"Sorry! I just got excited." Talon said as he stood back up. "Remember the base? Well, it was turned into a Conversion Camp, which is how my people enslave a race. But knowing that this is a planet of 7 Billion life forms, that will take longer for them to conquer easily." Talon said simply. "With every planet The Shade colonize, their first order of business is to start building Conversion Camps. The converted are usually innocent people brought into the Hive Mind."

"The Hive Mind? An entire mind shared by all of them? I didn't even know that was scientifically possible." Macy said.

"Well, it is." Talon sighed. "But the point is, we can save Derek's parents and a bunch of other people if we get moving!!"

"Alright!" Nova said with a small glint of hope. "Where is it?"

"I...Uhhh. Don't know."

Macy and Nova blinked. "How can you not know? You build like a million of these things!"

"Well, they're not in the same coordinates every planet we land on!" Talon said.

"Still! You're supposed to have experience with this." Nova said, once again being hard on Talon.

"Hey, don't be too hard on the guy." Macy said.

"Of course, you just wanna ride his tail." Nova said before she thought about it. "Actually...I take that back. Just use a different term..."

Talon and Macy were basically red and purple tomatoes and slowly scooted away from each other, feeling way too awkward. Then, Derek spoke up.

"Hey guys, Macy's smart phone says he can be of assistance." Derek said.

Dean cleared his throat. "Okay, so a bit of deductive reasoning mixed with inductive reasoning. Needless to say, we've only come across one of these camps once, and even then, it wasn't fully completed, just operational. So we can deduct all the places we've been since the invasion started. However, we have seen very large groups of Shade in very specific locations. And large groups infer that there is something incredibly important nearby, and that they'll need as much security as possible. This could perhaps be a conversion camp."

Everyone nodded, even Derek, who didn't understand a single word of what Dean just said.

"Now, keeping in mind where these large groups were spotted, and where all the wide open areas in the city are, visual institution would lead one to be at..."

"Feracon Park!" Macy exclaimed.

Talon blinked before rubbing the back of his head. "Is...Is Feracon at the start of everything? I get it's the name of the city, but is he like your king or your High Council? Cause Feracon doesn't sound like a girl's name."

"He's...more of a discover." Macy explained. "Even though he didn't so much discover the Arel Republic as much as he kinda stole it from the natives."

"I still wonder why we celebrate 'Feracon Day'." Nova said. "And...High Council? I love me some exposition, so fire away."

"They're the highest ranking of Shade EVER. Five members, and the founding fathers of my home planet and The Shade Empire. They know everything that has anything to do with our race. All of them are upgraded. 2 Crushers. 2 Shockers. And 1 Stinger. Commander Shard has been the most likely candidate for a possible sixth member."

"So...they're like your presidents or leaders or-"

"Dictators?" Nova finished.

"Pretty much. They REALLY like sitting in the shadows judging people."

"Huh. Sounds like ours." Macy said before facing Nova. "Well, I know the drill when we dated for like 3 days. This sound like a plan?"

"We can work out some more details on the way. For now, we just get ready and prepare as soon as possible." Nova said as she went to get dressed, since she was in nothing but a towel cause of Talon's excitement and interruption.

"What about me?" Derek asked. "I wanna help too. I wanna save my parents."

"Well, even if we didn't wanna bring you, we don't really have a choice." Macy sighed. "So, you're gonna have to come with us."

Derek nodded, actually feeling hopeful before walking off to get ready himself.

Talon then faced Macy. "You and Nova were mates?"

"You mean dating? Oh, yeah! Really awkward though. We didn't get along too much and realized that after dating for three days. But we didn't want to let some crummy dates and a lousy try at love ruin our dreams for the future or the friendship we still had. So we both broke up and then things got way better." She then laughed. "On Earth, break ups go way worse."

"I...see. I just can't see you and Nova together. You two seem so...different." Talon said.

"Yeah, it was more of a fling and thought then actual romance. We're friends, we were younger, and now we still argue." Macy joked and laughed before she smirked. "Are you jealous?~"

Talon's cheeks turned purple and he took a large step away. "Nope."

"Well, know that I'm gonna stay single for a little while~" Macy flirted, twirling her tail a bit before grabbing her Everything Ray and putting it in the holster. "Look out, Shade! The M Brigade is coming after you!"

"We are NOT calling ourselves that." Nova said as she grabbed her gun and gear.

"Why not?"

"Does the M stand for Macy?"

"No!" Macy exclaimed.

"Then, what does it stand for?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmultiple people."

And so, our heroes headed off! Off...Saving...the prisoners being held captive by extraterrestrials. Has a nice ring to it.

They traveled through the underground until finally arriving at the sewer tunnels for Feracon Park. Macy looked up and then swore a bit. "The whole park is guarded by tons of Shades."

"Then we can lure them away." Talon said. "But that's gonna require some-"

"ESPIONAGE!" Nova and Macy realized before they both began squealing and Talon covered his own mouth to prevent himself from roaring, but instead he fell into the sewer water.

"Sorry!" Macy said as she helped her friend up. "It's just we so rarely did stealth missions back on the force."

"Oh, but when we did? It was awesome." Nova said with a dreamy sigh. "Infiltration."

"Stealth." Macy added.

"Spying."

"Hacking."

"Sabotage."

"You know, for people who love stealth, you definitely aren't subtle about it." Talon said with a slight groan. "Besides, one of us has to watch after Derek."

Nova snapped out of her trance. "Ummm, I'll do it."

They both looked at her. "Wait...really?"