He woke up to the sound of people talking.

“Damn, I wasn’t expecting it to hit that hard. Are we sure he’s going to be ok? I mean, if any of us except maybe Caeden or Erik were hit by that, we’d be dead.” A brash female voice said.

“Are you doubting me?” Another voice, a man’s, responded in a huff. He sounded offended. Though, the way he spoke made Jonas think his anger was more a joke than actual emotion. “I checked him over; he’ll be fine. He’s up there in strength. Not on the level of our teachers, but a half-step below that.”

“Plus,” Another man added. “The defensive grid is adaptive. It can read an intruder's IP and respond with the appropriate force to guarantee a takedown. Only extreme outliers with incredibly weak or strong defenses can slip the sensors. And if he was especially defensively powerful and the shock didn’t take him out, one of the other defenses would have.”

“And what if he died?” A second female, more soft and cultured, spoke.

“I’m pretty sure he was here to kill us. And while I’d rather not kill him, if for no other reason than to avoid a needless death, I’m willing to deal with it considering the alternative. None of us could have taken him in a fight, one on one. Depending on his domain and any splinters he might have, two or three of us probably could have done it. But It’s not worth the risk.”

“I was more concerned about losing a valuable source of information.” The cultured lady said, her voice cold. “Anyone willing to kill those supposedly dozens of times weaker than themselves over a stupid competition isn’t deserving of mercy in my books.”

“Well, if you two are done with this conversation, he woke up, like, a minute ago.” The first man spoke.

Jonas almost flinched. Almost. He wasn’t sure how the man knew he’d awakened. He was trained to keep a perfect, even breathing pattern even when unconscious, specifically for situations where he was captured. In the same way, his muscles shouldn’t have twitched or his eyes moved. His body had been trained to hide all the normal tells for a person waking from sleep or unconsciousness.

Reaching for his aura, Jonas wanted to get a better feel for what he was up against. The conversation he’d heard so far made it sound like the kids he’d come here to kill had somehow set a trap his senses, specifically refined for that very purpose, had missed. But he didn’t believe that for a second.

All of this was incredibly suspect. At this point, Jonas had to wonder if the children were some form of elaborate trap because nothing made sense. Why had these kids decided not to hide in the CA compound like the rest of the youth participants? Where was their protection? Why were the specific people his king was after out in the open? Jonas was kicking himself, looking back. In hindsight, it seemed obvious how strange this situation was now that he was captured.

It was bait. Almost definitely. Everything lined up with that idea. Presumably, powerful shrouded show up in the youth division, his king worries about the unexpectedly stiff competition and requests a hit. The suspiciously powerful shrouded ‘arrogantly’ stay in an exposed position. It was a trap to lure in someone like him, expose the competition. And he had walked into it like an idiot. A perfectly crafted situation that played into his preconceptions about these ‘young kids’ as arrogant and stupid. He hadn’t suspected anything because of his own ideas.

“Well, mister? Are you gonna keep pretending to be asleep? We can ‘wake you up’ if you need it.” The man kept talking.

Jonas realized that he’d been reaching for his aura for a while now. And nothing was happening. He’d never experienced anything like this, and it chilled him to his core. He could clearly feel his shroud, but he couldn’t move it. He wasn’t being invaded or occupied; this wasn’t another shroud suppressing his. What was happening?!

“Oh, you can’t use your shroud right now; sorry about that. Too risky to let you keep that up.” The man said conversationally like he wasn’t talking about doing something impossible. “You’re gonna be a normal person for a while.”

Sweat started running down Jonas’s back.

“Erik, what’d you do to him?” The other man, with the deeper voice, asked.

“Oh, I occupied him while he was unconscious, and his shroud was fixing the damage the ship did to him. Binding is stupid awesome, so I just sealed his ability to access his shroud.”

The sweat became a waterfall.

“I helped!” The female voice, the first he’d heard, jumped in. “He couldn’t perceive this dude’s soul very well, so I kinda guided his shroud until he hit the right bits. Honestly, I don’t know if he could get out of it, like, ever. His shroud is nulled out until we let him go. He’s pretty much unshrouded.”

Jonas wanted to cry. Who in the unshrouded hells were these insane people?! They permanently sealed his shroud?! Since when was that possible?! He was deeply regretting ever taking this job. He’d stepped into a den of monsters naked and unarmed without even knowing it.

“Hey! Quit faking! Seriously, dude, you’re kinda pushing my patience here.”

Jonas’s eyes snapped open, taking in the room around him. It was cozy, with natural wood and dark, warm colors. There was a fireplace across from him. They’d seated him on a comfortable couch. There were several other comfy seats around the room, several of them were occupied.

The five people in the room matched the descriptions of his targets. A tall, skinny, pale man with dirty brown hair with a hint of copper coloring. He was currently peering at Jonas with a slightly annoyed expression. The other man was seated, not even looking at Jonas. Broad and powerfully built with dark brown skin, his left arm had sections of the bicep, forearm, and two fingers that had a glittering crimson coloration. A clear sign of Embodiment reconstruction.

There were three women, two of which seemed like polar opposites. The first wore her robes open, with the top pulled down around her waist to show a black tank top with some kind of logo on it. Likely a band of some kind. She had skin darker than the first man but much lighter than the second. More of a tan than a natural coloration. The second wore her black and white robe closed tight, hiding most of her figure. She seemed slimmer than the first woman and paler, with pitch-black hair down her back in counterpoint to the shorter cut of the tan woman. The only shared feature was their hair color.

The last woman was strange. She seemed significantly younger than the others, more of a preteen than a young adult. Her hair was shorter and dark blue. He was surprised, as she fit the description of his fifth target but was significantly younger than the stated age.

Erik, Caeden, Cat, Lily, and Asherta. The five targets he was here to kill. Now, he was at their mercy. And, apparently, they were far more capable than anyone their age could possibly be. The CA had planted adult shrouded among their students to lure in attacks. He was certain of it. Jonas couldn’t imagine an alternative. No child could do the impossible and permanently seal a shroud.

“Ahh, there he is! Man, you were about to make things real unfriendly, if you get what I mean.” The tall one, Erik, spoke up upon seeing Jonas open his eyes. “I’m a real reasonable guy, but my friend over there… He can be a bit impatient.” He hooked a thumb toward the other man.

The dark-skinned one, Caeden, snorted. “There’s nothing reasonable about you, Erik.”

“Hey, you can’t blame me for being born weird! I’ve done pretty well, all things considered.”

Caeden just nodded.

“Now, as I was saying. We already know why you’re here, so we’re just going to take a little peeksies into your brain and get some specifics. Then, we’re going to release you, good as new!”

“Ahem.” The Meteoris girl coughed. Jonas was familiar with that family, as they were brutal trade barons. The Vast Kingdom did a lot of business with them.

“Or maybe not so good as new!” The slightly crazy-sounding man switched his promise, not missing a beat. “But we’re going to find that part out together! Now, it’s time for you to start talking.”

If he were anything less than a veteran professional, Jonas would have gulped. As it was, his back was absolutely soaked. This was going to be a hard few days as they tried to break him down. He could only hope to hold out and that his liege cared enough to secure his release.

{}

Caeden shook his head. “This is pretty brutal, as far as combined abilities go. I don’t know if anyone could hold up to this if they got caught out.”

“I know, isn’t it great!” Cat laughed.

Caeden was looking over a sheaf of papers containing the wealth of information they’d extracted from the assassin, Jonas, over the course of the last few hours. It was almost morning. The assassination attempt and ensuing interrogation had kept them all up all night. What they got out of him had been… a lot.

“Can anyone even defend against this? It seems almost unfair.” Caeden voiced his concerns.

“I’m perfectly fine with unfair,” Lily stated, a chill in her tone. “He was here to murder us in our sleep. This is the kind of thing my father would do. Caeden, I love that you’re trying so hard to care for others and letting that part of yourself breathe, but this type of person deserves neither mercy nor pity. He’s over seven thousand years old. He’s had plenty of chances to choose a more morally upright profession. I’ll take any advantage we can get over people like this. I think we’ll need it.”

Looking at the info they’d gained, Caeden could only nod in agreement.

They were discussing the way Erik and Cat had managed to get so much from a hardened assassin so quickly. Back when they first met, Erik had displayed a skill that allowed him to manipulate portions of an unshrouded person’s brain, removing the filter between their thoughts and speech. It was done in a way that the person never realized they were voicing every thought out loud. A terrifyingly effective interrogation method, but one that only worked on unshrouded.

That kind of delicate manipulation of a person’s body wasn’t possible with a shroud in the mix unless Erik’s IP vastly overwhelmed the one being interrogated. Which was not the case with Jonas. However, that limit had only been true when Erik was working with Stitch and essentially performing a precise medical procedure. A lot had changed since they were two young men trying not to die in that CMS tower.

Erik and Cat had worked together, using Binding and Soul shrouds, respectively, to cut off the assassin’s access to his shroud. Permanently. The man was an unshrouded until they let him have his shroud back. Though he still had the enhanced body that came with Embodiment. But for all intents and purposes, Erik could treat him like and unshrouded.

The gains didn’t stop there. With Binding, Erik had more freedom than Stitch had granted. Instead of delicately manipulating brain cells, neurons, and blood vessels, Erik could place what was essentially a binding command directly into the man’s brain. He had the medical knowledge to not unintentionally send the man into catatonia, and he could lean on Healing even if he did. It had no downsides.

More than that, Cat fidgeted with his soul, relying on all her soul manipulation practice she’d gotten fixing Caeden. Using that new knowledge, she’d fiddled with the portion of the man’s soul that acted as a storage of his memory. Cat essentially opened that connection wide, temporarily giving the assassin perfect recall. His soul stored all his memories and experiences in the timeless soul plane, unaffected by the thousands of years he’d lived.

Together, Cat and Erik had turned the man into an unshrouded who could not lie and had a perfect memory of everything he’d ever done. Erik even made it so the man didn’t want to lie, removing his ability to perceive the consequences of any actions he took.

The last few hours had seen the man spewing out reams of highly sensitive information at the slightest provocation. They’d gained insight into the ridiculous and fraught realm of the Ten Thousand Empires' political landscape.

To make matters even more one-sidedly in their favor, Cat and Erik had worked together to remove the man’s memory retention. He’d leave here not remembering a thing after he was shocked unconscious by the Hearthhome’s security system. They planned on leaving him where he’d initially dropped. A lingering binding from Erik would encourage him to believe that they’d simply failed to recognize the intrusion and leave Jonas thanking his incredible fortune that he’d escaped scot-free from an obviously well-defended ship. No doubt, the embarrassed professional would fail to mention he was knocked unconscious when he reported back to his contractor that assaulting the ship would be impossible without getting noticed.

“It’s pretty nasty, as far as plans go.” Caeden slapped the sheets of paper. “We got all this and, if all goes well, they won’t even realize we know we’re under attack.”

“It’ll be fine,” Lily said. “Anyone leading a country of shrouded will be arrogant enough to buy what we’re selling. They couldn’t conceive of what we’ve just done. Honestly, it should be impossible if not for Erik and Cat having such rare and powerful domains and us not having such a ridiculously well-defended ship. They wouldn’t want to believe it's possible.”

“Hmm,” Caeden glared at the top page. “The Vast Kingdom…Working with the Revolution.”

He sighed. “Well, Lil, let's figure out how to put them on their ass. Cat, might want to talk to your grandpa.”