CHAPTER XL

A New Enterprise

"Another job well done," Leon said as the team emerged from the rift circle at Hillphire's forge.

"And still no Perseus," Athena said. She turned to Xanthus. "We'll find him."

"I know," he said, pushing up his glasses. "I just hope whatever the Rune of Atonement is putting him through doesn't destroy him."

"I believe in him," Echo said. "We've all been through all sorts of crap. He'll pull through."

"Yes," Yuan said. "We must all have faith in him."

Ingrid went straight to Penny as soon as the group entered the control room. "Any luck on the search?" she asked her.

"No," Penny replied, "but I just received word that we're having a special guest today."

"Who?"

"His sister," Hillphire said.

"Ariadne?" Xanthus said.

"Yup," Penny said. "Looks like you'll get to meet your pen pal for the first time, yeah?"

"Pen pal, huh?"

"Damn, it's too bad Perseus ain't here," Leon said, leaning his arm on Xanthus's shoulder.

"Why's that?"

"Leon, quit being an idiot," Ingrid said as she grabbed him by the ear and dragged him away crying.

"How far out is she?" Yuan asked.

"The shuttle should be touching down in an hour," Hillphire said. "It sounds like you plan on being the welcoming party."

"Of course," Athena said. "She and the others are basically part of the team. Hell, she founded the whole LTF along with Lilly and Demetri, didn't she?"

"Mom and dad were part of their team for a bit, too," Leon said, rubbing his ear before turning to Ingrid. "Why do you have to be so violent all the time!"

"You bring this upon yourself," Echo mumbled. She and Ingrid shared a low-five as the latter walked by.

"Dorms?" Ingrid said. "I'm not really in the mood to greet the other team smelling like this."

"Thank you all for the hospitality," Ariadne said, giving the group a bow as she disembarked the shuttle with Demetri.

"Why the heck are you so formal?" Athena chuckled. "C'mon, dude, you're basically our boss."

"I am the youngest in this group right now. I believe in Mistral tradition I would be your kouhai, correct? And you would all be my senpai."

Xanthus chuckled. "Yes, that is technically correct, if age were the only factor."

"You and the others started the Labyrinth Task Force," Yuan said. "Which makes you and Demetri and Lilly our senpai in a way. Speaking of which..."

"You were probably expecting all four of us," Demetri said. "However, we ran into some trouble. It's the reason Ariadne and I are here to join up with your team."

"Where is Lilly?" Athena said. "And Ivory?"

"About them," Ariadne began, "just before we left Vacuo, we were about to embark on another Labyrinth mission. Before the mission could even commence, Lilly, Lilith, and Ivory all vanished from the LabNav."

"Lilly and Lilith?" Xanthus said. "Oh, right, you had mentioned that in one of your reports."

The rest of the group turned to Xanthus and then back to Ariadne.

"Lilly and Lilith have returned to their separate forms, but only in the Labyrinth," Ariadne continued. "In the real world, they continue to inhabit the same body."

"Right, because Lilly is the physical being, not Lilith," Xanthus said. "Although, I wonder why they separated again. For some time, it seemed as though Lilly and Lilith might merge and become a single personality, but from all of your communications with me, it seems as though integration was never going to be a factor in their relationship."

"That's correct. In my observation, Lilly and Lilith have grown apart in personality, even though in some ways they have converged. Lilly jokingly calls Lilith her sister, but I don't know if that's entirely inaccurate. Judging from what we've seen, they may as well be sisters."

"How 'bout we continue this back at the dorm?" Leon said. "We have the whole guest building all to ourselves, so it'll be easier to relax there."

"Still no answer," Penny said as she and Hillphire continued to try and contact Lilly and Ivory.

"Vacuo, Vale, and Menagerie all have their communication lines still open," Hillphire said, putting a hand to his chin. "Can you run a scan through all of their networks?"

"Gimme a sec."

Hillphire watched as Penny became as still as a statue. Her neural network mind was probably moving through the entire world wide web at the speed of light, plowing through information that any normal human would require weeks to sift through. And yet, in spite of that inhuman processing power, she was still very much human. Perhaps even more than human given her empathy Semblance.

"Nothing," she said, returning to her present mind.

"They could still be in the Labyrinth. In which case, it would be impossible to contact them without having a system set up in the other world. I'll build a monitoring setup in case—"

"They're in Atlas."

"You sound confident in your answer."

"It has been more than a day since they disappeared. They would not stay in the Labyrinth for that long, not without risking serious danger. Ivory and Lilith know better, and they outvote Lilly in the matter. I'm certain they've returned to the real world, and since Atlas is the only country with its CCTS tower blocking the rest of the global network, that's the only place they could be."

"How can you be certain they're not in the middle of nowhere?"

"Don't you remember the e-mail discussions we've had with Ariadne? All of the data points to the Labyrinth existing as a result of the human consciousness. While it is true that the other world exists side-by-side with the physical world regardless of where on the planet, the Second Layer and beyond are dependent on sentience."

"Right, because distortions in the Labyrinth are a direct result of psychic disturbance in the real world. I did recall reading her hypotheses on the matter, and her discussion with Lilith put that squarely in theoretical territory. I'm assuming your conjecture is that Lilly and Lilith's random spatial warping doesn't take them very far from places with strong psychic force, namely cities and large towns."

"That's what I'm thinking. And it's all corroborated by Ariadne's reports. Every single spatial shift Lilly went through brought them near civilization, sometimes directly into the Third Layer. Second and Third Layers don't exist in the wilderness."

"If they are in Atlas, how in the world do we communicate with them?"

Penny looked at the ground.

"You look very disappointed in your own thoughts."

"Because the last thing I ever wanted to do was intentionally send those kids off into life-threatening situations."

Hillphire walked up to her, retracting the helmet on his powered armor, the only thing allowing him to remain upright. "I hope you realize that this was always going to be their destinies as Huntsmen."

"The Grimm are one thing, Liam. These things we've fought in that other world, they're not Grimm. They're much worse. And now we have those Greater Daemons to deal with. You watched the videos I recorded, didn't you?"

"I did."

"How can you remain so unconcerned after that?"

"I'm not unconcerned. I'm very well aware of the threat Malphas and her kind pose to the world. I am also acutely aware of the power of those Wraith-Knights."

Penny sighed heavily.

"And I'm also aware of your aversion to them."

"Can you blame me?"

"Not at all. I was there twenty years ago, remember? I saw all of the disaster Bedivere's Wraith brought about. But even Lilith, who is the Wraith of his daughter, is nothing like his Wraith was. None of these Wraiths are remotely close to the one that nearly drowned our world in despair."

"I know that. Still."

"Yeah. I've talked to both Ingrid and Echo about their own heightened senses. Echo seems to trust her Wraith-Knight Tristan with her life, but she says that nevertheless, she gets a strange sensation from all of their Wraith-Knights, even her own. And Ingrid can never shake the feeling of imbalance, the kind that makes your hair stand on end."

"I've actually been around those two girls whenever they'd get that feeling. It's downright freaky if you're not ready for it."

Hillphire's scroll chirped at the same time a notification popped up in Penny's field of view.

Xanthus: Penny-senpai, Dr. Hillphire, we're all at the dorm if you would like to join us.

Xanthus: Ariadne and Demetri are settling in at the moment.

Xanthus: They should be finished by the time you both arrive.

Penny: kay, we're on our way

Hillphire: Is anyone hungry?

Yuan: I'm cooking yakisoba tonight. Don't buy anything.

Athena: why did ur parents have to leave us

Athena: i miss ur dad's cooking

Ingrid: me too

Echo: suuuuuuuure

Ingrid: ECOH

Ingrid: ECHO***

Echo: ( ͡°╭͜ʖ╮͡° )

Leon: hahaah

Ariadne: This certainly is quite the lively group chat.

"I agree with her," Hillphire said. "How this group gets anything done is beyond me."

"I'm pretty sure we were like this, too, back then," Penny chuckled.

"We really have this entire dorm to ourselves?" Demetri said.

"Yup," Leon said, resting his feet up on the coffee table across from the couch. "Kick back, bro."

"You're such a slob," Ingrid said as she swiped his feet off the table amid his whining.

"So," Yuan said, taking a seat on the same couch as Leon, across from Demetri's couch. "How have things been at the Vacuo LTF?"

"Very productive, I think," Demetri said.

"I'm pretty sure my buddy here is talkin' less Lab work and more...snow work," Leon said.

"I...was actually talking about Labyrinth work," Yuan said.

"You're such an idiot, Leon," Ingrid said as she sat in the space between the two combat partners.

"Oh," Leon said as he winked at his childhood friend before faux-stretching and landing his arm on her shoulder. "I always knew you wanted to sit next to me."

"Ew!" she yelled. "Stop!"

"You're my favorite kitty, though!"

"It's okay, Ingri-nyan," Yuan said, pulling her closer. "I'll protect you."

She gawked at him. "W-What did you just call me?"

Leon began chuckling. "Bro," he said before holding out a fist, which Yuan bumped with his own.

"It's safer on this couch with us, Ingrid," Athena said.

Echo, Penny, and Ariadne nodded in unison. Before anyone knew it, Ingrid was already seated with the other girls.

"He should know better than to let his combat partner infect him," Penny said.

"Totally," Athena said.

"I've only been with all of you for an hour or so," Ariadne began, "and I already get the feeling I should give the one in black and red a very wide berth."

It wouldn't have been out of character for Echo to be the quietest in the group, but something about her was bugging Ingrid and she turned to her archer friend.

"Huh?" Ingrid all but yelled, shocked by her bizarre expression. It was a mix of bemusement and mild embarrassment at herself. "W-What in the world are you staring at?"

"Heh-heh," Echo said, gently reaching up and petting Ingrid's cat ears. "Ingri-nyan."

Ingrid froze open-mouthed.

"Nowhere is safe," Penny sighed.

"What's going on here?" Hillphire said as he walked in with drinks for everyone.

The next few hours were spent catching up between the two teams. The full story from Menagerie was finally clear to Ariadne and Demetri, who had yet to know the scope of what happened there. By now, restoring the country to its rightful state was underway, the efforts led by Velvet Scarlatina and Ilia Amitola. Fiona also held a seat in Parliament, following in her mother's footsteps while Francine, Justine, Nadine, and Hanuman formed their own team and were top of their class at Instinct Academy.

On the other side of the world, Vacuo was still preparing for war with Atlas. Orion himself led the mobilization of the newly consolidated Vacuo Defense Initiative, which was spearheaded by Jupiter Enterprises' own private security forces. It certainly wasn't lost on the group how much power that company had amassed in the past year due to the threat of war.

"Is Mistral doing anything to help either side?" Demetri asked the group.

"No," Hillphire said. "Despite Headmaster Lyon and Qrow's efforts, there's almost no support whatsoever on the council for getting involved in the war. There've been rumors that they may side with Atlas again, just like during the Great War, but that would likely drag Vale in as well, and war is not a popular opinion in either Vale or Mistral."

"So it's likely to be a war between Vacuo and Atlas only," Ariadne said. "As much as I hate to think of my home country becoming a battleground, I am also thankful that the battleground won't be the entire planet."

"How's that been working, by the way?" Ingrid said. "I mean, Lilly, Ivory, and Demetri are all from Atlas."

"I've been curious about that as well," Xanthus said. "Lilly and Ivory are daughters of the Schnee Family, and Demetri is the son of General Sergei Holland. Surely that couldn't have been overlooked by your people, even those on the Labyrinth Task Force staff."

"That is actually part of the reason they've been the only ones I've sent into the Labyrinth," Ariadne said. "I understand how important team cohesion is in a life or death situation."

"Is that the reason?" Demetri asked her.

"I said part of the reason. It's also why I'm the one who navigates for you and no one else."

"Did you suspect someone might sabotage them?" Penny said.

"I wouldn't put it past my people. Even though students around Shade Academy had long since warmed to their presence on campus, it was never going to be completely safe for them to be in the city." She turned to Xanthus. "Do you remember my last major update?"

"Wait," he said. "Are you talking about that incident? With the mafia?"

"The mafia?" Leon said, straightening up. "Wait, are you serious?"

"Yes," Ariadne continued. "Long story short, Lilly and Ivory emerged into the real world through a random rift somewhere in the city in bad condition. Ivory had to tend to an unconscious Lilly, who was knocked out by the whiplash of dragging Lilith back to their shared body from a long distance away as they returned to the physical world. Upon emergence, they were captured by a small group that operated under the Semenza Crime Family."

"How did they break free?" Ingrid said.

"Lilith awakened and massacred the entire group," Demetri said. "I was not there myself, but according to another retrieval team who came upon the scene, the entire room, from floor to ceiling, was painted with blood and...other bits."

"We've never met Lilly's Wraith," Hillphire said. "Is this something she's truly capable of?"

"I've seen her brutality in the Labyrinth firsthand, especially when one of us is in dire straits. Back when she and Lilly were still sharing bodies in the other world, there would be some occasions where either Ivory or I would be in serious trouble and Lilith would forcibly take control and rush to our side. I've seen her drive her hand right through the chest of one of those Corrupted."

"Holy crap," Leon said.

"Like, straight through?" Echo said.

Demetri nodded.

Penny listened to every detail of his story. As far as she was concerned, she was absolutely right to be suspicious. Unfortunately, the relationship between Lilly and Lilith added a massive wrinkle to the situation. From what she could tell of the bond they shared, there would be no way to convince Lilly to try and seal Lilith away, and there was no means available to them to try and do it by force.

"I have a question for you," Ariadne said, turning to Xanthus. "As far as you can tell, are the Wraith-Knights in you conscious?"

"No," he said. "From the moment we made contact with our respective Wraith-Knights, none of us four have heard their voices."

"I supposed the situation with you is much different from Lilly and Lilith. Lilith is Lilly's other self, her Shade. And the rule in Ecumene, their home world, is that every person has a Shade, but only those born with magic have Wraiths, which are, essentially, magical Shades."

"This was the report you sent me some time back."

"Yes. Of course, this is all according to Lilith, our only source of information about that other world."

"Can you trust her?" Hillphire said.

"I do," Demetri said.

"As do I," Ariadne said.

Penny looked at the two youngsters. Both had conviction in their words and faces. But she wouldn't be fooled, not by another Wraith.

"It's too bad we can't meet her face to face," Yuan said.

"Lilly's Wraith?" Ingrid said.

He nodded.

"What kind of person is she?" Echo asked Ariadne and Demetri.

"To be completely honest," Ariadne began, "she's not all that different from Lilly. I suppose that is a consequence of them technically being the same person, just with different traits magnified. Lilly isn't capable of cruelty while it's almost a default setting for Lilith. But on the other hand, Lilly tends to lose her cool in the Labyrinth. Lilith never does."

That last detail stuck out to Penny like a sore thumb.

"What do you mean by that?" Ingrid said.

"It's exacerbated when our time is almost up," Demetri said. "She tends to get reckless to begin with, frequently fighting with her aura down, pushing herself too hard, stuff like that. But when it looks like we're about to fail a Labyrinth, she really starts to go overboard. Recently, she managed to draw power from Lilith while she was the inactive persona."

"Most recently, however, were our three mission failures in a row," Ariadne said.

"Failures?" Leon said.

She nodded, pushing up her glasses. "We've only failed a handful of times, but before the most recent one, we experienced three in a row."

"And that was when she began to behave erratically," Demetri said.

"I don't blame her," Athena said, breaking her silence. "She's the leader of your team. There's a lot of weight on her shoulders. I'm guessing it had something to do with having her cousin on the team, too."

"How do you figure?" Xanthus said.

"Have you forgotten?"

The rest of the room looked at her. Only Penny and Hillphire seemed to catch on.

"Who was the first match of the Vytal Festival Tournament?"

"I had completely forgotten about that," Ingrid said.

"Same," Yuan said.

"You think they're still in competition?" Leon said.

"Maybe not directly," Athena said, "but think about it. Who's been top of the pack all her life? Who was the outsider? Who's had the highest grades throughout all of Academy life? Who didn't even know what a Creep Grimm was?"

"She's still comparing herself to Ivory," Echo said. "I know a thing or two about that. My grades were in the same state when we first started at Beacon."

"Grades," Leon said, leaning back in the couch and resting his hands on the back of his head. "Man, I miss when that was all we had to worry about."

"Seriously," Ingrid said.

"How are you doing, Ingrid?" Ariadne said.

"Huh? Oh, you're referring to that mess that happened back home. I'm doing okay, to be honest. It's my brother and sisters I'm more worried about. And my parents. Was it really okay for them to go back to Vale and work with the other Knights of Remnant?"

"That's not up to us," Hillphire said. "If they felt they were ready, then there's nothing else we can do about it."

"By the way," Demetri began, "the last I heard, you had Raven and Yang employed as your bodyguards. Did they also return to Vale?"

"They did. I have Penny here and the rest of my own team to watch over me."

"We do miss doing Labyrinth runs with you, senpai," Xanthus said.

"I miss it, too," Penny said. "But I'm needed here. Besides, who else could navigate for you as well as I can?"

They all turned to Ariadne.

"Huh?" she said.

"That's right!" Leon said, standing up. "The creator of the LabNav app!"

"We do have to share notes one of these days," Xanthus said, pushing up his glasses.

She smiled at him. "Perhaps another day. I'm beginning to feel the effects of jet lag."

"Can't you take some melanin pills for that?" Leon said.

Echo snickered, nearly spitting her drink.

"You're such an idiot," Ingrid said, rubbing either side of her forehead with her thumb and forefinger.

"What?" Leon said. "Why?"

"I guess you could take melanin pills," Athena chuckled. "If you wanted to tan."

"Stop!" Echo laughed as her drink dribbled out of her nose.

Penny lingered around the dorm's garden, which overlooked the city of Mistral. It was late at night, but the metropolis below bustled as always. She gazed up at the moon, which showed both sides tonight, the whole and the broken.

"You seem lost in thought," Hillphire said, joining her outside with two cups of coffee.

"Thanks," she said with a small smile, accepting the mug. "Yeah, I am. Just a bit."

"You're thinking about that story, aren't you?"

"About those thugs Lilith shredded? Yeah."

"And I'm guessing you're fixated on one tiny detail about Ariadne's description of the relationship between girl and Wraith."

"I figured you'd pick up on that, too."

"It makes much more sense that Lilith would have a cooler head when faced with a crisis. After all, she has resided in the Labyrinth for her entire existence up until recently. Lilly, on the other hand..."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Penny said, setting down her mug and leaning against the concrete banister. "We weren't there ourselves. We shouldn't be making these kinds of assumptions."

"I agree."

She gritted her teeth as she forced her mind elsewhere.

"You know," Hillphire began as she sipped on his coffee, "I notice Xanthus and Ariadne have been hitting it off."

She turned to him.

"I guess it's only natural. They're both quite gifted thinkers. I wouldn't be surprised if they were talking about all sorts of theoretical sciences right about now."

"My money's on Thaumatology."

"Same."

"Liam?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you still in pain?"

He didn't answer for a moment. He knew she could feel all of his emotions right now. Her Semblance gave her no choice. "Every day. But I dunno. Maybe my pain tolerance has gone up. It's kind of a dull ache in the background all the time, not that ridiculous nine or ten that it would always spike to."

"Where's it at?"

"Hovers around a three, sometimes spiking to seven. Every now and again it'll shoot right back up to a ten, but that's a lot rarer now than when this started, especially after the Thaumatech we had added to my suit."

She walked up to him, eyeing his powered exoskeleton, the one thing keeping him from collapsing to the ground.

"So if you're the Iron Maiden, I guess that makes me the Iron Ma—"

"Nope, don't say it, or we'll get sued for copyright infringement."

He chuckled. "Copyright infringement, huh?"

"Yup."

Hillphire yawned.

"Hey, go to bed. You need your rest."

"I think I need to take a hot shower first."

"Yes, you do. I can smell you from here. How 'bout you get your helmet back on so the odor doesn't leak out where it can hurt people?"

"That's not very nice."

She chuckled. "C'mon. I'll help you out of your armor."

"No."

She looked at him.

"I have to be able to do this myself."

"Liam—"

"Penny. I refuse to be a cripple."

She stared at him for some time before giving him a single, firm nod. "Even still, I'll be on standby outside the bathroom. If I hear a loud crash, I don't care if you're naked. I'm rushing in."

He chuckled. "That's reassuring."

Athena walked into the common room, where Echo was reading a book beside one of the big windows. She grinned before moving with perfect quiet, her feet disturbing nothing on the carpet.

"Boo!" she yelled, grabbing Echo by the shoulders. The latter screamed and threw her book all the way up to the ceiling before rolling out of her armchair and knocking over the table before landing in a crouch atop the backrest of another couch across the room. Athena couldn't stop laughing.

"Athena!" Echo yelled.

"Sometimes I forget how acrobatic you actually are since you spend so much time with your nose in a book."

"That wasn't cool!"

"What's going on?" Yuan said as he and Ingrid ran into the common room. One look at the situation was all it took for him to deduce what had happened. "I see."

"Huh?" Ingrid said, turning to him.

"Athena managed to sneak up on Echo and frightened her enough to launch her book into the ceiling and scamper all the way to the other side of the room."

"How in the world did you deduce all that?"

He pointed at the open book and overturned armchair at Athena's feet along with the coffee table on its side and then finally to Echo, who was still perched on top of the other couch's backrest.

"Oh," Ingrid said. "Yeah, I can see it play over and over in my head, too."

"Why?" Echo yelled, clutching herself.

"I wanted to test your Semblance," Athena said with a smirk.

"Oh, really?"

She nodded. "Mm-hmm."

"Well, since nothing's going on here," Ingrid began, "I'm going to bed."

"I'll go with you," Yuan said.

Ingrid turned bright red and faced the other way, covering her face with her hands. "I swear, if this is you channeling your combat partner again, I'm gonna slap you."

"Hmm?" He tilted his head in thought. "Oh. Wait a minute. You think I meant that I would join you in bed?"

She thought her face couldn't possibly get any hotter, but she was wrong.

"I was planning on walking you to your room before I headed to mine," Yuan continued. "Or, uh, did you want me to join you in—"

"Nope!" she said quickly, hopping and turning in place multiple times. "I'm okay! You don't have to walk me at all!"

She left a clone of herself, which waved goodbye to the group before vanishing.

"Sometimes I wish I could drop off a clone and leave, too," Echo said, allowing herself to fall onto the couch.

"Oh," Yuan said, turning to Athena. "Since you're acting team leader of all six of us, I wanted to ask you what our next move was."

"Thanks for reminding me," she said, her demeanor becoming serious. "Dr. Hillphire's equipment picked up something that looks like a Labyrinth, and the scanners are detecting what might be Perseus's aura waveform."

"What?" Echo said, sitting upright in the couch.

"Keep it quiet, though. I don't want the team to get riled up before we've gotten good rest."

"I see," Yuan said. "Very well. I'll get some rest myself. Good night."

"Night," Echo said with a wave. She turned back to Athena. "Could it really be him?"

"We'll find out tomorrow," she said.

"You wanted to see me, Penny?" Demetri said as he walked into Hillphire's room, which doubled as his office.

"Yes," she said. "Thank you for coming."

"We would like to ask you something," Hillphire said. "About a job you alone in this group are qualified for."

Demetri looked to Hillphire and then back to Penny. "I'm listening."

"Okay," Penny sighed. "I know you said you promised Ariadne's father that you would look after her, but I'd like to know if you'd consider leaving her in our care and undertaking a mission to Atlas instead."

"To find Lilly and Ivory," he said.

"You already anticipated this?"

"Truth be told, I've been anxious about the situation. This is the longest they've ever been away after warping to another place. Before, they'd warp right back in less than an hour, but it's been more than a day by now. What's the general plan?"

"We want you to go to Atlas and find them. We have the tools you'll need to locate Lilly if her EP level ever spikes."

"Is this a retrieval?"

"If that's possible."

"I see. And I'm the best fit for this because it's my home."

"Right."

"All right. I accept."

"Thank you, Demetri. I hate to burden you like this."

"It's not a burden. In fact, it'll put my mind at ease if I'm able to find her. Assuming they don't find their way home without me."