When I returned to the others at the University stables, I found that Kelly was still out riding Moonlight after allowing Selina to take a short ride on the Unicorn first. The young Mermaid was speaking energetically with her older sister and Poppy, and it was good to see my girlfriend seeming a little more comfortable with people who I considered to be family. I was a little worried about Poppy possibly feeling like she was on the outside looking in, but I was happy that she was making the effort to bridge any gap that might have existed.

I was even happier when Moonlight returned with Kelly on her back and my sister appeared markedly calmer and more relaxed than when I had left them. I was pretty sure that she was still angry, but it seemed to be tempered now, like she was ready to focus that anger and pain against those alien beings who had caused it rather than just simmering in it and letting it overwhelm her. While we were growing up, Kelly always did do her best deep thinking while we were on horseback rides, and it was reassuring to see that that probably hadn’t changed.

“How did it go?” I thought at my Unicorn companion as she bore my sister toward her stall, where the rest of us waited.

-As well as could be expected,- Moonlight replied in a calm and even tone. -Your sister spent much of the time that we were out deep in thought and sometimes speaking her thoughts aloud. She knows I could not respond, but I believe that she just needed to get some things off her chest and did not want to burden you or the others. She is very angry, she wants to make the Titans pay for what they have done, but I believe that she wants to keep it from happening to anyone else just as much.-

“That’s good to know,” I sent back in relief. I was worried that the anger I’d seen in Kelly since I told her that those dreams were real memories, even when tempered with focus, might blind her to other important things as she fixated on revenge alone. If what Moonlight said was indeed the case though, I should be able to keep her aimed in the right direction during combat. I hated thinking that way, it felt like I was manipulating my sister, but I needed to think of the safety of both civilians and our team, and that included her safety as well. “Thanks again for doing this for her, Moonlight. She definitely needed you more than I did today.”

-I wish only to see you happy and healthy, my Maiden. Your sister’s health and happiness affect yours, and you asked it of me. I would not refuse you anything, so long as you are safe and happy.-

I wrapped the Unicorn’s mind in a mental hug to show how much I truly appreciated her. Then I turned my attention to my sister as they approached the stall. “How was your ride, Sis? Are you feeling any better than before?”

“I… I’m still mad,” Kelly admitted as she slid from Moonlight’s back. “I still want to make them pay for what they did to me… what they’re probably still doing to Mom. I was thinking about things though, about priorities. If we’re going to make them pay, it’s probably going to have to be done as a team and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. So, I think maybe Ainslee has the right idea, maybe the reason I can’t be hurt is so I can protect the people I care about… my team and family.”

It was during the group hug that followed my sister’s words that I said, “That’s good, Sis, because we have a teammate to protect.”

After Kelly, Ainslee, and Selina quickly tidied up Moonlight’s stall and put her riding gear away, I teleported us all back home. Selina headed immediately back to the pool to rehydrate after thanking Moonlight and Kelly for indulging her with the lesson and ride and I guided everyone else to Kelly’s room and had her close the door for privacy. Once we were alone, I once again activated the privacy device I had gotten from Vice-Commander Carpenter so that I could brief them all on what happened at Vanguard Tower.

First, I told them about how the Vice-Commander had asked about Kelly’s mental well-being after this morning’s revelations and how I told her that Sergeant Vale had gone way too far with the simulations. To say that news was not well received would be a gross understatement. “So that whole fucking thing, making us face our trauma until we damn near broke, was some sort of fucking leadership test for you?” Kelly snarled, her simmering anger from earlier quick to kindle anew at that bit of information.

“Mostly for me,” I admitted, “to see if I was going to stand up for my team and prioritize your wellbeing, and to see if I knew when to follow orders and when it would do more harm than good. I guess they wanted to feel out our limits too, so they can gradually push us beyond them instead of pushing us too far too fast, and too soon, and making us snap. I’m not saying that I agree with them doing things that way, but we are in a unique position since we may have to enter Incursion Zones a lot sooner than most recruits would. I’ve been assured that our future training sessions with Sergeant Vale will be a lot less mentally and physically punishing and that any increase in difficulty will be gradual.”

“That’s great to know now,” Kelly continued to rant. “Does that Vice-Commander know how many times we were all triggered during this test?! How many times that I had Titans coming right for me! How many times that you lost us all one by one, Ainslee couldn’t protect us, and Poppy was buried alive! How many times that Karen had to watch people die in front of her and you had to shock her to snap her out of it!”

Ainslee put an arm around my sister, drawing her closer to her on the bed. “Calm down, Kelly. I know how you feel, that was hard on all of us, but they were only simulations, and they could have probably done a lot worse than to make us face our fears, especially if they wanted realistic simulations. If he really wanted to beat us into shape without caring about our mental health, Vale could have just put us through one brutal sim after another, but I’ve been thinking about it. He gave us time to recover between sims, pointed out our mistakes and how we could do better, and never went after all our fears at once. He changed the sims up to focus on someone else’s fear when one of us was really badly shaken and needed a longer mental breather.”

“Honestly, there isn’t much any of us can do about any of that now. The only one who could was Lily, and she already did,” Poppy pointed out practically. “I wish I could have seen you give the Vice-Commander what for, Love. That sounds so sexy.”

Kelly let out a long sigh and while she still didn’t look happy, she was at least calming down with Ainslee and Poppy being so reasonable about things. “She promised the sims would be easier now, Sis?” she finally asked after taking several deep breaths to steady herself. “I don’t think I can go through that again tomorrow, especially after today. I… need some time to process all this before being thrown in another meat grinder.”

“Yeah, she said that the future sessions won’t be so physically and mentally demanding,” I told her. “They won’t be as long either, and we won’t have to do it tomorrow. We have other plans, if you’re all up for it.”

“What kind of plans?” Ainslee inquired.

“Karen could use our help with something that Vice-Commander Carpenter brought to my attention. Before I tell you anything more though, I need you all to promise me something. My meeting with the Vice-Commander earlier today never happened, and neither did this meeting we’re having now. What I need to tell you has to be kept off record,” I insisted, looking at each of them in turn.

“Karen needs help? What kind of help?” Poppy asked before nodding and adding, “If you say it needs to be kept secret, then I’ll keep it secret.”

-You are the only one I speak with, so it goes without saying that I will tell no one about this secret matter,- Moonlight’s mid voice assured me.

“Hey, when haven’t I followed your lead. I’ve got your back, and I guess Karen’s too, and my lips are sealed, Lily,” Ainslee added.

Kelly was quiet and wore a pensive expression for a moment before finally nodding. “Well, I guess I did say I would give her a fair chance, and I haven’t really done a very good job with that so far, so what the hell.”

Using my comm crown’s holoprojector, I shared the image of Alistair Davenport from the file I had on him and announced, “This is Alistair Davenport. He has had three restraining orders placed against him, five complaints of stalking, and is suspected of nearly a dozen suspected sexual assaults in the past two years alone. That’s just what’s known since he became Altered and moved to Amethyst Harbour, and he’s suspected of a lot more. Due to being rich as fuck and having a slimy lawyer, nothing sticks to him and because all the cases and charges so far were not in Vanguard jurisdiction, the Commander and Vice-Commander haven’t been able to do anything against him… yet.”

All the girls looked as disgusted as I felt as Ainslee asked, “I’m afraid to ask, but what does this guy have to do with Karen?”

“Before she faced charges for the incident with us and was confined to the tower, they traveled in the same social circle. When the Vice-Commander searched Karen’s mind, she discovered that Davenport made threats of a sexual nature against her,” I shuddered involuntarily at that thought and had to take a moment before speaking again. “He currently has someone watching Vanguard Tower and she suspects that he’s waiting for Karen to leave the tower so he can carry out his threat.”

“Ooh! We’re going to do a sting operation!” Poppy exclaimed.

“Yeah, if we wait for Karen to start at the University, he could hit her anytime and anywhere, so the idea is that we’re going to choose the time and place for him to strike,” I confirmed. “If we’re all on board with this, I will go visit Vice-Commander Carpenter officially to tell her that we’re all worn out and need a bit of a break after everything we’ve been through lately. She will suggest that we take a long weekend camping trip tomorrow to rest and recharge and do some team building in a patch of forest owned by the Vanguard.”

Kelly appeared to be thinking it over for a moment before asking, “What guarantee do we have that he’ll take the bait? Is Karen even willing to be the bait for this?”

“Going by the file I have on him, and from what I learned from Karen and Vice-Commander Carpenter, I think he’ll take the risk, but probably later in the weekend, and he’ll likely come prepared for what little he knows about me and Ainslee,” I replied with a thoughtful frown of my own. “As for Karen, she’s already agreed to this, she wants to stop him before he hurts anyone else and see him pay for the girls he’s hurt before now.”

“Well, I’m in, but I’m not sure if I like the idea of us being all alone in the forest waiting for a sexual predator and his pals to come after us,” Ainslee pointed out with a grimace.

“We won’t be alone,” I assured her. “There will be two Vanguard strike teams in the area doing stealth training. They will be patrolling the area, monitoring our comms, and ready to support us. I also want to have Moonlight patrolling the area while ethereal, so we’ll have some advance notice before Davenport makes his move. I know that none of us really know Karen well yet, and she’s been trying to push us away, but she’s part of our team so I want to show her that she can count on us, that we’ll have her back. If we have to defend ourselves until the stealth teams can arrive, we’re authorized to protect ourselves however we feel necessary.”

“Like I said, I’m in,” Ainslee confirmed with a grim nod.

“Same here,” Poppy agreed.

In my mind, Moonlight’s voice vowed, -If you insist on putting yourself in danger, then I will be there to keep you safe, my Maiden.-

“Well, I guess we’re all going camping then,” Kelly contributed to seal the deal.

With the decision made, I teleported us all back to Vanguard Tower and had Poppy, Ainslee, and Kelly wait in the mess hall while I made my way to the Vice-Commander’s office. While I was there, I slyly returned the privacy device and we had a somewhat orchestrated conversation that closely followed the one we had earlier that morning before she’d brought up the sting operation, culminating in her suggesting that my team take a few days off to relax and do some team building. I doubted that anyone was listening in, but we were trying to make this trip seem as natural and unsuspicious as possible.

After that I went to Karen’s room and we went to the mess hall together to join the others for dinner, where I told them all about the Vice-Commander’s suggestion and we publicly discussed our camping plans while eating and attempting to act naturally. Karen was probably the most believable, but then, she had been playing her role for over a year and only needed to continue doing so. There was a lot to discuss, and we had stuff that we needed to do before we could leave for our camping trip the next day.

Our first task would be to get the necessary camping equipment for our group. Much of what we needed could be gotten through the Vanguard quartermaster since they had stuff like that for survival training and long-term observation missions in various environments post-Incursion. The latter was usually to categorize and observe any new species of Altered flora or fauna that might crop up. Getting the quartermaster to issue the equipment wasn’t much of a problem though since the Vice-Commander approved the requisition.

We did need to go shopping for food and stuff though, enough to last the five of us for three days. Fortunately, Poppy and I didn’t eat a lot in a sitting, even if we did need to eat a little more often due to our Sprite metabolism. That shopping trip took place after we had requisitioned everything we needed and put it in Karen’s room for the next day.

I had considered having Karen come with us to get the food and supplies but decided against it for two reasons. First, if Davenport or someone he knew happened to see her outside the base, it would not only give away that one of us might be a teleporter, but it also might encourage Davenport to make a move before we were ready. The second reason was that Karen needed to keep up her act and not look very happy with this team-building camping trip idea, or even socializing with us in general, if we were to allay suspicion about this trip.

We did bring one piece of our requisitioned camping gear with us for the shopping though since we needed something to put the food in. It was a dark blue cooler about the size of a small suitcase that my sister was able to carry as easily as a shopping bag. The cooler didn’t even need ice or anything since it had some enchantments on it, one to keep the contents as cool as any refrigerator would, and the other was some sort of spacial warping magic similar to that on the chokers that contained our body armor. It made the inside of the cooler much bigger than the outside. Poppy called it a Tardis for some reason.

“Tardis?” Ainslee asked when my girlfriend called it that.

“Yeah… you really don’t know what that’s from?” Poppy asked, looking disappointed at all our confused expressions. “Okay, the next team building thing we’re all going to watch the Doctor. The new remake is really good.”

“Umm… Doctor Who?” my sister asked, looking as confused as I felt.

“Yes, exactly!” Poppy cheerfully replied, clearing up nothing at all. When we were all still as confused as ever, she started to explain the British television series a bit, telling us about both the classic version and the more recent remake as we finished our shopping for supplies.

When we got home, we all decided to call it night early since we needed to get up early to go to Vanguard Tower for our trip. Poppy and I were snuggling in bed together with me as the little spoon when I felt her let out a deep sigh behind me. A moment later, she asked in a nervous tone, “Can we… talk?”

I immediately shut down the urge to tease her with a sassy answer that she seemed to be doing so just fine since she sounded serious. “Anytime you need to, Poppy. You sound nervous though, should I be turning around for this?”

“No, I just want to hold you right now, Love,” she said as she gripped me more firmly in her arms. “I know you told me that I didn’t have to tell you anything about the Incursion I was in until I was ready, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I think there are some things that you really need to know.”

“If you’re not ready, you don’t need to tell me anything, my love. You told me enough already, and I know how much losing your family and your friend hurt you…”

“She wasn’t a friend, not really,” she interrupted. “And this isn’t really about me, it’s about you, us, maybe the whole world. I barely knew Lindsey, but I wish I had gotten to know her better sometimes. I kind of need you to just listen and not interrupt because this is a long story and I don’t know if I can go through this more than once, okay?”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, she wasn’t really making a lot of sense, but it seemed important to her that I just listen and hear her out and I was more than willing to do that for her. “Of course, my love, I’m all ears.”

Poppy took a deep breath before exhaling, her breath hot on the back of my neck as she idly caressed my wing for comfort, a habit she’d picked up since we started sleeping together. “Okay, here goes. It all started when Lindsey Dimas and I got assigned to do a school project together, she was new to the school, and I was a bit of an oblivious useless lesbian. She invited me to her house to work on the project and…”