*This chapter is back in Anubis' PoV. I hope you guys enjoy!!*

     I grab the chair I had been sitting in when I was talking to my father a moment ago, dragging it across the room, the wheels clicking and clacking over the uneven concrete floor of the dungeons. I bring the chair to a stop next to the work area Poppy was tinkering at, I sit down and watch as she works. I watch how the metal moves and forms to her will, almost like it's a clay made for molding. She uses tools to help make minor adjustments as the metal forms to her needs, finally she stops distracting herself and turns to me. “Rose is in charge of a lot and we usually prefer her taking the lead, but she refuses to tell our stories. She says that's for us to tell, not her, even though she’s been our story for as long as any of us can remember.” She pauses.

     She turns on her tablet and opens a control panel of sorts and with a few button presses the little helicopter she had been working on whirs to life. “My ability has to do with metals, I can warp, melt and manipulate every metal I’ve tried working with so far. I don’t want to say every metal as there are probably plenty I haven’t gotten to work with so that would be unrealistic.” She presses a few buttons on her controller and the little device goes flying around the room. We both watch it for a moment as it gracefully completes whatever maneuvers that Poppy had set it to do. She lets out a disappointed tsk and brings the chopper back, landing it effortlessly on the table.

     She mumbles to herself as she tinkers with the machine again, I start to think she has forgotten our conversation when she finally speaks to me again. “I was born with a gift, then I was given this gift. One thing you need to know about all of us is, none of us actually know or remember life before the kennels. We are only given information we need and they deemed that information not important, with a little searching and doing what we can with memories. We can kind of make up our best guess as to what, why and how we found ourselves in captivity.” She says and I nod. “That’s understandable, I’m sorry you guys went through things I can’t even begin to imagine. I appreciate that you trust me enough to let me in.” I reply.

     She hesitates slightly at that and I can see her tense a little, she isn’t as good at hiding her emotions as Rose. I watch her body relax again as she focuses on tinkering. “All I know is my mother was a very successful breeder for the kennels and she eventually passed away from having too many children. So I have plenty of real half siblings out there, and I don’t know a single one of them or if they are even still alive.” She says quietly. I feel the sadness in my heart, none of them deserved this and yet here she was telling me things that were unimaginable to think of. “Look I don’t need your pity so don’t start on that bullshit or I’ll stop. It’s sad, yeah, but how many people have I made sad ending someone they loved? I kill, they kill, we kill and we kill really well.” She says but I can just hear the smallest hint of emotion in her words.

     She turns her attention to a bundle of metal wires, she picks it up and the metal melts in her hand. I sense that this was her way of calming and centering herself, I watch as the metals pool in her hand and then split into puddles. Each puddle was a different metal, she makes them form into solid bars before setting them down again. Staring at them she continues talking “I have a photographic memory. Words, diagrams and blueprints practically swim off the page into my head. I don’t know why or how but I have always had this ability.”

     “I know it sounds far-fetched but learning and tech I have always been the best of the best. When books weren’t enough to satiate my hunger to learn, if I could get my hands on it damn the consequences I was going to tear it apart. If I had enough time I’d put the thing back together, but when you’re constantly being watched, well. Things didn’t end up back together very often and I got a lot of punishments, and I switched many handlers until Gen set his sights on me.” She pauses. Messing with the tablet she sends the helicopter around the room.

     We watch it for a moment and I try to sort through all the information I’ve been given in such a short amount of time. “This is-” I start but Poppy cuts me off “Yes I am well aware how much all of this is. That's why Jeri is compiling it and putting it into files on the tablet I’ll give to you before you leave here today.” She gives me a look like I should have known better. “Er. Right, I apologize for not considering that.” I apologize awkwardly. She waves her hand at me “Don’t apologize, you didn’t know but I mean come on bro I’m the weird little tech goblin. Did you really think I wasn’t going to make sure you couldn't revisit this information later? I even took the liberty of recording your conversation with the cryptic old man… Okay well that was just because he likes to give puzzles over answers, I have a program specifically made to record anytime he starts talking down here.” She says shrugging.

     I smile slightly at that “I think my old man would call that cheating, I consider myself on your team.” I say and we both laugh. Poppy rolls her chair over to the end of the table she was working at and grabbed a thick book and rolled back over. She turns around and hands it to me before turning her back to me. The title read “Advance Aerospace Technology and Science.” I look at it in amazement this was above anything any of our scientists ever got into. “I’d like you to open that and give me a random page number and I will recite it word for word. I’d like to demonstrate my photographic memory.” She says. I open the book and flip through pages until I find a page that is all texts. “Alright page nineteen.” I say and look at the back of her flaming red hair.

     I listen as she recites the whole page word for word, when she was done with that page she continued to the next page. She didn’t make a single mistake on either of the pages, I also watched her so I know she didn’t cheat or look at what I had in my hand. “That’s scary and amazing Poppy, you're incredibly smart.” I say closing the book and setting it back down. She turns back to her tablet and brings her little machine to land on the work surface again. “Eventually when Gen got his hands on me he put me right into labs, he wanted weapons and I wanted the ability to experiment without getting in trouble. I was blinded by what I saw as a kindness and not as a manipulation technique that he was using on me. That’s not very smart…” She trails off.

     I watch her and she busies herself with the metal bars she had made earlier, I could tell by her hands she was nervous. Or she didn’t like what she was about to say “Look, I was a kid okay. I wanted to be wanted, I wanted praise and love and I made some unimaginable things.” She swallows hard and clenches her fist metal dripping from her fingers “I made the collars. Only to get collared and removed from the labs, Gen had used me for his purposes and I wasn’t needed in the labs anymore. He slapped my own creation around my neck and sent me into the field to either die or work for him.” She goes silent.

     Neither of us say anything for the longest time as she cleans up the spilt metal. “Don’t blame yourself Poppy. Anyone would have done the same thing; you were a child and no one holds that against you.” I say. I see her knuckles clench and turn white; her whole body is tense, and her jaw is clenched. “Poppy-” she cuts me off again. “Don’t Anubis. Just don’t. What I did, what I made, is unforgivable regardless of how old or how I was manipulated. I am the reason shifters became so easy to control. I am the reason so many have lost their lives in an attempt to escape. If it weren’t for my devices Dahlia wouldn’t be here today, he would have escaped with his parents. I am the reason they are dead; regardless how much Rose will shoulder that blame. That blame is mine. They would have had a better chance, if I had never made those abominations to begin with.” She says in almost a whisper.

     I shake my head “None of you are to blame for these things, you had no control of your situation. You guys can't blame yourselves; you can’t change fate. I hate to say it, but Dahlia’s parents were fated to die, regardless if you had or had not invented the collars. The Fates are ruthless, they make unimaginable things happen. This was never your guy's faults; it was his and the other humans who have kept you like attack animals. You guys aren’t animals, you’re shifters. You are people too; you guys deserve love and happiness. I am sorry that you all had to deal with this, but you need to really understand that none of what happened was any of your faults.” I say.

     Poppy turns to me and stares me straight in the eyes “I pillaged. I stole from the dead when he put me in the field, to continue my experimentation. I took tech, weapons, money and anything else valuable I could reasonably carry on me without suspicion. Rose saved my life after I stole the golden scales from The General's armor, I heard the rumors about Rose and Anti. What I didn’t expect when I got caught by Rose and Anti was the amusement that danced in Rose's eyes. To this day I swear I saw the fire in her eyes burn brighter when she found me.”

     “Rose saved my life and covered for me, she didn’t give back any of the gold I had stolen though. Later when she was sure Gen had calmed down and wasn’t going to catch us sneaking about, she made me bury them with all the other things I had taken from the dead. She had me follow along for a couple of missions, but quickly realized my skills were better with comms and tech. So she would have me run surveillance and comms for our group, when Dahlia happened he ended up stuck with me a lot of the time. He hated seeing everyone hurt so he started making remedies and healing ointments from local plants. He was like my little brother and with his lame leg he wasn’t really allowed to go out into the field much. Rose, Anti and Orchid would find a safe staging area and we would wait for them there, while I ran the comms and Dahlia foraged.” She pauses.

     She chews on her lip a second, looking like she was debating what was to come next. “Rose and Anti, have survived the longest in the kennels. No one knows how or why but they have been. The thing is these two were molded and made to be killers. They were made to plan, scheme, steal, lie and kill… So what went wrong? Why would they save shifters instead of punishing them? Why are any of us how we are, when all we really know is death? Yet you guys just welcome us with no questions asked? What if we weren’t good, you guys just let the enemy in with nothing more than a feeling based on fate.” She says and looks down at the metal in front of her.

     “I have a confession, Anubis.” she says but waits for a reply. “I know you guys aren’t the enemy for the simple reason my father sent you to find me. If you were bad he wouldn’t have bothered staying as long as he did. He wouldn’t have led you guys to me. I trust Rose and I trust you guys, yea it might seem like a stupid idea. But if I ever knew anything, I know I can trust you. Us working together is what is needed to defeat our common enemy… I could also tell by all of your eyes, eyes will show the lie even if you do everything to hide it. They will always tell the truth. So I shall accept your confessions Poppy, I will not judge you guys on past actions. You guys did what you had to do to survive.” I say with confidence.

     Poppy looks back at me and nods her head a moment later “Alright Anubis I’ll accept your acceptance. The truth is we could have escaped at any point and didn’t need your help, I know how to disable them. We set up that plan for the purpose of the ambush, we wanted to gain your trust. We needed to show you guys the truth for you to understand the truth, without our scheme you would have never believed how ready the humans are. But that’s not my confession Anubis, my confession is that Rose lied. We don’t have a month, a year, we cannot avoid war. Anubis we are fighting the war, the war has already begun. What we are doing is warfare and none of you are ready for when Gen makes his move.” She says.

     I sit in silence as the weight of her words settle on me “So you guys planned that ambush and asked me for help to open our eyes? That I can forgive because you’re right on that and I will have to figure out how to accept that within myself. Do you know how long it will be before he makes a move? Why tell me any of this?” I ask, looking at her. She shrugs and tinkers with her metals forming them into something new. “Look Nubi, you're cool and a good fated for Rose. However, after her son and her first fated… Well I know the rest of my team is going to do everything to prepare you for what's to come. Because we cannot lose Rose and that means we cannot lose you, however we also aren’t going to throw ourselves in front of you. Maybe Rose but not you and that’s because Rose gets stupid when she’s angry.”

     “Anti, Orchid, Dahlia and myself will do all we can to prepare you for this. To prepare you to help Rose and to make sure you are ready for when Gen makes a move. None of us know Gen's plans; he is constantly giving different agendas to confuse us and to keep us on our toes. He could already be making the move and we wouldn’t know for sure, until it is in our face. He’s a slippery little bastard, Rose and Anti are the product of his own experimenting. So I’m sure we’ve effectively pissed him off, he likes games so we may have bought us some time but not much. Or we set things in action faster which means we need as many trained shifters as possible, which means we need to free as many shifters as possible.”

     “The shifters will make their way here. We need to make sure they are welcomed and have space, if we need more buildings so be it. If we have to kick dragons out to accommodate better shifter fighters, then that is a decision you are going to have to make. But no matter what everyone has and will serve a purpose for this war, as you said it's what The Fates decided.” She finishes. She turns to the tablet she was working on and hands it to me, then looks down at her hands and hands me a tiny metallic dragon, it looks just like Rose’s dragon form. “Don’t get used to gifts, this is the only time I’m being nice.” She says. I can tell she is joking now and I smile, I give her a soft chuckle and thank her for the gifts.