Alizra looked skeptical, but after a few moments, she nodded.
"Okay, I'm in, but I am still extremely skeptical. What guarantee do I have that you will protect me and help me get my sister back?" She asked.
"I will join our families, and you can serve as the head for now, and I will serve as your equal, but dealing with the darker things. I am a machine, so people might have trouble following me alone, but with the leader of Mage's Council, they might think differently," I explained, and her eyes went wide.
"Are you asking to marry me?" Alizra asked, and I raised an eyebrow. I hadn't thought of it like that, but that was what I was doing, but it was too soon to say I could trust this woman. She had already shown the potential for stabbing me in the back.
"Not yet. This is if we can figure things out between our two people, and I can trust you, which I don't right now. While you may think that you tried to help, or that you had just cause, or even no choice, I don't care. Trust is a hard thing to come by, and even harder after it is broken. For now, you will talk with me, and I will relay orders to the Manta Clan in your stead while I fix your house," I said, and she crossed her arms over her breasts.
"What is the point of destroying my home only to fix it? Why kidnap me, only to ask to join families?! You talk about trust, but you don't seem to care if people trust you or not," She said in a cold tone.
"Ned was going to come and get you and then lock you up. You did something that they were going to use against you. I couldn't just ask you to come with me, or they would think we were working together, and now they will question that. I am going to start fixing this shit hole up, but that means fixing what I broke, unlike everyone else here. You are all like a bunch of children running around with scissors," I groaned, and she gave me an incredulous look.
"You are a piece of work, but I suppose you have a point. I suppose I should talk with you to make sure that I don't have a worse future. But if you do something to betray me, I will make sure that you wish that you never met me," Alizra said, crossing her arms, and I nodded.
"Fair enough; I just need the information that I need. What do you know about controlling the Mindless?" I asked, and Alizra sighed but began to explain.
--
After a few hours of talking, I had most of the information I needed, and I allowed Alizra to come out. I was almost ready to start experimenting on the Mindless, but I was still only at 48%, and I needed another fifteen minutes.
"So, what have you tried?" I asked as Alizra stood beside me, and we looked over the cages.
"I have browsed their minds, but there is nothing wrong with them magically. I have looked over their bodies, but I can not find any runes or out-of-place things on their bodies, but most are hard to examine. I have never seen someone catch one alive and then keep it that way. What magic are you using to enchant the cages? Also, do you really think that glass alone could have held me?" She asked, and I looked over at her.
"Go back in the cage and try to use magic after I close the door," I said, and she lifted an eyebrow that made me roll my eyes. "I will let you back out after."
"You had better. For a man that is looking for my hand in the future, you have a thing or two to learn on how to treat a woman," She said and turned to walk over to the cell.
I found myself looking over her body, and memories flashed from my last life of a woman I had been close to. Alizra's long black hair and perfectly formed body with smaller breasts and full hips were almost an exact match for her. She was in a blue dress that had been torn down the middle from her trip in the silver knight, but she still looked good.
"Are you going to close the door, or are you just now realizing how beautiful I am and how brass your statement was?" Alizra asked, and I walked forward and closed the door without answering.
I was not about to tell her that she reminded me of someone that I was romantically involved with. Just from the way that she talked, I could tell that she might try to use that info to get close to me, so it was better to remain indifferent.
"Try to use magic," I said while monitoring what was picked up by the sensors.
I watched her shoot 'Fire!' but nothing happened to the naked eye, but what my sensors inside the cage picked up was really interesting. The magic, or chaotic energy, was coming into the cage through the glass, and everything was like it wasn't there. The thing that was so interesting was what happened to it inside.
I had 50% of myself back now, so I was able to use micro drones to monitor the flow of magic that was going directly toward Alizra. That is, until it got inside the cage that was filled with a special frequency my body had detected to cause the magic to swirl around her hand where she was summoning it to. I created a filter to watch the effect, and then I let the door open to see what would happen, but time slowed as I realized exactly what was going to happen.
I raised my arm up in slow motion as it transformed, and the massive amount of magic rushed to Alizra's open palm. She was about five feet from the glass, but the chamber was only 7 feet cubed. Even with the door open and the fans on, the chances of her surviving were very unlikely, and I could see her eyes going wide in realization. I didn't know if closing the door would stop the magic now, but if I did, and it didn't work, she would be dead, along with my plans.