"This is not okay." Cassandra glared at the panelist leading the event, but he'd backed away from the group immediately, allowing the obviously military individuals to cleanly separate herself and Irene from the rest of the attendees. Peter, sitting to one end of the table, wasn't overlooked, nor was his dinosaur.

The soldiers gave one look at Henry, who crouched between them and Peter with his frills raised and hissing the whole time, then one drew a gun and fired a single orange-glowing projectile into the dinosaur's head. Henry's health dropped to zero immediately and he fell limply to the floor.

"Henry!" Peter lunged for his dino, but three of the soldiers intercepted him, picking him up off the floor entirely and restraining him.

"You unhand my son, you degenerate--" Irene started, rising from her seat, but another pair stepped in between them, taking hold of her arms as well. "How dare you! Let him go!" Irene screamed, stomping and kicking at the men's shoes and knees, but their armor protected them enough that they didn't even flinch, health remaining steady at 100%.

The audience began to shift uneasily, some people hesitantly getting to their feet as the scene unfolded onstage as if to come to the aid of the restrained panelists, looking around to see if anyone else would join them. Others took the opportunity to slip away while the invaders were distracted.

Cassandra couldn't help but notice that every Awakened in the crowd was quickly split out from the others, prevented from joining the increasing exodus as chaos broke out.

"We don't want to hurt anyone. Come with us and we'll keep you safe."

Cassandra remained seated, legs crossed, arms crossed on the table in front of her, watching.

Irene was the exact opposite, unleashed protective fury as she struggled against the higher level people restraining her. "Let my son go!"

Peter was kicking and screaming as vehemently as his mother, but neither was any use against their much stronger and better armed captors.

Two of the armored Awakened came to stand behind Cassandra's chair, one prodding her to stand.

"Hold your horses, I'm comin'. Not as young as I used to be." She got slowly to her feet, keeping a firm grip on the table and chair as if for support. Without warning she ducked and flipped the table over her head with a surge of stamina, slamming it into the pair behind her.

Before they could react she ran at Irene's captors, still holding the chair in the other hand, ready to swing it like a club. Before she'd crossed half the distance someone grabbed her arm and yanked her to an abrupt halt. Someone else snatched the chair away.

"Don't want to cooperate, huh?" He sounded more frustrated than angry at her stunt. Weary, almost. "Did any of you egocentric independents ever consider we're all on the same side here?"

"No, I'm on the side that doesn't include killing people's pets or kidnapping innocent citizens from a public event!"

"Innocent citizens don't try to kill the people who've come to protect them. This way."

Despite her dramatic show, Cassandra's efforts to escape proved no more successful than Peter's or Irene's, so she subsided into a pretense of calm cooperation. Along with Riana, Drakonias, and every other Awakened in the crowd, they were rounded up and led away. One had even picked up Henry's body to bring with them, leaving no evidence of magic behind for the regular convention-goers to discover.

"If you want to try screaming for help, go ahead," the leader said as they exited through the back. "We're high enough level the distortion will only confuse them. We're just going to cross town nice and calm."

Of course, a few particularly desperate Awakened tried either shouting for help or making a run for it. Cas refrained from joining in, as tempting as the option was, and didn't regret her decision. Those not cooperating were quickly subdued and either silenced or knocked out and carried, if they resisted too vehemently. After the third attempt at escape was dealt with just as calmly as the earlier ones, the prisoners grudgingly subsided.

Their destination proved to be a parking garage downtown with what they quickly realized would be their next conveyance parked on the roof.

"No one mentioned there'd be spaceships," Cassandra murmured to no one in particular. She was still looking for opportunities to get away, but after her initial outburst she doubted they'd underestimate her again.

The planes were blocky and angular, their wings short and stubby, far from the aerodynamic shape of most planes. It didn't look like they should be able to stay in the air, if not for the row of yellow glowing lines across the bottom of each vessel - and the way they hovered silently and effortlessly above the rooftop.

"Are we really going to just let them drag us away?" Riana asked quietly.

"What choice do we have? They're all over level 15, while we've only got a handful higher than level 5. Even if we outnumber them, it'd be pointless to try anything."

"You'll come up with a plan, right?"

"If I think of something, I'll let you know."

When those with sufficient power chose to disregard the rule of law, there was very little that could be done to hold them in check. Especially when that power was tangible, magical, and sufficient to protect them from almost anything modern Earth could throw at them short of a missile.

Cassandra let herself be led to the plane without resistance. Before she could step aboard, a loud sound caught her attention and she turned to look.

Something crashed through the apartment building next door, dust and plaster flying. Then Greg emerged from the wreckage, jumping from the half-destroyed building to jump up the outside of the parking garage level by level like he was King Kong.

Peter shouted the ogre's name, but whether in greeting or warning was unclear over the sudden chaos.

Below, people were screaming and pointing; cars were pushed aside like crushed tin cans, and Cassandra could see a straight line of devastation leading away from the city and out to the dungeon where the other minions had been waiting for the demonstration.

The soldiers weren't shaken in the least. Half continued to hurry their prisoners aboard, the other half lined up with ominously-glowing rifles.

Cassandra dearly wished she could throw something to disrupt their formation, which looked all too confident about facing an angry ogre, but even if her hands had been free she had nothing to throw. Their storage items had been confiscated almost immediately after their capture at the convention center by people who clearly weren't going to be as easily deceived as unAwakened about the nature of the 'empty' bags.

Drok wasn't far behind, the second ogre following the trail of devastation left in Greg's wake, but he was moving slower and Cas doubted he'd make it in time to support Greg before the first ogre went down.

But Greg hadn't come alone. He roared in fury, then reached over his shoulder with both hands. In a single motion he ducked under the volley of power-glowing bullets and threw Slayer into the middle of the formation. The vivid green slime immediately started spitting in all directions as fast as he could fire.

While they'd seemed untroubled by the dinosaur or the ogres, Cassandra knew immediately that none of these had been in a Nature dungeon, because they had no idea what to do about Slayer.

What the slime lacked in movement speed, it more than made up for in attack speed. Despite its innocuous appearance, it had as much health as the ogres and regenerated faster too.

Greg slammed into the broken line before it could re-form, knocking several of the Awakened aside. They may be higher level, and the ogre's attacks didn't do significant damage to their health, but they were still small and lightweight in comparison.

Several of the fighters on the ends, away from where Slayer had impacted, managed to draw a bead on the ogre and fired their glowing-orange Destruction bullets. But if they'd expected the ogre to go down easy, they were mistaken.

Greg was much more resilient than Henry. His health dropped to just over half, but his momentum didn't slow in the least. Slayer continued to fire, even as those in the middle drew manablades and started hacking away at the slime.

"In! Quit gawking, you'll be fine. We've got this handled."

Cas wasn't moving quickly enough, and the man behind her shoved her forcefully up the ramp and into the blocky plane. She craned back to catch one last glimpse of Drok, Ward and Elmire on his shoulders, come over the edge of the roof and charge into the fray.

Then the door closed, sealing them into the plane and blocking any sight of what was taking place outside.

There were only six of their captors inside with them, but Cas didn't like their odds against people that heavily armed. If they started something, a lot of people would get hurt.

For now, they would have to play along. At least until she came up with the right plan.