12

Owen lands next to Xavier and smiles at him.

"Hey man, you've got a pretty solid team there." Xavier complements as they walk together behind the Beta Force team leading the way talking to those paying attention.

"Yeah, did Dee hint where she's wondering off too? I'm worried about her." Owen looks around for Ryan he needs to talk to him too, "We'll talk later, I need to corner your BFF for a second." He grabs Ryan by the forearm and drags him in the opposite direction that everyone is walking.

"Dude, what's going on?" Ryan asks looking at Owen confused, that was a rather unfriendly way for Owen to handle him.

"We have a problem dude, the blue overalls are doing background checks on everyone and my sister says they randomly stopped by her place last night and asked some questions. I have been having a hard time getting a hold of Dee's mom, and I don't want to talk to her asshole of a father, so could you do me a favour and give them a heads up to not mention." He looks around and notes the others staring, "You know." He scowls lightly.

Ryan rests a hand on his shoulder smiling brightly, "Don't stress out so bad pal, Angel already sorted that out. They won't say a peep."

~

"Can you explain more about the trials to us? You guys are the team that made it back from the trial right?" Lily asks holding Xavier's hand into hers to pull him along so that he can stop glaring at Ryan and Owen looking like they are discussing something very important without him.

"Yeah, but only two of us made it out of there alive. The Beta trials are child's play compared to what the dark planets have out there. People still think that humans are the ones who put those creatures out there, but that's not the truth.

"The trials are to weed out the countries that aren't so serious about space travel. I think the US and UK found something big out there and will only share it with countries at Alpha level, so far only those two countries are at Alpha level.

"We were actually aiming for Alpha level and not Trial level, if South Africa can make it past the Beta trials and enter the Beta program you will be the first country in the entire African continent to do so. We were pretty psyched to hear the trial form was submitted to South Africa instead of Australia.

"To answer your question in more detail Spirit, the trials are nothing but a test to see if you're really ready for what's out there. You'll experience what it's like once you're at camp, and if anyone has been scaring you guys and telling you people die out there I can assure you the aliens are not the only ones doing the killing."

The male turns to Lily with a frighteningly serious face, and scarred too, "The trials are set up in three different phases with different tests and it doesn't take a full year like it's rumoured. You will go to three camps and that's all the trials are, the rest of the heavy lifting is up to your country hence why they go overboard to generate funds for you.

"Information is expansive, you'll be fine as long as you go in knowing what you're signing up for, but sometimes you'll realise you're going in blind. Personally for me our final mission was easy. It's a yearlong quest and I don't know what it will be for South Africa, but for us it was basically operating as an Alpha team doing Alpha missions and slowly but surely our numbers dwindled down. The missions only got harder."

Owen nods standing next to Rider taking notes on Ghosts' behalf since he and Six are the ones assigned to finding the Wild Wolverines for the team.

Angels shuttle flies above everyone's heads to land hers where everyone else left their shuttles.

The team leader of Team Ra smiles when he reaches his final destination at a beautiful waterfall with green water falling down, "Fun fact you guys we can breathe on this planet, and the water here might be green, but it's clean." He takes off his suit and jumps into the lake swimming in the water.

Angel finds the others swimming in a lake and takes a seat under a tree watching Owen and Ryan try to catch the wolf he owes her.

Xavier takes a seat next to Angel, "Where did you wonder off too? I felt stupid for being the only one who didn't want to jump into that green pool."

Angel smiles holding up a panther stone, "I heard planets like this one have these stones and they are considered the new diamond. I want to make something special out of it for two special people to me." She smiles when Owen finally manages to hold down the wolf and put it to sleep, "I wish he could get two more puppies too."

Xavier crosses his arms, "You've been secretive since you came back from the so-called rehab you were at, what's that about?"

Angel smiles at Xavier, "Captains orders." She smiles watching him lose his cool even more.

Ryan sighs when he finally sits under a tree with Owen across the lake away from everyone else, "You can't hide them forever Owen so what will you do?"

Owen shrugs his shoulders, "I should be at home with Dee cuddling our beautiful kids instead I'm here and she's here and not even our closest friends know what's happening. I really wish she took the BSA offer."

"I bet she does too, but it's too late now. When are you going back to Venus? I want to tag along."

"Didn't you go with Dee yesterday? You two were M.I.A."

"I did, but I want to see them again. I don't get why you have to hide them."

"Both my parents were born and raised in Venus, I was born in SA sure, but by blood I am 100% Venus. That's considered illegal nowadays, and I don't count as a pure South African which therefore means I don't qualify for the trials, but the bigger crime in their eyes will be Kahuna and Kiyasa.

"They actually call it barbaric for two people from two different planets to have a child together. The blue overalls told my sister that they only do checks on people that stand out in the trials. They did a check on Dee and she was clean there's no record of the twins, but when they did a check on me everything about me came out and that includes the twins.

"They don't know the mother is Dee. Mom just said the mother is South African. I know a lot of Venus girls in SA I just can't think of one I can trust with this secret and they pretend to be the mother, faking the documents is the easy part."

Ryan shakes his head pointing a finger at Angel actually getting along with Xavier having a proper conversation and laughing, "She hates being here, but she's dead set on making it to Alpha rank. Making it to Alpha level means we are no longer governed by the US and we can go back to our old traditions and maybe learn about our own countries history in school.

"Being Alpha rank also means that we can change that rule that was set up by the US, you really stress her out when you try to do things your own way when she has a solid plan. She has been planning for this for the longest time, she saw this coming years before the rule was put up. She even had Ranger get arrested for some research. There's nothing she won't do for her kids. Your children, trust her."

Owen sighs, "I don't doubt her I just prefer being the backup plan."

Ryan, "She's convinced you don't trust her."

"That's why we're on two different teams, we just can't agree on things when it comes to matters like this." He stands up walking towards Angel and Xavier.