Under the Shadow of the Moon

Chapter 30

Luna and the others stood in the Department of Security and Defense building, handing over their swords to a wide-eyed secretary and two security guards. Luna fixed up her hair and pulled her speech from her pocket, unfolding the small piece of lined paper. Sylvia and Lily prepared their note cards, and Colin and Lloyd prepared their collective input. They were getting ready to speak before an entire council, informing them of the dangers and proposed plans. Why exactly it was up to the seven of them eluded her.

The doors to the conference room swung open and the people at the table beckoned them inside. The group stood at the front of the room ready to speak, their hearts racing with nerves.

Luna started her speech, opening with: "Hello everyone. We are so grateful to have all of you gathered here..." she spoke about everything that had been going on within the secret branch of the DoSD, explaining everything The Eye threatened beyond what was known.

They spoke for a while, desperately trying to get them to understand.

"And-and you lot are genetically altered?" One person from the crowd asked. He looked through a folder in front of him. "...it says here that most of you were altered to live in the night population, is this what you mean?"

"Yes and no. Yes, most of us lived in the night population for the past few years, and no, that is not what we are referring to. We were born this way, with strange powers that made us in to a sort of fail-safe—weapons if needed. We likely aren't the only ones, my guess is that there are a few others, however they would be useless. We are the only ones who are able to use the genes. They don't have access to the benefits of the alterations due to age, therefore would only be putting themselves in danger with no benefit to us."

The man nodded, clearly unsatisfied with Luna's answer. One man in the back was furiously writing down each word that came from Luna's mouth and seemed to draw connections in his notebook with large swooping lines. He propped himself up for a moment, staring towards the ceiling with a mysterious glint in his eye. Then he returned to writing and drawing arrows all across his papers.

"We just need some resources—some missions," Lily began slowly.

"You honestly think that we'll send kids to stop terrorists?" The unsatisfied man started to laugh. "The utter thought that you could be helpful to the cause is simply ridiculous." He continued to laugh, nudging the woman beside him in an attempt to get her to join his fit.

The woman gave a subtle disgusted look over her shoulder and leaned across the table, whispering to the two people in front of her. One started to laugh under his breath as they all sat back in their seats. "So basically what you're saying is, you are all genetically modified, you have a way to stop the threat of global terrorism, and no one will take you seriously?"

Luna blinked "Ye-yes. That was the reason we were brought in... by a different section of the DoSD. They need our help."

"Right," she said with disbelief in her tone.

"Oh please, how are y'all genetically modified? Y'all look fine. Definitely not like freaks as y'all are implying."

Luna blinked again. "Uh, right." slowly she spread her wings, the particles in the air being drawn and compressed into the beautiful angel-like wings taking up almost all the space in the front of the room. As she did, she knocked a few things over and had to bend the wings in order to not hit any of her friends. She scared a few people in the room, a man passing out in his seat. One woman screamed and another walked out of the room. The man in the back gasped happily and jotted down more things in his notebook.

Luna grimaced, folding her wings back until they disappeared back into thin air. She passed around the rest of her notes, continuing her speech carefully. "We have spent the entire summer training. We are ready to defend our country." She sighed deeply at the end of the speech as people stood to leave. A few stayed behind and approached the group. One looked sympathetic, one not so much. The other two looked like they didn't particularly care for the situation.

"We will help you, just tell us what you need. Whatever it is, we can get it for you." The woman from before spoke to them first.

They discussed it for a while, answering more questions and talking over a plan to utilize the group.

The meeting ended, and the group was shooed out. As Luna turned to leave, she felt a strand of her hair get tugged and snap, but she didn't think too much of it.

As they got their swords back, they were handed a black case.

"We're having children fight a war. I hope we're proud of ourselves." Luna caught Cleo say as she stalked out of the room, leaving the representatives to their thoughts.

Lloyd and Colin took turns carrying the case as they went back to Base Camp. The night was dark, the moon hidden behind thick clouds and the lights so far down below they had no effect on the group.

They slipped into the Conference Room as quickly as they could, opening the case on the table. Inside, on a layer of foam, sat seven handguns, each with a different colored tape covering the handle in order to distinguish to whom each belonged to. They holstered the guns on their belts on the opposite side of their swords.

They looked at one another, nervous expressions painted across their faces.

"Well, we did it," Luna said, staring at her feet. "Training's over..." she was practically mumbling, fear seizing her heart.

"Yeah," Lloyd said, his voice cheerful, not picking up on Luna's mood. "We'll get to go on missions now!"

"Yeah," Luna mumbled again. She looked up reluctantly. "Let's get out of here, I want to go home."