Just as Buio had suspected Hive had a subbordinate capable of instant teleportation. He had initially intended to go assist Float in person but thought better of it, since if the Enchantress showed up again that fear of his might be used against him. This time not to kill his family, who wouldn't be anywhere in the vicinity of the conflict but instead this time to kill his apprentice and very close friend. Taking that into account, he decided to send Shadow Spawn and Tempo instead. Which worked out just fine. The tyrant had lost the unlimited usage of her humanoid teleportation device and if she tried to use him to enter their hideout, wherever it was then she would be giving Buio instant access as well.
One thing took him by surprise tho and that was the fact that Hive had known about his surveillance all along. If she had not shouted it aloud right before retreating he wouldn't have known. Now that would explain why she hadn't taken any of the people under the surveillance of his shadow clones. It also explained why none of them had been attacked or killed either. That was both reassuring and yet quite troubling at the same time.
This means that she had probably expected him to turn up in case of emergency all along. Which also meant that even if she had already taken control of someone before they had been placed under surveillance of the shadow clones, she would avoid doing anything to draw suspicion to herself and would also ensure her subborninates would not.
That begged the question. How many of the people previously marked with shadow clones were already under Hive's control without his knowledge?
That was quite troubling indeed. He would have to go about finding a means to sieve out all the false normies. Buio also had a feeling that Hive had another means of transporting her hostages as well as her subborninates around the kingdom. She was notoriously intelligent afterall, there was no way she didn't have some sort of back up. But since he had taken one of her key players off the board, she would be much more careful from here on out. So it wouldn't be easy to catch her off guard again or get her to slip up, at least not with her means of transportation. Besides, teleportation like abilities were rather rare. So she wouldn't be too keen on losing one, they weren't just lying around ripe for the picking like any old random ability.
Of course he had also learned about Hive's acquisition of Fade's body, that and the disturbing matter of Dominaire assisting her in the infiltration of the kingdom, albeit against his will via blackmail. Since she had revealed that bit of information while knowing that the guild master was under his surveillance, she must not have regarded that particular information as a very important secret. So she must have back up plans in place.
They had to find a way to get those damned soul fragments of hers out of people. That was one of the biggest issues that the kingdom of Xaymaca would have to deal with. Until they could counter her somehow everything they could possibly do would be rendered futile.
Despite the fact that Hive did not have a huge army always at the ready, that ability of hers to possess the bodies of multiple people all at once is what had allowed her to bring many kingdoms to their knees. That and the fact that she could use two or sometimes even three innate abilities at the same time, depending on the being she happened to take possession of.
No one was truly safe from her, if Hive were to gain access to someone like Osoi Abajo for example or Tamashi or even Buio himself.... it would be a truly dreadful day for Xaymaca. The only major good thing about the situation at the moment, was that Hive seemed to be extremely cautious of him. Did she know his true power somehow? Buio hoped not. Especially not as of very recently.
Considering that in the past few days Buio and his permaclones had began working overtime to increase the ranks of the sentient beings. Before this all began Buio already had enough permaclones to rival any guild in member count alone, not to mention power even tho they were spread out across those said guilds or were otherwise preoccupied. Now however, Buio had enough permaclones to create two guilds of his own. 'Perhaps he could place Abyss, the eldest of the permaclones in charge of one while he oversaw the other.' He thought ruefully. 'What a funny thought?'
Granted most of these Permaclones were new at this point and the false abilities which he had come up with for them would take plenty time to master, so saying he was going to have those two guilds at the moment was an overstatement. Junosairu and Leviathan were probably two of the first among the sentient beings who were going to be able to assist in battle anytime soon. But even those two would do just fine. Maybe if Chisei, the permaclone whom he had tasked with learning how to manipulate the time anomaly present in his dark dimension made significant progress, then Buio and all the permaclones could make better use of it.
Now that would be a tremendous advantage to have. But alas it was not to be, at least not yet. So Buio had to make due with what was currently available. Now that his family was close at hand, whenever he took a break from training or wasn't healing his arm from creating a permaclone he spent some time with them. Eating, sleeping and having fun. Despite the kingdom being at war with Bane and it's leader, time was a very precious commodity and no matter how dire things were, quality time with one's loved ones was very important and essential.
Tanoshi was here as well, to Buio's surprise her and Monae were getting along like two peas in a pod. The entire family seemed to like her, which he didn't have an issue with. He simply wondered why they were being so nice to her. Not that they shouldn't be, he was just curious... that was all.
Walking over to join them he listened in on the conversation. "Oh, so that's what he's normally like at home." Tanoshi was saying while giggling, obviously filled with mirth. "Gossiping about me, are we?" He said playfully. "Yes little bro, wanna make an issue of it? i'll cut down on your bed time story duration and stop grooming your hair for you!" Monae replied swiftly in an equally playful tone.
Buio laughed then retorted in mock surrender. "No no never mind, no issues here at all... gossip away!" Both his sister and Tanoshi laughed in unison. "I rarely get to see that side of him, i mostly see the stoic, vengeful, battle fiend version of him." Monae chuckled. "Well, i get to see every side of him, even used to help mom change his diapers when he was a little crawler. Tho he didn't crawl for long." She added somberly.
"Buio doesn't normally do much of anything new for too long he learns everything with alarming speed. Did you know this one started speaking full sentences faster than any baby I've ever come across?" She asked Tanoshi.
His apprentice quickly perked up, he could tell from the movement of the atmospheric mana and also because his nosy beast bonds chimed in, making snarky comments and making their usual ruckus.
"Really, i knew he was a prodigy with fighting and things of that sort but even as a baby as well?" She replied enthusiastically. "Yeah, you know how long normal babies tend to take to learn words and use baby babble?" She asked rhetorically. "This one not him, he simply remained quiet for an entire week. No mama no dada, no matter how much teasing and repetition we did. One week after mom and dad adopted him he started spitting out full sentences. Right off the bat, just like that!" She exclaimed.
"Mom almost choked to death on her coffee and dad was livid, he thought he was a demon spawn or a pervy man who could shape shift." She said and began howling with laughter. Tanoshi meanwhile was laughing so hard that she was holding her sides. "Dad took him outside and tried to threaten a confession out of him, that's when we found out what his innate ability was. If dad didn't have his ridiculous healing ability via his beast bond, he would have died by accident that day." She finished sobering up at the memory of it.
Hearing that story reminded Buio of what had happened recently when he first met Chiru, Vergamont, Enchantress and the fourth person who probably had been a vessel of Hive. That sobered him up too. Obviously pushing that memory away Monae continued. "When mom and dad finally calmed down and came to the realization that he was not very knowledgeable about anything, just very good at talking really quick they decided that he was probably just an hybrid. To this day we are not sure just what species of an hybrid he his." She continued then paused there as if genuinely lost in thought about it again. "One thing is certain tho, mom and dad could have never asked for a better son and i could never wish for a better brother. Buio's the best." She finished. Then reached over and tussled his hair.
After a bit of a pause she asked. "Tanoshi, do you happen to like my brother?" Tanoshi quickly feigned an awkward cough. Then replied: "Yeah, sure i like him. Who wouldn't like him, what's not to like?" She finished in a rush. Buio sensed as his sister leaned towards Tanoshi, then asked. "No i don't mean that sort of like, i mean really really like him. Like you know...like, like, smoochie woochie like... and the other stuff?" She finished. Before Tanoshi could even begin to reply, Buio quickly teleported himself out of earshot.
His beast bonds were cackling, Buio swore if he could sense them outside of his head in their physical forms they would all be holding their sides like Tanoshi had been not too long ago. Just then one of them wheezed hardly getting out their sentence fully. "Everytime relationship and mating conversations come up this is what he's like i swear!" Buio had a feeling his beast bond was wiping tears from it's eyes. "I've never seen him run from a fight but he runs from women like they're the plague, every single, time!" Buio shook his head resigned to his embarrassment, then chuckled and headed towards where some of his new Permaclones were training.