A few hours later, while Lana was picking up the deluxe edition of the "field kitchen" from Paul, there was a meeting going on without any watchful eyes. On the roof of the first-year dorm building, a certain teleporting student was meeting with a certain level-0 student.
"I saw you get grouped with that girl. Where did you go after leaving the Hall?"
"She took me to the library to buy me an ability."
He couldn't lie about it because he had already started reading the book. Eventually the number on the watch would change.
Pucket looked shocked, "She bought you an ability? Where did she get the money to do that? Wait. She is doing those commercials, and she has that family backing her now. They must be paying her quite well…"
"It was only a level 3 so it didn't cost that much."
Pucket nodded, thinking. "Any luck on getting good footage?"
Duff gulped hard. "I was able to get footage of her writing, but the footage is always blurry for some reason. It's not focusing. Plus, I had to agree to leave Agriculture Club and start Beast Weapons as part of her group. If I had refused, they would have been suspicious as to why I refused to listen to the leader, especially one who was so nice as to give me an ability."
"What ability did she buy you?"
"It's a buff ability. It's not very powerful but will help the team."
Pucket nodded. "Sounds good. Being in their group, you should have more opportunities to get closer. Make it happen and get that footage."
Pucket then teleported to the ground as though he had never been three floors up on the roof only a moment before. He then walked into the park as though he was heading to the store before curfew. Duff assumed he was going to be up to more mischief.
Lana finished getting instructions on all the new features and being blown way by the genius of Paul Techno and went down to visit Blaine in his room. Dobin and the rest were returning from the store and Pucket had found a new victim. He was getting highly frustrated with his lack of progress and all the things that were impeding him that he could do nothing about. Suddenly, in Blaine's room, the trees sent her the grid once more and she could see that same big red X and a small green dot moving along with it.
She was confused. She moved to the window to see if she could see anything, but it was already dark. She could see the green dots of her friends returning as well. This time the trees were nice enough to provide names for them over their dots, having gotten to know such information over the past months. The red X stopped in the area of the sentient trees she recently created. She still had no idea what to do about that.
Lana noticed two more red dots had come from different directions and stopped in the same spot. The trees then showed her exactly what was happening. She started screaming but Blaine quickly reminded her he had neighbors and asked her what was going on. She quickly described the situation then called Dobin. Blaine approached her, placing his hand on her back, hoping to calm her some.
"Dobin! I need your help. Don't ask questions. Just run! Remember that spot with that girl? Go there. Quickly."
She had tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched Pucket doing what he was doing while his friends held her down and she screamed from the pain. Kent started squirming in her bra. The volume and pitch emitting from her effecting his sensitive ears.
"RUN Dobin!" she screamed again as she couldn't bear what she was seeing.
When Dobin had gotten there, the roots had elevated around the scene to prevent anyone else from getting there and the two boys who held the girl down were in the air, held by roots. Pucket was nowhere to be seen.
"Grab the girl!"
"What girl???"
"Just a second."
She told the tree to move the roots so Dobin could get her and it did.
"I see her. What the HELL!!!"
"Just grab her and RUN! Get her to Dr. Tall."
Lana could barely talk now as she was so distraught. Dobin did as his sister bid him and ran with the girl. He was glad for the training of Fight! Train! Fight! It had increased his stamina and strength to be able to run while holding an unconscious girl. Lana, however, was transfixed by the horror show she was witnessing.
The trees were angry. She could feel it with every fiber of her being. They shredded these two boys just as they had done before. This time they seemed to relish the act, taking their time. They covered the mouths of the boys so they couldn't scream and left everything vital until last so the punishment would last as long as possible.
Lana didn't know what was scarier. The power they had or the raw emotions they emitted when acting in this way. When the forest returned to the peace it held before, she turned around with her eyes closed. She sat on the floor with her back against the window and cried with a baffled Blaine staring at her. He quickly scooped her up and held her until she was done crying.
Lana eventually stood up and quickly explained before running out of the room with the new prototype, heading to the doctor's office to see if the girl was okay. Blaine insisted on going with her.
Lana got there just as the doctor started examining the girl. The girl was still out but she was battered pretty badly. Her legs were both broken and her hip was popped out of socket. She was bleeding from the rough penetration, and it looked like he ripped her open. It was a sight Dobin could not take. He stepped aside with his back to her once his sister arrived.
Lana rushed to the doctor's side, her eyes welling up with tears once again. "Can I help with anything?"
"That depends. You appear to know something. Care to tell me?" He spoke in such a caring, gentle voice.
Lana told him everything without what she viewed as minor details. Her story, what the trees showed her.
Doctor Tall nodded along as he used his ability on the girl then gave her a sedative, "I'll keep her here over night. I'll try to get a statement from her in the morning."
Lana nodded and headed for the door.
"Lana, thank you. For trusting me."
She nodded again and was gone. Lana looked at her watch as they left the building.
She grabbed Blaine's hand and squeezed.
Dobin, to her left, "That could have been you."
"But it wasn't."
Dobin stopped her and turned her toward him, "but it could have been! He HAS to be stopped!"
"Yes, he does. Learn your books. We are getting stronger as a team. We'll handle this together."
She turned and resumed walking. Inside, Dobin reluctantly headed upstairs. She turned through the fire doors into her hallway.
Blaine didn't like the look of her face. She took the few steps required. "Let's go inside and talk."
She opened the door and they both entered. She could see Blaine was struggling and could figure out why.
"Let him out."
That was all Kyle needed to hear. Blaine was given no choice as Kyle took over his body.
"What's going on? What's the next step to make sure it isn't you next?" as he pushed her against the wall, lifting her up with her legs around his waist.
"I don't know. All I know is I saw something really horrific and I just want to be in your arms. Please?"
The tears started welling up again and he held her close. He carried her to her bed and laid down with her, arms tight around her. Soon she fell asleep and he got up slowly and returned to his room.
As soon as he entered, "did Pucket get away?"
"I don't know. She's too upset to talk about that part. She saw everything they did to that girl. Everything he did."
"Is she okay?"
"She's resting but this can't continue. I'm going up to talk to Paul."
"I'm going with you!"
Thirty seconds later, Blaine was pounding on Paul's door. It buzzed and opened after the second hit, only because they were fast. Blaine threw the door open and Chekof closed it softly behind them.
"We need to talk!" he demanded.
"Yes, we do." Paul agreed.
This made Blaine pause for a few seconds.
"The two of you need to come sit down. I wanted to tell this to Lana but I don't think she's in the right mindset right now."
Paul pulled up a hologram on his tablet and started throwing out news article after news article. While Chekof had read these in full, this was the first Blaine saw them. He was shocked because it was the orphanage Lana came from.
"These are news articles regarding an orphanage, one of four that belong to a research group. Which is a subsidiary of Abel Genetics. When I searched the dark web for the other three, I found similar articles. These articles have been buried and removed from public servers."
Are you saying my grandmother is behind her poor treatment?"
"I'm not done yet. When the lawyer was here to set up the trust, he necessarily had to access her file to get her account number to transfer money to her card. He needed her account number. He was on the page a bit too long for my liking, so I became suspicious. I flagged her account for anything strange. I noticed extra money being deposited on the back end and being withdrawn almost as soon as it hit. I then noticed the attacks in the forest, those involving Lana and those not, happened soon after these transfers."