April 4, 2005 – 06:00 (Winnipeg Time)
"Told you so," said Emery.
"After what I heard from her guards, can't say I'm surprised they came up with that one," said Sonylla.
"I'm on speakerphone?" said Stephanie after hearing people chuckling. "Blue, I understand very well why my brother wants to keep you all for himself for the next few months, but please, I want to see you when you return to Montreal, and so does Mom. Frank, we've been hearing a lot of crap about her on the news and no one in the family can reach out to either of you for some reason. You do know you can't keep her away from us, right?"
"I'll see you all when I get back. I don't know what's being said about me, but you must tell your family to remove my number their contact list. I don't know where my cell phone is, I need to get a new one," said Coralis.
"I'll tell them that, for sure. Seb told them to do that the day you were captured, but I think only Ray and Rachel did it. The rest of us thought it'd be fine if we just refrain from contacting you while you're in there. Frank's phone is still safe?"
"Yeah, I think so. I don't have my phone with me right now, but as far as we know, it's still fine," said Frank.
After Sebastian promised her he'd be on his way home soon, he ended the call and Jourmol left shortly afterwards.
"Right now, as I'm winding down and enjoying much-needed drinks with friends, there is a part of me thinking I should be mad at the CMMA elders for using Frank to get me to come here, you know, like leverage. But I can't be mad, because, in a time when elemental folks hate on humans and even tried to blame mine for putting me in witchy jail, three elders of different elemental flavours vouched for him to allow him in their war roo and follow with them most of tonight's events."
The group stayed silent for a moment and Frank passed his arm around her shoulders to bring her closer to him.
"Plus, there wasn't a safer place for him to be tonight than in the CMMA war room, when I don't even work for them," continued Coralis.
"Yeah… that kind of thing doesn't happen," said Eva, staring at her drink. "I mean, how many wolves are we working for the CMMA? For an agency naming itself to represent all mythical beings, we're lacking in lycan-types and vampires, but I see the efforts made to unite all factions to get us out of this damn war."
"Speaking of uniting factions, namely the human one, I will be in the aerial crew on tomorrow's mission with the human police. Sonylla said they asked you to lead my aerial crew but didn't say if you agreed to it. She told me to ask you. Did you agree?" said Chiwa.
"Yeah, I'll join their joint mission with the human police. It gives me over 24 hours to recover and they weren't wrong as to why I should join in."
"And you're fine with it?" said Sebastian, looking at Frank.
"As much as I'd like to be able to talk her out of it because I just got her back after 10 days of what felt like hell to me, and the human husband in me thinks she needs more time to recover from her ordeal… I do agree that a successful collaboration between you guys and the fed police could be beneficial toward ending the war, here at least. We all need that, desperately, especially me. Considering the type of skills they need… yeah okay… if she wants to do it, so be it."
"See, hear him talk. Now you see why when a lot of people tried to tell me I should only mate a certain kind, I continued with him and even agreed to matehood. Regardless of species flavour, if I'm to surrender a part of myself to someone, knowing what it means to a lot of people, he's the only one to whom I should give that."
The host refilled the glasses when no one was talking. Sebastian stood and drank his glass in one go.
"I need to go home to my own mate. I kinda felt important tonight," he said, depositing his empty glass in the middle of the table. "I am an apprentice at the CMMA. I feel like I shouldn't have been in the war room tonight, and even less in the meeting room later on, but that I've only been present in there because of my connection between Blue and Frank."
Sebastian hugged Coralis once more before pulling his stick keychain out of his cloak.
"Same, dude, same. I may be an agent, but I wouldn't have witnessed tonight's event if it wasn't for… my mind-link with blue," said Sonylla finishing her glass and indicating to the host that she didn't want a refill.
Emery, Chiwa and Eva stood up.
"Tonight, somehow, I believe we witnessed history," said Sebastian to Sonylla as Eva walked out after hugging Coralis.
"Couldn't agree more," said Sonylla as Chiwa and Emery exited the lounge.
Meanwhile, Andrew sat in his office, watching the elemental news from his hologram monitor. Over the past year, with a few trusted rogue associates, he worked on developing plans and strategies to take down key EBEE elders and overpower the institution from an abandoned rebel compound in southern Argentina.
From the moment he heard about Coralis's and Alejandro's escape from jail, he tried to contact them, but his calls wouldn't go through and he became convinced they got killed shortly after escaping. Enraged, he mind-linked his associates and they met him in his office to discuss exacting their plan sooner.
"…now the news coming from Europe. At 7:45 local time in Madrid, Spain, former EBEE agents Alejandro Salinz and Blue Thunder have allegedly been captured again, but we are unable to get a confirmation at this time. At 6h55 local time in London, United Kingdom, the apartment building in which Blue Thunder resides caught on fire. We do not know yet what caused the fire, or if they escaped capture in Madrid and went there, but there is nothing left from the building…"
Upon hearing the news, Andrew tried again to reach out to Coralis's hologram, but the call wouldn't connect. He tried on Alejandro's, and no connection. He saw red and broke his holographic monitor.
"Tonight, elder Alfredino will die."