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.
"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 and making her feel good. Then they made each other feel good before going to sleep.
Lana woke in the night to feed Kent. Kyle woke up at the same time and pet their kitten 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 did drift back to sleep, feeling the love of the incredible girl at his side.
Lana cooked breakfast and let Kyle sleep in since he allowed her the same before. 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 zaykala were in but the grass was not green here. It was more of a yellow-light pink kind of shade.
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. It was a purple, blue and green lizard with 12 legs. The tail resembled that of a crocodile. Its back had armored plates that ran from the top of the head to the start of the tail. Its head was flat, probably an adaptation to carry the purple frog-like beast on its head. This thing had to be 20 or 30 feet long. The teeth were dripping something green.
Karlen charged it first, eager to test himself after the terrible day they had the day before. He got within 10 feet of it and the beast on the head spit something. Suddenly, his arm felt like it was on fire and his skin was melting. He screamed in pain "Acid!"
The others were running as well and when Lana saw what happened, she threw a vine which went through the offending creature.
"New tactic. Take out the purple frog before approaching the beast," she said.
Lana looked to Kyle, "I can't fix acid."
Meanwhile, the beast called duodendile was trying to bite Karlen who had been slowed by the intense pain. Karlen was too fast for such an attack, however. He stepped aside and thrust his sword into the gaping mouth before it could close its mouth. The beast fell over, dead.
While Karlen carved out the crystal, more came from varying directions. The team made short work with Lana taking out the gorfs on the heads. They soon found out the backs were too armored to get through but the neck and tail were both vulnerable to their attacks. 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 zaykala fields for the day until it was time to go. They would give themselves enough time to get back. Looking at her watched, 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 have 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 gong 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 smiled, "we are working together. We get strong together. Let's go log these crystals!"
Kattie handed her another 43 zaykala crystals and two zapa.
Total crystal count:
Level-7: 1 (lioant)
Level-6: 9 (3 gristlehair, 6 lioant)
Level-5: 6 (bebarac)
Level 4: 32 (30 duodendile, 2 zapa)
Level-3: 43 (zaykala)
Level-2: 30 (gorf)
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.
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