Not even twenty four hours after Marcus' big speech, a group of people gathered in a classified location. A large, fleshy hand slammed on the dark conference table. "WHO gave you the permission for such an idiotic attack!" The voice of Marlon Spicer, the White House Chief of Staff, made the rest of the people in the room flinch. The heavy set man at the end of the table stared down at the Director of the NSA. Even though this was one of the best protected places in the USA, the smaller man looked like he would have preferred being in a cage with a tiger right now.

"We followed the proper protocol and acted on behalf of the AWSC (Alien Worlds Strategic Command). All information was provided by them," the little rat said, and Marlon's eyes moved to the old fossil that was in charge of the AWSC. "Hanson, would you please tell us the reason why you ordered this halfwit to undermine our international relationships and completely ruin our public image?" Marlon said, with a honey sweet voice.

Ben Hanson turned and said with a calm voice, "At the time, we tried to counter an existential threat to the USA." His words caused some reaction in the room, but Marlon stayed unaffected. "Based on our information Marcus Freimann was crucial to the treatment of the Grand Protector of the ginghi. Removing him, even under great cost, was worth it," Hanson said, with a thin mouth.

Marlon was about to grill both of them for their incompetence, when Hanson continued. "But that doesn't matter anymore. The situation has drastically changed," he said, and for the first time Marlon felt things were going into an unexpected direction. Hanson played with the console in front of him and a large screen on the wall illuminated. "Only a few hours ago we received this through official diplomatic channels. It is from the ginghi government," Hanson said, and played the video.

The screen showed a desolate mountain region. The camera panned over the jagged landscape made up of gray and red rock and ended on a horrific sight. A gigantic monster moved through the broken land and shattered house size rocks with its many legs and arms. The creature was an abomination, an eldritch horror made manifest, it had no resemblance with any animal or humanoid. A ring of black eyes on its deformed head spoke of a sinister intelligence and black mist followed the monster in its trail, corroding and dissolving the land around it.

The viewers hadn't fully grasped yet what they saw, when sudden movement made the monster react. Appendages flailed and deafening screaming filled the dead land as a much smaller being engaged the horror. In seconds giant arms burst apart or were torn off. The unholy body of the beast split open and waves of black blood shot out of the wounds. The blood moved with a will of its own and turned into a hideous black cyclone, engulfing the monster and grinding it to pieces.

Seconds past and a humanoid closed in on the camera with giant leaps. The massive man landed only meters away from the lens and was covered in a layer of pulsating black blood that gave him a demonic look. The blood retreated and showed the Grand Protector in light clothing, standing in front of them. The ginghi spoke in fluent English, "Greetings humans. It came to my attention that the state of my health has been of some debate on Earth. I hope this demonstration was sufficient to ease your worries." His facial expression slightly changed and he continued, "If in the future such debate resurfaces again, I don't mind giving you a close up demonstration." The video ended.

The room was dead silent. Deep breaths and terrified gazes filled the silence until Marlon found his voice again. "Captain Steyger, tactical analysis!" He said to the representative of the US military elite class holders. The stoic man with the cold eyes slowly shook his head. Marlon leaned back in his chair and swallowed hard, "Any and all actions against Marcus Freimann are to be stopped right now. I need to talk to the President about this development."

Two months later….

Heavy rain drenched the woods behind the estate of the Colors. In spite of that a dozen men and women rushed through the forest, jumping, rolling and shouting orders. "Ramon guard Janette and stay on your toes, Achara is missing!" Marcus shouted, and rushed forward to intercept Grace before she could take out half of his team like last time.

The rain had made the ground slippery and gave Marcus a slight edge against his much faster enemies. Jamila threw a Plasmaball to take out Grace but she easily dodged it and one of her training swords cut over Jamila's chest before Marcus could reach her. "Too slow Marcus!" Grace smiled and engaged him with joy. Normal hits didn't count against Marcus and she needed to perform a critical hit to take him out, which Marcus made as hard as possible.

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They brawled for a moment as suddenly another blade was at Marcus's throat. Achara had jumped on him from behind and was ready to take out the team leader. Plop! A small dart with a suction cup stuck to her back and she cursed and let go of Marcus. "You expected Achara to come after you this time instead of Janette. Ramon was a fake move." Grace acknowledged Marcus' tactic, while her blades moved even faster.

A sudden explosive kick from Grace made Marcus stumble and she was over him ready to take a point. She moved forward and was suddenly accelerated towards the next tree, crashing into it with a painful OMPH! Marcus Burst charged right onto her, already tasting victory. Instead he found himself floating in the air a moment later. Grace took the opening Kou had given her and sliced Marcus' throat in the middle of her jump.

After he was out nobody was able to stop Grace and Marcus' team lost again. "You are getting better with this Force Manipulation, but it still takes you too long," Grace said to Marcus, after they had all gathered again. "I know. It is difficult to get the timing right," he said, upset with himself. "If you would give me more than some one-shot toy pistol I would be more helpful," Janette said with a smile, but everybody said "No!" They had tried paintball guns, simple bows, but she took out the enemy team on her own in seconds. "We don't have anybody who can counter you right now. You are just too OP!" Marcus said, and Janette was enjoying the lamplight.

They finished the daily group training with a tactical analysis and then moved back to the estate. Their team play and understanding had greatly increased over the last months, Marcus thought while he watched the veterans and the regulars talk on the way back. The thing that didn't work well was his fourth ability, Marcus had to admit.

After his euphoria he had very quickly learned that his grand plans for Force Manipulation hinged on his ability to make split second manipulations of complex three dimensional movements. And to put it in Kou's words, "You don't have the crests for that." It sucked, but Kou was right. Today's training proved that again. Without intelligence crests he lacked the mental ability to fight and also perform Force Manipulation on his enemy. He had missed four times before he had landed one manipulation on Grace in the last fight. This was unacceptable.

Should he start investing into intelligence? Was that the move? But it didn't make sense to him, vitality was his scaling attribute. And then there was the fact that his class was a primitive one, as Xeen had said. Such minute manipulations didn't fit the picture. As it stood he was stuck with 'only' empowered Impulse Hammer aka Impulse Wave. It was a great weapon, but not useful in training. Marcus was frustrated, because his gut told him there was more to be had.

Marcus hit the shower and then joined the others in the kitchen to make a large meal. It was something they had started doing regularly over the weeks and Marcus was more than happy with it. Achara was the boss here and everybody had to follow her command. Making and eating food together, talking about the news or random things had connected Marcus with his friends again, in a way he had missed since his return. In this regard his plan had been a full success.

He had only spent half the time with his clan, the other half belonged to Azaa and the ginghi. Real relationships weren't like romance novels, Marcus thought. Even if you love each other, things don't go perfectly and living together wasn't one endless, happy orgy. Marcus had come to understand that Azaa was far less confident in her body than he ever had imagined.

She had made great strides to move forward, but a century of doubt and insecurity doesn't vanish just like that. Azaa often worked long into the night and it happened that she would wake him up to have sex afterwards, because she felt the need to reconfirm their connection or to ensure she had satisfied him. When she had said she was afraid a human woman could take him away, she really meant it. This wasn't something that would go away in the short term, but they were openly talking about it, which helped.

On the other side of the coin was his own fear to fail in her eyes. The ginghi nama learning sessions every day were borderline brutal and each day felt like the worst exam you ever had. Marcus feared he wasn't making progress and Azaa doubted her ability to teach. This only changed after Uela coincidentally joined them on a lesson and she quickly pointed out to Azaa that she was going far too fast. "A normal person without intelligence crests might take years to fully learn a new language Azaa. You are torturing Marcus," Uela had said, which had surprised Azaa at the time.

Afterwards Marcus came clean on how hard things had been for him. They talked it over and started from scratch. This time with a much more basic learning curve. Marcus finally started to understand why it would take years before they would be able to count themselves as bonded. Still, when they held onto each other there was no doubt that they both wanted to be together for the rest of their lives.

"Marcus your package is here!" Kou called from the front door, and Marcus quickly moved to get the materials. He carried the large and heavy package to Kou's workshop and Kou helped him unpack all the stuff he had ordered. Marcus had no idea what half of it was or what he needed it for, but Xeen had made him buy it for their project.

Can we now start with work on the Eshfa device, Xeen?

We might need more depending how things go, but we can start with the first steps at least. Weeks after his return they were finally beginning to put the plan, to spread the knowledge of Xeen, into motion. Manipulating his old alien artifact to show much more than the attributes of the classes was the first step on that road.

I have prepared something to greatly speed up the process, Marcus. One moment. Marcus waited a few seconds and a small pulsating pink dot appeared in his field of view. The light moved quickly around and then returned to the middle of his view.

Now we can start.

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