******************************** Authors Note ************************************

Hey Guys,

Sorry for the late posting... Moving to another state is a bit of a pain in the ass... So that's a thing. Second, my new home don't gotz the interwebs yet and may be a few weeks down the road. I'll do my best to keep posting using some free wifi places. Once again, Sorry for the delay.

Cheers

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Snapping back to reality, Drake now realized that Jeff saw something that day which he wouldn’t come to know until the attack. He truly had no feelings for others besides Alina. In fact it was worse than what Jeff had said; he enjoys killing others, and the rush that comes with it. He knew he liked to see others suffer and enjoyed being the one that caused the suffering but killing is a different thing altogether. None the less, Drake was starting to get annoyed by the noise some of the others were making; so he shot them a look to shut the hell up, and one of them finally recognized who it was.

“Shit, that’s Drake.” One of them pointed out.

“What?! How do you know?” Another asked.

“His eyes man, his eyes are freaking crazy and his swords are crazy and heavier than hell too.” The first one responded.

Then the group turned to look and see. They saw his eyes glaring at them and they saw his two swords resting between his legs. A few days before the attack, he had built a magnetic sheath for the red blade to make it easier to use, though he wasn’t able to use it until now. As a result, there is no cover for his blade, and only two very strong magnets attached to the blade held it in place.

“Wait if that’s Drake… Then that means the girl is Alina…” A third member said.

“Oh shit!” The first one said.

“Wait, who are they?” the fourth member of their group asked.

“The strongest of the most recent class.” The first one said.

“So?” The fourth one asked.

“You idiot! Even with five tails, they beat a seven tail in a fight.” The second guy said.

“Actually no, I did that alone.” Drake answered.

The group just looked at Drake wondering how he could hear them.

“I have really good hearing. I heard everything you guys said. Now please shut up, we are trying to get some sleep.” Drake said coldly.

The group just shut their mouths and kept to themselves. But Drake wondered why people would always say something about Alina. Sure she was very beautiful but is that really a reason for the harassment? In comparison, she was much shorter than Drake. She only stood at five feet three inches, so not much taller than when the two met. But she had put on some muscle and finally broke the one hundred pound range. Now at one hundred ten pounds, she had a lean, sculpted figure that, like Drakes, is rarely seen through her loose fitting cloths. They weren’t as baggy as Drakes, but she hated constricting clothes and always chose to wear bigger sizes. But what really drew people to her are her eyes. The grey-blue eyes are absolutely stunning when she isn’t glaring at people, and absolutely piercing and terrifying when she is. Her long, thick hair developed a natural wave to it. And when it isn’t tied up or done in any way it hangs all the way down to her hip. Right now though she just has it hanging loose with some hanging over her shoulders down to her belly.

What really sets her apart in Drakes mind are her scars. She now has three scars on both sides of her face that start just above her eyebrows and end just below her mouth. They aren’t shallow scars either, but the middle one of each of the two sets is the deepest. He wondered how she got them, but even she doesn’t remember getting them. Drake isn’t stupid though, and he had a hunch of what happened. They look like claw marks, like someone or something had clawed her face. But the spacing of the scars fit her hand spacing and the scars themselves are the same thickness as her fingers. He figured they are self-inflicted for some reason, and knowing her it’s probably because she thought he had been killed. Then again, this is all speculation on Drakes part since he really had no idea. Little did he know he was hitting the nail square on the head.

After that, Drake fell asleep only to be woken up what felt like a few seconds later.

“You have twenty minutes left until drop off!” A flight crew said to him.

“Huh?” Drake responded still tired.

“Get all your final checks done; you guys jump in less than twenty minutes.” The crew member repeated.

Drake was about to get up when he realized Alina was still sleeping on him. So he gently shook her awake, and as usual she was up and ready to rock in under a second. How she did it Drake had no idea. They fastened all their gear together and packed them into their drop create, and then checked their jump gear. Thanks to their muscle and bone structure, GenOpS are capable of falling from great heights without damage. Of course, falling from forty thousand feet could still be fatal. To help with this, the Tail Power Group created a special jumpsuit, that when activated, provided some downward thrust to slow the rate of fall down to a safe level. When everything checked out fine, they suited up and checked to make sure everything was fastened correctly.

With everything good to go, the couple noticed they still had some time until their jump. So with the time they had left, they did some research on the power groups using the cell phone. They found information on laws that all groups must obey to keep a legal status. Without that status, they would lose government funding and any way for employers to contact them.

But they didn’t get much time when the crew informed them it was time to jump. As the back hatch opened Alina and Drake lined up to jump last. Everyone turned on the GPS trackers attached to their gear and threw it all out. Shortly after they all attached their oxygen masks and ran to jump, but only Alina and Drake jumped out hand in hand.

At forty thousand feet, the air was frigid cold. None the less, Drake took in a deep breath of relief being out of that cramped plane. He started to laugh from excitement and dove faster, pulling Alina along with him. Alina on the other hand was just happy to see Drake relax again. He had been tense for so long on the plane it was starting to hurt her. Then it hit Drake that it was still dark outside, and with as high up as they are the stars should be a beautiful view. So he pulled Alina in, much to her surprise, and turned around to look at the sky. What they got was a perfectly clear view of the stars and all their brilliance. Drake just held Alina close until the clouds started to block their view so they turned around and started to dive back to earth again.

At two thousand feet, the couple noticed they were going to land in the surrounding forest. It would make it a pain to land, but nothing they didn’t practice for when they did jump training. To them, the hardest part would be tracking down their gear, and then getting into base, but they would work on that after landing. With one thousand feet left, they straightened up and activated the boosters, and once they got to level with the trees, they grabbed some branches to swing from tree to tree and jumped down to the ground.

Once they landed, the two activated the GPS beckon so they could find their gear. Luckily it wasn’t too far away, and they only had to walk ten minutes to get to it. When they got to the location of their gear, they found it hanging up in a tree. That wasn’t anything they weren’t expecting though. In fact they would have been more surprised if they found it on the ground with all the trees everywhere. So Drake jumped and climbed up the tree to knock the crate down.

After landing with a loud thud, Alina opened the crate to pull out their gear. When she got everything out, she handed Drake his stuff except for his swords that he gathered himself and they were off. Using the GPS they found the location of the base and which way to head. Along the way they heard screams of pain. Curious as to what happened they wandered over to where the sound was coming from. After clearing through some bushes they came upon a group of GenOpS that were in the plane with them. One of them had botched the landing and now had a broken leg, and another one was dead with his head spun around and several broken bones.

“Hahahahahaha, what happened here?” Drake asked in a mockingly sympathetic tone.

“Looks like the dumbasses messed up their landing babe.” Alina answered with a similar tone.

The two that had landed just fine gave them a shocked look.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” One of them demanded.

“Wait I recognize you.” Drake said.

“You guys are the pricks that woke me up with your useless talk on the plane.” Drake said annoyed.

Alina had knocked out on the plane and wasn’t aware of this, but once she heard it any thought of compassion left her head.

“Oh really? You guys woke up my Drake?” She asked with a demonic smile.

The two shivered from her cold energy. And even though she is weaker than they are, she gave off a frightening killing intent. As she walked over to them, her dark energy scared them more and more as the pressure grew. She looked at their tails to see they both had a fox tail, the one with a broken leg had nine Cat Tails and the dead one had seven.

“Not very impressive for fox tails.” She said as she stepped on the broken leg of the nine tail.

As he screamed in pain, Drake couldn’t help but smile. The sound of cries of pain is like music to his ears.

“The hell is wrong with you bitch?!” The two fox tails said as they stood up.

But they couldn’t do anything. No sooner did they step up did Drake walk up between them and put his arms over their shoulders to lean on them.

“Now you’re not going to touch my love are you?” Drake asked in a cold, quizzical tone.

When they looked at Drake to fight back, they lost all hope. Drake had his devilish grin, and was looking at them with a happy, but insane, look on his face. To compound that, the killing intent and dark energy he gave off was even worse than Alinas. Not to mention he had unsheathed his black blade with his tail and was ready to kill them should they actually do anything. Alina noticed this, and was elated that Drake was willing to go so far to protect her.

“N-n-nnn-nn-n-n-n-nn-no. We w-w-ww-w-ww-w-wwww-weren't.” One of them managed to stammer out.

“Good.” Drake answered and got off of them.

Drake then walked over to Alina, who was still standing on the nine tails leg, and reached his hand out. Happy that he protected her again, she happily took it and they walked off to head to base.

“What the hell is wrong with those two?” One of the fox tails asked and they went back to attending their friend.

“Nothing, we just don’t like you guys.” Alina answered back.

They were shocked, how could she hear them? They shivered at the thought of fighting those two and continued on.

“But wait, what does she mean they don’t like us? We didn’t even do anything to them.” They wondered.

Truth be told, they didn’t. Drake was annoyed they woke him up on the plane on accident, and Alina was annoyed that they annoyed Drake, and that’s all it was.

A half hour after they left the other group, the two got bored. The sun had finally started rising and it is getting a lot hotter, a lot hotter than their home base, making the two very uncomfortable. Thanks to the mission report they had received from King they knew it would get hot, so they brought some lighter, cooler clothes than the thermals they normally had to wear on base all year long. For Drake it was some baggy black cargo shorts, black high-top skating shoes, and a dark grey low cut tank top. As for Alina, she had loose fitting skating high-tops as well, and some long jeans. She also had a semi tight black tank top on with a thin black with a red stripe pattern flannel button up that she left unbuttoned and rolled up the sleeves.

“You look cute, for getting ready to fight a war.” Drake complemented her.

“Gata look good for my man, even in a bloodbath.” Alina replied.

They both just laughed at each other.

“Anyway I will take the flannel off when we fight, if we fight today. I just wanted to get something cooler on.” She finished.

Drake shrugged.

“Then why even put the flannel on?” He wondered to himself.

He didn’t really care though. He knew they would both change into something easier to fight in when the fighting started, but for now this was just for comfort. But then the usually oblivious Drake noticed something, the stripping on her cloths helped him notice it, but her boobs are bigger now. Of course they would be, she is older now, and is maturing into a young woman. Curious, Drake got behind her and grabbed her boobs. He was surprised though, she wasn’t wearing a bra; she was just rocking it commando. His feel didn’t last very long because Alina immediately lifted her fist and backhanded him hard. Drake fell back from the impact and landed with a thud.

When Drake opened his eyes, Alina was standing over him, madder than he had ever seen her. She was glaring at him with eyes filled with rage and she gave off a bone chilling energy.

“Hahahahahaha Yes! That’s the face I want to see.” Drake exclaimed wildly.

Alina didn’t break composure, at this point she was already use to Drakes torments.

“Next time you won’t get off with just a hit to the face… Prick.” Alina said coldly and started walking away.

And boy was Alina livid.

“That ass hole!” she thought furiously.

“How dare he touch me in that way!” She continued.

“Sure he gets off by tormenting others, but this is too far. I’ll fuckin’ kill him the next time he tries anything like that!” She thought still furious.

Alina then hit a tree and the whole thing shook. She paid no attention to it however, and just kept on walking. It was then she noticed Drake sitting up slowly, but she wasn’t looking at him. In fact, he was a few hundred feet behind her, and actually he wasn’t the only thing she was able to see. She was able to see every blade of grass, every leaf on the trees, and every tree in the forest for several hundreds of feet around her. She had somehow improved her eye ability to a useful range. She didn’t quite understand it, but the same thing had happened to Drake. His eye power was awoken thanks to his rage, and improved more thanks to his rage again. Even though he can’t control the second eye yet, he was able to awaken it and use it because of his rage while fighting. After realizing this, Alina became happy to the point of tears.

However, Drake had no idea what was going through her mind.

Drake sat up slowly, half expecting Alina to be waiting for him, but she wasn’t. She didn’t even look back and kept on walking. Which was weird, he has made her mad in the past, but she always waited for him. This time though, she wasn’t. Then again Drake realized her personality had changed. She wasn’t sadistic like he is, yet she intentionally tormented the nine tail back there by stepping on his broken leg. Nor was she normally a violent person; she would get annoyed or irritated, but left the violence to him. However, not only did she torment the nine tail, she was the one who instigated it; and she actually threatened him, she never does that.

“Weird….” Drake thought to himself.

“Wonder what caused her change in personality…” He wondered.

Then he realized he better catch up or she would leave him behind. Plus she is the one with the GPS gear. So he quickly got up and ran after her.

“Alina… Wait.” He called after her.

But she didn’t stop, she continued on walking. Not because she was ignoring him, she was actually so happy that her eye powers had become useful to her that she just wasn’t paying attention.

“Alina, I said wait.” Drake said as he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.

When he turned her around, he saw that she was crying. He had mixed emotions when he saw that. His sadistic side was jumping for joy knowing he caused her anguish like this, but the other part of him, the part that actually cares for her, sunk knowing he caused her to cry.

“Thank you Drake.” She whispered out as she hugged him tightly.

Drake just couldn’t keep up.

“What the hell? Why is she thanking me?” he thought to himself more confused than ever.

“Thanks to you making me as mad as you did, my eye power finally has a usable range.” She explained.

It was then that Drake remembered that she had said something about an eye power to Will when they were talking. But she never explained what it was or anything.

“Uuuummm you’re welcome? Anyway, what does your eye power do?” Drake asked curiously.

Alina stepped back and wiped away the tears.

“First let me warn you. If you ever… EVER, touch me that kind of attitude again, I will take your head.” She said pissed off again.

“Okay, okay.” Drake said raising his arms in no contest

“Okay.” She pouted.

“You know you liked it.” Drake said in a playful tone while poking her in the arm.

“Shut up.” She said as she swatted away his hand.

Drake just started being a goofball, doing any and everything to make Alina smile.

“Look Alina, I’m an opossum!” he shouted at her.

When she looked his way, he was hanging upside-down from his tail on a huge tree, his hands and feet were curled into his body and he was making a face, trying his very best to look like an opossum. But despite his best efforts, Alina just scoffed at him.

Hidden behind her pissed off face however, was a small hint of a smile. No she didn’t like that Drake groped her like that, at least not with that setting, but she couldn’t stay mad at him. Not when he was goofing off and trying making her laugh like he is.

“Whatever, let’s just go.” Alina said bluntly.

Drake then dropped down from the tree and ran up to Alina.

“So what about your eye power?” He asked her again.

“Right.” She paused.

“Basically, like you, I can see the energy of living things. Unlike you, I can see ALL living things; plants, animals, everything. Second, I have a three-sixty view, I can see all around me. Third, I can see everything within a certain range; in this case, it grew from only about a half a foot to several hundred feet. But it does not seem like I can see what things are going to do before they do them like you do.” She explained

“Wow, that’s pretty cool. If we combine it, we could become invincible. You can see everyone in hiding from far away, while I can see what they will do before they do it.” Drake said excited

“Yep yep” Alina said with a smile.

“There we go. There’s a smile.” Drake said happily.

Alina looked away and blushed.

“Hey, I really am sorry.” Drake said.

Alina did a double take and looked at him in shock. Drake had never apologized for anything; ever. Yet he just apologized to her.

“Are you okay?” She asked him seriously.

“Yah, I just feel bad to hurt you like that.” He explained

Now Alina was just confused. Drake never feels bad about anything. He normally feels better the more grief he causes.

“You never feel bad. About anything.” She said in shock.

“I don’t care about anything, besides you. So yah, I feel bad.” Drake said.

Alina looked away and blushed again. But she can tell he was getting annoyed. This was a once in a lifetime chance, why not take it in full? So Alina just turned towards him and grabbed both of his hands.

But Drake knew exactly what she was going to do, and he didn’t even need his power to tell. So he picked her up and gave her a kiss before she could react. She didn’t resist and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. After a few more seconds of that, they broke up, but kept their foreheads resting against each other’s.

Drake was getting ready to say something when Alina cut him off.

“I love you too.” She said with a huge smile on her face.

Drake just smiled and put her down. Alina then pulled out the GPS and realized they were running late.

“Okay, we really gata go.” She told him.

But then Drake started to think about the past. He was able to see in a three sixty degree field too. Plus he could see for several hundreds of feet like when he was keeping an eye on Alina while he was fighting the gold ridge, or when he was yelling at Amanda when she was trying to talk to him after he fought Mathias. But he was able to do that, and see how the energy would manipulate. So what other power will she unlock? Will her eyes change like his do? He was racking his brain trying to calculate just what her eyes could do. It really intrigued him and he really wants to figure out just how far their eye powers will go.