Page 36 of Whispered Warnings: Part One

The Choosing isn’t always used to pick out the teams, supernaturals at the training academies can choose their own teams, and that then gives them the flexibility to disband the teams and move on, if it doesn’t work out. You don’t get that choice if the scroll has put you with your team. Its magic binds you and the rest of the team members together, and it’s for life. The Choosing is only used in cases where two teams are fighting or have shown an interest in one individual, and although it does still happen, it doesn’t happen as much as it used to before the war, in fact it is now pretty fucking rare. Back in Trieneliea, going through the trials was more common than simply choosing your team. Supernaturals wanted the reassurance that they were with the people that they were fated to be with because the things that they had to face over there were so much more dangerous. The Choosing was attached to their Warrior academies, whereas it’s now attached to the training academies for SID.

The trials usually last for a week, and while they are taking place, all teams involved stay in a pocket realm to ensure that there is no cheating and no outside influences. The trails also take place there. The Choosing draws a huge supernatural crowd and is magically projected so that they can watch it unfold over a week. It would be a bad idea for Neith to be involved for many reasons, her being a human being the main one. Another reason, though, is that she is supposed to be dead, and although the agency can shield her somewhat, we know that someone supernatural wanted Neith. If they were to watch the Choosing, then they would see that not only is she alive when she should definitely be dead, but that she is also doing things that a human shouldn’t be able to do.

She also can’t die, if she dies and comes back to life for the majority of the supernatural world to see then that is going to paint a massive target on her back and again, allow the supernatural who was after her in the first place to actively start searching for her again.

This has the potential to be really fucking bad, and I hope that Ty is right and bringing her to the training academy is the right idea.

“I don’t want to take her to the training academy,” Griff says into the tense silence that has descended over us all.

“I don’t think that we have much choice,” Ransom practically growls.

“Ransom is right. Ty didn’t sound like he was going to back down on this,” Van replies with a frown.

“Do you think he knows something that we don’t?” Raiden suddenly asks, his brain one step ahead of us like usual.

Chapter Twelve

River

A growl rises in my throat, “He better not, this is Neith we are talking about, and I will be pissed as fuck if he knew something that would help us help her and didn’t share it.”

Eyebrows rise around the room at my declaration, but no one disagrees with me. They all feel the same way that I do, and I would imagine that Ty would be very surprised by our reaction if something happened to Neith, and it turns out that he could have told us something that would have prevented it.

“He said that there were several teams involved, but I’ll give you three guesses as to the name of one of them,” Ransom says, his jaw clenching.

“We don’t need three guesses,” Griff replies instantly, “Draconian.”

It's a stupid name if you ask me, considering there are five of them on the team, and only three of them are dragons; I guess the majority ruled in that instance. They give dragons a bad name, and that is putting it mildly. The leader, Kylen, is agiant dick and has had a problem with us for as long as we’ve been at the academy, and before that actually since we went to the Magical Academy with him as well. He always tried to be the best, and we always were, it has rubbed him the wrong way for decades. The rest of his team is just as bad as he is, and I actually have no idea how they have remained agents; everyone is aware of their morally grey practices when it comes to making sure the law is upheld.

The only person who is decent on the entire team is Coen, although he comes across as a dick at first. If you get him away from the others, he’s actually really fucking awesome. None of us know why he stays on a team of supes like that, but he must have more in common with them than we realize. Their team isn’t a chosen team, so he could leave anytime that he wants.

“Would they really make Neith go through the Choosing, which could kill her, just because she’s on our team and they hate us?” I ask and then immediately shake my head, “Never mind, of course they fucking would, they’re cunts.”

“Exactly.” Evander replies, “It’s not like we can even talk to them about it and convince them not to do it because that would just show them how much Neith means to us, and then they would want to do it even more.”

“Like I said, cunts,” I retort.

“I imagine that Neith is going to mad as fuck that the Choosing is going to choose for her which team she should be on when she knows she wants to be on ours,” Raiden says.

Evander winces, “No, she is going to take that very badly, especially when she gets told that it’s mandatory and not something that she can just not do because she hates being told what to do. I imagine if it happens, she is going to raise hell the whole time that she does it.”

“Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that,” Reed says, looking even more serious than usual.

“We need to tell her that it’s a possibility,” Griff points out.

“Are you sure?” Ransom asks, “It’s just going to stress her out even more than she already is, and she has a lot of shit to deal with at the moment as it is.”

Griff nods, “Yes. I haven’t known her for that long, but she would be pissed as fuck if we kept something like this from her.”

“Griff is right,” Evander agrees, “plus, if we give her a warning that it may happen, we could start to prepare her for it, just in case.”

I nod, “She seems to be a bit like me with her fidgeting and getting easily distracted, and if something like this was happening to me, or there was a possibility of it happening, then I would need to know as soon as possible so I had enough time to get used to the idea.”

Ransom sighs. “Shit, yeah, you’re right. We can tell her tomorrow; we have a fairly chilled out day after we have written the reports.”

“Well, I suggest that we tell her and then give her something to beat the shit out of because she hates being told that she has to do something, especially something like this,” Evander says.

“Done,” Reed says, and I have no idea what he is planning but there is definitely some sort of plan brewing behind those eyes.

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