The next day started fine. Until I sat up to get out of bed. Immediately, I groaned in agony. Every muscle in my body was completely sore. I groaned again when I remembered I was going to have to train again, and I had a sinking feeling that complaining would not be tolerated.

Lucky for me (or at least, that's what I thought at that moment), I was called to come to a conference room. I headed there, but when I entered, a conversation between Racer and Skyal was paused midsentence.
"Oh, uhm, am I... interrupting something?" I said carefully.
I saw Racer looking at Skyal awkwardly, but Skyal looked at me calmly. "Nothing of the sort," he said in that fancy way of speaking of his, "please take a seat."
"Yes, the others should be here soon," Racer said, now recovered from the original awkwardness.
"Oh, alright then," I said, determined not to show them I had noticed the awkwardness. Although, in hindsight, I realize that they probably realized this themselves. I sat down and that's when the awkward silence started.
I was silently messing with my nails and I noticed Racer, who I sat across of, messing with the necklace I hadn't noticed until then. On it was a pendant shaped like a winged shield. I wondered where he'd gotten it but I didn't ask. I didn't raise my eyes either, mostly because I had the feeling Sky was staring me down.

Just when I thought the awkward silence was about to get unbearable, it was finally broken by Raleigh entering the room, followed by Dino.
"Sorry it took so long," Raleigh said easily, "bridge malfunction in the hub, had to fly here myself."
"Which is Raleigh for 'I need an excuse to hide the fact I plundered a pizzeria.'" Dino put in.
"Shut up, you traitor, you helped!" said Raleigh, confirming Dino's comment.
"I did not!"
Skyal sighed deeply. "Just.. sit down, you two, before I get even more of a headache.
Without further question, the two sat down.
"Right," Skyal said. Then he snapped his fingers and the room darkened, a holomap of a planet (I assumed correctly that it was Ionica) appearing above the conference table.
"We all know the Unity is a danger to us all. They have been proving it more and more in the recent past. However, there is much we do not know about them- or what they're after. At first, we thought of them as a minor threat, merely another terrorist group or rebellion. But during the raid three months ago, led by Dino, that was proved very, very wrong. The Intel that base has provided us shows that their numbers are not only larger than we originally assumed, but they are also in possession of old Union war tech."
"The big question now," said Dino, "is what they're after- besides world domination, of course."

"Most of their latest attacks weren't intended to actually hurt us," Raleigh pointed out, "they were seemingly too random." The holomap showed red dots supposedly represented attacks, seemingly randomly scattered. "That is, until we realized that, every time they attacked, they tried to hack into vital databases. If you combine that with the fact that they're still hanging around in the middle of nowhere all the time... They're searching for something, and they know we know where it is, whatever it may be."

"We know the unity has been searching for major sources of power over the past few years," Racer said. "First they tried to use the Hearts of Leadership to create their own defenders- in which they succeeded, but obviously, it didn't work out, 'cause look where I am now."
"Yeah. Presumably they gave up on that idea," Raleigh agreed.
But this is where I stopped them. There was too much in what Racer just said that sounded unfamiliar even though he'd said it like it should be the most normal thing in the world. Then again, I was in a whole new world, compared to my own, so maybe it was normal here.
"Hold on," I said, sitting up straight so they'd at least notice me. I was slightly soft-spoken. Keyword: was. However, I almost immediately shrunk back as everyone looked at me. I flushed and only barely managed to say, "uhm, w-what's a Heart of Leadership, exactly?"
"Simply put: an object that turns an ordinary person into a Defender," Raleigh explained.
"That's not to say we're better than you, but, well.." Racer hesitated, but he didn't have to finish the thought.
"We are, technically, better than you," Dino finished apologetically.
I nodded. Even though I didn't get it entirely yet, I figured it was enough to let them proceed.

Dino looked at me for a moment, then nodded, satisfied that he could go on. "So, they're searching for something of major power, and they think we know where it is. Knowing the Unity, if they know it's there, they had something about it in their own databases which means the Union either had it, or was trying to get it in the past."

"Most of the major artifacts from the union, such as weapons of mass destruction, have been either confiscated or destroyed after the war. I can personally confirm that. All things with actual great power have been destroyed, they know that. This suggests what they're after might not be an object, but rather a person," Skyal explained.
"Besides Stephanie here," Racer added.
"Indeed."
"They're looking for someone," Raleigh repeated, "But who...? I've read the datalogs on the personnel files and, in all logic and honesty, I don't see any reason why they should want an old Ionican officer on their side. Most are either dead or useless."
"They're looking for one of their own," Racer realized, and Raleigh nodded.
"Although, they don't know where he or she is, meaning the person they're looking for is either MIA or has defected to our side. It would explain why they think we know."

"I accessed the Union personnel files, recovered from their archives. I've made a list of their most important officers that joined us or went off the radar. Six of them caught my interest." He brought up six files which, oddly enough, looked like some sort of trading cards, for no apparent reason whatsoever. "First of all, there's Draekos. He was the Union's chief scientist and one of their bigger commanding officers. He reported directly to Aidan. He only decided to flee when he personally confirmed his master's demise. We've been unable to locate him ever since, however, there have been reports of him being sighted at Unity raids."
"Yeah, you can scratch him off the list Sky," said Racer, the bitterness obvious in his voice. There was clearly no love lost between Racer and this Draekos character.
"I know he's there, he was the one who experimented on me when they had me captured. He turned me into this and killed-" He clenched his shaking fist, but Raleigh shook his shoulder to make him snap out of it. I wondered who Draekos could've killed to make Racer react so strongly. I'd only known the guy for maybe a week, but I had the strong feeling that this was very uncharacteristic. It was certainly different from the easy-going attitude he'd had before.
"I'm fine," he told Raleigh, but even Dino's nearly emotionless face looked oddly worrying. Not for the first time, I felt like these people were intentionally hiding things from me, but I understood. I was a stranger, after all. I might be their problem, but that didn't make me their friend, let alone make me trusted.

Skyal seemed to see this as a good time to continue. "Second, third, fourth, and fifth are the Nemesis units," he said, as if nothing had happened.
I interrupted again. "Nemesis units?"
"I was about to get to that," said Skyal, "but simply put, clones."
I was getting slightly annoyed with everyone constantly saying 'simply put,' as if I couldn't handle the real explanation. Then again, I probably couldn't, but that wasn't the point.

"As most of you know," Skyal continued, "they were supposed to be Union weapons of mass destruction, supposed to individually take on the ones they were cloned off. They defected to us because they had a similar mindset as their originals, something the Union had not foreseen. Even though it has not been confirmed they have all been killed, we did receive a distress signal from their ship, the ISS Thunderstrike, that they were attacked by a Union vessel and were about to crash land on Earth. We haven't heard anything from them ever since. The Union must obviously know this as well, seeing how it was one of their own who shot them down, so they are probably off the list. All but one."
"Diana wasn't on the Thunderstrike when-" Racer started, but was once again interrupted by me.
"Wait, what? I thought that Diana..."
"You thought she was a human mage," Skyal finished. I nodded but Skyal immediately shook his head. "As far as I know, there are no human magi. Only Aeleans- elves." He added the last part before I could ask what an Aelean was. I thought back to a few days earlier, when I had asked Skyal if Diana was a human mage, he'd said he couldn't answer that for my own good. What had changed in the few days that made it that he could answer the question now? I repeated the thought to Skyal and he looked at me.
"I can answer your question now," he said, "because I asked you to join this discussion and it wouldn't make much sense for you to be here if you had no idea what we were talking about. Got it?"
I nodded. Even though I didn't agree, I figured it would be foolish to argue about it.

"Can I go on now?" Racer said, and I nodded. Racer mumbled something about dramatic effect and I guessed it wasn't exactly something flattering towards me, but he continued nevertheless. "Diana wasn't on the Thunderstrike when it was destroyed," he said, looking at me, daring me to interrupt again. "She fled from Ionica far before that during the... incident..." In this case, I didn't have to interrupt to know that he meant when she has been possessed. "You didn't have any official records of where she went up until we met Steph."
"Technically, the uprising beat us to her," Dino pointed out. "It was pure luck that we ran into her. They're obviously aware that she's here, so it's not her they're looking for."

Raleigh turned to Skyal. "Who's last on the list?"
"I saved the best for last," Sky answered. "Craditor, former Union second in command and extremely dangerous. Like we expected him to so, he disappeared without a trace when the Union even came close to defeat."
"If I have my history correct," said Raleigh," Craditor was one hell of a coward with his own agenda. He often changed sides and tried to steal command of the faction. If they are actually looking for him, that would explain why they think we might know about it. Too bad we don't."
"This would actually make sense," Dino said. "If the Unity takes after the union like they say they do, the next in line for leadership would be Craditor. And seeing how we don't know anything about their current chain of command..."
"It could very well be that they need a good leader for authenticity reasons as well as to have access to more Union stuff," Raleigh finished. "Not to mention having a good strategist is a huge improvement."
"So basically," I said, trying to sum it up, "if it is this Craditor character they're looking for and they find him, we might just have a very large problem?"

Ello there you lovely readers!
Well that was boring to write... Woooooo explaining a whole bunch of things to the public that are as normal to me now as cotton candy (I have no clue why that was what popped in my head but it was)! Only get it once in a while but I still know what it is and I can still identify it easily. But because I care about y'all I'm willing to do this and not just throw you in a lake full of predators of which you can't see the bottom because it's very deep but instead I'll give you something you can float on instead. Did anybody get an information overload yet? XD
Remember, you can always ask if you don't know what a certain term means. If it's important for you to be confused I will tell you, don't worry.

Also.. We reached 500 views! Holy shit you have no idea how much I appreciate that.

Other than that I have not much to say. Oh wait no actually I was gonna say that this is just part one of this conversation... it's just that I almost had 2000 words already and more than enough information (not to mention I wanted to get the chapter up today). But yeah, be prepared for more information.

Again, thank y'all so much and, uuh, that's it.

Xx Rissa