It was a quarter till nine and Samantha Dixon was still in her office, organizing for next week. She abruptly received a text message from Jacob. He wanted Samantha to meet him by the library on the Western campus. She wondered why Jacob wanted to meet her across the campus. He could have quickly gone to her office, and they could have talked here. A part of her wanted to ignore this text, but for some odd reason she humored Jacob and took on his offer.

At least it was beautiful out, not a cloud in the sky with the moon shining down on the University. Everybody was either at home or in their dorms. The entire quad was like a ghost town. It was a good thing that everybody took her curfew at heart. She knew it wouldn’t last forever, but still… It felt good that everybody was conscious enough to keep them safe for the time being. She took at least a good ten minutes to walk from her office to the entrance of the library where Jacob was waiting for her.

“Jacob? Jacob!” Samantha called out as she walked up the steps.

Jacob turned around to see Samantha. “Hey, boss.” Jacob greeted as they met face-to-face.

Samantha wasn’t really thrilled about being out at night, but she had to make the best of it. After all, Jacob was her new head of security, so it had to be significant. “You told me to meet you here. I am issuing a 9 o’clock curfew, starting tonight,” Samantha reminded, and Jacob nodded.

“I know. But these knuckleheads around here will not follow some curfew,” Jacob counterpointed. “There are even holding stupid little parties about this outside of the University. Sightings of monsters.”

Samantha shrugged her shoulders at the idea, “supposedly, if they were right about what we are doing in the first place. Listen, regardless of what you think about her and the mayor, a part of me actually believes in them… I don’t know. Maybe it’s--”

“I found someone else.” Jacob cut her off and leaves Samantha dumbfounded.

“What?”

“I found someone who can really help us,” Jacob reiterated.

Samantha really didn’t understand. How many larger-than-life characters can we have to try to find one monster? The striking story of magical females and the Aether was a bit outlandish, to begin with. Still, it was believable enough to gain some confidence from the mayor.

Samantha laughed at the thought. “I don’t know what to say, Jake. We’ve already gone through this. It’s already been done--”

“I know a buddy who was stationed in Europe a while back when he was in the service in Poland…”

Samantha Dixon was a lot of things, but uninformed and naïve about current events around the world wasn’t one of them. There was a good reason why she was given such a title and responsibility for the school. Samantha had a military background as well, being involved in Operation Desert Fox and in Afghanistan. There were a lot of rumblings about a couple of “animal people” with superpowers fighting amongst themselves in Europe. Unfortunately, she ran into one of them during her military tours in Spain.

Samantha gave him a cold dead stare, knowing he did the unthinkable. “You brought those psychopaths into my campus…”

Seeing her being visibly angry, Jacob had to defend his decision. “They will get the job done! If there is a monster running around, I would rather trust them than some Sailor Moon wannabes.”

“Go to hell, Jake!” Samantha clambered as she makes her way down the steps.

Jacob went after her and cut her off, “at least talk to them. They are inside right now waiting for us!”

Samantha couldn’t stand to look at him. He went back on his word and paid for mercenaries. She knew people like them don’t work cheap. But it wasn’t a question of money; it was a matter of principle. Michaela trusted them both to keep it between the three, and Jacob didn’t.

Jacob continued to defend his decision. “The point is, they already came here yesterday. I would tell you about their offer and everything else until that little bitch showed up.”

“Well, that was very sweet of you to go behind my back and make irrational decisions before that ‘little bitch’ even came into our lives!” Samantha shouted.

“They can handle stuff like this!” Jacob eagerly defended. “The reality of the situation is a clear-cut one.”

She would not pay them a dime, but at least she was a bit curious who they were, “If you say so. Where are they?”

“Follow me,” Jacob led as they both walked up the stairs and went inside the library.

The library itself was considerably vast, filled with old and up-to-date textbooks. Wired with the fastest Internet so many others who use Wi-Fi connections can go on the Internet without a problem. They wouldn’t use the research room since the library itself was conveniently empty for obvious reasons.

Samantha and Jacob walked right over to the table where a bunch of kemonomimi women was waiting for them.

They were at least four of them. All the females were extremely well-built, well endowed, had wolf ears and tails. Adding insult to injury, they were all dressed scantily clad. Samantha stopped walking immediately and faced Jacob who was enraged now, “what is this, some kind of joke?!”

“And you take your word over a little girl?!” Jacob argued.

Getting their attention, the four wolf kemonomimis saw the two arguing. One of them took upon themselves to go over to them and properly introduce themselves. The wolf kemonomimi was small and had long jet-black hair and purple gradient eyes. She was wearing a tank top with shorts.

Oddly enough she was very personable and polite with the two, “hello, Dixon-sama! Jacob-san told us everything about the situation.”

Samantha sighs deeply, but she didn’t want to be rude since this little wolf girl made the effort of being approachable, “yes, we have a supposed monster on her hands, Miss…”

“Junichi, Ayeka Junichi,” the young Japanese wolf kemonomimi introduced herself. Being the oldest of her squad, Ayeka Junichi had her fair share of battles and shortcomings. Eventually ending up at the Oleander Syndicate as somewhat of a motherly figure to a bunch of up-and-coming soldiers in a never-ending war with no clear-cut winner. Many people would have despair and become jaded in Ayeka’s position.

Yet her positive outlook in life is illustrated in the courage to rebuild herself and to try again. There many times she had lost her way too many times as she should. But in the end, she had learned from this and was able to move on. Hopefully, her new colleagues would do the same or fail to try.

“We handle situations like the one you have tonight. Mostly I do covert missions and extraction,” Ayeka explained.

Samantha was a bit surprised by Ayeka’s professional demeanor and even felt embarrassed by judging her so quickly. However, she had already decided and didn’t really want a bunch of mercenaries in her school.

Samantha decided to let her down easy, “Miss Junichi, I want to say thank you for coming out here. It had to be very hard--”

“No problem at all,” Ayeka dismissed. “Let me introduce to you the rest of the team.”

As they make their way to the table where the rest of the three were waiting, Samantha still felt uneasy about bringing more outside “help” to handle one threat. It was there they met a smiling wolf kemonomimi with straight, waist length blonde hair and emerald green eyes wearing a little two-piece Chinese dress. Next to her was another wolf kemonomimi with long wavy light brown hair and dark green eyes who was slouching in her seat wearing a casual shirt and pants.

On the other side of the table was a wolf kemonomimi with waist length silver hair, and crimson red eyes wearing a tank top and a micro mini skirt which was utterly uninterested in everything that was happening right now. One by one, they introduced themselves individually.

“Hey, boss lady! The name’s Ryoko Shimizu. Martial arts specialist,” the with young blonde wolf kemonomimi happily introduced. Surprisingly enough she spoke in a southern accent.

Trust fund babies are a dime a dozen in the world of the filthy rich. Spoiled and entitled does fit Ryoko Shimizu’s personality to a T. What makes it worse is that she is not only beautiful, but she is physically strong, intelligent and not afraid to flaunt it. With the right guidance and discipline, she could shine brighter than the sun itself, but she would instead dim her own light with their own darkness.

“Kayla Anderson, I mostly do the tracking in the group. I’m proud to say nothing escapes me and I always find my target,” the young brown -haired wolf kemonomimi introduced with a nod.

Being influenced by cartoon heroes and best-selling science fiction novels, Kayla Anderson always wanted to be a hero. A peaceful yet sleepy town of Luxembourg wasn’t going to cut it for her thrill of adventure. She wanted to see the world and save it from evildoers.

Lazy to a fault, she does have the motivation to become a great leader and a great warrior. Her motivations are her family and her friends and want to make sure that they all live peacefully. However, getting that “true ending” is not as obtainable in the video games and books.

“Natalia Silvestri…” The young silver-haired wolf kemonomimi bluntly introduced as she looked away with her arms crossed.

For Natalia Silvestri being a lone wolf was never easy. Not having a family of her own, the Oleander Syndicate was her only family. Some say he can’t choose your parents or your siblings. And many times, she wishes she had. As beautiful as she is antisocial, she is the exact definition of being a loner. Being raised in an environment where being a bully and a deviant is necessary can do that to you. Let’s just say, she had learned a lot from her peers and superiors.

Jacob and Samantha took a seat alongside with Ayeka.

Jacob started the meeting, “as I was relaying the information from before, we are dealing with some kind of monster.”

“What makes you so sure it is a monster?” Natalia disagreed. “For all we know is some jackass pretending to be one.”

“You saw the pictures just like everybody else, Natalia-chan,” Ayeka corrected. Hearing this made Natalia roll her eyes.

Before this gets out of hand, Samantha had to come clean with the four young mercenaries, “Before we continue, I just want to say it wasn’t my idea to bring you all here. Jacob jumped the gun and decided to take you here under false pretenses.”

“There were no false pretenses. There is a monster here, and we’re going to deal with it,” Ayeka reassured.

“Yes, but--”

“If it’s about money, you don’t have to worry about that, Samantha-sensei. Our Grandmaster said that we would be doing this out of favor,” Ayeka explained.

No wonder that bitch over there is pissed off, Samantha thought, referring to Natalia.

“Don’t worry, she is always pissed about something,” Kayla added.

This made Samantha a bit flustered, “wait, did you just read my mind?”

“It’s one of my many talents. I’m a tracker, remember?” Kayla admitted.

“So, you’re all from the Oleander Syndicate. Why are you doing this?” Samantha questioned.

Kayla shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know either. I guess you can say Grandmaster wants us to have a good clean image, helping the less fortunate.”

The history between the Oleander Syndicate had been tumultuous and chaotic. Usually, the Nether does not follow the rules of the universe so why should they follow the rules of their banishment from the prime realm. The users of the Nether tend to have a direct hand in mortal affairs.

While many others use the Nether for such purposes, others use the Nether for heroic and virtuous endeavors like the Novak family who functioned like the Crux Nexus. Being a noble family at first safeguarding of the royal families in Europe, the Novak family were always regulators and upheld the law.

Feeling that the Crux Nexus would try to exterminate every Nether user or demon indiscriminately without question, they decided to police and regulate the Nether users and demons themselves. Little by little, they gained many people support throughout the generations. Still, to this day when you speak about virtuous and upstanding families who are tied to the Nether, you think of the Novak family.

Officially the Oleander Syndicate was created during World War I in the first public leader was Millender Novak who served as a commanding officer in the United States Air Force. Keeping the tradition of taking out those who abuse the power of the Nether had always been their motive. After World War I, they formed the Dark Nebula Coalition bringing every leader with the influence of the Nether together.

Even though it was a fragile alliance and still is, they manage to also become stronger than the Crux Nexus. Although the Millender Novak was well aware of many other hidden agendas, it didn’t seem to faze the coalition or them in any way shape or form when it came to the gradual progress of prominence.

Sadly, the Dark Nebula Coalition and the Oleander Syndicate would face a stiff new challenge by having the first Grandmaster not being a part of the Novak family. While many others tried to seize power of becoming the next Grandmaster of the Syndicate, many others still want to keep Novak’s dream alive.

The Oleander Syndicate is broken up into three groups: the inner circle who takes care of the political and administrative duties, the field users to carry out such missions such as assassinations and the technicians who give medical and technical support to not only the field agents but the inner circle as well.

Natalia, Ayeka, Ryoko and Kayla are the same field agents to carry out such missions such as assassinations called the “Nether Elite.”

Jacob laughed out loud, “and you thought those Sailor Moon wannabes and that Lolita Princess did charity work!”

“What did you just say?!” Natalia snapped.

“Uh, I just said, and you thought those Sailor Moon wannabes and that Lolita Princess did charity work,” Jacob stammered as he repeated himself.

“You brought them here as well?” Ayeka questioned.

“No, I didn’t. The mayor--”

“You mean ‘Life with Mikey’ brought those five fucking fairies here?!” Natalia referring to Mayor Bloom, shaking her head. At least the permanent scowl that was on Natalia’s face was gone, replacing it with a devious smile, “I guess it makes it more interesting.”

The Oleander Syndicate and the Crux Nexus have always been at odds with each other since the very beginning. When it comes to representing the Aether, the Crux Nexus has been the flag bearers. It was fair to say the Oleander Syndicate was the yin to the Crux Nexus’ yang.

Samantha sat back in her chair while surveying this behavior for herself. She even laughed a little, “now I get it. Your little Grandmaster sent a bunch of wolf cubs to go after this monster for only publicity. Trying to gain enough favor and brownie points amongst your own coalition who are at each other’s throats at the moment. Taking out this monster will put you and your group in a very favorable position. Everything has a price.”

The once anti-social Natalia ever became so chatty as she scoffed at Samantha, “whatever gave you that idea? And who are you calling a cub, old hag?”

“No fortune but fame. That’s what my superiors always tell me when we go out in the field,” Samantha reminisced. Caring enough, Samantha rose out of her chair and addressed everyone, “you all can do whatever you want, little girls. But I will say this before I leave: This is not your battlefield. This is an institution for many others to better themselves. I don’t know what kind of game you guys are playing and I really don’t give a damn. But you’d better keep everybody else out of this. Because if I find out someone died, and you are the cause, may heaven help you. Or in this case, the three-headed bitch you pray to as a God.”

With that stinging sentiment, Samantha takes her leave.

“You have to excuse my boss. She’s on edge,” Jacob apologized.

“No need to apologize, Jake,” Ryoko blew off. “She’ll thank us later when we kick that monster’s ass!”

“As long as we focus on the mission at hand, there will be no problems,” Kayla reminded as everyone’s focus was on Natalia.

Out of the four, Natalia was the least experienced. In fact, this was her fourth mission. Not having a good track record, she failed every one of them. Her reckless, violent and self-destructive nature has put her in many horrible situations in the past. Hopefully, this will be the turning point in her career as an agent.

“No problem at all,” Natalia openly mocked as a group became ever so weary of her poor attitude.