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Along the broad carpeted hallways with dark embellished wooden interiors and open windows displaying the garden grounds below...I followed the quite proper Melissa whilst taking in the sights in absolute awe, feeling like royalty in passed through this otherworldly mansion estate. 

The decades-old residence was preserved in fantastic shape, it seemed not even a scratch corrupted the partitions in all these years. Each section obtained extensive detailed oil portraits and well-crafted floral patterned furnishings with delicately carved wooden arching arms, curling to a point like feline paws.

Melissa caught me in my wonderous observation of the spectacular place and decided to fill me in on the history. "The Levine estate has belonged to the Levine family since it's construction in 1830. With a long history of the wealthy living amongst these walls. Although in the past few generations, the family has become more secluded from the public, and Master Levine rarely has any guests here at all."

We reach the top of a grand curving staircase, rolling with a beautiful patterned red carpet that opened up into the lower floor where there was living area of sorts; with tall bookshelves and comfortable seating in almost every corner. 

Reaching the base of these stairs, Melissa guided me to the right-hand side towards towering heavy double doors. She swiftly opened up the doors with little effort at all, to reveal a wonderful dining room on the inside with familiar figures wrapped up int their own coloured velvet robes.

"Ah, The guest of honour!" Dr Levine called from the very end of the stretching dining table, everyone within the grand dining room rotated to have me in their sights. Sitting on the left of Dr Levine was Asher and Kina, Stanley on his right. They all looked to be in good company. 

Kina raised her silver cup. "To the guest of honour." She says trying to clink glasses with everyone, as she turned to do so, I saw the heavy bandage wrapped around her head. I immediately marched down the long oak table and wrapped her up in a big hug. 

The recollections of the brutal attack flashed through my mind again, I was all the more glad to see for my own eyes that Kina and Asher were okay.

"Want to say good morning to me too?" Asher mumbled, I released Kina from my hug and looked to my friend with a smirk. I started to pull her in for a hug but then flicked her forehead.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, looking to me with a vicious gaze.

"I missed the last time," I explained with a wink. 

When Asher flipped some of her fiery red hair back over her shoulder, my heart stopped as a thick gauze and bandage was tightened on her collarbone. I swooped her in with a proper hug and rubbed at her back. "I know you must have been nervous about taking things into your own hands when it came to seeing the NSA files... but thank you for everything you've done Asher. I'm glad you're okay." As I sloped back from the embrace, I saw Asher was deep in thought.

"I'm sorry," She mumbles. "For accusing you of being up to no good, the NSA reports I saw your name in mentioned something about 'physical persuasion' with the hybrids. But now we know you're just a victim in all of this." She looks up at me with wide eyes, her eyebrows sinking with sincerity.

I looked across to the end of the dining table to see Dr. Levine watching us with a thin smile and his wrinkled hands clasped together on the white tablecloth. 

"What Asher says is an unfortunate truth..." He trailed off mid-sentence and gestured to a seat next to Stanley, who froze when he was in the middle of messily eating a pancake. "Please take a seat, it seems you are still quite weakened with yesterday...occurrence.  We must have ourselves in good shape, mentally and physically before tackling this precarious predicament."

I nod and walk across to the other side of the table, Melissa rushes ahead of me and pulls out a seat for me, soon I have a steaming tray of pancakes myself.

"Thank you," I say as she helps to seat me. I looked to my right to see that Stanley was now buttering up a scone, he seemed more than content with the food prepared for him. I look around to everyone at a table, a new hope tugging a smile upon my cheeks.  "I'm sure we can sort this all out together..."

Dr Levine looks me over carefully, a chuckle on his lips and a playful glint in his eye. "I like your optimism. May I say, out of all the people I expected LE-001 to take a fancy in, a girl like you would never have been on my radar...but then again... I guess it makes sense seeing as you can never truly expect anything from the beast." 

His words gathered a glance from each of us until the attention was directed to me somehow. It was pretty clear by now that everyone else had a better understanding of this entire situation than I do and I couldn't quite read this daunting reaction.

"Honestly, me neither." Spoke Stanley, "I didn't think something like him could even fancy anything other than a dark cave to himself."

"Uhhhh... LE...001?" I ask with hesitation. 

Dr Levine's eyes bloomed with new judgment. "Oh, apologies my dear! I believe I had a prolonged discussion with these two last night that has put us on the same page. Of course, we cannot keep you out of the loop. This is all about you after all." 

Dr Levine looks behind himself and briefly nods his head towards the butlers and maids the lined the dining room in attention, soon they all filed out of the dining room and the grand doors shut us in which unexpectedly made the tension in the room rise.

"Let me tell you, I explain things much easier over a warm meal, been a habit of mine since young. and seeing as everyone has now gathered, I believe it's an opportune moment to get any confusion out of the way." Dr Levine picks at a ripe red strawberry and brings the fruit to his lips. "Everything goes down better with breakfast."

"You can say that again," Stanley says, his mouth slightly stuffed. Asher giggled a little more than she should have.

"But let me digress on my earlier point, I'm talking about your shadow, LE-001 is The official code name given to a black leopard hybrid species that escaped an NSA facility approximately two months ago-" Dr Levine looks to Stanley. "Stanley reported a strange sighting of a black leopard to me, suspecting it was a hybrid. He since became my informant, informing me of LE-001's activities in the Wagani-May Parklands."

"Just... don't be afraid of your own shadow..."

"The leopard ...is a hybrid." My earlier predictions were proven correct. Those glowing yellow eyes began staring back at me, and my heart clenched up with a certain tightness I couldn't place. The look in the eyes of the beast was wild, pure with mysterious intent as we locked gazes...and then those screams followed. "Those men...he killed them," I mutter.

"That's right." Dr Levine spoke simply. "During my time spent with LE-001, we've come to know he is a rather intelligent being. When I last worked with him, he was learning to understand different words through emergency protocol pamphlets he got a hold of. Remarkable it was to see, considering how wild he is."

I looked back towards Asher and Kina, they seemed quite interested in his words... it seemed they were yet to witness the Hybrid as I have. Dr Levine continued.

"But essentially, he realized the danger you were in, saved you and your friends, and escorted you back to a safe location... that being the lovely abode of a cold and dark cavern, one he has made a hideout of sorts since escaping the facility."

"Wait... so" It had to take me a while to wrap my head around it what it was exactly that he was saying. "The hybrid... saved us? from those men?"

"Indeed, he even learned how to patch you up. Albeit, not very well." The doctor chuckled to himself. "The men who attacked you at the train station were NSA Special Operatives called LURE. They were planning to kidnap you and your friends. With the hopes of using you to essentially, lure out LE-001 in an attempt to recapture him."

Dr Levine rested himself against his seat with a rather dim look. He released a long heavy sigh with his mouth twitching in uncertainty. "I wished you three didn't have to go through that, the NSA truly is an evil association," he says rubbing at his soft chin, the doctor's eyes glance over to the right and he grins. "I'm rather glad you did not take up your professor's internship." Asher looked away, a grin of sorts on her lips too.

"Yeah, no way after everything I've learned." Asher pulls a strained smile, and I was reminded of her passionate rant just the other day about how she hoped the NSA were treating the hybrids with respect. She must be crushed to know the truth that the association is riddled with malpractice. 

"There's... one thing I don't quite understand about all of this," I mention with caution, knowing the answer to this question would tie everything in together. "What's my significance to LE-001...why were those people trying to use me to lure him out?"

My question was followed by an immediate silence, the air around us five stagnating. Stanley tried to pretend he was preoccupied with inspecting his fingernails while Kina and Asher moved about awkwardly in their seats, something unsettling was on their minds and a mix of fear and embarrassment was upon their expression. 

What on earth has got them all distant?

Dr Levine set himself into a more poised stance, readying himself to find a way to answer. "During my time researching the biology and behaviors of Animal-Human... A-H Abnormalities, we discovered a reason why the entities were exploring the human world, to get a better sense of who they are... but also to track down humans with compatible genetics."

Compatible genetics? what does that mean?

"You (Y/N), are what we call a GCMOP, or a Genetically Compatible Member Of the Public. GCMOP's have links to A-H DNA that essentially carries the Hybridisation gene. The hypothesis is that Hybrids that explore the human world will want to adapt to their human side, and they will seek out a GCMOP...to... learn from them and..."

Dr Levine held his breath on his last word, for the first time since knowing the man, he truly looked uncomfortable with what he was going to say next. It wasn't that the subject matter troubled him, but it was rather the expectation of my reaction. 

Dr Levine took off his glasses, carefully rubbed the lenses of some fabric, and folded them into his shirt pocket. He interlocked his fingers and made sure he gave me a steady stare, making sure he knew I was hearing every word of his.

"LE-001 seeks to have you as his mate."




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