“Right,” Damien said, “So don’t destroy the last access route and hope to God that it has its body in safe keeping somewhere, or that it intends to build itself a new body.”

“They can do that?” Avery asked in a combination of shock and disgust.

“Some energy class demons can, yes,” Mathias replied. “It’s a rare occurrence but should be factored in as a possibility. You see this sort of thing in husks as they transition into constructs. There is a stage in the demon life cycle where they can revert to a construct phase to rebuild itself to adapt to its new purpose. We referred to it as the path of Ascension.”

“We should evacuate the school,” Damien said, half out loud as though working through the idea. He glanced at the people around him as though searching for support. “At least until we deal with this problem. Look I get it, you’ll lose money if word gets out about the demon. Hell Omega Corp. will lose money! I don’t want that either. But if things go South, it’ll go bad fast, we can’t guarantee that there will be survivors.”

“I agree,” Dezmond said, “However I cannot support mass panic. The population looks to the Council for reassurance. As this is a Council Academy, we can’t have news of demonic presence within our own facilities.” Astral wondered if in her snippets of memories, if Dezmond had silenced the demonic presence instead of addressing the problem head on, leading to its destructive rise in fifteen years. Was her presence at the school leading to an alternate path? No… she had been at the school before. She was sure.

Damien threw his hands up in the air and Astral shrugged. “I’m perfectly okay with letting them all die if it’ll help you save face.”

Dezmond scowled at her. “You will remember your place,” he hissed. He addressed the rest of the group just in case Astral’s word bore any influence on them. “You are all here to serve the people, and that means maintaining order. A mass panic will serve no one.”

“Then don’t publicize it,” Damien said in a harsher tone, getting fed up with his father’s political games. “We’ll apply pressure and have them relocate of their own free will. We have enough viable scenarios to use to make these people uncomfortable.”

Dezmond hesitated, "Go on."

“First I can cut off fresh produce deliveries. I’m obligated to provide food via our agricultural department, but I’m not required to provide fresh produce. I can give you all of the food cubes you need to support the school for the next ten years in one shipment. I guarantee the more privileged of your student will find the change offensive. There will be calls. Angry parents and like. Pressure to switch contracts with opportunists.”

The Headmaster nodded, steeling himself against imagined tirades.

“Technically, the Academy is listed as a military resource,” Dezmond said. “I can place a bit of strain on some areas that will reinforce that creed. If memory serves there’s an obscure law that will have game participants essentially volunteer themselves for the war. I might be able to frame the law to include all game registrants. It’s not a guarantee, but it’ll be enough to have parents pressure their children to withdraw. It’ll take months to clear up the misunderstanding. But there’s always the possibility that this obscure law could be fully observed.”

Changes were happening in the political sphere, that’s what Astral took away. The Council was running out of volunteers. Not enough people were coming back from the killing fields to keep the number of fresh humans stable. They needed more troops and there were two areas they could address: the training and the breeding programs.

“We can reinstate our proxy into the games,” the Headmaster offered. “Given a situation like a lawsuit, it would be in the school’s best interest to return Lady Daamon to the position within the games that she once enjoyed, at least before she was unjustly removed from play. The G.C. rules are unlikely to bend enough to allow her to go back to Squad VII. But as soon as a free position opens up on a third-tier team, we can swap her in.

“I will take it upon myself to side with the unlucky team. They’re going to need a friend in high-places, and emotional support. They’ll be easier to manipulate since their ideology is so black and white. They can’t imagine working with an Enhanced for any reason.

“They will try to kick our proxy, like previous team. I think there’s a recruitment status that the military uses to monitor talent. If our proxy re-tests and scores high enough, she can secure a permanent position in the game, and not even the G.C. can do anything once she’s been flagged for recruitment. At least those were the rumours when I was a boy. You think you can manage those scores?” He asked Astral.

If she used magic, she could out-do much of the Academy’s highest ranks. But there was no fun in using the advantage she had. “I guess I’ll need the Enhanced ability monitor to verify the authenticity of the score.”

The Headmaster nodded. “Will that be a problem?”

“No. Neither is Lady Daamon nor myself are Enhanced. It was verified before I was invited to take the mission,” Astral lied. Dezmond nodded to corroborate in the lie.

“Your eyes?” The Headmaster asked, as though it was proof enough that she was lying.

Avery coughed. “I’m Enhanced. No weird eyes here. I’m seen weird stuff on the field, but nothing that sticks arounds longer than a few seconds.”

“This is purely confidential information,” Dezmond told the Headmaster. “Our proxy is a prototype soldier. With the Red Order’s help, we’ve been training her as Hunter. There have been a few quirks. Her mission oriented-ness for example, leaves a certain disregard for human life. Our initial tests are positive, but currently we’re testing her in a social environment. If she’s not capable of integrating, this may mean a problem with our design.”

“She’s an android?” the headmaster gapped. Astral smirked at the idea.

“Uh no.” Damien said, “She’s organic. She’s not Enhanced. But she’s not human either. She not a demon either, but given the limited understanding of people in general, we kind of prefer the Enhanced problems over the potential fear of her being a demon. If you catch my drift.”

The Headmaster stared at Astral as though trying the gauge the truth in the story. She didn’t react. There was nothing to react to. She knew that she had been human once, but now she was something that humans had every right to fear. Every time she felt her core stir, she knew that she was growing to be a little less human. It was in her best interest to get her mission done quickly before the thing inside her took over.

“Either way, she should be alone from that point onward. The team will quit as an act of solidarity, thinking that they’ve crippled her from participating in the games. My advice to you, young lady, is to recruit two Enhanced players. Enhanced students will have already had their names added to the military recruitment list as volunteers for the war. Normally, it’s an unspoken rule to not recruit Enhanced. It’s seen as cheating and ties into the social stigma that the students carry on the cycle for.

“Make sure you choose two people who can handle the bullying. Our security force turns a blind eye to most Enhanced incidents. They’ll intervene, slowly, on some of the more serious incidents. Never anything leading to the death of the student… Not that I condone any of this, but there’s not much I can do until the consequences are worse than doing the wrong to begin with.

“Anyway, you need two more people on the team, but they are not required to participate. Even if they’re injured, you’re still free to engage in the game. You just take care of yourself, you hear?”

Astral nodded.

The Headmaster continued. “After that, the other teams should be enraged beyond reason. They’ll be torn between quitting the games or brutalizing your team. You I’m less worried about. But even with a clean record, you’ll find yourself in an awkward position to defend yourself. If the G.C. are involved, they’ll be looking for excuses to have you removed from the games. Your previous disregard of the rules, though technically legal due to gear malfunction, will have flagged you for close observation. So be careful.”

“There’s one last thing I should mention,” the Headmaster said with a note of hesitation, “I think I know how to get to program chamber if our plan to use the kid fails. It occurred to me right now that the G.C. has never had any of the finalist sign documents that permitted them to leave the Academy grounds. This is standard practice in all of our outings. There’s not even a disclaimer in the registration form. I’m positive that means that the last game takes place in the program chamber.

“You see the last game is quite the event. It exceeds the capabilities of our arenas. We’re told that the G.C. choose a location off-site and spend the year preparing it. But they never get sanctions from the Red Order or clearances from the Council, suggesting that they already have both documents and haven’t needed to get new ones every year for each new location. You follow?

“I think if all else fails, we need our proxy to win the game, or at least get into the final game.”

Avery nodded. “While the demon is spending resources on the game and is distracted by the proxy, I can have troops invade using the elevators. You just have to make sure you give the demon a reason to be really concerned about you being in the game,” she said to Astral.

“It looks like we have a plan,” Dezmond gave his hands a solid loud clap. “Mathias, Avery, collect William and start your grid search tonight. Mathias, send out a request asking for the G.C. sanctioned papers for arena three. Avery, take as many troops as deem necessary to get the job done. It’s night, there’s no such thing as being too cautious.”

Astral interjected. “Take Seth with you. William worship’s Seth. His presence will make William more pliable. He’ll want to show off to win brownie points. It’s important to remember that William wants to feel heard. Whatever you feel about it, you’re going to have to shelf your feelings to get the job done. Avery, he’s going to say a lot of things that will piss you off especially.”

“My presence should tone down that behaviour,” Mathias hoped.

“Perhaps…” Astral knew of Avery’s history. William would have been a prime candidate for one of Avery’s personalized attacks. Having her slip back into old territory was counter productive to both the mission and for Avery’s path of redemption.

“I…” Avery’s soul stormed. She had seen enough of William’s verbal assaults since the incidents to anticipate what was coming. “I’ll stick to the lead, and keep him baby sat by better people.” The storm calmed, but the anxiety knotted itself into hues of purples and blues.

“Focus on the mission,” Astral advised. “It’s easier to tune him out that way.”

“Would you like to pay William a visit before hand?” Mathias asked Astral. He was asking about returning the seal to William’s abilities.

“No, not tonight. I think my presence may give away our plan in some way,” Astral replied. He wasn’t smart enough to connect the dots consciously, but his instincts would do a fine job.

With the meeting concluded, the next phase of their plan began.