Goddess of the Night: a soul book story

Max being an a$$

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            “So…” Rob’s voice broke the uncomfortable silence as they all sat around in the control room of the airship waiting for the battle.

The room faded into silence again as people got lost in their thoughts, ignoring Rob’s outburst. Not being able to take it anymore Cameron shot up at the same time as Jamie cut in,

                “So who else here hates silence!?” Jamie asked excitedly raising her hand and surveying the room. Rob’s team all silently raised their hands while Gwen’s just grunted. Luke was too caught up in his anger to be his usual bubbly self and well nobody else was really in the mood to take his usual role. All they could think about was the coming battle.

                “Well…” Cameron started, “How did you guys get set up as a team?” She asked Gwen quietly trying to distract everyone, it was rare to have a female team leader and Cameron wanted to know how it happened.  Gwen looked over at the older woman and a smile started to form.

                “I actually picked the old head guards pocket one day by accident, he was so shocked at my skill and the fact that he hadn’t even known I did it that he hunted me down. After a year he found me, gave me a couple more skills to learn, a team of my own, and when he retired he recommended me to take his place.” She answered simply like it was no big deal.

                “You picked his pocket!” Jamie exclaimed in shock, “What the hell were you thinking? He could have had you killed!” Gwen smiled again.

                “It’s not like he caught me, he only eventually caught up to me by using his entire team, he had a technopath searching all cameras and a seer trying to find out all she could.” Gwen said proudly, “I was only picking his pocket to survive, I was a low grade thief, he had money and I needed money to survive. I knew he wouldn’t miss the little I took from him.”

                “I’m still impressed,” Rob said with a nod though he had heard the story before, it was a famous one among the team leaders.

                “How did you get set up with your team? Did you guys ever have a problem respecting a female leader?” Jake asked curious with all the new information.

                “Well Ryan was never any trouble, he just got a little too protective at times, Luke just went with the flow, well after he got the hint and stopped hitting on me, Max was a bit harder to convince.” Gwen told them after casting a glance at the back of Max’s head, he was busy driving.

                “What happened?” Cameron asked scooting closer on her seat.

Gwen smiled, “well it’s a long story…” Max chuckled from his seat.

“Yeah and most of it involves me being an a$$,” Max told them with a smile as he kept his eyes on his driving the airship. Gwen smiled as she started to tell the story.

 “It had been after my year or so of extra training with the head of the guard when he decided that I needed my own team. At the same time he decided I needed a team that was better than most, he had each species send their best of the best and then had each element fight each other. It was shear luck that each person sent for the position was of their species natural element but we decided to only have one person of each element in the team. So that leads to werewolves fighting elves, vampires fighting sorceresses and so on. I even had to fight a Genie to prove my worth.

Anyway they had decided the winners and I don’t know it must have been week or two after we had started as a team and everybody had warmed up to me except Max. He mouthed off every time I so much as looked at him…