"Master," Raymond repeated. His voice was monotone and serious. "Look where it is."
Descole looked up, his expression confused from the tone of his butler's voice. When he saw where the marker for the egg was, he understood Raymond's concern. "How?" the man growled, his teeth grit. "How?!" He shouted again. "I bet it was that assistant's fault!"
"Master, we need to remain calm. " The other man said with a voice of reason. This only seemed to irritate Descole further. Raymond shrank back, once again it seemed useless trying to tame the man's emotions. "Do we fly there straight away?" He asked once his master had stopped with his angry deep-breathing.
"I should have never allowed them to leave." He muttered to himself, ignoring Raymond's question. The man paced back and forth, then continued, his voice rising as his temper did. "How can Layton be so stupid as to have not even considered anything I said as the truth?" Descole's hands clenched into fists. "I should have kept pushing Emmy until she admitted it."
"You can't change all of that now." Raymond said calmly, missing out the word 'master', feeling as if he had said it too many times already - he had never once called his master 'Descole', and he didn't plan on starting.
Descole let out another angry growl - at Raymond this time - as he made his way towards the exit. "Raymond? We're going there. Now."
Aurora's hand twitched, and slowly, the girl opened her eyes. Her surroundings were completely foreign to her: a tiny box room, plain concrete walls with hardly anything else in the room. A uniformed man stood next to the door on the other side of the room.
She could feel the familiarity of some kind of Azran relic by the room - the sensation was much stronger than anything she had felt from the aura stones. Cautiously, Aurora stood up - the guard didn't even turn to look. The girl approached to the huge window at the side of the room.
It revealed a large, elaborate walkway built around a chiseled teal pillar. She could feel the Azran power emanating from it stronger than ever. The concrete walls around the walkway were not grey like in the room she was in, but instead were a shimmering gold.
As she watched the glowing engravings on the column brighten then fade, Aurora took the time to recollect what happened during the night.
She remembered awaking to find herself slung over the shoulder of a uniformed man, and then the calling for help which was never heard, yet seemed to go on forever. Finally, she remembered being bundled into a vehicle, it was pitch black in there - whether that meant that she fell asleep, passed out, or it was actually that dark she did not know.
And now she was here.
Aurora leant on the window sill sadly. Maybe her people were right, maybe humans were still selfish and foolish beings. She sighed. That couldn't be true, their world had so many good people among the bad.
Hearing talking behind her, the Azran girl's attention was distracted. She turned around to see that another uniformed man had entered and was conversing with the guard.
From their whispers it was difficult to tell what they were speaking of. Aurora heard the guard adress the man as 'officer' a few times as well as Layton's name but little else made sense to the girl - not until the officer pointed straight at her and beckoned her over.
She gave him a quizzical look but walked forward out of fear more than anything else.
"Come on, this way." The officer said in a stern voice. Aurora followed on after him silently down the corridor. "Boss says you need t'be kept safe, which is why we're moving you higher up the tower." The man explained, walking up a set of stairs. He didn't look back at Aurora once.
Managing to squeak out an "okay," the girl followed him on up, still trailing behind. Even the stairs themselves were ornately decorated and golden trimming seemed to be everywhere.
"It's just around the corner here." The officer assured. Despite the fact they seemed keen on keeping her safe, Aurora couldn't help but feel insecure. The sight of all of these criminals being so normal... It only reminded her more of Professor Sycamore's betrayal.
The little yellow plane came to a bumpy halt and the professor, Luke and Emmy got out.
"I must say Emmy, your flying is much better than your driving. I never would have guessed." Layton said with a chuckle. Luke scoffed at the comment.
"So this is... the Nest?" Luke questioned - he didn't like the look of the place at all. Tall buildings were everywhere which made every pathway seem dark and dingy. Even though it was only midday, the street lights were on and shone a murky yellow colour.
"It is most unsettling." Layton said pushing his hat back into place. "I was expecting us to be surrounded by now, not for it to be so silent. Watch out in the side streets you two."
"Maybe Bronev wants to actually talk to us?" Emmy suggested matter-of-factly. "We need to march in there - they did invite us after all."
"Indeed, they did. Well in that case I suppose we should head straight for the headquarters."
"But how do we know where it is, professor?" Luke piped up, pulling his hat up off his eyes as he jumped about. "I bet it is one of the big, tall buildings." The boy pointed to the tallest building that he could see - it must have had hundreds of windows and at the very top was an illuminated sculpture of an eagle.
"I think you may be right, my boy."
Aurora sat isolated in the new room - this one even emptier than the last. The Azran power that she could feel before had almost faded out all together. While the large window remained, this one looked out onto a grey concrete wall - not the lavish walkway like in the other room.
If she listened hard enough, Aurora could hear the officer that had escorted her to the room talking to someone else.
" 'ave you seen that man the Boss' niece 'as brought in?" The one man said. " 'e's another of them fancy researcher's ain't 'e?"
"What? The one in the top hat and the boy?" Aurora heard the officer ask. Her eyes widened, she only knew one person who wore a top hat - did that mean that Layton was here to rescue her? Or had he been captured too? There was a brief silence. "Yeah, he's another new one."
