Book 1. The long dark nights. RE-EDITING

27. First or second mission? EDITED

They arrived at the complex. There was no sign of activity. Hinto and a few others circled around to check everything out. There was no new scents here. The rogues must not be here. Yet.

Artos stayed around the front with Maria. The whole cave thing and all the secrets about everything around him was beginning to bug him. He would just have to talk to Hinto bout it.

After everything was clear, everyone went inside in their human forms. Hinto proceeded to the control room while everyone else prepared for the mission. It wasn't clear what the mission was, but it didn't hurt to be prepared for anything. Maria helped Artos with his preparations.

After a half hour, the buzzer to call everyone to the dining room sounded and everyone headed there. When everyone was there, Hinto began the briefing.

"Alright. Theres a few things here that we need to do. One, rogues have been getting closer to this base. We might have to ditch this one soon."

Everyone looked shocked. This was their base forever.

"Two, we need to find the next Chosen. Its critical that we find him or her within the next two months. Three, we're going to initiate the Safety Protocol. This means that our base will be set to smart mode. This was installed over the last five years to make it appear to be inhabited by humans and to take away all evidence of us begin here. This also means that we are going to have to stay at our old base. It has not been used in years, and is probably in bad shape." Hinto looked at Artos. "You probably have already seen it, am I correct?"

Artos looked puzzled. Was he talking about the cave?

"Uhh. I've seen the entrance of the cave that used to be our base back in the early 1900's abouts." Artos said. "Is that the one your talking about?"

"Yes. Some of us need to get that place back up and running. Some need to look for the next Chosen. The rest are going to take care of the rogues. Are we clear?" Hinto asked. Everyone nodded or said Yes or something to let him know that they understood.

"Okay. Three teams. Me, Talia, and Ender. I will work on the rogues. Talia will work on finding the next Chosen. Ender. You will work on the old base. My team will consist of Bolt, Yuki and Dasker. Talia's team will consist of Natasha and Maria. Ender's team will consist of the remaining Chosen. Safety Protocol will be initiated in six hours. You have six hours to prep for the mission. Is there any questions?"

There was no questions.

"Good. Go get ready."

And with that, everyone went to get ready. Artos walked up to his room. There was nothing of his in there. He only just recently shifted and all. He didn't have enough time to accumulate stuff.

There was six hours to kill off before they all had to go their separate ways. Maria knocked on Artos's door at X Minus One* hour till it was time to leave. Artos answered the door.

"Hey." Maria said.

"Hey. You done?"

"Yeah. Looks like we won't be together for a little while, huh?"

"Yeah." Artos said. This was disappointing. He wanted to be with Maria.

"I talked with Hinto. He said 'Your skills are best suited for the task appointed you.' I mean, my skills would work in the caves good too." Maria said.

"True. Moving dirt and stuff. I can handle the darkness. Then theres Aiden. He can work with his... Dark Matter Control?"

"Yeah."

They stood there for a while in silence. Artos was trying to think around this. Maybe if Ender could switch with Maria? Nah. Hinto wouldn't go for that. There was really no way around this one.