War Preparations

As always, talking with Pinky left me with a weird taste in my mouth…

"We need to move… We have to see how Blake is doing and get ready… I also need more weapons."

Without saying anything, Hayley followed me back to the gym.

I could notice Hayley trying to hold her laughter in every step of our conversation until Pinky left, but that last part of the conversation made the atmosphere between us weird…

I wasn't sure what to say about her being called the second wife… I could just ignore it or laugh it off… But she interrupted my train of thoughts.

"Too bad…"

Hayley's comment caught me off guard, and I just asked her back.

"What is too bad?"

"If I was able to endure and put up with you for just 1 more year, I would have been the main wife…"

She said teasingly… She tried to sound as if she didn't care and was just joking, but I knew that a part of her was thinking about it.

"Well, the second wife is not that bad… You get to boss around the other wives, when the main wife is not there."

"The other wives??? How many of us are out there?"

She said with a teasing smile.

"If I follow Pinky's theories, a couple in each city should be right, so I can repopulate the Earth and create a completely new line of heroes, capable of protecting each city from the evil demons that will strike."

"And without his theories? How many girls would you have in your harem… And don't lie to me, it's every boy's dream."

I thought about it seriously for the first time…

I would be lying if I said that something like that never crossed my mind, it was a common fantasy, but…

"To be honest, I don't know if I like the idea of a harem… If I'm with someone, I wouldn't like her to be with someone else at the same time… I think that for girls it's the same, and it would be shameless to do something like that, if I don't like the idea of her doing the same."

Hayley nodded deep in thoughts… I didn't want to talk more about the topic, and there were more relevant things to talk about right now.

Luckily, we arrived at the gym, so the weird topic ended there… We noticed that only one of the hunters from Gabriel's group was here.

"Where is Gabriel?"

I asked the remaining guy as I approached him.

"Sir!! He and the rest of the unit were called by the high command. We were told to leave just one person in each place, and I volunteered to be that person… SIR!"

The guy made a military salute and put his hand on his temple without moving. Blake was acting fast. I hope that Pinky's scouts also find the Alpha cow quickly, so we can finish this soon. I'm not sure how useful is leaving someone behind, but doing it in another way would be dangerous for the people we left behind.

"Thank you for the information, soldier … Emmm you… Can rest?"

The guy seemed to relax and changed his pose… It's weird when people act like that. It's not like we are in the army for real, but there are a couple of guys that keep doing this when I pass by.

Without paying attention to what the guy was doing, I moved to the place my group was, Megan and Hannah were still with them, so I just went directly to Gerhard, who was still half asleep… The lack of sun and yesterday's fight did a number on him…

"Hey G, come with me, we are getting ready for the counter-attack."

G opened his eyes more… He was still tired, but stood up right away…

"Go with Hayley to the east gate and stay at the sun resting… I'll try to bring your hammer when I go to pick up Hope."

"Ok, thank you."

After bidding farewell, Hayley left together with G, and I went back to the hospital room.

Hope was on the chair next to the bed talking.

"…Then while I was sliding, I suddenly ran out of bullets!!! But Hayley somehow made a huge hole in the roof and ice needles started to rain on the two beasts!!"

Rose was laying on the bed, with her eyes open, listening to her friend. She looked tired, but my heart was trying to jump out of my chest out of pure happiness.

I waited a few seconds as Hope finished an exaggerated version of what happened last night, the number of beasts were higher, and she took a couple of them out…

"I heard that you missed that horn…"

"Wha!!… Ummm hi… I'm pretty sure that it almost hit."

"G doesn't count…"

I was trying to delay my talk with Rose… I was happy that she had finally woken up, but what she did was reckless, and I was mad because of it. I was in a confused state of mind trying to figure out the correct approach…

She looked at me with a wry smile, knowing that I was half mad half happy…

I got to her and, ignoring Hope's excuses about the friendly fire situation, I kissed my girlfriend.

It was a long and gentle kiss. I joined our foreheads after it ended…

"Don't do that ever again…"

"… I can't promise you that… If I feel that you are in danger, I will always do my best to help you…"

What can I say to that… It's not like I can force her to promise something like that…

"Ok, but you have to rest for now… Recover and don't use any of your powers until you are fully recovered… Leave the rest to me, okay?"

She didn't say anything… She had a wry smile, because she knew that she was in no condition to help anyway…

She slowly nodded… And smiled which made me kiss her again.

"Just come back…"

Hope looked back and forth without understanding.

"What are you talking about?"

"He is planning something… Probably dangerous as always…"

"I have to say, that the safety margins are way better than in my previous plan."

She looked at me with suspicion…

"What are you planning?"

It was Hope the one that asked… Unlike Rose, she wasn't the type that preferred figure things out by herself.

"We are attacking the Alpha Cow with Pinky's help."

That was one of the options that Rose was thinking about, so it was not a huge surprise for her, but Hope's face was priceless… I wish I had a way to take pictures.

"Be careful, even if it is not going to be the same type of fight you had in the forest, you still don't know about the Alpha's power."

"I know. I don't plan to face it head on first like the last time… And I have yet to hear what happened to the Alpha Snake, so when I come back, I have to hear the full story."

"It's not that long of a story… the short version is that I offered him two choices, it could become my pet or be gone forever. It took the second option."

"You tried to make the Alpha your pet!?!?!"

"Yeah, that was what took so much time and energy… I tried to convince it for a while, I thought it could be useful to defeat the cow, but he rejected it time and time again, and I couldn't hold it anymore."

I pated her head… I tried my best to be mad with her, but in the end, she risked her life for me…

I kissed her on the forehead before leaving.

"Take care of Dante while I'm out, and I want the full story when I get back, not the summary. If everything works out, I'll see you tonight… Hope, let's go… I need to stop by the armory."

She grabbed her MRGR, and I did my best to drag the hammer with me. How can G fight with this…?

In the armory, after being told that I was going to be charged for this, I got knives and a scimitar.

After what happened last night, I thought that one of the submachine guns might be a good choice for Hope as a secondary weapon… After browsing the options she picked the KRISS Vector SDP1. It was light, and she liked the design… I didn't get a new one since I was going to be fighting on melee range most of the time anyway…

After leaving the armory, I managed to bring the hammer to the east gate, where I found almost every hunting team ready to leave. Most of them were resting.

A long day is waiting for us.