Amidst the enthusiastic chatter of the crowd, a bright spotlight shined down on Cereza and Claudia. They were locked together inside of a gigantic birdcage that was set right in the center of stage. The masked audience stared at them in anticipation, whispering among themselves excitedly.

"And now for the last item up for bid, our grand finale!" The auctioneer dressed like the Mad Hatter clapped his hands together excitedly. "Two young and healthy Englishwomen!" He poinyted to the birdcage, then began to pace back and forth. "Keep them as your slaves, keep them as your toys… Do whatever you please with them. It's truly up to you! And now we'll start the bidding." The auctioneer pointed out at individuals in the crowd as they began to place their bids. "I have $500,000 from number five. $1 million from number thirty! $1.2 million from number twenty-four."

One by one, the masked bidders held up their cards in the circular arena.

Cereza couldn't believe that they had actually been put up for auction. What even was this place? It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago, this was still just a normal day… and she was supposed to be on a plane back to London right now.

Earlier that day…

"What time does your flight leave?" Soryu posed the question as he walked with his friend down the halls of the Tres Spades Hotel.

"Nine o'clock tonight." Cereza flashed him a bittersweet smile.

Soryu widened his eyes, then dropped his gaze in disappointment. "So soon?"

Cereza let out a heavy sigh at his pitiful-looking face. "This was nice, you know… catching up like this. I might just have to visit Japan more often."

Soryu nodded as they turned a corner and walked into the lobby. "And I can always drop by to see you if I have business in London."

She stopped to look at him and smile. "I'd like that."

"And we can come visit you whenever we want!" Ota and Baba suddenly appeared, throwing their arms over Soryu and Cereza's shoulders.

Soryu's once peaceful face hardened into an annoyed look. "Who the hell invited you two?"

Baba stuck out his lower lip to pout. "Aww, Sor… don't be like that. We just wanted to come say hi to Cereza too. You can't just hog her all to yourself!"

"Are you going to the I.V.C. tonight?" Ota peered around them to look at Cereza.

She curiously rose an eyebrow. "The I.V.C.?"

"The international VIPS convention." Ota answered with a sly grin. "It's only the biggest event the hotel Tres Spades holds every year."

Baba chimed in as he circled around to Cereza's other side. "All sorts of famous people show up, as well as politicians, Olympic athletes…"

Cereza chuckled as she shook her head. "Sounds like a lot of important people who really don't need to get to know my face."

"She leaves tonight, anyway." Soryu cut in, pulling Cereza over to his side and away from the wonder duo.

Baba sighed, absolutely dejected. "Aww… and here I thought I'd finally get to dance with such a beautiful woman."

Soryu knitted his brow together angrily. "Not a chance."

Cereza giggled at Soryu being so over protective as she looked over at Baba. "Sorry to disappoint, but my flight leaves in a few hours."

"Speaking of the I.V.C…" Baba turned his head around to look at the Hong Kong mobster. "Sor, shouldn't you be working on preparations for tonight?"

Soryu awkwardly gripped at the back of his neck as he looked away. "…maybe."

"Oh! I didn't realize I was keeping you from something." Cereza clapped her hand over her mouth in surprise. "I can let you go if you need?"

Baba sauntered over to her open side and pulled her in for a side hug. "Yeah, we can keep her company while you're at work!"

Soryu exhaled sharply as he glared at the thief. "That's exactly what I was afraid of…"

Meanwhile, as Cereza was being toured around the Tres Spades by Baba and Ota, Stephan and Claudia were sitting on the edge of the hotel lobby's fountain having a serious conversation.

Stephan let out the breath he was holding as he side-eyed his teenage sister. "Your sister means well, although she can come across as a bit harsh…"

Claudia scoffed in disbelief. "Sure she does. She just wants to boss me around and control every aspect of my life."

Stephan frowned at her exasperation. "She's just doing what's best for you, you know."

Claudia whipped her head around to glare at her brother as she spoke sharply. "She's not my mother."

Stephan grew annoyed as he took in a deep breath, collecting his thoughts and regaining his composure before he spoke. "No, but she's the closest thing you've got to one, and maybe you should show her some appreciation from time to time. She does a lot for you, you know."

The grumpy teenager crossed her arms over her chest tightly as she looked away dejectedly. "She only takes care of me because she feels like she has to."

Stephan lowered his stern voice as he looked at her seriously. "That's not true, and you know it."

"Well, how come she never asks me what I want?" Claudia jerked her head back to look at him incredulously. "She just decides everything for me like I'm some sort of child…"

Stephan slumped his shoulders and took a deep breath. "We're just looking out for you, Claudia. We don't want you to end up like us."

"What, end up like super cool criminals who Robin Hood their way through the world?" Claudia threw her hands up in annoyance. "Helping people who have gotten screwed by the rich, the famous, and the powerful? Taking down corruption and setting things right for people who the law has failed?" She scoffed as she folded her arms once more. "Yeah, sounds horrible to me."

"Claudia…" Stephan began to interject before he was suddenly interrupted.

"No, I want you to listen." Claudia gave him a serious look as she began to level with him. "I'm old enough to decide things for myself, and what if what I want is to make a difference in the world the way you guys do too?" She stood up abruptly, then began to dreamily recall something. "Hell, just last month you guys took down a corrupt pharmaceutical company that knowingly put out a drug that killed a couple's ten-year-old daughter." She held out her hands to her brother as she desperately tried to get her point across. "I want to help people like you guys do!"

Stephan hung his head low for a moment, then looked up at his sister with an unshakable resolve. "You can make a difference in the world too, just… not like that."

Claudia angrily bit her lip as she tried to keep her temper in check. "Ugh. The world is not fair, and there are so many people out there who need help." She lowered her voice as she stared at the ground in disappointment. "I just want… I just want to do my part too!"

Stephan gripped the back of his neck as he flashed his sister a conflicted look. "And you can, we just want you to go about it a more legal way."

"Why won't you let me do this?" Claudia looked up at him suddenly with tearful eyes. "Why won't you let me be like mom and dad?" She turned on her heel and suddenly began to run away from him.

"Claudia… where are you going?"

"Anywhere but here!"

A few hours had gone by, and there was still no sign of Claudia. Stephan and Cereza had split up to search the hotel for her. Their flight would start boarding in thirty minutes, and they were already running behind. Cereza wondered if her impulsive sister may have gone up to the ballroom where that party was being held, so she began making her way in that direction while Stephan searched the other floors of the hotel.

Upstairs in the ballroom…

A gorgeous chandelier hung from the ballroom's high ceiling, and the entire floor was jam-packed with the rich and famous. There was a guy from Japan's Olympic soccer team, and a famous actress named Reiko Takatsuka… Oh, and former prime minister Fukuzawa!? Claudia was so wrapped up in looking at all of the celebrities that she didn't realize where she was going, and she accidentally bumped into someone behind her.

"Mr. Kisaki…?" Claudia blinked owlishly at the orange-haired artist.

Ota chuckled in surprise at the sight of the girl. "Well, well. If it isn't Alice stumbling into the Mad Hatter's tea party."

Claudia frowned in both annoyance and confusion. "My name is Claudia…"

Ota chuckled before reaching out to pat her on the head. "Well, I hope you get home safely, Alice."

Claudia stared at his back in shock as he turned and left her. Did he seriously just pat her head like she was a dog?

A short and stocky man in a green suit suddenly appeared in front of Claudia, and he hungrily leered at the blonde girl with a disgusting grin on his face.

The man reached out and grabbed Claudia's hand. Yuck… he seemed pretty sleazy. "Mmm, I love girls like you. You wanna come with me to give me some… special room service?"

"Gross, let go of me!" Claudia jerked her hand away from him as the creep with a flushed face looked her up and down.

Not listening, the man wrapped his arm around Claudia's waist and leaned in closer to her. "You're pretty lucky you met me. My net worth is $500 million."

Claudia tried to squirm out of his grasp when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder shoving her out of the way. The sleazebag let go of her as someone stepped in-between them.

"This party just got really trashy." Eisuke rolled his eyes, almost bored.

"Y-You're…!" Claudia dropped her jaw in shock at the sudden appearance of the CEO.

Eisuke flashed her a cold stare as he spoke without a trace of warmth in his voice. "You're in my way. Move."

Intimidated by his harsh tone, both Claudia and the sleazebag automatically moved to make way for Eisuke and the two fashion models on his arms.

"I-I'm sorry, Mr. Ichinomiya, sir! Pardon me!" The stocky man furiously wiped away the sweat from his brow before turning to scamper away.

One of the fashion models rolled her eyes in disgust. "Ugh, I just can't stand people who don't know their place."

"Let's go, Eisuke." The other model gently tugged on his arm.

Eisuke started walking further into the crowd with the two women, pushing past Claudia without giving her a second glance. Claudia felt overwhelmed by his presence as she watched him walk away. She was about to turn around and leave herself when she suddenly caught a glimpse of a white glove on the floor behind him. He must have dropped it. Claudia leaned forward to pick up the glove and carefully looked it over. Wasn't this the kind of glove you wore when handling paintings or artifacts? Why would he have something like this?

"Um, Mr. Ichinomiya…" Claudia called out to his back as he got further and further away from her. "Excuse me!"

She tried to chase after him, but he got lost in the crowd, and she could no longer seem to find him. She quickly scanned the crowd and caught a glimpse of him once again going through a door alone towards the back of the ballroom.

Claudia made her way through the sea of people to follow him. She was just going to return this to him and then get the hell out of here. Running into that creep earlier dampened her mood enough that she felt she had gotten her fill of this party for the night.

A long, deserted hallway stretched out behind the door Eisuke entered. Claudia looked left and right as she wondered which room he went into. There were several doors on either side of the hallway. She heard voices coming from the farthest room and began to walk towards them. The door was slightly ajar, so she peeked inside. There were several briefcases lying on a table filled with guns and large sums of money. Three men dressed in all black were discussing something. Were they speaking in Chinese…? Maybe they were gun smugglers!?

Claudia sucked in a sharp breath when suddenly someone roughly grabbed her arm and spun her around. She was swung around and slammed up against the wall, and she stared at the man in front of her like a deer looking into headlights.

"What are you doing here?" Soryu sternly narrowed his eyes at Claudia, then quickly widened his eyes in surprise. "Wait… Claudia?" He sighed as he recognized her, quickly releasing her from his strong grip. "You have five seconds to disappear and forget everything you just saw."

"G-got it…" Claudia stammered as she quickly turned to run. Wasn't that guy friends with her sister!? Just who was he!?

Claudia's heart was still racing as she found herself reaching the basement storage room. Soryu really gave her quite the scare back there, but at least he let her go. She wasn't sure just how differently that would have gone if Soryu didn't recognize who she was. She was still in shock, and her body just kept automatically moving. She walked backwards a step and bumped into a stack of boxes, and she whipped around just in time to see it hit two men carrying a large wooden crate, which was knocked to the ground.

One of the men gasped at the sound of something breaking, and he quickly tore into the wooden crate to inspect its contents. He picked up part of a broken statue out of the crate and stared at it widely. "Ahhh! The statue of Venus is broken!"

Claudia gasped as she peered inside the crate to see several broken pieces of the glass statue scattered about. Uh oh…

"I'm so sorry!" She clasped her hands over her mouth, and she worriedly knit her brow.

Claudia had thought she had seen that statue somewhere before, and suddenly an image she had seen on TV flashed through her mind. The president of France had given it to Japan as a gift, and it was stolen from the museum it went to just a few days ago… she had seen it on the news. But there was no way that statue was it… right?

The other man angrily barked at Claudia as he backed her into a corner. "Hey, this was a very important piece that was going to be auctioned off! How are you going to pay for this!?"

Between the crash, sound of glass shattering, and now shouting, Cereza stopped in front of the basement door as she frantically looked around for her sister. When she laid eyes on her being cornered by two shady-looking men, her eyes snapped open in shock.

"Claudia!" Cereza dashed in and charged at the two men holding her sister.

"Cereza, no…!" Claudia cried out as she watched one of the men turn and grab Cereza's wrist tightly.

"Let go of me!" Cereza struggled to pull her wrist away, but the man's grip on it was too strong.

"We'll just have to put you two up for auction instead…" One of the men chuckled darkly as he balled up a fist and rose it up towards Claudia's face.

"Number five for $2 million! Going once…"

They had been knocked out by those two men from before and put up for auction in place of the Venus statue. Claudia and Cereza had only regained consciousness shortly before being carried on stage. Claudia just couldn't believe someone was actually bidding $2 million for them both…

Seat number five was right in front of the stage. Even though he had on a mask, Claudia could tell it was that greasy old creep from before. Was he going to buy her? She definitely didn't want that!

The man in seat number five leered at Claudia as he held up his bidder's card.

"$2 million going twice!"

What was going to happen to her if he bought them for that much money? The auctioneer had said she could be a slave, or a toy… both horrible options.

"If there are no other bids, it will be sold to the man in seat number five."

Claudia fell to her knees and hung her head while Cereza stood beside her, angrily gripping the iron bars of the bird cage. All of the tears Claudia had been holding back desperately threatened to overflow. What was she going to do…!? Her sister was stuck in here with her, and Stephan was God knows where…

Just then, the auction hall suddenly buzzed with commotion.

"Seat number one hundred with a bid of $20 million!"

What!?

"Are there any more bids!?"

Through her tear-blurred vision, Claudia saw the bid amount projected on the screen. $20 million. $20 million… dollars!? All she could do was stare up at the sum of the winning bid, completely dumbfounded.

All of the color drained from Cereza's face as the auctioneer shouted, "SOLD!"

It was all happening so fast that Cereza had barely had any time to process what was going on. She was just looking for her sister, then got knocked out and put up for auction… then sold for $20 million!?

A bell chimed, closing the auction. The bird cage was carried over to the edge of the stage by a few scary-looking men dressed in black. Claudia and Cereza are let out of the cage when two masked men approached them suddenly.

"This way…" Then men grabbed onto their arms and began walking.

"Where are you taking us!?" Claudia struggled in their grasp, completely panicked.

"You'll see." One of the men mused aloud with a wicked grin on his face.

Claudia felt totally numb from this unbelievable situation, and she shivered fearfully as her sister grabbed her hand. Cereza gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as they followed the two men over to an elevator. They couldn't believe there were secret auctions going on in the hotel's basement, or that they had been sold at it.

Just what was going to happen to them now?