Maxine was proven correct in her assumption. Someone had gotten a good look at her face and somehow they had a video of her holding her mother''s broken form in her arms. Maxine knew that General McKenzy couldn''t avoid her identity from getting out even if he wanted to with how easily information was spread via the internet.
Maxine had a large group of reporters on her front lawn the very next morning. She was very tempted to paint the general as a total asshole on national television, but that would most likelyforce him to resign his post. Since she didn''t want to deal with someone that could possibly be worse than him, she kept her mouth shut about the whole thing. However another general by the name of Matthew Jonesdid that anyways. He was almost skeletal in appearance and had an air of superiority about him. Maxine didn''t like him even before he started speaking.
General Jones had stated at a news conference that General McKenzy knew about the men that hurt her mother in advance and did nothing to stop it from happening. He went further by stating that General McKenzy wouldn''t even allow Emily to heal Maxine''s mother as a punishment because Maxine went against his orders.Maxine knew what was coming at this point. General Jones had demanded that General McKenzy resign his post. General McKenzy had no way to defend himself from what Maxine could tell and part of her was happy that someone was bashing him so publicly. However there was something in General Jones'' eyes that bothered her. She couldn''t quite figure out what it was either, but it didn''t bother her enough to speak up in the defense of General McKenzy.
Fortunately Maxine was distracted from all of those things while she taught the soldiers the variations of the essence darts. Shedemonstrated the two variations that she knew: the exploding and splinter essence darts. The splinter essence dart was more or less the equivalent of a shotgun blast and the exploding essence dart name explained what it did quite nicely. Howevera lunatic among those soldiers had somehow combined the two. When it hit the target, it had gone off like a fragmentation grenade shredding everything around it. If Maxine hadn''t used her essence to block off the destruction it caused, several of the soldiers training under her would have been seriously injured. She yelled at that particular soldier for being so reckless by testingitso close to his fellow soldiers, but shortly after praised him for his ingenuity.
Other than teaching the soldiers, Maxine had worked on making more Shadow Wolves to protect her mother. She had made a total of ten bronze stage Shadow Wolves to protect her mother. and made another ten bronze and twenty copper stage ones to assist her in hunting. She figured that she should have her own personal army just in case. Afterall nothing says leave me alone better than a small army of snapping jaws.
At one point, Maxine hadrememberedabout theplasma gun that was in the cave by the dead russian and went to retrieve it. She scanned it thoroughly with her spiritual sense to better understand it''s internal structure. Unfortunately she didn''t understand it at all and stashed it away in her shadow. She wanted to make one of her own on the off chance she would need it. So she had searched both the internet and the local library on everytopic that might be invovled in making a plasma gun. Maxine had spent her remaining free time that she had tending to her mother at the hospital.
Aweek after her mother regained consciousness, Emily had dropped by the hospital to bothspeed up her mother''s recovery and talk to Maxine. She had wanted to ask Maxine to do something to help General Mckenzy so he wouldn''t be reassigned. If he was, it was very likely they would have to move away. Maxine wanted to oblige Emily, but she wasn''t certain what she could do without making things worse. She said as much to Emily.
Emily looked downtrodden as she started to use her divine attribute to heal Maxine''s mother. Unfortunately it did little to help her mother since the best time to heal her had already passed. Emily healing her mother didn''t help much with General McKenzy''s situation either since it just made him look like he was trying to appease the public rather than taking the initiative to do it. Even though he had defended himself masterfully to the public, Maxine knew that it was only a matter of time before he was forcibly reassignedas more andmore people started to demand action from the government.
Emily bid them farewell after nearly expending all of her essence in healing Maxine''s mother. However after Emily left, Maxine''s mother released a sigh shortly after. Maxine looked at her mother curiously. "Mom, what''s wrong?" Maxine asked.
"I was hoping for grandchildren, but after seeing how you were looking at your friend Emily, I don''t think that I will," her mother paused before she continued, "I guess it''s no surprise after the hell your father and I put you through." Maxine hadn''t been aware that she was looking at Emily in any speical way.
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"Mom, I...," Maxine tried to speak but stopped when her mother raised her hand to silence her.
"I don''t need an explaination, Maxine," her mother said calmly, "I know you want to punish both me and your father, but please have ababy in the future. You don''t know what joys thatone can bring you and remember nowadays you don''t exactly need a man in your life to have one."Maxine immediatley became uncomfortable at the mere thought of having a baby.However she couldn''t bring herself to tell her mother that it probably wouldn''t happen.Although, if Patrick were to be the father... GOD DAMN IT!
Maxine didn''t like the fact that part of her was attracted to Patrick, but she didn''t have much choice in the matter. She knew that Patrick was loyal and wouldn''t hurt her intentionally. Those two things appealed to her on a logical and emotional level. She was afraid that if his girlfriend, Meagan, wasn''t in the equation that she might actually be tempted to persue him.
"Okay, mom. I will think about it," Maxine said softly while those thoughts ran throughher head..
"Now, tell me about Emily," Maxine''s mother asked. Maxine was only too happy to comply since it was a good way to distract herself and told her how theybecame friends much to Maxine''s embaressment. There were times that she couldn''t believe that she had initiated such a passionate kiss with Emily and alittle sad that they hadn''t shared another one since. Maxine went overseveral other activities that they did such as shopping and watching movies at Emily''s house. Her mother listened attentively through the whold thing. It took hera couple hours to go over it all.
A short while after she was done telling her mother about Emily, a nurse came in and told them that visitor hours were almost over. Maxine told her mother goodbye and left. However she didn''t go home right away since those reporters and her fans were camping outside of her house. Instead she went to visit Silky.
Silky as always gave her a hug tackle as soon as Maxine arrived at her nest. Silky always wanted a progress report on Maxine''s mother as soon as she arrived. Silky had been anxious because Maxine''s mother healed so slowly compared to herself. Maxine hadn''t realized just how important family was to her little arachne until Silky had shown such concern over the wellbeing of Maxine and her mother.
After she was done telling Silky about her mother''s condition, Maxine played a word game with Silky. It invovled avoiding the use of either the no or yes sounds in aconversation. If you said either of which, you lost. Silky wonas much as she lost since they started playing that game a few days ago.It took almost a quarter of an hour before Maxine announced that it was a draw. Silky had been getting better at this game ever since she taught it to her.
Maxine told Silky to go back into her nest while Maxine hunted. Maxine hadn''t used her Shadow Wolves to hunt many copper stage essence beasts and she primarily hunted for bronze stage essence beasts to increase the strength of her army. Whenever she found a group of five or more bronze stage essence beasts, she simply unleashed her Shadow Wolves and watched the show. There was something satisfying about watching essence beasts tear each other to pieces. Shenoticed during her earlier hunts that no matter how damaged one of her Shadow Wolves became it would always repair itself given enough time. It was like they had no weak points aside from the essence cores inside of them. Maxine had wondered why they were far more durable than her shadow clone, but figured it might have something to do with the fact that they had essence cores whereas her shadow clone did not.
Maxine collected twenty copper and tree bronze essence cores in less than an hour of hunting and four times that duringthe past few hunting trips. She remarked mentally that she had made remarkable progress ever since she started using the Shadow Wolves to track and fight essence beasts. However all of her bronze essence cores had been used to make her stronger Shadow Wolves. She decided to make the rest of them usingaround copper essence cores. She wasn''t certain how many Shadow Wolves she could keep inside of her shadow and wanted tofind out herlimit.
Maxine ran back towards Silky''s nest and started making more Shadow Wolves using the copper essence cores while Silky watched her. She had gotten better at it and couldn''t too many a day with her current proficiency. Hence she only made as many as ten copper or five bronze Shadow Wolves at a time. It didn''t take her very long. Maxine checked the time and it was around nine in the evening.
Maxine reached for her cell phone and looked at it for a few minutes while debating whether or not she should call Patrick. She wasn''t even sure he would still be awake at this time, but she missed talking to her old friend. However she was nervous about calling him. She didn''t completely understand why she felt that way considering how long she had known him.
Maxines stomach started to growl and distracted her from her current thoughts. She put her cell phone away and ran back towards her house. She figured that the reporters and her fans had gone home to sleep by now. She remembered that the soldiers she was teaching would breakthrough into the bronze stage within the next few days and she wanted to teach them how to form their own essence armor afterwards. She was looking forward to it since it would mean the end of her obligation to the military. She for the breifest of moments wondered if General McKenzy would still be in charge when their training was completed.