Ninja was sitting on the worn, wooden deck of the little beach house. She could have chosen one of the comfortable chairs made of straw, or the sand by the beach. But she was content there, on the edge of the patio, hugging her knees, staring at the ocean. It was still cool out from the passing morning, yet the rising sun was starting to warm her face. Her eyes ached as her pupils tried adjusting to the faraway horizon.

A woman sat down next to her. It was the ginger woman from yesterday. Ninja could tell by the red hair appearing in the corner of her eye.

"Hey," she greeted with a friendly voice.

"Hey," Ninja said and kept staring at the water.

"I'm Diamond," she introduced herself. "What's your name, love?"

She shrugged. "My friends call me Ninja."

Diamond acknowledged it with a nod. "And do you have a last name?"

"Not really..."

"Would you like to have one?"

"I guess..."

"Well. What would you call yourself?" Diamond coined.

Ninja looked down at her lap. "Nrcsl..." she mumbled indistinguishably.

Diamond frowned at the barely audible, foreign word. "What was that, love?"

She sighed and turned her head to look at her. "My name is Ninja Norocosul."

A smile ushered over Diamond's face as she nodded again, this time approvingly. "Nice to meet you, Ninja."

She lifted one corner of her lips up to a small smile. Her gaze fell onto two more figures appearing in her view, walking along the water, talking to each other. They stopped at a distance from them; a tall, trained woman with black hair, and a skeleton in a suit.

"That's Skulduggery Pleasant," Ninja noted.

"It is."

"And Valkyrie Cain. Even in the back corner of countryside Romania we know who they are..." She dragged. "So, this is their case, then?"

"It's a joint case," Diamond replied, her smile unwavering. "Your English is great, by the way."

Ninja shrugged again. "I worked at the club for over two years; You pick it up quickly."

"May I ask...?" Diamond tried uncertainly. "...How old you are?"

"Sixteen."

She thought to see some reaction behind Diamond's empathetic eyes. "Is there any reason, that you could think of, why they picked you to be here, specifically?"

"Sure," Ninja nodded. "I had the best numbers. Nora was popular with the goons. They wanted someone good. As a 'personal assistant'," she explained as she marked the words in quotations with her fingers. "A 'present for someone important'. The boss came in person."

Diamond looked around and at Pleasant. He and Cain had not moved an inch from their spot. They were probably doing some sort of analysis. Ninja wondered if they had already found something interesting.

"The boss," Diamond repeated, looking intrigued, "what do you know about him?"

"Not much," Ninja replied. She leaned back and crossed over a leg. "He's a mage; pretty old but not super old. Runs the whole show on his own."

"Do you know his name?"

Ninja wrapped a strand of hair around her finger. "Everyone knows his name that works for him. And no one knows his name that doesn't work for him," she said and mustered Diamond. "It's a risk, hearing it. Are you sure you want to know?"

Diamond nodded decisively. "I'm sure."

"His name is Bax Hench."

Her eyes flickered over Ninja's face as the name sunk in. "You've met him? You've seen his face?"

She nodded and Diamond nodded along slowly.

"Ok, so," Ninja said and uncrossed her legs to lean forward. "What's the deal? I answered your questions. Now, can you tell me what's going on?"

Diamond leaned closer to her as well. "Here's the honest truth;" she said, "we don't really know that, ourselves. All that we know is that they wanted me to find you."

"Why? What does he want from you?"

Diamond sighed and shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."

While those were not very consolung news, Ninja felt like she believed her. "How did you find us, anyway?"

"We were lead to you and your friend after finding a 'present' that was a clue to the location. They wanted us to choose between you, and take one with us. Why he wants me to have a 'personal assistant', I have no idea."

"Thanks for not."

Her brows furrowed lightly. "Sorry?"

"Thanks for not choosing between us," Ninja clarified. She gave a quick look to Pleasant, who she found looking back. He nodded to her and she nodded back.

"I'm sorry about your friend Nora," Diamond replied honestly. "And I want to make sure you know that we don't want to make you do anything. You're free to do whatever you like."

"Ok," Ninja nodded.

"Ok..." Diamond echoed, looking confused. "Do you have any idea where you'd like to go from here?"

"Yep."

"And...?" She prompted.

"I want be your personal assistant."

Diamond paused and looked as confused as ever, as well as worried.

"Come on," Ninja threw her hands up a bit, "what do you expect me to do? Hide somewhere and tweedle my thumbs? You're Detectives, right? You want to get the other girls out?"

"If the opportunity arises," Diamond agreed.

"Cool, so do I. Let's get them out."

"It isn't that simple," she said carefully, shaking her head. "We don't know where most of them are and how to get there, we don't know where they are hiding the corresponding keys for the trackers..."

Ninja smiled.

Since it was the first time that had happened, since they had met, the expression made Diamond falter and blink at her expectantly.

Glee turned the smile into a grin. "But I do."

They were standing by the water, a safe distance away from the girl and Diamond, as they talked.

Valkyrie had not dared to approach her yet. She did not know what to say. What could one say to someone, who had nothing?

Valkyrie had once been that person. She had spent her years in the States, had cut off everyone and anything important; everything she felt that she did not deserve.

One of the many reasons had been that there was nothing anyone could say to make it better. And the biggest part of Valkyrie had not wanted it to become better. Had let herself feel like she was in pieces, alone, useless, harmful. Had used it as fuel to keep herself away, keep herself training, working hard. Words of encouragement had become toxin, interrupting the thoughts that had kept her awake during the early morning, and had made her collapse into her bed early in the evening.

Valkyrie had found that those words of encouragement were not as destructive anymore. Nowadays, they simply went by her; not changing anything for the better, or for the worse. Just empty, empty words.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Diamond pulled the girl to her feet. They walked off the small patio and over the beach, towards Valkyrie and Skulduggery.

The girl had her brown hair open, flowing over her shoulders, whisking about in the wind. Her eyes had long attached themselves to the two Detectives, watching them with a mix of scepticism and blunt confidence. The more Valkyrie stared back, the more her eyes seemed to sting, seemed to pierce right through her.

"Hey, guys, this is Ninja Norocosul," Diamond introduced her, as they stopped.

"Hello, Ninja," they said.

"You should listen to what she has to say."

Ninja looked at Diamond questioningly and received an encouraging nod.

"So... If you want to, I know how we could, uh..." She spoke with a light, Romanian accent that dampened her dark voice, yet made it roll, and flow up and down elegantly. "What was the word?"

"Liberate," Diamond came to aid.

"Right. We could liberate the club I used to work at. There were twenty of us."

Valkyrie raised a brow and looked at Skulduggery, who returned the glance quickly but stayed focused on Ninja.

"And if you find documents there, that'll take you to more clubs," she added.

"And how would you suggest we liberate that club?" Skulduggery asked.

Her eyes twinkled a bit with excitement. "The manager, Carry; she was there when the boss picked up Nora and me."

"The boss being one Bax Hench," Diamond added meaningfully, and received interested glances from Skulduggery and Valkyrie.

"You have to find out if she knows where Hench took us," Ninja continued, "if she doesn't know who we were going to, no one does. You could pretend to be my buyer, walk in and... return me."

The women frowned at her. "You want to be bait?" Valkyrie asked.

"Sure," Ninja shrugged. "If that means I get to see Carry with a gag..."

Valkyrie raised a brow but no one seemed as if they were going to argue with her.

"Anyway, if you go in that way, you can steal the keys before we get out the others," Ninja concluded.

"You know where they keep the keys?" Skulduggery asked.

"Pfft, yeah," Ninja said obviously, "they keep them close, in case one of us freaks out."

They blinked at her in horror. She raised a brow at them.

"Alright," Diamond said with the same blank stare, then shook herself out of it and turned to Skulduggery and Valkyrie. "What do you think?"

Skulduggery still had his gaze on Ninja. "We could try to get in undercover without you. Are you sure you want to come along for this?"

"Not really," she replied surely, "but you need someone who knows how to take out the trackers safely, right?"

They blinked at her in surprise again.

"I'm not saying I can do it," she quickly clarified, "but I watched them put them in so, I know how it works."

Other than her expectant contentment with the information, the three of them exchanged worried glances.

"Ninja, as you probably know, by now," Skulduggery then said, "we found you and your friend due to a set-up. We are concerned that this Bax Hench is planning for us to liberate that club."

She did not look happy with his suggestion, "so?"

"So, what if he wanted you to lead us to that club for some grand showdown? Do you want to take the risk of all of us, plus all of your friends, getting killed in the process?"

Ninja laughed at him. They all faltered to wait surprisedly.

"Grand showdown? At our club?" Ninja chuckled, then slowly calmed herself down. "I know you guys are new at this so, I'll let you in on something..."

They all waited on expectantly and Ninja leant forward secretively. They all leant in as well.

"This is nothing," she told them. "Bax Hench doesn't stop at twenty girls. He's just getting warmed up."

They exchanged looks amongst each other.

"Honestly," Ninja snorted, "I thought you people would be up for this stuff. But if this is already too much for you, you should get out now. Because, whatever Hench wants from you; this is just the start of it."