Aftermath

Sam stayed in her rat form until she followed the pair into the city. While they walked through the streets, Sam decided to transform back to a human to conserve stamina. She didn't know what kind of situation she was getting herself into, but if things escalated, she didn't want to fight on half a tank. It took about an hour to reach the wealthy neighborhood, but when they arrived at the beginning of the district, Sam thought following the pair as a human would be too conspicuous. So, she transformed into a rat again and followed them through the grass. Finally, fifteen minutes later, Sam trailed the others to the estate. Since she didn't see a way in through the front, she made her way around the back beyond the tree line. But when she made it through, she wasn't expecting the sight before her.

Sheets of reinforced glass rose thirty feet in the air before angling inwards to create enclosures like zoos. Sam counted at least a dozen of these cages, roughly 2,500 square feet each. Behind the screens were all sorts of beasts except they looked genetically modified to bigger or fiercer than they normally would. As a member of the Rice clan, Sam was used to being around different animals. Though she didn't tell the group, her family was fairly well off and had a small zoo of their own on their personal estate. Her family also had hundreds of books and videos of animals in captivity and in the wild, what few there still were. Still, if one were to point out one flaw in all this teaching, it was that it stifled the creativity of their power.

Shifting progressed in a very straightforward manner. At level one, a person could transform into any mammal from the smallest rodent to a blue whale. Then the practitioner would gain the ability to shift into birds, fish, and reptiles at level two, three, and four respectively. And at level five, the caster could pick and choose to create their own animals, though Sam's parents were the only level fives she knew of in her immediate family. However, when a person wanted to transform into a creature to fight, they would instinctively change into a magical form of a real creature, for example, a flaming grizzly bear or an electrical cheetah. For some reason, no one decided to try to change external features about the beasts they were shifting into. Seeing a tiger the size of a polar bear gave Sam an incredible idea.

Sam continued to look at the different beasts and shifted into each one successfully, an eagle the size of an ostrich, a grizzly bear just smaller than a rhino, and a badger as big as a wolf among others. Each time she did it, Sam's smile grew bigger and bigger. With this in mind, she could break her barriers in her progression without picking another sphere right away. She was almost to the hedge maze when a loud bang sounded from the other end of the maze followed by a shockwave of incredibly force. Almost losing her balance, Sam caught herself and ducked down before peaking up and looking around. To get a view above the labyrinth, she changed into a raven and flew up slowly along the back. Using what she had just learned, she swapped the crow's eyes for those of an eagle.

There looked like there were five people standing on a balcony overlooking a courtyard. Right now, a large cloud of dust obstructed her view of the courtyard, but clearly, a battle had taken place. Then she further augmented her bird form to have the ears and facial structure of a barn owl which allowed her to hear the five people's conversation.

"Master, what would you like us to do?"

"We'll have to wait until the dust settles. The test went even better than expected, don't you think?"

"Indeed, sir. Still, who could have imagined the Arcane sphere would be that powerful?"

"Norman, when we get back to the lab, let's run power tests again. Based on what we've seen today, I would guess we're looking at a level six explosion. What did we figure the output equivalent to this go around?"

"Sir, we had guessed this amount would be equal to a level five force."

"Interesting. Looks like the dust is settling. I'll recover Agent 100; she did well testing our theories. We just vastly overestimated the strength of our product."

When Sam shifted, she had trouble concentrating on more than one enhanced sense at a time, so she hadn't noticed the dust clearing. Quickly turning back to the courtyard, she saw Emory standing while Tethys was bent over on the ground. Then one of the people from the balcony came and picked up Tethys; at the same time, the other four began to approach Emory. Sam knew she had to act soon if she was going to rescue Emory, so she returned to a normal raven and flew over to the other side of the hedge maze, making sure to fly as close to the top as she could to avoid detection and recoloring her feathers to a forest green. She decided to wait just on the other side of the entrance to the maze for people to come closer; not knowing what was about to happen, she closed her eyes and meditated, patiently waiting for the voices. Once they were in range, Emory transformed into the tiger she had seen earlier, hoping to cause panic but not confusion, and leaped over the wall with no difficulty.

 ~~~

Emory admired Sam's courage and said, "Thank you for being my friend, Sam. I really don't know how I would have escaped without your help."

"It was no problem, really," Sam blushed, "I don't know what it is about you, but I could feel we were meant to be good friends from the moment I met you. The first thing we need to do is decide whether Tethys remains a part of our group or not." As Sam finished, Emory's watch dinged a couple different times with multiple messages while Sam's watch dinged once. They both knew one of the messages was an auto-generated message alerting them that they were outside school boundaries with fifteen minutes until curfew. However, they were on the backside of the complex, so they didn't worry too much but picked up their walking pace just to be sure they arrived on time. Curfew wasn't set in stone on Friday or Saturday nights, yet the school wanted to try to keep students on a regular schedule. When Emory looked at her second message, her jaw dropped wide open, and she stopped walking. Sam looked back and called out, "Emory, come on. We need to be back on the base soon."

"Can you look at this and make sure I'm reading this correctly?" Emory's voice wavered, "I wasn't expecting this."

Sam stopped and pulled Emory's arm closer so she could read aloud the message, "Emory Reiss. Pending credit transfer of 10,000 credits. Pending senior approval when the bank opens in the morning. Wow, who's sending you so much money?"

"The Commission said they would fairly compensate me for my match with Tethys," Emory continued in a hushed tone, "I figured they were just trying to capture me, but maybe, they were actually going to treat me."

"Fairly compensate? Either they have some serious wealth, or they are trying to curry your favor," Sam commented. The girls rushed back to the grounds and went straight for the dormitories. Unsurprisingly, Tethys was absent when they barged through the door. Tana was lying on her bed, playing a game, but stopped to gawk at the pair when they came through the door.

"Emory? What happened to you?" Tana gasped as she scanned the cuts and scrapes littering Emory's body.

"Me? I was just stretching myself during a match," Emory laughed, "You should see the other person.

Tana careened her head around before asking, "And Tethys? Where is she?"

"Maybe you better go over the whole story," Sam prodded. Emory sighed but largely agreed with the sentiment, so she went over the story again from the time she left with Tethys until their return. Tana was also shocked by Tethys's apparent betrayal but, just like Sam, admitted to not really knowing Tethys outside of secondary school.

"So, miss scientist, what do you think about the black orb she shot at you?" Tana asked, "I mean, if you can see it, it's got to be some sphere of magik, right?"

Emory scratched her chin and answered honestly, "I don't know. At first and while I was in combat with Tethys, I thought so too. But it didn't follow any of the rules we know about magik. Let me get some sleep and think it over." Tana and Sam both looked over and saw the day had taken its toll on Emory. Though it was important to deal with these problems as a group, it was more important to be well-rested when dealing with these heavy issues. Once Emory had showered and changed, she tucked herself in and tried to drift off to sleep. Yet sleep didn't come easily for Emory as she tossed and turned in her sleep; her mind ran wild with thoughts and fears of this new group and the new powerful energy Tethys had wielded.

 ~~~

Tethys woke up in an all-white room with several pieces of medical equipment around her. She leaned forward and immediately felt the internal injuries she had sustained in her short fight with Emory. Feeling some pain, she lay back in the reclined position and glanced down at her arms which felt like they were on fire at the moment. The right one looked bruised and scraped up, yet she couldn't see any major destruction. Her left arm, the one she had used to fire the experiment at Emory, was a different story entirely as it looked like some initial skin grafts had already taken place. Despite that, her left hand looked like it had been pressed against an incredibly hot surface with severe burn marks on the edges between the new skin and the old. Stranger still was the thick black line running from the first knuckle on her index finger, up her arm, and all the way past her shoulder, though she expected it connected by the base of her neck and was only unable to see it without a mirror. Finally, after she had been awake and analyzed what she could of her body for fifteen minutes, Viktor entered the room from a door behind her.

"Tethys, you're finally awake," he said sweetly as he came around the chair, "I was beginning to worry about your health. Tell me, how are you feeling?"

"I'm sore all over, but I'll be fine. I'm sorry I failed, Master," Tethys breathed defeatedly.

"Shush, none of that talk right now," he whispered as he turned to face her. He was wearing surgical scrubs and a funny pair of glasses with different lenses that could flip down to change how one looked at something. He tried to pacify her, "We have no idea how these things are going to go until they do. You performed extremely well."

Tethys's voice trembled as she spoke, "What happens now?"

"Oh, more tests," Viktor replied coldly as he turned to one of the machines and started clicking away on it, "Always more tests. We are on the very precipice of change. Humanity fears its unavoidable plunge into darkness, but if we jump at the right moment, we can lead the people to salvation. Don't worry, sweet child, you'll soon forget all your troubles."

"No, no, I'll be good. Please, we don't have to do this," Tethys pleaded as she struggled to move in the hospital bed. Viktor snapped his fingers, causing restraints to bind Tethys to the table, and turned back to her with what looked like an oxygen mask.

"Easy, child," Viktor ominously repeated, "Take a deep breath and relax." He put the mask over Tethys's face who kept trying in vain to escape. She started breathing through the mask and passed out after only ten seconds. The last image she saw before falling asleep was Viktor's sinister smile.