ChapterTwentyOne: Secret Scheming

November 2155

It was now late afternoon. By now, both Cassie and Damon were asleep in each other's arms. As they slept, Damon's eyes opened immediately. He looked at Cassie, who was sleeping peacefully and comfortably. He gently kissed her head to wake her up. She did. She looked up at him with a small smile.

Damon smiled, then he frowned right afterwards. Cassie noticed this, so she asked, "What's wrong?"

He sighed as he explained, "I got a mindlink...from Kylie..."

With that, she sat up as she was surprised to hear this. She asked, "Why is Kylie mindlinking with you?"

"She's knows I'm a monster. Don't ask how she knew. She just did. She was telling me to go to an empty warehouse at 8 tonight."

"Why?"

"She didn't say. I guess it's some meeting or something."

This was making Cassie agitated. Why would Kylie, who was mated to Liam, contact Damon? Suspicious of it all, she asked, "Doesn't she know that she's mated to Liam, and that you're mine? You know what, I'm coming with you."

Damon sighed, "I'll be fine. Besides, I've heard other voices within the mindlink. She was probably speaking others also."

Cassie sighed in both defeat and exhaustion. She didn't exactly trust the popular Native girl. Then again, Kylie didn't exactly like Cassie either. At this point, Cassie still couldn't deduce why Kylie doesn't like her, but she didn't care to even to try to find out.

Then she received a deduction that the school was now empty. She spoke to Damon, "It's safe to go out now."

At the same time inside the school's gym, the soldiers were still evaluating the students. The soldiers filed everyone by year. They held these pan-shaped scanners to detect their species. If one was scanned as a "Gen-Mod," they're free to go. If they're scanned as "Normal," they're also allowed to leave. But if one was scanned as a "Hunter," the soldier takes out another scanner to see if the Hunter was from either Earth of GH569. If the Hunter is from Earth, they're given instructions to not bite the Gen-Mods in order to keep the person alive. Then they can go home. But if the Hunter was a Native, they're also given the same instructions, but they're sent to a government-sponsored apartment so the governor, the leader of a City-State, can decide what to do with the Natives: Either keep them in the city, or send them to one of the numerous Native cities.

Somehow, there were only Earth Hunters in the gym. Both James and Hannah were scanned, and were also let go. As the two were about to walk out of the gym, James asked, "Where are the Natives? Shouldn't they be scanned?"

Hannah scoffed, "You'd think so. Maybe this thing is routine for them."

"Nah. The news of that failed party over the weekend was all over the news. Maybe they knew something like this was going to happen."

Hannah sighed as she held hands with James. There was a part of her that was scared of him, scared that he'll bite her, that he'll turn her into a Hunter. She would also remember that Mason told her to not show fear towards the Hunters as they could sense fear very well. She did her best to hide her fear as she tried to show that she still loved him.

James, on the other hand, still had emotions running through him. He was scared for both himself and Hannah. He wasn't sure what he was truly capable of, and that scared him as he could potentially hurt his girlfriend. At the same time, he could sense she was scared of him. He could see through her small, loving gestures. Yet, he didn't want to say anything about it as he knew she had every right to be afraid of him. On top of that, he was angry at the person who bit him. He wanted to find this person, and...he didn't even want to think about what could happen next.

Just as he was about to speak up, he felt a sharp pain in his head. He groaned painfully as he dropped to his knees. Hannah gasped when she saw this. She hugged him as she asked, "What's wrong?"

As he was about to respond, he heard a girl's voice in his head, "Meet me at the empty warehouse in the Industriel District at 8pm."

Suddenly, James relaxed in Hannah's arms after the voice left. He looked up at her, and said, "I heard a girl's voice in my head."

Hannah wasn't sure what he meant until she thought more of it. Her eyes widened, and told him, "You can receive mindlinks!"

James was stunned by this. He asked, "Where there any notes on this?"

Hannah replied, "I told you, there wasn't much information in the notes my dad wrote. We're basically learning all of this as we go along. So who is mindlinking you?"

He thought for a moment. He knew the voice sounded familiar, then he said, "Kylie...the girl's voice is Kylie's..."

"Okay...why would Kylie be mindlinking you? What did she say?"

"She said to meet her at some warehouse in the Industriel District."

That made Hannah suspicious of Kylie, although she's not the only one who dislikes the queen bee of their school, especially after the party. She told him, "I'm going with you."

James asked, "Are you sure? What if there are other...Hunters there? What if you get bitten?"

She sighed. She figured there would be a risk by going with James, but she didn't trust Kylie, or Mason, or any other Hunter except for James. The she said, "I'll still go with you."

He sighed as he didn't want Hannah to get hurt by the Hunters. He held her hands, and said, "No. I don't want you to get bitten like I was. Just...I'll tell you everything that has happened. Okay?"

Hannah sighed. Then she hugged him, and said, "Be careful, okay?"

Instead of James speaking to her, he sinks his teeth into the croak of her neck to mark her as his mate! She gasped in shock. She gripped his back with her fingers, and gritted her teeth. It was painful, but she didn't feel any liquid pouring into her neck. If anything, it felt like something was burning her. Then he pulled away, and kissed the new mark he gave her very gently. He then explained, "I'm sorry. I kept having this urge to claim you as my mine. I guess these aliens have mates like the Gen-Mods do."

Hannah smiled with caution, "I told you earlier about that."

"Oh," he chuckled nervously. Then he kissed her lips gently.

It was now 8 at night. It was a cloudy night, but no storms were in the forecast. A large group of teenage Hunters, both from Earth and GH569, entered an empty warehouse. The building was relatively new, but it has yet to be used for some kind of business. It was kept clean in order to appeal to the former Undergrounders that kept coming in droves.

They all entered the building that was slowly decaying on the inside compared to the pretty outside. The Earth Hunters were confused by all of this, even the recently bitten ones were unsure. Yet, the Natives were filled with confidence, and it showed on their somewhat stoic faces.

Just as the doors were shut, two people emerged on the bridge overlooking everyone on the floor. They were Mason and Kylie, and they were dressed in dark pants and hoodies. The two faced the large audience. Everyone looked up, wondering what was going on.

Kylie lifted her hand to silence everyone, and began speaking: "By now, all of you are aware of my fabulous Halloween party, and everything that happened during and afterwards. We revealed ourselves to the delusional and ignorant Mutants and Zombies. We got the Earth Rossians to finally acknowledge their own kind. We even bit some of the Zombies! Unfortunately, you Earth Rossians and the bitten ones still look like sad zombies. Now we go into our next phase of our plan. Mason?"

Mason smirked as he explained: "Our next plan is to breed with the Mutants. Get those fake werewolves to claim us as their mates. The result would be a new half-species: Gen-Hunters, as everyone else would call them. We would just call them the most powerful beings that can take down the Mutants. As for the non-Rossian Zombies, we either breed with them, or we turn them into one of us. Or both. But our main priority is the Mutants."

When he finished speaking, the Earth Hunters and the Bitten grumble amongst themselves, whereas the Natives stood there with cold confidence. Both the Earth Hunters and the Bitten didn't like this plan. Sure, some of them didn't like the Gen-Mods, while some did. Yet, they weren't willing to use the superhumans as breeding machines to create a much more powerful half race.

Damon and Liam were there. They both remembered they heard that Liam was now mated to Kylie. They were both shocked to hear she was going to use Liam to create a Gen-Hunter child. Liam, remembering the information he was given by Hannah, decided to speak up. He spoke to Kylie and Mason, "I got a couple of questions. Why do you want to take down the Gen-Mods? They don't know much about your people."

Kylie smirked as she replied, "We'd rather keep it that way. Besides, they took our land. We have the right to take it back."

"Another question: If you call yourselves 'Natives,' then how did the Earth 'Rossians' end up on Earth to begin with?"

That got the Earth Hunters' attention. They all looked at the GH569 Hunters for an answer. James added, "In your people's history books, you wrote about your history on this planet. You claim to have lived here for 10,000. That sounds about as long as the human history back on Earth. Yet, there's nothing about your history before 2022...which is an Earth year. Another thing, how did your people end up on Earth when you were supposedly stuck on this planet? Explain that!"

That got the Earth Hunters riled up. Damon, himself, was impressed with this. Apparently, none of the Earth Hunters knew about the Native history. There were holes in the story, and there were unexplained gaps and cliffhangers. Even some of the GH569 Hunters looked like they were about to question their history.

Mason and Kylie, on the other hand, stood there, agitated. Mason made a loud, inhuman growl to shut the Earth Hunters up. Once he saw them silent as they glared at him, Mason spoke up sternly to James, "So you're the boyfriend that Zombie cheerleader kept talking about. She obviously told you about the history book she read without my permission."

James talked backed, "About that, your people have your own language. Yet you speak English. Even your history book was written in English. How are you aliens when you speak an Earth language?"

With that, Mason jumped off the bridge, and landed on his feet safely. He stormed up to James, and punched his face out. Then he said, "You're now a Rossian yourself. You must not question our ways, which are now a part of you."

James growled. He faced Mason, and spat in his face. Then he said, "Just because I'm now one of you alien vampires with two people in their heads doesn't mean I should follow your ways blindly."

With that, James walked out of the warehouse with all the other Earth Hunters and the Bitten following him. Mason stood there, seething. He then faced the GH569 Hunters. He demanded, "Don't you fucking tell me you're questioning our ways and our history! My mom is a historian!"

A couple of the GH569 Hunters decided to walk out of the warehouse, following the Earth Hunters. There was still a large group of Native teens. Mason sighed as he looked at Kylie, who was now standing next to him.

She told them, "Don't worry about those traitors. They'll come around if they know what's good for them. Now, let's go over to the next phase after the breeding process..."