“So, what’s going on, Lily?” Ainslee asked once we were all comfortable in our dorm room, where we wouldn’t be disturbed and would have a modicum of privacy.

Naia, who had gratefully accepted my invitation to join our team, was with us as well, since I wanted everyone in the loop about the current situation. This was especially true for the Siren since I would need her to stay in telepathic contact with me later when I met Raina and communicate any sensitive information directly to Vice-Commander Carter. If there truly were aliens infiltrating our campus, and possibly the Vanguard as well, there was every reason to believe that our usual comms frequencies might be compromised, so we absolutely needed a secure means of communication.

Thankfully, Kelly looked a lot better than she had just after the incident earlier. It seemed she had gotten over the shock of hearing the language of the aliens who had controlled her for years and left her with far too much trauma and a memory like Swiss cheese of the time she had spent in that hellhole. She was still looking a bit shaken and traumatized, but that was probably to be expected under the circumstances. At least she wasn’t catatonic anymore and was responding to us enough to hopefully be involved in the conversation.

I sighed as I looked at the faces around me and said, “Chances are, at least one of those alien assholes is on our doorstep and is trying to get a foothold here at the University, possibly within the Vanguard as well. All Altered within the Vanguard, and any others who have been tested had gene analysis done as well, so if any of us were aliens so far, it would have probably been detected there. At least, I hope so. The Vice-Commander suspects that they have some sort of disguise ability or magitech that is allowing them to blend in among us.”

“What do we do then, Love?” Poppy asked, looking toward Kelly in concern. The predictions that her Oracle friend had given her hadn’t included anything about this, so honestly, I couldn’t blame her for being a little bit nervous when everything had happened as predicted so far. For all we knew, this could mean that even Lindsey’s future sight didn’t see this coming. Alternatively, it might simply be something that gets resolved without much trouble or fanfare. Vice-Commander Carpenter did want to keep things as quiet as possible for now, so that could be why as well.

“For our part, we need to keep on our toes and keep our eyes open for more incidents like this one, or anything else out of place. It could be just a passing interest, or they could be specifically monitoring Kelly for some reason,” I explained as I shrugged my shoulders to indicate that there probably wasn’t a lot more we could do at the moment.

After letting my words properly sink in for a moment, I added, “I have Moonlight going around campus right now searching for anything unusual, or anything that might be keeping our ‘guests’ hidden. It’s probably just a coincidence, but I feel that it’s even more important now that I talk to Raina tonight and find out whether what she’s hiding is a Unicorn pal or not. For now, if anyone sees anything, report it straight to me, and I’ll have Naia send the details to Vice-Commander Carpenter. We can’t be certain if our comms are compromised.”

“So, that’s it? We just go on as if nothing’s happened, keep our heads down, and wait for them to come after Kelly again?” Karen practically snarled.

My sister, for her part, attempted to put on a brave face, even though she was obviously still a bit shaken by the encounter. “Let them fucking come. This time, they startled me, but next time, I’ll be ready for them.”

“We’re not the only ones who will be looking into this,” I assured them both. “This is going right to the top. The VC will be letting Commander-General Kline in on what’s going on, and she’s already planned on placing stealth teams around campus to look for anyone suspicious or any other incidents. She’ll also have the more sensitive receptive psychics with a decent range looking for any surface thoughts that feel alien, and she’ll be checking with the clinic to look into anyone who has recently reported a fainting spell, memory issues, or missing time.”

“Maybe they should check with campus security as well, in case anyone else has reported a sudden stalker, people watching them intently, or other creepy behavior? I might not be the only one who has had to deal with this before now,” Kelly suggested with a frown.

“Good idea, Sis,” I agreed before turning toward Naia. “Could you please contact Vice-Commander Carpenter and pass on that suggestion?”

“Umm… sure, I’ll do it now,” the Siren confirmed. Then her eyes got a sort of distant look in them, similar to when someone was looking at something in VR on their comm device or implant. A moment later, she was back with us. “She said she would have someone look into it. Umm… isn’t the Vice-Commander a really strong mind-reader? Couldn’t she use her ability to get any useful information from that girl?”

Both Karen and Poppy blanched at that, though it was far more apparent on the Dark Elf, who was both much bigger and whose dark skin paled at least a couple of shades. It was my girlfriend who addressed the question, though. “Vice-Commander Carpenter’s special ability is… how should I put this? It’s a brute force approach. Even if you voluntarily submit to it, if you fight it the slightest bit, even subconsciously, it is an extremely painful experience. It’s like someone digging through your brain with jagged shards of glass over and over, until she’s done. I asked her to do it, I tried not to fight it, and it was still an experience that I would rather not repeat anytime soon.”

“If that girl was being controlled and had her memory casually wiped, it was a violation of her mind, identity, and everything that makes her who she is. I’ve been through that, and just the thought of following it up with another similar violation of self immediately afterward… I hope she didn’t read her mind.” Kelly looked even more pale than usual as she spoke those words, but that wasn’t surprising given the subject matter and what she had already been through this afternoon.

Karen quickly added her agreement. “Yeah, I’ve been on the receiving end of both mind-control and the Vice-Commander’s ability. I never want to experience either again, and not even I’m enough of a bitch to wish both on somebody back-to-back.”

“Don’t worry, the Vice-Commander mentioned something about having someone with a gentler mental ability read her mind to corroborate her story and look for any clues that the alien might have left in there. They’ll do the same with the catering guy from earlier, since I guess he fainted just after we left the meet and greet, and was in a similar state as the girl,” I assured everyone.

“Maybe they can find a common thread,” Kelly mumbled despondently, though her tone made it clear that she wasn’t very hopeful about that.

“We’ve got your back, Babe, I won’t let anything happen to you on my watch, and I know that the others feel the same way,” Ainslee offered as she wrapped my sister in her arms and kissed her tenderly. Then she blatantly changed the topic as she turned to focus her gaze on our team’s most recent addition. “We should get Naia moved into the dorm room as soon as possible. Karen, can you help her with that?”

“Me? Why the fuck do I have to help everyone move their shit lately? You’re the team’s muscle, not me, you fucking ginger bitch,” the Dark Elf in question huffed in protest. I could tell her heart wasn’t in it, though, and I bet that the others saw it too. Most of her attitude was a thinly veiled show these days, at least with her teammates. Naia might be new, but Karen hadn’t done anything to oppose her joining us.

“Because you’re the only one with a vehicle, you fucking tsundere,” my best friend shot back impishly. “So, stop bitching and don’t get your panties in a knot. We all know that you’re just the team medic… and my designated juice box.” The last was said with a playful lick of her lips that had Karen rolling her eyes.

“Fine,” the Dark Elf conceded grouchily. “It’s probably not a good idea for any of us to go anywhere alone anyway. I’ll help the noob and keep her safe.”

Naia, who had been watching the byplay between the two and looking like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, turned to Karen to nervously inquire, “Are you… umm… sure?”

I gave the Siren a reassuring smile as I told her, “Don’t worry about Karen; she’s spent years trying to push people away, and it's become a habit for her. We’re trying to help her break that habit, and her bark is worse than her bite. She’s a big softie underneath it all.”

“I… thanks then, Karen. I appreciate it, and I promise it shouldn’t take long. I… uhh… packed most of the stuff in my room yesterday.”

“Whatever, it’s fine. C’mon, Newbie, let’s get going and get this shit done so we can be back in time for dinner,” Karen replied as she waved off the thanks. Then, the still slightly nervous Naia was sort of pulled along in her wake as Karen took charge, went to grab her purse and keys, and half-dragged the poor Siren out the door.

It was close, but Karen and Naia had returned to the dorm with Naia’s belongings shortly before six o’clock, and with Kelly and Ainslee helping them, they managed to move the boxes inside fairly quickly. Poppy and I acted as lookouts while they were doing it, keeping a watchful eye out for any other people who had developed a sudden and intense interest in my sister, or any of us, for that matter. We were all understandably uneasy at the thought of there being enemy aliens on campus.

Once we had gotten all the boxes into our dorm room, we decided to head to the closest cafeteria for dinner. None of us had the energy to help Naia start unpacking, and we decided that particular task could wait until after we’d all eaten something. There weren’t all that many boxes to unpack, but we all knew from recent experience that getting those boxes unpacked and their contents put away in their new places would be a chore.

We were all hoping for a nice, quiet dinner, but it would seem that, unfortunately, fate had other plans for us. While we were eating, our table had a lot more visitors than any of us were comfortable with. Some were new students of the baseline human variety, who were curious and had worked up their courage to approach us to ask questions about being Altered, or our individual species in particular. At least they were trying not to stare too much, and they were being somewhat polite. None of them were creepily watching any of us or speaking in alien tongues. I think we’d all had enough of that for one day.

I guess it made sense, even if it was annoying to have them approaching us while we were trying to eat. I saw Altered groups at other tables getting approached in a similar fashion, and of the six of us sitting openly at our table, we represented five different Altered species, most of which were extremely uncommon or even limited to one known person in Ainslee’s case. Actually, we had six species covered, if you counted Moonlight, who had returned from her scouting, though she remained ethereal and was keeping an eye out for trouble.

It was understandable for those people to be curious, especially if today was the first time they had seen so many different types of Altered. They were trying to learn, and as long as they weren’t too rude, we tried to answer their questions. If we wanted regular humans to accept us and not believe every exaggerated horror story they heard about us, then we needed to be ambassadors instead of scaring them off. Even Karen was trying her best not to snap at any of those people and to answer their questions.

Then there were the Altered guys. Thankfully, there weren’t quite as many of those as the curious humans approaching us, but it was a close thing. They were there to try their luck with Ainslee, of course, though Kelly and Naia were getting hit on as well. Karen glared viciously at any guys who looked at her like they were even considering trying to talk her up, and thankfully, none of them were stupid enough to press their luck with her. Still, what should have been half an hour in the cafeteria to eat dinner escalated to over an hour with all the unwelcome attention.

I was glad for once that Moonlight was so reluctant to be seen by others, because her presence would have likely generated much more attention than we were already getting. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found much of interest during her patrol of the campus, though. There was nothing unusual that screamed ‘Aliens’ to her, and the only concealed presence that she felt was familiar enough to determine that it was probably the same one she’d felt around Raina during the tour.

If it was ethereal, like she was, then she was probably fortunate just to sense its presence and the bond it shared with Raina, since we’d discovered during our testing that Moonlight doesn’t show up on scanners or any other tech that the researchers had available. Well, hopefully, we would find out shortly whether that hidden presence was a Unicorn or something else. While Karen and Naia were gone getting the Siren’s belongings, I had called Raina and arranged to meet at the stables at 7:30, telling her that I wanted to show her something cool, a rare Altered animal I had encountered. I had gotten her interest immediately.

With all the extra time we’d spent in the cafeteria, I had less time to plan for the upcoming encounter than I was hoping for. In fact, once we got back to our dorm room, I would probably have to teleport straight to the stables to make it there on time. I still had no idea what I was going to do if Raina refused to show what she was hiding up her sleeve, or worse, if the presence either wasn’t a Unicorn or she didn’t know that something was bonded to her and following her.

So, I was just a little bit on edge by the time we returned to our dorm room, five minutes before the arranged meeting. “Well, I need to get going,” I told the others.

They all knew that already, though, and none of them were too thrilled with the idea of me going to this meeting alone. It was something that we had hotly and quietly debated on the walk from the cafeteria, after all. In the end, I had managed to convince them that it was for the best, since if it was a Unicorn, I doubted that Raina would open up about it with anyone else present, and until I knew what we were dealing with, I didn’t want to alienate a possible friend by ambushing her with a group and interrogating her.

“Be careful, Love. Not just of the hidden presence either. It’s a stable, there could be owls, and mice, and cats…” Poppy cautioned as she squeezed me tightly in her embrace.

“Oh my,” I retorted with a halfhearted smile. Not that I wasn’t taking her warning seriously. At our size, any of those would be a danger, and likely try to eat me, if I wasn’t careful and keeping my eyes open. So, I promised, “I’ll be careful, Naia will keep in contact with me the whole time, as planned, and if anything happens, then I’ll either teleport here or open a portal so you can all come to me.”

“I’ll keep everyone here up to date on what’s happening on your end, so we can… umm… be ready if you need us,” Naia vowed in an attempt to reassure me. She seemed nervous about it but determined to do what was needed to the best of her ability. The way she was nibbling on her lower lip, trying to hide her nerves, was kind of cute.

Ainslee nodded grimly as my girlfriend finally consented to release me. “Yeah, and if Naia tells us that it’s go time, we’ll be through that portal as fast as you can make it.”

I knew that I could count on my team to do what they could to help me if things got hairy, and in that case, I would also have Naia contact Vice-Commander Carpenter to update her and receive any orders based on the situation. It wasn’t a full plan; it wasn’t much more than the bare bones of one, but it was probably the best I was going to get for any of the worst-case scenarios, under the circumstances. I tried not to overthink it as I focused on the familiar image of the campus stables in my mind and let my power take me there.