"What do you think they want?" I asked out loud.

"We just got a report this morning that a Mouse Folk village was raided the day before. They killed many and took the bodies away. I expect they are scoping out our village, meaning you came just in time," Malodor explained as he stepped up next to me.

He was wearing a robe similar to the one that Thiamon wore, and he had even lost some of his protruding stomach, making him fit into the clothes better.

This was crazy, and it looked like no one was doing anything to stop it, nor could they. This was food chain one-0-one, so I turned back to the tree line, but the group slowly moved back into the trees.

"We should get everyone to grab their things and go under the ship. Once inside, there will be a Ferret named Thiamon and a Weasel named Tita to help you get settled in. Everyone needs to be quick; I don't think that they will attack now that we are here, or they would have tried to attack us," I explained, and Malodor nodded, waving his people to get moving.

The two that had not transformed looked confused, so I sent Miasma over to grab them, but I turned back to my Guards.

"Stay close, and we will all go back to the ship, and I will take the two new ones and the girls up, but I want you to guard the bottom, and I will try to offer some kind of support from above," I said to them, and they had the nerve to look relieved.

"Sorry, but we are just glad you are taking this seriously and not trying to stay down here to help. That just makes our job that much easier if we know you are safe and secure above," Riza explained to me as Miamsa came over with a male and female skunk.

I nodded, and we all started moving forward because I knew that this was a dangerous situation. We would need trained people to be able to stand up to people like that, but the Hive gave us an advantage from what I had seen.

The Mecha cats were advanced, but I don't think robots were under those white and red robes. The Hunters were out to hunt easy prey, from what I could tell, but this was messed up.

I had to put my thoughts away from us all being human just because they had faces. These people still had their animalistic tendencies, and the predators weren't going to change; they just hand better natural weapons in this world.

I took the shy female and the distracted male Skunks' hands as we stepped under the ship. The next instant, we were walking inside the ship, and the woman let out a gasp of shock; the man was looking at some papers he had in his hand.

I dragged them both off to the side and then up the stairs, all while looking back at the papers. Since we were moving, it was hard to make heads or tails of what the drawings actually were, but it looked like a waterwheel.

"The reason you both haven't evolved yet is that you have a special talent that I will choose personally. Right now, I need to get up top, so I want you to find a place in one of the cells, and I will come to see you once everyone is safe," I explained to them far more than I needed to, but the shy Skunk was looking shaken, so it was more for her.

They both nodded to me and then turned to go down the hall without a word. It seemed that the male had been listening; I would have to get his name later.

I Lifted off the ground and flew up to the top level of the Hive. Messia and Miasma were up here, but Miku, Xani, and Talli worked on different things.

They only waved to me without looking up, lost in their own little worlds, but I didn't have time to waste. I flew over to my chair and landed on the ground in front of it before sitting down.

As I settled in and the screens pulled up in front, I called out to Hilda, who appeared.

"Hilda, what can I do to make sure that nothing happens to my Subjects as they are gathering their things and loading up? Do we have anything that could help?" I asked in a rush.

I also pulled up the map and could see everyone moving around, even inside of their huts. Each of my subjects glowed a soft yellow, but there were other colors on the maps moving at a steady pace towards us.

Fifteen red dots were about five hundred meters away from us, coming from the northwest. That was far more than the girls could handle, so I needed to think of something fast.

"I am releasing the three available Royal Attack Drones, but they will only protect the people within fifty meters of the ship," Hilda explained.

"That is better than nothing, is there an intercom? And can we move closer to the village? Everything we can do will help," I said as I looked through the menu, but Hilda pulled up the intercom menu.

I could still see the map in the background, and I could also see the three giant wasp-looking drones that were orbiting around the ship. The Red dots had slowed their pace dramatically, and now they were coming up to the tree line.

"Everyone into the ship, there is no more time to grab your stuff; none of it is worth your lives," I called out over the intercom as I watched the line of red dots stop just for the tree line.

I waited, holding my breath to see what they would do. The ship was now closer, and more people were already abroad, so the attack now would not be favorable to them.

I finally exhaled the stress-filled breath at the red dots and slowly started to move back and then leave. We may have got rid of them this time, but that just meant they would go somewhere else to get what they wanted.

I closed all the windows and my eyes. I just needed a couple moments of peace, this was a stressful job, and I could only see things getting worse from here.