Chapter 276 A Strong mind As usual, the head general Pual had left on one of his expeditions. This meant that the three other generals were left to run the military base, including the school while the others were away. Mike, the oldest and most experienced of the generals, was mainly in charge of running the base and other soldiers when this happened. This was a task usually for the head general, but because he was often away on other work, Mike would be put in charge. What this meant was the remaining two Generals, Nathan, head of first years and Duke, head of second years were in charge of running the school. Inside his office, Nathan had his feet up on his desk and was laid back in his chair. It was the first time he felt like this in a while. With the first years on the outing, there wasn’t much for him to do at the moment, and for the first time, he could finally take a break. "I wish I had this much free time everyday," Nathan said. Although he was still concerned for the students, the fact that Leo would be with them eased him a little. He was one of the very few people who actually knew Leo’s real strength. The probability of the students being on a high-risk planet was low, but even if they were, he was sure Leo could deal with it. Just then, a loud knock was heard on his door. "Come in." Nathan shouted. The soldier quickly opened the door and had a panicked look all over his face. "Sir, it’s sergeant, Leo. He has sent a message informing us that he will be coming back soon." "What!" Nathan said, jumping out of his chair. "It’s only been one day." The man gulped before passing on the next bit of information. "That’s not all Sir, I think you better take a look at the report he sent. It seems like the whole shelter will be evacuating from the place. Quickly, Nathan read the detailed report that had been written out, and his eyes opened up wide. If what was in the report was true, he couldn’t fault Leo’s decision making. Inside the portal room, in the school. Multiple medical staff and military personnel were there waiting on standby due to Nathan’s orders. The information from the integration at the shelter had been passed on. Most of the students had already been healed at the shelter, but this was just a precautionary measure. Nathan was also standing in the room nervously tapping his foot away until finally, the portal started to flicker. First to come through the portal was Leo, and eventually, all the students began to follow from behind. The students were led to their class groups where their teachers would round them and wait for further instructions. When the last student had existed the portal, and everyone there had been confirmed present. Nathan gave the command. "Cut the link." Nathan ordered. Two soldiers immediately ran up to the portal and pressed two buttons on either side of the portal, a few seconds later, and the orange wavy like colour had disappeared. Now when looking at the portal through the circle, the other end of the wall could be seen. This was a necessary step to make sure that no beasts or other things would be able to follow them from behind and enter the base. The portal was then quickly taken away, off to the side. It wouldn’t be used for student activity and would only be used once again when the portal colour had been changed to red, and for stronger soldiers to enter. The students didn’t know what was going on as they waited in the room for the next command. While doing so, Vorden had a heavy thought on his mind as he looked over in the direction of Cia. "Hey Quinn, we need to do something about Cia." Vorden whispered. "She saw your abilities, and not only that, but she also saw Fex transform into that thing. I don’t know why she hasn’t told anyone yet, but it’s too risky for her to know." Hearing this, Quinn couldn’t agree more. It didn’t matter why Cia was keeping it a secret. Unlike the others before, she wasn’t a friend. "Before you go," Vorden said, as he placed his hand outward and handed something over to Quinn. When looking at what he had just been given, Quinn noticed it looked identical to the earring that Fex was wearing. Black in colour and a rectangular shape. "It’s that flying bull, it told me to hand it back to Fex, while you’re talking to him you can hand it back." Quinn looked at the item, and found it interesting that the bull was able to transform into a small piece of jewellery like this. It really made him wonder if he would be able to get something like this. As he walked over to Fex and handed over the earring, he leaned over and started to whisper. "Hey Fex, we were just speaking, but do you think you could use your skills on Cia, to make her forget about the whole situation?", Quinn asked. "I don’t;t think it will be a problem, but I’ll be honest with you. It’s a lot of information, and a lot of things happened. It will be hard to fill in the blanks in her head if I do this. It might even cause her brain to be slightly damaged, removing so many events." Quinn didn’t like the sound of that. He hated the thought that perhaps he would have to hurt people related to his matter just to keep a secret. Just because she had the fate of joining Quinn’s team, it was possible she would now suffer for it. When someone did something wrong to him, like the time in the desert, he had no problems, but Cia hadn’t directly tried to hurt him. "What do you think?" Quinn asked, hoping for some guidance. "If it was down to me, I would have removed her memories already. It’s just too risky Quinn. I know you by now, and maybe you feel bad for her. But if humans find out about us, then that means the vampires will find out about us, and I’m more worried about them. They will kill and slaughter every person that knows of this secret to keep it hidden." What Fex said had hit Quinn quite hard. Not only would they go after him, but Vorden, Peter, Layla, Erin, Leo. It would affect multiple people who had only helped him so far. "Sometimes, we have to sacrifice a few to save the many", Quinn mumbled, as he clenched his fist. He hated saying these words, but he needed to convince himself. It felt like what he was about to do right now was no different from what the military was doing. They hadn’t;t even tried to save the people at the shelter they were just at. But they had a choice while, Quinn felt like he did not. "Go ahead", Quinn said as he gave the nod. Right now, Cia had departed from the others. She had agreed to herself that she would keep the other’s secret, but honestly, the main reason was she didn’t want to even get involved with people like that. A group of students who had way too many secrets, it just smelt like trouble. She herself didn’t like the military that much in the first place, so getting on their good side didn’t mean much for her. If she could go through her life without ever having to interact with the others again, then she would be happy, the problem was she couldn’t... While deep in thought about what her next move would be, she felt someone walking up from behind. "You..." She said a little startled as she moved back a bit. Still in her head were images of what the student had turned into. Although she was terrified, she quickly took a deep breath and calmed herself down. There was a high chance that Fex just had a transform ability that changed him into a type of muscular creature. Still, she remembered the power and loss of control Fex had back then, and it seemed like the Bloodsucker was a lot more frightening than even the King tier beast they had faced. "Don’t worry, you won’t be afraid of me anymore," Fex said as his eyes started to glow red. It was the usual thing, and something Fex had done plenty of times while in school. He just needed to wait for the typical response as her eyes would start to grow dull and glow a slight red in return. Cia seeing Fex’s eyes slightly change stepped back. "Hey, what are you trying to do to me!" She shouted. As she said this, a few of the students nearby had turned their head to look at what was going on. ’Huh, why isn’t it working? Am I too tired, No it can’t be that.’ Fex thought. ’Is her mind strong?’ He didn’t quite clock on to what was happening at first since it was a feeling he wasn’t used to, but it was clear that she was able to resist his powers. Seeing that now others were paying attention to them. Fex quickly turned around. "Sorry, just forget about it", he said as he walked off back to the others. "Did you do it?" Quinn asked, unsure what had just happened. "No," Fex replied. "She resisted against it. It’s the first time something like this has happened." ’Isn’t she only a level four ability user’ Quinn thought. The influence skill relied on one’s charm skill. Up to this point, Fex charm had always been higher and stronger than Quinn’s. Fex had used his ability on several students before and that included Level four ability users. He never thought of the possibility of his influence, not working. The problem was, it didn’t matter how strong the individual was with their abilities. It was all about how strong their mind was. There were some people Quinn could imagine the influence skill never working on, such as Logan, Vorden and Leo. These people were just too strong-willed. However, when looking at Cia, he didn’t feel the same way. Wasn’t she just an ordinary student? So why didn’t Fex’s influence skill work on her? ***** Job situation in author’s note if interested.