Chapter 14: Click

"Wait, everyone. Hold," She shouted, to the backs of Serena and Xavier. The latter turned around, his face swirled to tired concern, hands on hips. "Yes, Mar?" He said.

The girl in question faltered for a moment, before speaking, "What if we go to the guild? I know we usually do investigations during the nighttime, and I know it's usually better that way because that's when they're most active, but I know we're all scared of the... things in the basements, yes?"

The two nodded, apprehensively. "Your point, Mariam?" Serena asked. "I'm getting to that," She said.

"What if we head to the basement during the day? I mean, we're safer if we have all the mages around us. Why not?" She shrugged. Her audience went wide-eyes, their eyes flicking to disbelief.

"But-But, Mariam! We can't! I refuse to go back," Serena said, firm finality evident in her tone. "But I'd like to figure out what the hell they are in case we need to warn the guild mistress if she's dealing with a demonic entity," Mariam explained.

Serena grunted, her eyes brows shooting up in grim disbelief. "Or, you know, to test out the entities and see what they're like. Mariam, I know you. We've been friends for like, what, 6 years?" She said.

Mariam, to say the least, was speechless.

"Uh, well- I wouldn't say that...," Mariam stuttered. "See? Hmh," She hummed. The girl put up her hands in defeat, annoyingly grumbling her protest. "Fine, fine. But still, could we go to the guild?" She asked.

The two shared glances, their earlier moods returning. "Well, for multiple things: I'd like to ask the guild mistress on this policy more, try to investigate the entities more, and explore the guild," She said.

"Explore the guild?"

"What I mean, is we could go explore the guild during the day; we could miss stuff while we're going around in the dark. Flashlights can only do so much," Mariam explained. Serena dawned with realization. "Ok, yeah, I see your point. But are we going down to the basement at all?" She asked.

"Only if you're comfortable enough to go. I don't want to push you into something you're not ok with," Mariam explained, sending a warm smile to the woman. Her recipient looked beyond relieved. "Thank you, Mariam. That means a lot," Serena nodded.

"You ok to go, Xavier?" Serena asked. He whirled around to face the two women, obviously probably off in his own world, his eyes searching them wildly. "What did I miss?" Mariam and Serena rolled their eyes. "We finally agreed on something and decided to go the guild to do some daylight investigations," Serena piped in. He accepted it without any second thought, thinking to not question the woman.

"Alrighty, then! Let's go!"

Because it was about 7am, the numbers of the guild had dwindled down to only a few. Most were happily shoving their face into a pile of bacon, eggs, and toast - while others looked across what Serena perceived to be the mission board, with enticing rewards slapped onto the missions with creatures as big as a house drawn onto them.

As the minutes ticked by, the numbers increased by the minute and more mages trickled in. Mariam hit Serena on the shoulder, and nodded towards the growing numbers. She nodded curtly and mentally, took it into note.

"We'll check in the guild mistress to make sure it's ok, then we'll start," Mariam said. The two followed Mariam up to the office, and knocked. A loud voice sounded out from the door and, not wanting to hesitate, went in.

"Hello- oh, it's you? What are you doing here? Have you come to quit?" The guild mistress's eyes were held in such passive aggressive anger, it was foreign to the group. "No, actually, it went extremely well. We were just wondering if we could do a daytime investigation?" She asked.

"Why would you? You'd just hurt the mages." The accusatory tone made it feel as though they were hung up on the wall, their bodies out for everyone to see; no protection from her claims.

"No, we'd stay out of the way. Like, go into isolated hallways and such," Serena piped up. What happened?

"Just... don't go hurt them," her tone decreased its intensity, almost like giving up.

"Right."

Mariam immediately escorted them out of the office and hurried away from the woman. "Right, ok. So, guild mistress said we could go any place as long as it didn't hurt the other mages. Since the main hall's going to be full, why not head to the hallways in the back?" She said. Everyone else collectively agreed.

The air that occupied the space in the hallways felt different. As if, it was almost a living, breathing person; the way the air swirled about them, like the wind, and how it seemed to suddenly stop.

"Alright, folks, do we have enough equipment?"

"We don't have any equipment."

Mariam blanked for a second. "Huh, what do you mean?" Serena crossed her arms. "I mean, like we just came here from the library, how'd you expect us to grab our equipment," She said.

Her friend's comment came to dawn on her and she grumbled quietly, cursing her indolence. "Of course we did. Hey, Xavier, could you run back to the hotel and grab our stuff for us, please?" Mariam even put in the effort of adding a doe-eyed effect, her face resembling one of a lost puppy. "Fine, whatever. But next time, you're going to be the one to get it," He shouted behind his back, pivoting himself around.

"Yeah yeah, we promise," Mariam, flinging him away with a flick of her hand. The girl turned around to face Serena, her mouth agape with unspoken question.

"So, where'd you like to go?" She asked. Serena took her gaze off Mariam and scanned the room. "Well, how about we split up?" The girl gave a dead stare. "You want to.. split it?" Serena rapidly nodded but her pace slowed once she saw the unhappy, grim face of Mariam.

"I don't anyone getting hurt - especially you. Remember what happened last night?" Her comment let Serena reel into her mind, the sensation of someone watching her burning into her back coming to taunt her.

"If we're going to go in the basement, I'd want it to be with all three of us and like, a mage," She said, her voice only a gasp against the wind. "Right. But why would we anyway?" Mariam blushed and looked away. "Well, I was only proposing a situation. I was making sure you're safe."

Serena felt a small smile tug at the edges of her mouth, widening when Mariam only blushed more in the process. "Thanks; it's good to know I have a friend who cares," She said. She extended her arm out in a fist bump, and Mariam, despite her still blindsided red face, received it.

"Hey, I'm back- wait, am I interrupting something?"

Both girls turned around - and, even though they weren't actually doing anything - both looked intensely embarrassed for their half. "Ah, good to see you're back already! Wow, you're really fast!" Serena squeaked; Xavier could almost compare her to a squeaker toy.

Flopping like a wet spaghetti, she ran to Xavier and took the equipment from him to passed it to her equally red faced friend, who went about putting them away. They both hurried off away, leaving a dumbfounded Xavier just staring at the wall.

After a few seconds, he resigned to his fate and set up the remaining things. It was weirdly silent again without the girls to goodness knows where but he enjoyed the silence. Clicking up the machine, the green screen flashed to life and a multicolored Xavier popped out immediately. He danced for a moment, made sure the camera was working then nodded, happy with his work.

Tap... creak... BANG!

Immediately he swiveled his head to the sound, down in a fighting pose. "Serena? Mariam? You there?" He shouted. If it was them, they wouldn't immediately answered. But, they didn't. No sound, except the quiet roaring of silence.

"Hey! Guys! C'mon, don't do this shit on me now!" He yelled. His voice reverberated against the empty hallways. By the time it sounded out it's round, it was only a wisp of its former self.

He could feel the eyes of someone burning against him on his back, and the feeling grew to be as intense as wildfire. Acting on his first instinct, he grabbed his own copy of EVP machine and turned it on, it's roaring madness challenging the ghosts to reply.

"Is anyone with me right now?" He asked. Xavier tried deep breathes to keep his voice calm, and thankfully.

"... m-me..."

"Ok, so who's me?" There was another little tap on the ground west to him, in the room parallel to him. In a little hallway like this, the ghost must be close.

"... it's..."

"Yes?"

"...Lucy..."

Xavier exhaled a long sigh, his tension filing out of him. Lucy can be trusted.

"Hi, Lucy. Is Gray or Wendy with you too?"

Again, silence. Then, Xavier remembered why. Just like mentioning to Gray E, Wendy is something of a sore subject - except, E receives hostile reactions and Wendy is more of a defense mechanism. The librarian did say that Lucy and Gray were her parental figures in the years after Titania and Salamander died.

"Sorry, I know I'm not supposed to talk about Wendy-"

"... it's ok..."

"But where are you?"

"... w-where... ever you are..."

Thats not creepy at all.

Xavier felt a chill run through his body as shook off Lucy's words, and continued his conversation.

"Ms. Lucy Heartfilia, please tell me if you're with-"

"... right here..."

A deep, rounded voice sounded out of the EVP and Xavier classified it as Gray's. Ah, so it's the two of them again.

"Good morning, you two. How are you doing?" He remembered Serena's advice from long ago that conversations with ghosts makes them feel more welcome and will become friendly with you. Of course, there's no bad idea of becoming closer with Lucy and becoming their ally. Xavier feels bad, though, that they didn't get the chance to truly sit down and talk yet; hopefully, this makes up for it.

"... wonderful..."

"... great... you?"

"Absolutely fantabulous now that you've answered, thank you," He said, breathless. "Are you two enjoying your day so far?"

"... kinda, why?"

"... -Lucy!"

Followed by unintelligible mumbling. It almost seemed as if they're arguing with each other, teasing each back and forth. It was almost as if they were alive right next to him, witnessing their movements. He really couldn't believe this.

"I'm guessing everything went ok?"

"... yes! We w-went to... café..."

"... watched sunrise... gorgeous.."

"The team and I were actually at the library this morning. Been up since 3am," He said, letting out a half hearted chuckle. It's been a whirlwind of events on a little timeline of four hours.

"... aww... feel bad..."

A single voice answered this time and from the slightly pitched sound, he classified it as Lucy. "Don't feel bad, Lucy. It's just what ghost hunters do. One time, we went to this place near Clover Town called Dead Man-"

"We miss Clover Town"

A giant, four-hundred pound bag of sadness suddenly crushed his good mood and it was almost as if it there was no skeleton in his body. Xavier swayed for a moment before plopping down on the ancient wooden floors, sagging down like his spine deflated.

It took a couple of tries to find his words again.

"... I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like for me to one day bring you pictures of some of my trips to Clover Town?"

A loud tap on the floor sounded out directly adjacent to Xavier's spot and he smiled. "Sure, I will. Would you like me to continue?"

What almost sounded like a yes came from the nearest doorway, paper thin. It would have to talk good ears to hear it.

"Ok, so as I said, we went to this place called Dead Man's Inn that had a dangerous entity in the basement that had been terrorizing guests for centuries. The old man who runs that place - his name was Bill - called us-"

"... calling...?"

"Oh, sorry. I forgot you guys used to write letters. It's a battery powered thing that could review messages, call, text, and have these fun things called apps. They're not lacrima powered," Xavier said.

".,. Ok..."

"So, it took literally forever to get rid of it because it was wrecking havoc whenever we came close to it. Remind you of somebody?" He chuckled, and look down to the EVP.

But it continued screaming. Forever.

"Uh, Lucy? Gr- OWWW"

His hand jumped to cradle his arm - the pain shooting in like a thousand needles was injected into his arm. It paralyzed him to the point where he couldn't move his back, stuck in the fetal position sobbing loudly.

The EVP hadn't stopped, but it seemed like it had gotten so much louder than before - it's demonic screaming reverberating against the closer in walls of the hallways.

Then, it suddenly stopped.

The air stilled and thousands watched as he slowly unfurled himself and, using the wall to steady himself, rose from the ashes. His eyes was looking around wildly for any sign of Gray or Lucy, but nothing was there;

in all matters of the word, it was dead.

Serena worked diligently against a camera and finally clicked in place, standing up to study her work. It was her last camera of the day, finally, after wasting a half an hour setting them up.

Heaving the bag onto her shoulder, she set off again to the North - to the S-Class lounge. Thankfully, she wasn't too far away from the infirmary - which was like 3 feet away.

She came upon the door and cautiously, opened it a crack. Once there was no people immediately sighted, she headed in and set off the Rem Pod - a device that can detect motion in a short field area - and sat down in front, far enough away, and propped up.

"If there's any spirits that would like to communicate with me at this moment, please make yourself known," She said, letting her voice drift around the room and soak against the walls. Serena looked insistently at the Rem Pod and never took her gaze on it.

But it didn't. It was incredibly silent, enough to hear the loud chatter from downstairs. And footsteps coming up the stairs.

Serena bolted to the back, already letting the flashbacks from last night resonate and take over. 'Shit, shit, shit.' The lounge was right above the basement, she realized. The demonic entities in the basement would come and possess her and make her kill her friends-

"Uh, hey, you're part of that ghost group, aren't you?"

Serena looked up to see a mage of maybe 15 having around the doorway, pointing an amused gaze towards the trembling woman. "U-uh, yeah. We're the Spirit Seekers, I'm Serena King. N-Nice to meet you," She said, cursing her stuttering. "Cool. I'm Marcelle Rivers, and as you can see, a S-Class mage," She said, still holding that amused grin.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know if anyone-"

"Oh sure, it's fine. We just got back from a mission."

"We?"

"The rest of the S-Class mages, of course."

As if on cue, there was a stampede of footsteps again followed by a barrage of yelling voices, others happily saying good morning. Then, the voices were put to images and about seven mages came barreling in, just as loud as their diluted voices through the walls.

"Hey, Marcy! Who's this?" A mage called out. Marcelle still kept on that relentlessly disgusting smile on while she looked and answered her friend. "You know that group that Mira said that Guild Mistress hired? She's one of them," Marcelle said, nodding to Serena.

"Ah, oh yeah! Mira did say that, didn't she?" The mage turned around to Serena, who was still slightly recovering but had managed to finally peel herself off the wall and dusted herself off. She tried to find a smile and it worked - kinda. "Say, what's your name?"

"My name's Serena King, I'm here with my group called The Spirit Seekers. I'm sorry I trespassed into the S-Class Lounge, I was doing an investigation," She said, gesturing for the Rem Pod still sitting silently on the floor.

The same mage wrinkled their nose. "What is that?" Serena only continued to smile. "It's a Rem Pod; basically, it just detects motion. See?" To demonstrate, she waved her hand near the little machine, and sure enough, it went off. She only wishes that went off by someone else.

"Wow, that's some science type shit!" A mage said from the back of the group. Marcelle sniffed. "Cute, you play with toys. Could you get out?" 'Well, at least she said it kinda nicely,' She thought.

"No, I can't. It's apart of the investigation and I need to get some evidence for it," She said. Rivers stepped up closer to her and leaned herself down, her gaze locked directly onto her. "Nuh uh, you're leaving-"

"Marcelle! That's rude and you know it! This nice girl was trying to do an investigation and we just scared the poor girl. C'mon, I know you can do better."

A woman drawled on, sauntering up the stairs. She had long and luscious black hair and striking grey eyes that complimented the petite dress of red and belts with platform black heels. All the other mages bowed their heads in shame as the woman passed them.

The woman stopped in front of Serena and the smaller couldn't take her eyes off of her, the beauty spellbinding. "Oh, I'm guessing you're the girl Marcy was picking on. I'm sorry if your first introduction to them was absolutely horrible, I'll try to make up for that. Hi, my name's Mira LaVert and I'm an S-Class mage. And I'm the Ace of Fairy Tail," She said, with the largest grin Serena had ever seen.

"It's always been a great honor to be bestowed with the title of the Ace; a longtime thing of about 700 years worth of Aces that have past through ages and ages and ages. Honestly, maybe if you were a mage, maybe you'd make it like. I don't know, we could be friends," She winked. Serena giggled.

"Well, I heard there's an investigation going on between the- what was it, five of you?"

"Three of us, actually: me, Mariam, and Xavier."

Creak...

The mages looked to the noise, their eyebrows ceasing in concern. Gracefully, she smiled and nodded. "Yeah, well, I meant to say that. So, why not us join you?" The other mages looked half surprised, half weary, and others peering around the room in fright. Mira noticed it and patted the nearest mage on the head. "What, you scared, Jack?" She teased. "Huh? Noo, I'm an S-Class mage, what can a little ghost do?"

BANG

Serena yelped in fright and struck a defensive pose, along with the majority of the crowd. "Yo, hey, what the hell was that?" A boy in the front screamed. "God damn, don't insult them! It's only going to make things worse," Marcelle yelled at Jack - who only scoffed at her. But the shrug off looked anything but genuine, everyone in the room could clearly see Jack was as terrified as everyone else.

The first time since the S-Class mages entered the room, Serena's felt more in charge of the situation; she was the only one here with prior knowledge of ghosts and how to deal with them. 'Guild mistress was right; people are afraid of what they can't see, no matter how strong they may be.'

"Hey, hey! Look! It's fine, it's fine. It's either Lucy, Gray, or Wendy and all of them are really friendly ghosts," She said. '...What about the two in the basement.' She shook her head. Nuh huh.

"Lucy...? Gray, Wendy? Who's that?" Jack asked. "They're the ghosts that haunt here. If you didn't know." She winked and out of the corner of her eye, could've sworn to see a black shadow dart from the outer door. Shivering, she went back to the situation at hand.

"Lucy Heartfillia, Gray Fullbuster, and Wendy Marvell - respectively in, the hallways and the infirmary," She explained. Marcelle took the speaking role again. "And? Is there anyone else?" Perhaps something would be better. Serena caught the apprehension dead in the eye and stopped, surveying the room. Their faces expected her to keep going, flicking up and down as the minutes went by of awkward silence.

"Well, yes. But they're not human; they reside in the basement and none of us actually want to go down there, so yeah," She exclaimed. Serena examined the room; there seemed to be a high rise of apprehension leveling out and doubling the danger factor as each mage talked with those around them.

"Ok, hold up. Why? I mean, if it's not human like that, it could just be an animal spirit," A woman said in the back. "Uh, no. We're ruling it as demonic of sorts," Serena said.

Immediately, the room grew darker. "W-What? Demonic?" Serena couldn't believe it herself. "Nope, I'm honestly not lying. What we've experienced down there... was something else. They're out to get us and hurt us and actually, have tried to hurt me. Mentally," Serena said, as she suddenly remembered the thick coating of anxiety that laid on her as she stoped to the ground, screaming her voice out as her friends crowders around her. She stared out into the void.

One of the mages from the group dropped into her vision and Serena realized she was laying on the ground. "Hey, we can help you. We're all S-Class mages and we've gone up against worser opponents than some measly ghosts. We can protect you, Serena - I don't know how, but I promise you we will."

The speech brought Serena back ages ago, on her first investigation with Xavier and Mariam. It was only when the name Spirit Seekers was a mere thought in her head. They traveled to a river called New Hampten Riverbank in the outer skirts of Magnolia forest. Mariam saw that Serena was shaking and offered her a beautiful little flower saying, "I'll protect you. I don't know how but I will." Xavier, turns out, got the same flower only hours after that after he got shaken up upon seeing inhumane footprints.

"Hi, yeah, sorry to do that to you all," She said, not meeting the mages's eyes. "No problem, bud. I'm Adrien Cooper, I'm a physic mage. Though, I doubt you know what that is," He laughed it off.

A hand appeared in her vision and she automatically reached out, and the hand gripped her like there was no tomorrow and pushed her up. She could've sworn she flew for a good five seconds. "I'm not exactly sure your guild mistress wants you to go ghost exploring," She said.

Adrien continued as ambassador for the group. "Well, we're a group of twelve mages, are we not? All of us are S-Class and we have the Ace of Fairy Tail. What could possibly go wrong?" He said to the background of roaring cheers of the others. Serena had the sudden urge to plug her ears.

"But- I don't want to upset her," She countered. "Yeah, ok. And we'll just give her cake. That's what we do to appease her when we being back letters asking for money from our missions. Though, it's not really working so now we just give her brownies and she's pretty ok with that."

The raven-haired girl had a hard time picturing the soft-spoken, elegant guild mistress she's only spoken to an hour ago could be appeased with a simple slice of a brownie. But Serena had no more time pondering as she was suddenly swept down again onto the floor, with one of the mages setting down the Rem-Pod in front of her.

"So, Miss-?"

"Serena King."

"Ms. King, how does this work?"

Serena felt a jolt of joy as Adrien called her Ms. King. 'Is this why Mariam always insists on being called Ms. Ester? She settled down into position, pursed her lips, and spoke with the outmost authorities tone she could muster.

"So, this, is a Rem-Pod. It's a device that can detect change in its field of view. If something touches it, it'll go off. Like this." To demonstrate, she waved her hand nearby the machine and it beeped loudly. The mages looked impressed.

"I can ask the spirits here questions and they can respond accordingly. Like if I were to ask if the ghost is good or bad, and they will answer accordingly," She said. A wave of understanding passed through the mages and Serena smiled, glad to be off on such a good start.

"Ok, I'll go first," and Serena cleared her throat.

"Good morning spirits that reside here. I'm Serena King. If there's any spirits that would like to talk to me, please make yourself known." The group waited on tense air before a knock came on the other side of the wall.

Continuing, she cleared her throat and sat up straighter. "Thank you for that, spirit. Now, are you upstairs or downstairs? Two for up, one for down. Please use the Rem Pod for answering, thank you," She added.

And just like that, the Rem Pod brightened and squeaked. Once. She thought of the thing beneath them. The floor she was felt was stable Serena felt was going to fall any second. The mages watched Serena move with curiosity, she felt as though she was an animal behind glass. Serena shifted awkwardly around and focused her attention on the machine.

"Would you perhaps know of Lucy Heartfilia, Gray Fullbuster, or Wendy Marvell. Two for yes, one for no."

There was a weird hanging dress in the air and the girl felt a weird clawing motion at her throat, trying to grasp for it yet never making it. Making draw on forever, never ending its eternal suffering.

Beep. Beep.

Serena tried to think of any mages that would possibly relate to the trio and the first thing thst came to mind was the pinkette and the redhead. But... they've established that they're not good. Though, she highly doubts that they're at such a state of something demonic, it's something close to that. But dealing with that will require a bit of help, and the group would rather focus on the good side than try something now.

Back to the two. If that theory was plausible, then the two entities in the basement would be classified as Titana and Salamander. But they're humans. Again, spirits like Lucy. But they knew Lucy and them. So, maybe? Serena proposes the idea of talking this out later with the group, and files it for later.

"Does one of you have red hair? Two for yes, one for no?"

At this point, the mages were just bursting curiosity and couldn't hold it in any longer. "Why are you asking those kinds of questions?" A mage with blonde hair asked, to the far right of Serena. "I'm asking them because I need specific answers. I guess you could say we have a hunch," She said. But she knew she was slightly lying through her teeth. Every single question the ghost was answering yes to confused her to no point, and made her want to smash someone's head against the wall and scream.

The mage only nodded and left her alone in time to see the spirit's answers.

Beep. Beep.

'Alrighty then, next step.' "Are there two of you? We're following the same system as before," She added.

Her eyes moved automatically to the far right corner of the lounge, to see a long shadow move on the window followed by another one. They slide in such a motion that Serena could only describe as slithering, passing each other smoothly like air. They did this a few times before crossing out opposite ways, leaving only the light behind.

Serena let out the gasp she's been apparently holding for minutes. Adrien flew to her side with Mira followed closely behind, but she waved them off. Yet, to no avail.

"April! Come here! April?!"

"I'm fine, guys, I'm fine. Please, don't worry," She tried to say, but the words formed as breathless gasps. "What did you see?" Mira asked, tending to her left side, checking over any marks she might've missed. "I-," She was about to say, but a vacuum sucked any of her words.

It was just like last night. The same feeling of before, expect she's seen them. With her own eyes. The entities in the basement are real and can hurt you. Just like this.

No. They can't hurt from here. As seen before, they can't leave the basement.

She shook them off and stood up, putting forth her best Mariam stare to the group. Mira, Adrien, and the rest of the S-class mages stared in perfected concern. She wouldn't be surprised if they all got PTSD.

"Look, I'm fine. I just need a break." A voice in her head corrected break to retirement but she fittingly, shook it off. "Are you sure, Serena. We could still have April-"

"No, April doesn't need to check me out. I'll just find my group and just- just meet up with and we can talk...," She said. She found herself drawing out the exit from this room. Was it the ghosts subconsciously telling her to stay? No, it was them trying to hurt her more.

"But we-"

"If you'd like to come with us then fine, but-"

"Adrien, Mira - just leave her alone. And the rest of you too. We're S-Class mages, we don't need to concern ourselves with people like her." The girl surged cowards from her spot in the back and latching onto Adrien like they were buddies. The boy wasn't amused.

"But she's hurt-"

"Uh huh, and where exactly is she hurt, Adrien?"

The brunette faltered and let out a searching sigh. "I don't know, but I want to go protect her! Cant you see whatever ghosts in here wanted to hurt her..." Marcelle pressed a finger up to his lips and shushed him with a single blow. "We have houses and bills to pay. We need money, and the only way to get those sweet, sweet jewels is to go on jobs and get the jewels. Our job here isn't to take care of this poor, helpless little thing. And actually, I've already picked out a job for us."

A little paper was shoved into his face and he read it. Subconsciously, he grinned. "Two hundred thousand jewels for a killing of a couple hundred monsters?!" Marcelle allowed for a little grin to slip in. "Hm, I knew you'd like it. Now c'mon, we must leave now; our flight's at 3am tomorrow, and we have no time to waste!"

Before the boy could even look back at Serena, Marcelle escorted the mage out the door, practically shoving him away. Without a second though, many of the mages followed, concernedly yelling for Adrien.

Only one remained.

"I'm sorry that our group is just so rude to you," A soft voice came from the corner of the room. Shacking, Serena peeled herself off the wall to see what spectator was left to watch the clown. "It's fine- Mira? I- what are you doing here?" The raven-haired woman pulled the girl in for a hug. "Here to make sure you're ok, of course. Because clearly, everyone forgot about the S-Class Code of Civil Humaneness."

"What's that?"

"It's nothing, Serena, you don't need to worry about it."

The woman crouched down to her height. "So, are you sure you're fine?" Her recipient nodded - first, with hesitation then slowly quickened the pace. Mira smiled. "Good. If you ever need me, you know where to find me. Yes?"

But before Serena could finish, she had already walked it the door.

It was again dead silent. The Rem Pod was still running yet Serena had just realized now. Serena let out two gasps of air and collected herself. Her thoughts immediately went to the state of her friends, and as if she had extra vision, searched for them through the walls.

She went to go grab her backpack and put away her things, heading for the door. But before she closed the door, she swallowed hard and scanned the room. Her gaze hovered on the window, it's taunting blandness disgusting her.

Serena closed the door - hard.

Well... that was something. Wasn't it?

So, uh, news? Hey, haven't seen you all in like three months? Uh, sorry bout that. I've been just incredibly busy with everything going on and it's kinda hard to keep churning out 6k chapters. Please, I really hoped you enjoyed this chapter and have a good day/night! Bye~!