Act VIII: Nine Years Later, Chapter VI: Phenotown Conspiracy

Connor Packer was new to this yet, but the concept of putting to rest a friend or loved one, honoring and remembering them at their own funeral, was too dark, too grim but powerful enough to strike upon his youthful, pure heart. As to why it was happening now, it was due to his own wild theories composed of nothing but secondhand feelings that ran down to his back. That was enough for his female classmate, the one in the coffin, to go on her own secret mission to uncover whatever was happening under their noses.

The one fact that Connor feigned ignorance in, when he knew her parents needed closure, the right questions answered after being left unaddressed for so long. And it had taken long for them to be bothered with, and in time, these timeless questions with all answers and potentially no answer, known to nobody.

At times, they, as thoughts, came circling back and leave him running scenarios of just about everything. Alternate paths with a better outcome, hypothetical moments where he went to confess his own part- and to reveal just why a Royal Woods girl was found dead far from a police precinct when he very well knew she had gone there. Only he had known of it, and he was only a child then, with his word meaning so little and simply made excusable.

Meanwhile, the the entire case in general, a homicide case involving half the police department, had made it well airing on the news stations, covering over poor She With A Soul's own case. Far less had known, but the important thing was that her friends and family had learned it and showed their anger and sadness around, a nasty virus with no symptoms other than the unbearable itch and its cold it brought upon. The fire upon skin.

Always, he wondered when it did come back, just why had they moved her body and placed it upon the woods to be found? And over the years, it gradually made more sense to him. The backlash, the nosedive of their reputation and just how weird and suspicious things would be if the fact that there was a girl present during the massacre was made public. Oh yes, the one thing that they'd never comment on, even if they were also rendered curious about it.

That was it, that was how Jordan had met her end. Not of an accident in a home for residents. Not of some cancer or any ill-fated means, and certainly not of old age, but of a gun wound, body discovered around the woods just outside of town without so much as an explanation. Never mind that ballistics matched the lethal bullet to the ones found in the other corpses, it seems no one was trying to get anything out there- and whoever had the job to unveil silent truths must have been turned away, misdirected to false leads. Perhaps someone out there had indeed gotten close to the truth and were hushed by someone close to the department. Either way, Connor only helped himself to seeing an injustice through it all, and lived with the torment, not just of her death being swept under the rug, but of his involvement as well. His torment, a parasite that remained alive yet, a creature that only surfaced a few times a year, and when it had come, throughout the latter years, he'd touch the good stuff from father's cabinet and helped himself, drinking away far from home.

And today was one of those days where he was lost of his own accord, a day where it wasn't close enough near her birthday or death day, thank fuck for that. He was a bum right now, hair frizzled out, glasses nothing else beyond aging; his ragged camo pants had its color fading, and that was before mentioning the bleach stain in the back. This, and his dark blue zip-up hoodie didn't make him seem like a friendly party for any reason. If he had stuck around the main roads, there'd have been some generalizing soul to have called the police- those bastards- on him, and that was a big no-no he'd let happen, ever.

He was high off a couple of joints, red-eyed and almost completely gone. His eyes saw rather odd things, like flying colors taking shape before him, a fractured rainbow at best, to animalistic caricatures running about like he had stepped foot in an old 80s Disney movie. He heaved and wheezed about, having a jolly good time in his weed session, escaping again the reality that continued to keep dead that poor ginger he had sent off to die. His laughter, an empty effort yet again. Futile and pointless, when he knew he'd spiral back down in the memory of her, the cycle restarting from scratch. And for one, he could not go at it forever. He could not drink, he could not smoke long-term for long without paying the price. And that price was coming, as well as the aging disease. Maybe it was both combined that would end up killing him, or worse.

Still, he was caught up in the moment, walking along the trees, playing peekaboo with the creatures that weren't really there, trying not to trip over any fallen branches or slip in his current state. "Come on, my friends! I can see you behind-"

He wiped at his eyes, irritated by the redness. That, the only thing that was a pest, and not the cold, and certainly not the night's darkness, where he could barely see anything. Man didn't have his cellular flashlight out, didn't think to do so. "C'mon out, furry friends!"

No one would have ever guessed this was his future. He kept moving southeast, making careful steps. One of the caricatures, a chipmunk, sprinted up a tree, cackling away mockingly. Naturally, Connor took that as a challenge and made a break for the tree, tripping and falling right into it. He only hurt his shoulder this way, but shared a crazed laugh and looked back up the tree once he got back up. "Imma getcha! Little rat, you!"

He began scaling the tree, lifting himself up using the thicker branches, making leaps when he needed to. Thank fuck he was fit and active these days, not like before, when he was just an ass confined to a computer most of his childhood. The moonlight no longer covered him for his next transitions, so he had to calculate by feeling around. Connor eyed both left and right sides of the tree, not sure which side to tend to. "Eeny meeny-"

Daring tonight, he made an uneducated guess and jumped left, missing branch and falling straight down. "OH, FUCK!"

And he met the ground, without actually touching it. Instead, he floated four inches above it, staying absolutely still like time had been frozen exclusively for him so that he could live another day. "What the fuuuuuuck?"

The rustling had become apparent by then, grabbing his attention. He lifted his head and saw an elegantly beautiful young woman peer out from behind the tree, an arm extended out in his direction like she was trying to catch something he had thrown. The second she pulled her hand back to let it rest on her side, gravity finally worked again; he fell upon the dirt ground and made a groaning sound, shaking off whatever dirt had stuck to his face. "Oh, my-"

"Are you okay?" It was her voice that reeled him in. Such a lovely, warm voice of a rather sweet thing. She was wholesome in nature, a dear creature of softness, all morale probably intact. An angel who descended from the heavens just to save him. "What are you doing?"

"Ughhhh..." Of course, Connor was as lit as a campfire, so the logical state of reality was thrown out the window. This woman was not real, this woman was not here. And maybe he didn't climb up a tree, or he'd be dead right now. Dead, if not hurt with all bones broken at least. "I'm tired..."

"What?" Liby approached the young black man, pulling a flashlight from the satchel she was carrying around. She shone it right at him and saw the red in his eyes, followed by the dank smell of the drug he puffed in and out. "Oh... Oh!" Liby understood what was up with him. "Drugs are bad, you know?"

Connor rolled onto his back and laughed at her. Liby turned the light away from him, feeling nothing but sad pity for him. "Hehehehe..."

"Okay..." Liby sighed and shook her head in disbelief. "If you could, like, not climb the tree again?"

"Sure!" He slapped his hands upon his abdomen, bobbing his head around. "Wait, why?"

"You'll get hurt!" Liby protested emotionally. "You're lucky I happened to be coming your way."

"Thank youuuuu," Connor moaned out. "You're so pretty!"

"I think you should go home."

"Oh, I will, when I'm ready-"

Liby brought Connor up to his feet, helping him stand. She took both his hands and began to lead him back into town. He didn't resist, only moving drunkenly to keep up with her. He saw a thing of beauty with intent to keep him from danger, led back into the quiet streets of the lone Royal Woods until he reached his home. "Do you know where you live? Can you show us the way from here?"

Connor studied his environment and knew where he was, nodding with a goofy smile. "That's easy! I live on-"

"Don't tell me where, just tell me how to reach it." Liby let go of his hands and gave him the lead. "I trust you can take charge."

"Okay!" Connor went in front of her and began the slow stroll.

Liby thought it'd be easier if she just used her powers, but was not risking being caught around here, even if the town was on its sleepy state of mind. Bad enough this young man had seen her, but he could disregard it as part of his drug-oriented hallucinations. Here was hoping.

Her reason for being here was simple; find Lupa and bring her back to Grimmtown. Surely it had to be easy, but this was the only single lead she had to find the albino girl. If not here, where the hell had Lupa wandered off to? If only Liby had more to go on... The seconds. The minutes. The hours and the rest of the time terminology- It could go on for her to suffer for years to come, living as the only sister of a trio around in that lonesome place, hidden away far from the world.

Connor looked back to see Liby just as they had started passing under a streetlight, about to properly introduce himself when he saw something incredibly odd. Impossible at most. Liby, her face and the hair color and style, matching that of She With A Soul's own. In fact-

"Juh-Juh-Juh-" He gasped, regained his breath through his mouth stupidly, but otherwise kept his eyes on her. The uncanny similarities were there, making his head spin, proving the world worked in such strange ways that the human mind could not understand. But then, as he was, maybe it was the weed. Maybe he saw what he had wanted to see, that it had been a vision born of his deep guilt. But now? Of all the times he had done this and that, tonight was a change of pace. Tonight had shown him an unsightly thing of pain. He didn't like what he was seeing, so he looked away from her. Blinked. And ran off back to his house.

It confused Liby more than anything, but she ran after him anyway so he didn't get into any other mishap, still the least thing she could do. Maybe he was racing home, but even then-

"Slow down!" Liby wailed, letting him know she was hot on his tail.

"NONONO, GET AWAY FROM ME, JORDAN!"

"J-Jordan?" It only added to Liby's confusion. "Who's Jordan? Hey!"

Connor made a misstep upon the next sidewalk he crossed, face planting upon the cement. He broke his nose and glasses, spilling his blood about. "AGH!" He did a lazy job in trying to cup his nose up.

"Are you okay?" Liby caught up to him, using her hands to help him up this time. "Hey, let's look at-"

"Das my nose!"

"Okay-" Liby removed his hands away and looked at the damage. "Oh, my, that's messy!"

"It hurts," he cried.

"I know, but it'll be fine, okay?" Liby kept him up, despite him being heavier than her. "Help me out here, I know you can still walk."

"How is-?" Connor continued his glaring upon her. "J-Jordan-"

"Who is Jordan?" Liby asked again.

And with her being this close to Connor, she was just asking for the little show that he displayed; he broke into sobs and burrowed his head right into her chest, wailing about, but his cries were muffled up. Liby pulled her hands back at first, intending to take a step back, but there was something so heartbreaking about a person having to break down on her clothes. Something deep, even. He wrapped his arms around her, letting his knees hit against the pavement, making him even out physically. Liby allowed the stranger to unload himself, then patted his head with a warm touch.

In a sense, she could relate to him. She was upset and alone and she had no outlet that she could just explode at any given moment. Her journey to find Lupa, continuing to take its toll on her mental being, but she found herself relaxed, solely because she was now away from her mind, distracted by another, finding herself to be needed by someone with an apparent hardship greater than hers.

She needed it now. "Shhhh, it's gonna be okay... It's okay..."

And Connor was grateful for her letting him unload the years' worth of agonizing burden in holding in the demons that kept him trapped, confining him to a cell far down, far away. It was time for him to be let out, by a representation, a mere spiritual form of the one dead girl he let down.

"Sit down with me when you're done," Liby proposed, "I think you need to cool down."

"Y-y-your clothes-"

"Don't worry about it." Liby formed a convincing smile to assure Connor. "Just- Please, sit." The mothering woman helped put Connor sit on the sidewalk, then helped herself upon it, keeping him company. "So, uh, what's your name?"

"I-I'm C-Connor."

"Connor," she whispered gracefully, "I'm Liby, it's nice to meet you." She held out her hand, being formal with the introduction. Naturally, the young black man was drawn to close the deal out of obligation of being well-mannered. "I'll stay here with you, until that clears up."

"Y-you can't be real..." Connor blinked rapidly, still believing Liby was just a realistic vision. "I'll find out, and you'll be gone."

"You think you're imagining me?" Liby didn't blame him since he had seen her use her powers to save him. "That's fair, but I suppose we'll see soon enough. Now, I'd like to know who this Jordan is, if you don't mind me asking."

Connor non-verbally raised his hand and pointed at her.

"I don't follow..."

"You're Jordan."

"I just told you my name." Liby clapped her hands together and breathed into them to heat them up. "Gosh, it's so cold. I just wanna be back home..."

"S-sorry..." Connor bobbed his head down. "You can l-leave if you want... I just wanna be alone."

"But, that's not a good thing," Liby shared personally, "you should know that. And I'm here, you can talk to me."

"What?"

"Come on, you can trust me... As odd as this might all feel." Liby smiled perfectly at him. "Please?"

"Uhhh..." Connor exhaled and folded his hands together, resting them on his lap. "This really is odd."

"I know, I know you probably aren't used to this but I'd prefer you talking to me instead of running around, screaming like some crazy person. I wouldn't like seeing you get hurt, or maybe in trouble with the law. Last I checked, drugs are bad, right?"

"Ugh," Connor moaned, accepting his defeat. "Okay..."

To which Liby giggled. "You shouldn't do them."

"I..." Connor thought of his words before speaking. "I guess you're right."

"There's no reason for you to, especially not to run away, which is what I feel you're kinda doing here." Liby zeroed in on his weighted burden, trying to get him to open up. "Come on, talk to me and I'll be out of your hair."

"I- I don't know what to say-"

"We can start with this Jordan person," Liby decided. "Tell me about her."

"Ehhhh..." Connor paused and gave it some thought, scanning Liby's face in the process. "Swear you're not her-"

"I've been saying I wasn't," she teased. "I'm guessing she looks like me for you to confuse me for her. She sounds like a classy girl."

"S-she was," he corrected. "She was classy..."

"Was?" Liby raised an eyebrow. "What happened to her?"

"She died."

August 18th, 2030

"H-how could you just-?" Liby found Lupa in the last place she thought to find her in Grimmtown; her private range, a bunch of benches with cans lined up for her to shoot with her fingers. Seventeen of the cans, knocked onto the ground, the remaining thirteen still standing, asking to be struck with perfect precision. But Liby had come to interrupt her. "Hey, come on-"

"What do you want?" For Lupa, this was her own coping mechanism following Lacy's tragic passing. She was cold, the obvious type to close the door on her feelings and lock the room, to run from it and pretend it had not ever existed. "You're bothering me."

"Could you look at me at least?" Liby hated that cold nature Lupa had. It put the two on different spectrums, opposite of each other, there was no denying it everytime when they woke up, ate together, went about another day in Grimmtown, living with the other residents. Liby fit in perfectly, but Lupa had always the heavy heart, the dark thing in her that continued to keep her from forming the same connections as Liby would go on to have. Lupa was never really there, for reasons unknown, perhaps it was due to something that had gone overlooked. "We'll talk later."

"I've been looking for you for half an hour!"

"You know I spend my time here, sis." Lupa snapped her fingers again, taking out the next can. "There's nothing I really wanna do around here."

"What? B-but there's so many interesting people. They're our people, for God's sakes!"

Lupa caused all the tables to flip over, knocking everything to the ground. She didn't want to hear Liby rant away on how bad a sister she was being right now. "And?"

"You can't just close yourself up like this! I know you're hurting, but avoiding it won't help you. I... I really think you need to open up. At least to me or Demonet..."

"I do what I want, how I want it." Lupa finally faced her with a firm glare of irritation. "There's a reason I wanna be alone."

"It- It just isn't right." Liby could only wish what she wished would be about Lupa. "You're feeding into the cycle... It hurts me to see you fall like this."

"I'm not falling, I'm coping," Lupa corrected. "There's a difference."

"Coping?" Liby scoffed, looking at the range. "You call this coping? This is anger gathering up, it won't do you any good."

"And what do you know about good?" Lupa gestured about with her right hand now. "You, me, that Lynn clone, we're just artificial things put together by some fucking evil scientists. Good was never meant to be within us, they made us with a piece of Lincoln Loud and I'm the closest one here to him! They made it so when we get bruised or wounded, we'd heal right away!"

"We aren't-"

"WE ARE!" Lupa yelled over Liby. "WE ARE WHAT THEY MADE US BE!"

"We're here to change all that!" Liby reminded. "We've come here to do that, and it was supposed to be the three of us! Just us, away from all of their sick drama or whatever crap you want to call it! And for a second..."

Lupa stayed quiet to listen.

"We had perfect happiness here, we were left alone, and it was just us. None of the others, just us being here together. We were able to change our fates, so why can't you let go of thinking what they wanted?! Not our problem, end of story!"

Lupa looked away, the foreboding piece of evidence that made Liby begin to understand that Lupa lived in the past, that perhaps she was stuck thinking and telling herself she was a weapon. Nothing Liby could possibly say would change that. "Okay... Okay then," she simply said. "Are we finished?"

"I..." Liby sucked it up and wrapped it up with no choice. "I guess we are."

But she walked away, promising to help the next person who needed it. If it could not be Lupa, in this day and age, it had to be the next one after her, maybe the rest. And sure, she would better herself and become that one type of sweetheart who'd lend an ear, tend to your needs as much as she could, make you laugh with all memes, and nerd out with talks of mutual interests if possible. And she was determined to get there with someone, where she made them feel good and defeat the cold components of their system to have a worthy connection.

"Oh," Liby gasped, "sorry to hear that." She offered him a hand on his shoulder, sincerely rubbing her thumb about. "How close were you?"

"Close enough," he admitted. "We were good friends, and I..." He thought of telling her his greatest sin, but feared it would scare her, for it was a pretty big deal and there was no reason to involve her. The death of two red-haired girls on his conscious would be too much for him at this point. "I miss her," he changed up. "I-"

"I understand your feelings here, honestly," Liby opened up. "I lost someone close to me nine years ago. She... She was killed, you see, and it didn't need to happen. It was all so fast-"

"What? Y-you saw a loved one... Die?" Connor was blown away, mouth agape, face turned to her. "Did you, really?"

Liby wandered back into the faint memory of her in that tunnel system, where she, Lacy and Lupa had been gathered before Dylan Blood, the dreaded pheno-killer who unloaded the killing round in Lacy. A tombstone of a memory, even while it faded from clarity of mind, remained to be a significant memory, one of the big ones she wished to have erased forever, would continue to haunt her until the day she died. The memory of Lacy, the Lynn clone, recognized as only a corpse. Her voice, her smile, her whole personality, going... Going... Bound to be gone. Just like Lynn was gone. Just like her original was gone. Time took them all, and death was scary when you were alone.

She didn't blink, fearing to see the dark of it all over again. "It happened nine years ago," she revealed.

"Wait, at the start of this decade?" The sole fact took him by surprise, making him realize this couldn't have been a coincidence. "That's... That's when we lost Jordan, too."

"Really?" Liby's lips split apart to a slit. "Wow, I- I don't know what to say here. I mean, I'm sorry for your loss..."

"Sorry for your loss, who were they for you?" Connor coughed then, "I mean, if you don't mind-"

"No, no, it's alright," Liby assured. "She was my sister and we've been through enough in our lives. Sometimes I feel just plain stupid to think we were invincible here. You know what I mean? Like, we were only young, and nothing could really happen to us at that age. Blind ignorance, I know, but..."

Connor nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean... Uh, Liby, was it? I'd have loved to live those first few years of my life without worry or trauma, and some are lucky- Well, maybe a lot of kids grow up with that kinda luck, but not us... We weren't meant to be lucky in this life, I suppose."

"I don't know, Connor... I couldn't tell you about luck, but I know we're still here, and that has to mean something, right? I still remember my sister and that's how I want it to be. As painful as it's gonna be, I guess I really don't want to forget her or how she left this world. And the only reason I'm here in town is to find my other sister. I don't know if I'll find that one, but I hope she turns up here, because she's all I have left."

"That's a bitch move if you ask me..." Connor thought. "This other sister, she just left you?"

"Basically, and there was no way I'd let this happen, no matter what reasons she had for leaving." Again, Liby created friction through her hands, reheating her hands. "I still don't want to believe it, but it keeps being clear that she wanted to just leave me. I don't know why, I don't know if it's me, and if it was me-" Liby frowned and closed her thought now.

"D-don't fault yourself, it might not have been you," Connor suggested. "Maybe it was her wanting something, I don't know. I really don't know what to say."

"You don't have to... Sorry, that might have been too personal for me to-"

"Don't worry about it, plus, weren't you saying not to hold it in? Seems like you should be accepting the advice you give right unto yourself." Connor then shared a chuckle lightly. "If you're gonna do it to me, then I get the right to do that to you."

"That's fair," Liby laughed back. "A taste of my own medicine. But... Yeah, I guess it feels good to talk. Funny enough, I don't get to do that often. Not about this, or the worse things before her death. I just only wish life turned out better for us all."

"I feel that," Connor sympathized. "I'd like that for myself, my family, and all those I know. Things are truly scary and unpredictable now, who would've thought?"

"It really is, but I trust things will get better for you guys as long as you keep your heads up and have faith. It's the most important thing to have in you, in your heart."

"Y-yeah, I see your point."

"Are you like, cleared?" Liby directly asked. "Or whatever- Sober, is that right?" She checked his eyes. Still red, but a lot less than before.

"How'd you do that with your hands?" Connor wondered again. "Wait, are you... You know, one of them?"

"What, one of what?" Liby feigned ignorance in a rather innocent manner, it played off adorably, but Connor could see past it well. "I'm not following-"

"You're a pheno girl," he deduced, nodding at her and this time seeing her in a new light. "That's scary, in a sorta sense. I mean, not you, I can tell you have a big heart, but-"

"Pffffft," Liby blew on her lips, "fine, you got me. Not something I want everyone to know, so I'd appreciate it if you don't to around talking."

"I don't see the need, I'm not some fanboy who kisses every pheno's ass." He readjusted his glasses as they felt slipping out of place. "I felt nothing but pity for all of them who were entrapped by Vial Corp. All those lawsuits, all that talk and the politics, it came out all at once, so much that it just became easy to forget about the victims themselves when there were chances to profit from all of it. And that's basically what most of the politicians did. They made the pheno registration laws so that they could just fine those who didn't. More money in their pockets, ha. And there's gonna be a lot of second-generation unregistered phenos, I'm sure. Not all first-genners with normal physique want to go showing off that they're phenos while they hook up with normal people, I mean. I'm sure there are children in existence, out there."

Liby only pictured Grimmtown as he talked away.

"Oh- Uh, sorry, this might be bringing you back to all of that," he apologized. "Didn't mean to-"

"Oh, you're fine!" Liby excused, smiling widely for no reason other than to level the scene. "It's fine, I don't remember much from back then. Like I said, long years."

"Understood." Connor held out his hand. "Nice to meet a pheno for the first time."

"You've never met-?"

"Not at all, this is a small town, I don't expect to meet one here, nor do I know of any pheno who came from here. Maybe there is, I don't know, I have never checked the registry. Too many names, you know?"

"I mean, I'm pretty sure there are," Liby laughed. "I'm from here. I mean, me and my sisters were from here."

"Here here, as in Royal Woods?"

"Yes, but I'd like to keep most of that to myself, sorry."

"Understandable," Connor accepted. "I think that's cool, Royal Woods having given residence to phenos. Ah, so you're here thinking your living sister came back home, right? That mean you're back home, too?"

"Well..." Liby could not dare lie to him. "We used to live here, I mean. Born and raised until... Well, bad stuff happened to us."

"I'm sorry you went through this hell," the young man sympathized via his heart. "I really am."

"Don't apologize for what they did, silly," Liby lightheartedly said. "You're the opposite of them, I can tell."

Connor held up a hand to his face. "I think I'm fine right now."

"You sure?" Liby, again, applied heat to her hands. "I wouldn't mind being with you for a couple more minutes."

Truth be told, Connor blushed briefly, making a weird squeak sound and turned his head away. It was the nature of how she said it, so lovingly, so heavenly, so damn sweet that it just might've given him diabetes. "R-really?"

"Of course really!" Liby cheered, smiling again. "Come on, it's better than being alone! I'm glad to have met you, Connor, even if we might not cross paths again in the future. You know, you're the first real person I've talked to outside of my current town."

"Wait, what do you mean by that? You don't go sightseeing?"

"As an unregistered pheno, I'd rather keep to myself, living in seclusion. Sometimes it gets boring, but there's always lots to do." She crossed her arms. "Being here is risky, I didn't want to come here, I'm putting my people at risk by being here, I could lead the wrong people back home."

"Y-your people... You mean, there's a town full of unregistered phenos?"

Liby gasped and twitched, looking away. "I-I shouldn't have said anything-"

"No, hey, I won't talk! Y-you can trust me, it's the least I can do..." Connor sighed deeply. "I mean, you did save me instead of letting me... Whatever could have been. You're a saint, Liby."

And thus, Liby blushed, but made no attempt to cover her face. When was the last time she had been called a saint? When was the first? "W-well, thanks, but I think it might have been fate who gave you a second chance, not me. I'm just here passing by, after all."

"And you're humble and modest, that's cute."

She blushed harder. "We'd better get moving. I'll walk home with you, and I'll be on my way after."

"At this hour?" Connor cocked an eyebrow. "You still wanna search for your sister at this hour?"

"I'm not trying to waste time," she confessed.

"Hey, come on, you'll die out here in the cold, I see it's beating you." He had an offer then, one of gratitude that he just had to hand out to her. "Come crash at my place for the night. You're no good trying to find someone out here at this hour. I mean, it can wait, right?"

"Oh, I don't mean to impose-"

"It's no trouble at all!" He then grinned at her, giving her back the same expression she had displayed to him. "Hospitality is the least I could do. I bet you're hungry, too, are you not?"

"Well..." Liby trailed off.

"You came here without a plan, didn't you?"

"Uh..." Liby gave in. "Fine, so maybe I came running to town in a rush, but I'm just desperate."

"Stay the night, relax, I insist..." Connor then coughed into his cupped hand. "I-I mean, your choice, but it's better than wandering out in the cold."

"You're right, I can't go on like this-" Liby shook her satchel bag. "I'm running out on supplies and food anyway."

"I trust your bag is almost empty?"

"Almost, but it'll never be empty."

And she was right; among all the normal stuff she brought with her, there was just one item inside that was not meant to be taken with her. She should have just buried the damn thing after she had found it, but curiosity got the better of her, and when she had finished learning what it held, she understood more about how Lupa differed from her and Lacy.

That damn book of dark witchcraft that mentioned monsters and malicious spells and how to conjure dark magic not meant for mere mortals. Liby did it anyway; she called up the same dark forces as Lupa had far long ago, ending up giving her soul for a new power, a boost she believed could help her on her journey.

Just ten more years of life... And less time with Lupa. Of course she was desperate. Always desperate.

And this night had brought Connor something close to a conspiracy of a town far away, unknown to him. Hidden from him. But it meant nothing these days if it meant death was close. And he had no idea how close it was as he looked to her again, grateful for a savior like her. Just who could predict she had a debt to pay?