Chapter 216: One Tells Lies, The Other Truths

At military Base 2, before the students returned, the head general was away once again on an excursion that was assigned by the Supreme Commander. General Mike was running the base once again. Nathan sat at his desk, feet propped up, enjoying the peace of having the students away.

He always had some level of concern when they were on another planet but Leo was with them. This meant Nathan was more secure in the knowledge the students should return safely, despite the fact they were forced to send first years to an orange portal planet.

This was an order that didn’t sit well with him. He felt they needed more class time before going on such an expedition.

As he leaned back in his chair, getting ready to close his eyes for a brief nap, one of his sergeants burst through the door.

"General Nathan! We just got a notification from Sergeant Leo! This needs your immediate attention!"

At first, Nathan merely opened his eyes. Then his mind reeled, ’Leo sent something that’s urgent?’

He leaned forward, setting all four legs of his chair back on the floor and read the messages Leo sent. His eyes were a mixture of anger and fear. His time of peace was ending early but the idea that his students were sent to a place the dalki potentially inhabited set his teeth on edge.

He read the message from his most trusted sergeant a few times just to reconfirm its words.

"Order the military evacuation from the planet," Nathan said through gritted teeth.

After he made sure he was in the portal room when the students returned. He dismissed the students but kept the teachers back. Once he was sure all the students were gone, keeping his eye on Vorden who seemed to be taking his sweet time returning to his room, he turned his attention to the teachers.

Nathan cleared his throat, and began his next announcement.

"For the time being, that planet will be removed from the rotation to send students to. All military personnel are hereby forbidden from going back and those who were stationed there are being reassigned."

He looked at each of the teachers to make sure they were paying attention to his words.

"Once we discuss this with the Supreme Commander, we will have a special operations team go through and assess if the dalki settlement is a threat or if it’s abandoned. The question remains because dalki take the blue crystals with them when they leave but that settlement still had some. We need to investigate this further."

As he spoke, he noted a few had fear in their faces. Del’s face was so white it looked like a sheet of paper had color.

Del had wondered if there was a possibility to get more points for his class until Nathan mentioned the dalki may still be there. Now he wanted to go to the bathroom and empty the contents of his stomach, thankful that he still drew breath.

"The other reason I needed to talk to you all is the Inter-Base tournament is coming up and you will need to send representatives for certain events this year."

A female teacher in the back quickly asked a question, "I thought that was only for second-years? Why are they putting first years in this year?"

"Apparently," Nathan responded, "some of the bases have strong first-years that want to compete so all bases are required to this year. It’s only the ranged ability, fighting, and crafting events. The rest of the events remain second-year only."

The teachers nodded and he dismissed them with a sigh, while Del stomped his way out. His class only had so many strong students if you excluded Erin and Vorden. The thing was, Vorden was only as strong as the strongest student, and Erin still had her strange condition, making them seem nonviable in his opinion.

He silently groaned, and ran his hands through his hair, "How am I not going to become an embarrassment?"

—

While Quinn was talking and walking with Vorden, Fex couldn’t hep but be suspicious of Peter. Even though he usually didn’t care for the rules, the security of the vampire world couldn’t be jeopardized by a person who was so easily frightened and manipulated. If it was, there was no way Fex would survive the wrath of his family if Peter’s mouth slipped open.

He had to take advantage of Quinn’s return being delayed.

While Peter was sitting next to the desk reading something, Fex leaned over, and tapped on his shoulder.

"Peter, could you look at me for a moment. You still look a little shaken from what happened on that planet."

Peter was tired and just wanted to relax but responded anyway.

He turned to look at Fex, "I’m fine, really."

It was enough. Fex’s eyes glowed red and the red circles around Peter’s pupils demonstrated it was a success.

Then, Fex spoke with a slow voice, "Peter, did Cia see anything relating to vampires in the underground city area?"

Peter replied in a monotone voice, "We came into the strange underground city. I tried to tell her that we should leave, but Cia wanted to continue going in. We got closer, but when we saw the king tier beast, we ran off. It was dark, she shouldn’t have seen any of you guys."

Fex gritted his teeth, but had to accept that Peter was telling the truth. The problem was, his gut was telling him something was wrong about this whole situation.

It was fine for a while, that Peter was left to his own devices, knowing the truth about vampires. But ever since this close call, Fex was thinking that it might’ve been better for him to get dealt with through the typical means of vampire law. Turning, memory wiping, or death.

There was no way that Fex wanted to turn Peter, as that meant he would now be attached to him and he wouldn’t be able to harm him. But when it came to either memory wiping or death, Fex remembered that Peter was Quinn’s friend, and despite Peter attempting to push him into a red portal planet, Quinn was willing to forgive him.

Then there was that promise at the beginning of the school year, how Fex said they were all friends.

Fex grumbled, and gripped his fists tightly before storming off to another corner of his room.

’Quinn wouldn’t forgive me if I did that to him.’

Fex was forced to table the matter for the time being, forced to ignore that part of him that told him the issue was far from settled.

—

As the girls headed back to their room together, Cia was fuming.

"They abandoned innocent people on that planet!"

In her head her thoughts continued, ’it was exactly as Pure taught us, but it’s different at the same time. Hearing them talking about it was one thing but to see it happen? There were innocent children left behind to die!’

Cia then turned to the other two, expecting an answer, "Did they really expect us to join the military when we watched how they treated those people? No loyalty, even to the people they’re ’protecting.’"

Since Erin and Layla wanted to know if Cia really did know about their secret, Layla kept the conversation going.

Layla nodded, "The good thing is that’s not a requirement, we don’t have to join."

"Yeah, but still," Cia scoffed.

By the time they returned to their room, Cia had calmed down outwardly enough to seem normal. Her demeanor made them both think she didn’t see anything because she had gone back to her relaxed self.

Inside her head, Cia used the techniques taught to her by Pure to appear calm. She was still quite angry that humans could treat other humans so poorly, but ultimately, she kept repeating one thing to herself.

’Pure comes first, and by extension, that means finding out more about Layla.’

As the girls were getting ready for bed, Layla decided to mention a specific topic to see if that would garner a reaction.

"Did you see the underground city?" Layla brought up, making hand gestures to refer to it, "It was scary being in such a dark place!"

Cia nodded, and plopped down onto her bed, "No kidding! I wanted to get closer because it sounded empty but it was dark. I thought it might be cool to explore an abandoned dalki city but the closer I got the more scared I got. Peter finally talked some sense into me and we left."

She shuddered at the memory as if to accentuate her feelings on the topic.

They all started climbing into bed.

"Well, you’re safe now," Erin added.

Cia yawned, "Definitely, but the same can’t be said for the others on that planet."

Judging by how Cia reacted, it was hard to say that she had actually seen them doing anything that would give them away. She didn’t act scared, curious, or worried about who or what they were, even in the privacy of their dorm rooms, so the two girls were inclined to believe that Cia genuinely hadn’t seen a thing.

As Layla pulled the covers up over herself, and the lights were turned off, she remembered that she heard something back when they were attacking the likmorn. It was a faint distant sound, even for her hearing, that briefly distracted her. The moment was small, but it made her wonder.

’Was that a human or something else? There were those beast-like dogs, and maybe the purple beasts dropped something else in the area?’

Unsure what it was, she kept it to herself and went to sleep.