The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 119

The thirty decipio-proditors who were given the capsules created by the triplets stood safely in the high branches of the trees as they manipulated the Lycan King. The shield that the King's Authority created for the lycans and werewolves was torn down with the king losing focus an control over his own power and autonomy. "F**k." Greg muttered when he and the others felt the protection from his cousin vanished.

"Got that right." Juan, who was right behind him, agreed.

Saxum managed to crawl out of the king's hostage when his elbow was healed, and he watched how the toughest animal in the kingdom was struggling to fight off the manipulation effects, internally cursing the triplets for not improving the chemical enough to take control of the king from the very first second of the manipulation.

Of course, the leader didn't know that Xandar's mental strength was now superior to past Lycan Kings since he was the only king in history to practice with the second most powerful decipio in the empire. So the lack of effectiveness in the chemical was technically not the triplets' fault. There was simply a variable that they didn't know had to be taken into consideration.

When the vigils were close to reaching Saxum, the proditors made Xandar shift before knocking the vigils away. Instead of trying to reach the leader again, the vigils went for the proditors, only to discover that there were more than thirty of them. Yes, thirty were manipulating the king. But there seemed to be a Team B with another forty decipios making sure the thirty were undisturbed as they intruded the minds of anyone who attempted to reach for Team A.

Lucianne tried to reach Xandar with her Authority, but three discretus caught her by surprise, tripping her before attempting to plunge their claws through her gut. Lucianne caught their scents and tripped them with her tail. She pounced on the seemingly empty space and found herself standing right on top of one before her canines dug into the discretus's being, making her shriek and coming into view.

One of the other two was the female discretus's mate, and he too shrieked in pain and came into view as he pushed Lucianne off. Ivory arrived and broke the discretus's limbs before ultimately snapping his neck, then throwing his lifeless body at Hailey's opponent. The third discretus was sneaking up on Lucianne, and her claws were inches away from Lucianne's chest when her animal identified her scent, narrowly dodging her attack by backing away before attempting to land a punch. That was when the discretus's claws went through her arm and she groaned while pulling the discretus's arm right off with that attack.

As the discretus came into view with nothing short of anguish, anger and hatred, she used her last ounce of strength to pounce on Lucianne, making her fall to the ground. Before Lucianne could push her away or kill her, the discretus bit into her shoulder, collarbone and chin, lettin the venom enter the queen's bloodstream.

Lucianne only managed to scratch her opponent's face once before she started losing strength. Toby came to kick off the discretus and his claws went straight into her chest. The minister turned the body over to avoid the creepy, sinister smile of accomplishment on the now dead discretus's face, and turned to see what was happening to his best friend.

Lucianne quivered as her immune system tried to fight off the high concentration of venom. Her own Authority that held their opponents wore off, giving them a surge of energy and unencumbered liberty to attack and defend. Those on her side were still holding up fine, but many were glancing at their queen just to make sure that she remained safe while trying to heal. Hailey, Ivory, Toby and Dominic surrounded her, fighting off incoming attacks.

Lucianne was trying to reach Xandar with her Authority again when she heard him groan in pain, which was most likely because he was feeling her pain. Juan linked Lucianne, telling her to stop trying to exert her Authority in the midst of recovery because it would only slow down the process.

Whilst breaking necks and kneecaps, the big brother told his sister to focus on herself first if her ultimate aim was to help everyone else. Lucianne gave in because she couldn't find a plausible counter argument to that. But she began desperately trying to reach Xandar through their mind-link. Her animal cooed and whimpered through their link, and they could tell that his animal felt her, but he was struggling to connect with her.

Toby shook his best friend by her forearms to get her to stop as he exclaimed sternly, "Lucy, quit it! If you want to stop him, you need your full strength and you know that! Stop trying to use up whatever you have left in your reservoir. Your Gamma mind knows that we can only slow him down. You can stop him, but only if you just f*****g let yourself recover!"

She continued quivering as she linked, 'O-kay. Je-ez.

To take her own mind off whatever Xandar is going through, she chanted the word 'recover' over and over again. She couldn't deny the difficulty to try and block out Xandar's struggle, but she reminded herself and especially her animal that they were playing the long game. The proditors wouldn't kill Xandar, at least not before making him kill her, so Xandar was going to be fine.

The vigils and lycan warriors headed for the trees as soon as they could, but the decipios were annoyingly skilled at jumping from branch to branch as they continued trying to collectively take control of the king's mind. And Team B was making their victims see things that weren't there, so many chose to close their eyes and used their noses to find their way around. Sure, they knocked into a few bushes and each other but that didn't stop a few of them from finding their way to those in the branches, who were petrified when they discovered that their menta tricks weren't as effective as they expected them to be.

Xandar felt Lucianne's agony but he couldn't see her. He felt her but he didn't know where she was. His awareness of reality slowly diminished along with his mental strength. With the final shred of awareness, he and his animal reminded each other to trust the scents and the warmth or lack thereof of a specific creature before killing. His eyes turned fully dark green, and he snarled before charging towards his wife.

Greg noticed this, and he muttered, "Goddess damn it." The duke then linked the creature he had hoped that he wouldn't have to link, 'Blackfur! We have to slow our d*ck cousin. Let's go!'