets out a heavy sigh as he throws the supplies he had packed himself onto the small boat. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s an actual number&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;What I&rsquo;m saying is that things don&rsquo;t have to end up bad, and if there&rsquo;s something I can do to help Shiya and Teddy come back home then I want to do it! I may not know much about saving the Shiya and Teddy&rsquo;s lives, but I at least know that I can&rsquo;t do anything when I&rsquo;m stuck in the village, even the messages I try to send to Shiya to try and help don&rsquo;t go through!&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane shakes his head no it is obvious what will happen if someone as inexperienced and naive as Yula tags along behind him. &ldquo;If I bring you with me. you&rsquo;re going to die.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;No I won&rsquo;t, you&rsquo;re a Super Soldier, that means that you&rsquo;re stronger than Teddy, and if Teddy was able to keep me alive you can do it too. Besides, who better to take on a spirit quest than someone who is the messenger of the spirits? I bet I could help you out too.&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane sighs as he thinks the information over, it is true that he hardly understands the messages from the spirits, nor what it is the spirits wants him to achieve, so perhaps an oracle will help with that. &ldquo;Fine&hellip; but before I take you anywhere, are you sure your sister and the rest of your tribe knows that you have made the decision to join me?&rdquo;<br /><br />Yula nods his head. &ldquo;Yup, I left the note where it could be easily found, she won&rsquo;t miss it!&rdquo; He looks to the side. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t ask direction because yeah, that would for sure be an obvious no.&rdquo; He moves to the front of the boat. &ldquo;We should move fast so they can&rsquo;t catch up to us if Iuana sends someone after me to bring me back because she doesn&rsquo;t agree with my decision.&rdquo;<br /><br />Kane lets out a both tried and heavy sigh as he pushes the boat out into the water, this decision is one he is already regretting.<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />May hums to herself as she lays across a bench in a locker room, holding her hand in front of her face as she paints her nails, her comrade October lets out a smirk when she walks past her, pushing her off the bench and causing her to mess up her work and hit the ground, May lets out and angered shriek as she quickly sits up glaring towards the bear. &ldquo;What is your problem?!&rdquo;<br /><br />October sits down on the other side of the bench, eating a sandwich that she had brought with her, she and her companions that are currently in the locker rooms already dressed in their armour and prepared to move out as soon as July returns with the orders to do so. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re supposed to be a soldier, it&rsquo;s seems stupid for you to be doing something like that.&rdquo;<br /><br />May frowns at the comment. &ldquo;Hey, just because I&rsquo;m in the military doesn&rsquo;t mean I have to ignore my hygiene and personal appearance!&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that against our dress code?&rdquo;<br /><br />May begins to fix the mess on her fingers that October has caused. &ldquo;Actually it&rsquo;s not. As long as it matches our uniform it&rsquo;s all fine. I would know, I know our rules and regulations better than all of you combined.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t surprise me seeing as you have a computer for a brain.&rdquo;<br /><br />May looks to October annoyed by the comment. &ldquo;Only the right side of my brain is a computer, the left is perfectly normal. Besides, I&rsquo;m not surprised you don&rsquo;t know about any nail polish regulations seeing as you don&rsquo;t have fingernails or even real arms.&rdquo;<br /><br />October frowns at the comment as she places her food down and punches one of her mechanical arms into the palm of the other in a threatening manner. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you a set to match mine if you&rsquo;re going to be like that about it.&rdquo;<br /><br />May finishes with her polish, and she then looks over to December who is now reading a book as she waits for her orders. &ldquo;Hey December, want me to do your nails for you? I know you can&rsquo;t do them yourself cause you only have one real arm, you&rsquo;re not very graceful with that mechanical arm of yours so you can&rsquo;t do it yourself.&rdquo;<br /><br />The spaniel looks up from her book, though she is flattered by the offer now does not seem like the time to be doing these things. &ldquo;Oh, maybe next time. As soon as our team leaders get here we&rsquo;ll be heading straight out. I wouldn&rsquo;t want to start doing something that would contradict with our punctuality.&rdquo;<br /><br />May lets out a bored sigh. &ldquo;You guys are never any fun&hellip; it&rsquo;s always so serious with you Super Soldiers&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />December argues her point, it is important for them to not fall behind. &ldquo;You know how the True Blood soldiers are towards our squad, we don&rsquo;t need another reason like showing up late to add to the things they already say about us.&rdquo;<br /><br />May lets out a sigh, that is indeed true. &ldquo;Yeah I guess&hellip;&rdquo; She thinks their current situation over, they are practically waiting to be called to participate in a small war. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t believe the Commander General actually put the fortress into a lockdown. I mean, I understand the practicality of it and why he would, it&rsquo;s just&hellip; you know, kind of a shocking realization.&rdquo;<br /><br />October grins at the reminder. &ldquo;I like the idea, it means that we can go all out against Twenty-Six without having to worry about civilian casualties, or even about stealth, just an all out war against a Super Soldier and a god Who wouldn&rsquo;t have fun with that?&rdquo;<br /><br />May frowns at the comment. &ldquo;Uhhh, me? I&rsquo;m not like you Super Soldiers! I don&rsquo;t get off on fighting people, especially so called gods.&rdquo;<br /><br />December speaks up in her defence. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like nor hate fighting, so not all Super Soldiers see this as fun&hellip; just&hellip; as something that needs to be done I guess.&rdquo;<br /><br />October lets out a laugh at the comment. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re probably the only one that doesn&rsquo;t see it as fun.&rdquo;<br /><br />The door to the room they are in opens, the three quickly fall silent as July waits within the entrance to the locker room the three are waiting in. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re heading out, now.&rdquo;<br /><br />The three stop what they are doing, each getting to their feet and making their way to the door and making their way past July, the lemur explains the situation as they made their way down the hall. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a problem with the lockdown, there are about forty names that have not checked in.&rdquo;<br /><br />December is surprised by this information. &ldquo;Forty? That&rsquo;s a pretty big number of people to misplace.&rdquo;<br /><br />July continues to explain. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s believed these missing members may be members of the resistance that have been causing the military so much trouble.&rdquo;<br /><br />May is somewhat impressed. &ldquo;The resistance has at least forty members? And here I was thinking it was only a few handfuls worth of people.&rdquo;<br /><br />July nods her head. &ldquo;Their ranks are steadily growing, and it&rsquo;s very likely that their numbers are even higher than that. These are just the ones not complying with the lockdown.&rdquo;<br /><br />October holds her hands behind her head. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not that surprised, normal people can only be locked up for so long without losing it.&rdquo;<br /><br />July continues with her briefing. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be given a list of names and ID&rsquo;s, if you run into any of these individuals you are to subdue them and bring them in alive.&rdquo;<br /><br />May sighs at the order. &ldquo;Great&hellip; Domestics arresting True Bloods&hellip; that&rsquo;ll go over well&hellip;&rdquo; She looks over to July curiously. &ldquo;What does the boss man have to say about all this?&rdquo;<br /><br />July shakes her head with a sigh. &ldquo;The &lsquo;boss man&rsquo; says to try and capture them while inflicting as little harm as possible&hellip; the True Blood soldiers will be able to use any method of force they want but we are going to be watched very carefully, and every action we take is going to be judged.&rdquo;<br /><br />October lets out an annoyed groan, the group reaches the buildings exit and reaches the groups of soldiers that are starting to gather outside of the base. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t do gentle well.&rdquo;<br /><br />A voice speaks up in response to what October has said. &ldquo;In concerns to the True Blood resistance members you will hold restraint whether you like it or not.&rdquo;<br /><br />The group looks out to the figure that is standing in wait for them, he&rsquo;s the last member and leader of their group. May grins at him as she waves to him. &ldquo;Hey boss man! Long time no see.&rdquo;<br /><br />December elbows May. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tease him like that! You know he doesn&rsquo;t like it when you call him that!&rdquo;<br /><br />May looks to December like she is stupid. &ldquo;Of course I know that, that&rsquo;s why it&rsquo;s so fun to call him that duh.&rdquo;<br /><br />December walks next to him with a shy smile on her face. &ldquo;It has been a while, the last few missions we&rsquo;ve had have been stealth so you haven&rsquo;t been unable to accompany us.&rdquo;<br /><br />The figure turns around to face her and the rest of the group with a cocky grin, both of his arms and legs replaced with robotic limbs, the right side of his face is also replaced with metal and mechanics, the features that remain are that of a handsome coyote. &ldquo;The way you talk makes it sound like we only see each other on missions.&rdquo;<br /><br />December looks to the side. &ldquo;Well&hellip; we&rsquo;ve been on call ever since the targets escaped&hellip; so we&rsquo;ve hardly had any personal time since then.&rdquo; She looks back to him smiling warmly. &ldquo;The team just never feels the same when you&rsquo;re not included in the missions, it&rsquo;s actually a relief to be working with you like normal again...Zero.&rdquo;<br /><br /><div class='align_center'>*******</div><br /><br />Chogan holds a letter in his hand reading it over once more, it a note from Yula meant to be received by his sister, the elder folds the parchment and hides it within his clothes when he sees Iuana enter his home.<br /><br />Iuana holds a tired look on her face, she never enjoys confrontation with the elders, she approaches and sits across from him respectfully. &ldquo;You needed to see me?&rdquo;<br /><br />Chogan nods his head, he quickly gets right to the point. &ldquo;Yula has gone missing.&rdquo;<br /><br />Iuana nods her head. &ldquo;Yes&hellip; I know, he wandered off as some point yesterday, the village is searching for him but no one has been able to find him yet. He must have gotten himself lost.&rdquo;<br /><br />Chogan stares at Iuana as he begins to explain. &ldquo;You and I both know what happened. Your brother has not gotten himself lost. That Super Soldier that left the village yesterday, Yula went missing the same time he left, I do not think that is a coincidence.&rdquo;<br /><br />Iuana listens in disbelief, Chogan is outright blaming Kane for her brother&rsquo;s disappearance. &ldquo;No&hellip; that can&rsquo;t be right&hellip;&rdquo; Her ears fall back as she looks to the side, even if she doesn&#039;t want to she has to consider it, it is a reasonable scenario after all seeing as taking Yula from them is something he had warned them was an order he has been given.<br /><br />He continues to think the situation over, though Kane is difficult to approach and had come from their enemies ranks he seemed as if he had been making genuine efforts to become part of the tribe. &ldquo;He was trying to understand us&hellip; and trying to complete the spirits trials. He would even question me in hopes of finding some clarity or understanding.&rdquo;<br /><br />Chogan washes away any trust that Iuana might hope to keep in the solider. &ldquo;It was all simply a way of gaining your trust so that he would be able to reach and take Yula without facing resistance from our warriors.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;You must face the facts Iuana. He took advantage of your naivety and ignorance, and as a direct result to your failure to see the situation for what it actually is the Domestics have betrayed your trust in them and invaded our home.<br /><br />&ldquo;You were a fool to think that soldier could ever be trusted.&rdquo;<br /><br />Chogan to speak in his condescending tone, each word he says makes Iuana more unsure and insecure with her decisions when it came to her leadership to her people. &ldquo;How long do you intend to allow the Domestics to walk all over you? They have taken your father, his first warrior, and now your brother. Do you intend to turn the other check just as your father did? To be seen as a fool and taken advantage of? The Domestics are our enemy, and their attacks upon us are escalating with every move they make. If you do not act now then they will destroy us.&rdquo;<br /><br />He continues to talk down to her. &ldquo;The domestics see you as a fool, a wild animal that doesn&rsquo;t know any better, as a weakling afraid to retaliate against anything they do to you and your people. If you do not do something our tribe will be destroyed.&rdquo;<br /><br />Iuana thinks quietly to herself, an uneasy silence hangs in the air for several minutes before she finally speaks up with her decision on the situation. &ldquo;I will have Eleven gather the warriors of the village and prepare for battle.&rdquo;<br /><br />She gets to her feet, this constant deception has gone far enough, she still remembers when they had tried to take her away from her father and people. &ldquo;The Domestics have hurt us for the last time, we will destroy them, and we will force them from these lands just as the spirits requested of us, even if it means killing each and every last one of them.&rdquo;<br /><br />She lowers her head, with Yula being taken she was the last of her family left, her mother, father and all her brothers taken or killed by the Domestics. She was not her father, she was not and could never be as kind or gentle as him, and she was no longer able to over look the ones that are doing her, her family and her people harm.<br /><br />&ldquo;We go to war with the Domestics, and even if it is a battle we cannot win, it will be a war they will regret, and one that will cause them so much pain, that they will never forget it.&rdquo;</span>",
  "pools_count": 1,
  "title": "Raven Wolf - 05 - The Abandoned - Chapter 21",
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