She spent the next 2 hours telling him everything. Kyle held her tight, cried, whimpered, grew angry, experienced the gambit of emotions. Through it all, he kept her right where she was, where she belonged.
When she was done, Chekof nodded, "thank you."
With that, he left the room.
"That was a mood killer…" Kyle complained, trying put the horror behind himself as he often tells her to do.
"I love you so much. Thank you for loving me. For supporting me. I wouldn't have had the strength to share all that without you being here."
She adjusted the position of his hands, one up, one down.
"We have now. We are in this together. Always."
Soon, he was kissing her neck while his hands made her tremble in pleasure. They were both thankful their bed was attached as they pleasured one another before drifting off to sleep, spent and exhausted.
Lana woke in the night to feed Kent. Kyle woke up at the same time and pet their furry son while he ate. Kent purred over the love and attention he was getting. He was asleep just after the bottle was empty, sighing in contentment as he drifted off.
Since this was their last night to be able to sleep together, Kyle took advantage of that and made sure Lana once again experienced pleasure before allowing her to drift off to a peaceful, blissful sleep. He laid awake for a bit thinking about what they were going to do to take down his grandmother. He needed to find as many advantages as he could.
If she really was the one behind so many abuses, he knew she needed to go down sooner than later. Eventually he drifted back to sleep, feeling the love of an incredible girl at his side.
Lana cooked breakfast and let Kyle sleep. She got him up once breakfast was on the table.
As the friends sat around eating, "so, the plan is just to kill what is in our way on the way back, correct?"
Lana wanted to confirm. They needed to log all their crystals once they got back.
"Let's play that by ear," Paul responded. "We don't want to get back late."
Lana nodded, "I also want to check in with our other team members and see how they are."
Kyle asked, "how is everyone feeling after yesterday? Any pain or injury that remains? I can give some healing before we head back out."
Jessy responded, "are you Blaine or Kyle?"
Kyle chuckled, "since Blaine needs to take back over once we are back with the teachers, I'm going to hang out for a while longer."
Jessy nodded, "I'm feeling great after our healing yesterday. I woke a little achy from being thrown back like that, but I stretched and am better now."
Kyle nodded.
"I woke with zero pain, so your healing worked really well," Dobin replied.
Kyle nodded, "glad to hear it. I was quite tired when I got the chance to provide any healing."
Lana smiled. Everyone was about done eating so she started cleaning up. Like the others, she didn't want to play with that hard deadline.
Cleanup done, everyone packed up, she did her walk through and was shocked there was nothing left behind this time. She hit the button, stowed her shelter and they headed north, toward the shelter and the final hunting grounds on this planet.
Within 20 minutes, they were entering rolling plains much like those the nashorn were in, in fact, a lot of the yellow-light pink shaded grass blades were turned up to expose bare dirt.
There was a light breeze and Kent's nose twitched. Beast, mom! That way! He pointed with a tentacle.
"Look alive, 10 O'clock!" Lana announced.
Soon they could hear running and something crested a hill.
As it ambled over the hill, Jessy exclaimed, "Oh shit! That thing's a 4-foot tall badger! Just hope the 7 of us are enough!"
Its fur was dark brown with white stripes going down its back curving out then in like an eye. The fur inside the eye was black. Its four legs ended in claws that curved in scooping fashion. While they weren't pointy, they looked perfect for digging. Perhaps even for digging the entrails out of its kills. The tail resembled a cat, much like what Lana thought Kent's tail would look like when he grew up but poofier. Its head had a pointed snout for smelling and digging in the dirt. Snakes were unable to hide in their burrows to get away from this ferocious beast. The book said the skin was as thick as the nashorn but this beast was more agile and mean.
"Don't let it get close or we're dead!" Jessy shouted, almost panicked.
Kyle shrugged, fired an ice arrow then used metal shards in a tornado. The beast fell over, dead.
"Like that?" Kyle asked.
Jessy gulped, then nodded.
As they got near to collect the crystal, they noticed a level-2 crystal as well. They collected both and continued heading north.
It didn't take long before a pair of these meles, as the book called them, charged the team. Kyle used the same tactic and killed one, but he didn't want to take away the fun from the others. The remaining one let out an angry hiss and charged toward Kyle.
Lana fired out a vine to twist around the front legs. While the attack was successful, it rolled headfirst, broke the vine mid-roll, then continued running the last few steps to get to its target.
Just as it went to bite Kyle, Jessy swung his spear down from overhead. Chekof ripped out its throat with transformed claws. Karlen stabbed its shoulder with his sword. Dobin drove an earth spear through its chest. Paul was charging his laser.
While the beast dropped dead, a squirrel-looking beast popped up from its neck and spit at Chekof. He screamed in pain, "Acid!"
Karlen swung his sword once more, taking off its head.
"Now we know where the level-2 crystal came from," he said.
"I guess, while badgers are worthy foes, we are just so much stronger than they are," Jessy mused.
Within an hour, they had 30 level-4 and 30 level-2 crystals.
They left the fields and were attacked by flocks of level-1 birds. Kyle used a flame attack and killed 30 in one shot. They collected the crystals and another flock attacked. He used the same attack and had the same result. This time, 36 more crystals were added to the collection.
Lana called Kattie to find out her situation. They were playing around in the nashorn fields for the day until it was time to go. They would give themselves enough time to get back. Looking at her watch, she informed Lana they would depart the area in 30 minutes to give themselves time to register their crystals.
An hour later, Lana and her team walked into the shelter. Ten minutes later the rest of them arrived. Kattie and Lana hugged when they saw each other. They looked over their team members and exchanged hugs where they felt appropriate.
"What we did was had Sven eat the corpse, log the crystals then let him eat the crystals. He's now a level-5 beast!" Kattie said proudly.
Lana smiled, "that's great to hear! I'm going to see if we can log all these crystals for all three parties."
Kattie nodded, "you can. It's what we did. We are already in the top 5 on the board. I can't wait to see what happens when you log the rest!"
Lana smiled, "nice gear! I didn't compliment you guys the other day. We were all in a rush to get our work done."
Tobias smiled, "thank you for your generosity!"
Lana continued smiling, "we are working together. We get strong together. Let's go log these crystals!"
Kattie handed her another 43 nashorn crystals and two nasho.
Total crystal count:
Level-7: 1 (lioant)
Level-6: 9 (3 gristlehair, 6 lioant)
Level-5: 6 (bebarac)
Level 4: 12 (30 meles, 2 nasho)
Level-3: 43 (nashorn)
Level-2: 30 (Scurius)
Level-1: 66 (flock of beast birds)
They walked to the barracks and put everything out. The sergeant on duty got the leader's name of each group and scanned the crystals under each of them then handed back all the crystals. They got less points per crystals per team but the three teams suddenly were listed as 1, 2, and 3.
"Why didn't you take a portion of the crystals?" Lana asked the sergeant.
"The teams are to use the crystals from this outing to get stronger for the next one. Those who will be called to participate will be notified next month to give yourself time to make gear."
Lana smiled, "Thank you!"
Lana handed Blaine and Paul 1 gristlehair, 2 lioant crystals, and 2 bebarac crystals. "Who gets the level-7 lioant?" she asked the three groups.
"We will discuss that between the three of us," Paul responded.
Lana nodded, "is it okay if I hold onto the lower-level crystals? With two beasts we need to make sure they evolve with us, so they don't die while on a mission."
No one spoke up so she took that as agreement.
"Lana, save them for Kent. As soon as he's off the bottle, start seeing if he's willing to eat them. He'll be with us on that last outing. He needs to be as strong as you can get him."
Lana nodded.
After stowing their crystals back in their bags, which Lana returned before they entered the shelter, they returned to Sergeant Rage's side who smiled at them. Before long, everyone had returned, the head count was taken and those who survived the outing returned to the military academy.
As soon as they got back, Lana made a call to Bonol to schedule an appointment for the soonest timeframe. He had time immediately so instead of going to the dorms, the three team leaders went to meet the forge and hash out who gets what and what could be crafted.