Hunter Session 10

Previous: Hunter Session 09

The next day, Marta went back to the Uptown Library to meet Professor Hakim, an elderly man who kept using terminology that Marta didn't understand and making bizarre puns on the word "time." Marta, who had inferred that Hakim was some sort of supernatural being and thought that she was one as well, just smiled and nodded, and Hakim never bothered to ask her many questions. They traveled together to his office at the University of Minnesota, which contained a garden full of stones and sand arranged in strange patterns. In the garden, Hakim seemed to walk taller and be more at ease. He tapped his cane on the stones in sequence, and Marta felt strange energies gathering around the both of them. Suddenly, everything became blindingly bright and she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she and Hakim were standing in the middle of a vast desert. Pointing to the horizon, Hakim indicated a small encampment and said, "Welcome to the time of the Hebedites."

Marta and Hakim approached the camp, where the leaders of the Hebedites greeted Hakim like an old friend. He told the tribe that Marta was an apprentice who'd come to learn more about them, and they welcomed her. Marta asked Hakim where the guardians were, and he pointed out a number of them walking around the camp and going about their business, looking no different than any other Hebedite. Hakim introduced her to a guardian named Toramon, whom he seemed to know better than any of the others. Hakim then left, saying he had to go to Rome to take care of some business. Toramon proved more than willing to answer Marta's questions about his people, and she learned a lot from talking to him and observing the culture. Marta learned that protecting the Hebedites against external threats was only part of what the guardians did. They also aided the Hebedites in their day-to-day lives, helping to solve their more routine and personal problems, keeping the society at peace and in good working order, and using their special skills to work alongside the rest of the people. She was even allowed to see Toramon's battle form up close - a large, fish-like creature that disturbingly reminded her of the one that had attacked her in her dream.

But Marta made her most important discovery in the evening, when a group of Hebedite warriors returned from a successful hunt and the tribe decided to celebrate. As they sang and danced around the campfire, she noticed that most of the Hebedites, including the guardians, wore long robes covering most of their bodies. However, the warriors' garments revealed their arms, which were covered in tattoos that looked exactly like hunter code (and one new symbol that she instinctively knew meant "guardian"). When she asked about the tattoos, she was told that they represented helpful skills that the guardians had taught the Hebedite warriors - skills that closely resembled hunter edges. Almost all of the Hebedites knew at least a few such skills. Finally, the connection was clear: hunters were the descendents of the Hebedites, at least in a spiritual sense, and the guardians were meant to work with them to keep the world safe together.

Marta was still pondering this discovery when Hakim returned later that night. He asked her if the trip had been helpful, and she said, "More helpful than you know." He told her he was glad, but that if she really wanted to see something interesting all she had to do was wait for a few more hours. Confused, Marta took notes on everything she'd seen and then went to bed, only to be woken up by noise in the camp. Marta and Hakim stepped out of their tent to see the guardians rushing out into the desert, shouting that they were going to fight an invading group of skinchangers. Hakim said, "That's what I meant," and took Marta out to a nearby sand dune, where through a pair of binoculars she watched the guardians fight and win a battle against some large wolf-like creatures. None of their battle forms were immediately familiar to Marta except for the fish, but some of the others had vague similarities with the lobster, the lion, and the bird that she'd already seen. She also noted that the eight of the guardians fighting in the thick of the battle had green crystals, while the other four fighting with long-range magic attacks had blue crystals. When the battle was over, Hakim asked Marta if there was anything else she needed to see, and she replied that she'd seen enough. With that, he took her back to her own time, and she thanked him profusely.

Meanwhile, back in modern-day Minneapolis, only about twenty minutes had passed between Marta leaving for the library and returning with several notebooks full of notes, conjectures, sketches, and information on the Hebedites, the guardians, and the origin of hunters. Arie, Melba, and Will were astonished when Marta marched into the apartment, dropped the notebooks on the table, and calmly stated her findings: The Hebedites had been hunters. Cameron, and perhaps the others, were guardians who had become corrupt and were trying to sway Chet and Saria to their side. And, most importantly, Chet and Saria were the reincarnations of the Virgo and Scorpio guardians and were (perhaps subconsciously) trying to gather hunters to recreate the scattered tribe. The others were more than a little skeptical at first, but ultimately decided to believe her because of the depth of her notes (and the fact that a beetle crawled out from between the pages of her notebook which Arie, of all people, identified as being found only in the Middle East).

The group knew they had to find a way to take down or convert the corrupt guardians. However, they realized there was no way they could do it alone, so they began looking for more hunters to join their cause. Melba began wearing the Defender symbol on a necklace, hoping someone would notice it, and Arie and Will kept their eyes open for other symbols whenever they went out. At a club they ran into a woman named Shirley who had the Judge symbol tattooed on her arm. Shirley claimed to be the leader of a group of six hunters, and said she might be willing to work with others in the future. Arie and Will got her number and planned to call her if things ever got heated.

After everything they'd just learned, the group was reluctant to attend the meeting they'd arranged with Heather and Wendy (especially after receiving a few more fake phone calls from people claiming to be Chet or Saria). However, they were too curious not to go, so they resolved to be on their guard. But when they went to the meeting, Wendy and Heather weren't there. In their place was a guy who called himself Todd and claimed to be a "friend" of Wendy, Heather, Chet, and Saria. This was too close to Cameron's M.O., so the group resolved to get rid of him without telling him anything. However, when Todd conversed with Marta, she soon found herself telling him (against her will) everything that had happened recently relating to Chet and Saria. Seemingly satisfied, Todd got up and left shortly thereafter, leaving the group confused as to what had just happened.

A few minutes later, Wendy and Heather showed up. Melba recognized the woman who called herself Heather as a regular customer at the convenience store where she'd once worked, but there Melba had known her by the name Jana. Wendy and Healther said they knew Todd, but that they didn't like or trust him. They asked about Chet and Saria's whereabouts, and the group replied quite honestly that they didn't know. The group asked Wendy and Heather how they knew Chet and Saria. They claimed to have met Chet and Saria a number of years ago while all of them had been training at a government facility somewhere in the Midwest. They had all been members of a secret military unit focusing on anti-terrorist tactics. There had been nine members: Chet, Saria, Cameron, Wendy, Heather, Todd, Talc, Sarn, and Blak. During the conversation, Arie started wondering what zodiac signs Wendy and Heather fit if they were guardians, so he leaned in toward Wendy (with whom he’d been flirting earlier) and said, "So what's your sign, baby?" She looked him in the eye, and suddenly he began to feel strangely dizzy and nauseous. She smiled sweetly and said, "I'm an Aries." Shortly thereafter, Wendy and Heather excused themselves, and the incredibly confused hunters took the sick Arie home.

The group had no idea what to do next, so it was a very good thing that in the evening, Chet and Saria returned after nearly two weeks of being absent. Marta asked them where they'd been (on vacation in Montana, they claimed) and what they knew about Talc and the others (they repeated the "friends from the military" story). She showed them the picture of the giant lobster-scorpion, and they claimed not to know anything about it or any of the other information the hunters had gathered over the past two weeks. Finally, Marta came right out and said it: "You two are not hunters. I know because I went back in time." Then she explained everything she knew - and, oddly enough, Chet and Saria were just as surprised by it as the hunters had been.

The group thus discovered that Chet and Saria really had no idea what they were. They and the other seven people identified earlier had been born and raised in a secret compound located underneath a Target store in Bemidji, Minnesota. Throughout their childhood they had been taught how to use their guardian powers by an ever-changing group of scientists who had apparently been in some way responsible for their births. When they reached adulthood, the scientists began sending them all around the world to go on search-and-destroy missions against "terrorists" who sometimes displayed strange supernatural powers of their own. But several years ago, Chet and Saria had become dissatisfied with their life in the compound. Cameron and Talc both antagonized Chet constantly, and the scientists discouraged his growing romantic relationship with Saria. They broke out together and had been living in the apartment building ever since. Apparently the other guardians had eventually left as well, but Chet and Saria hadn't seen them again until very recently.

The group was understandably confused and shaken up by this revelation, but they knew immediately that they couldn't let it affect the way in which they perceived Chet and Saria. After all, Chet and Saria had saved the group’s lives and helped them clear their names; it was only fair that the hunters continued to stand by them (not to mention that, if the legends of the Hebedites were to be believed, it was the way things were supposed to be). So the group agreed to help Chet and Saria learn more about their past and keep the potentially corrupt guardians from harming them. Their first step toward accomplishing this goal would be to go to Bemidji, infiltrate the compound, and learn everything from it that they could.

Next: Hunter Session 11