Aegis rang as the heavy steel claw of a Deathstalker crashed into it. Lazula drove herself forward and into the blow, feeling the familiar surge of force through her arm, into her chest, and into her blade as she swung outward to cleave the scorpion's claw from its body with a shower of sparks. Impetus caught the glint of the sun as it twirled at the apex of her swing, and Lazula's grip on her weapon reversed. She stepped in further to push her blade through a visual sensor, an imitation of a Deathstalker's bulbous red eye.
The beast screeched and its feet scratched the cracked pavement. It swatted Lazula away with its remaining claw and flung its stinger down at her. Watching the great golden spear bear down with a look of confident focus, Lazula prepared her footing and raised Aegis again. Her responding slash left the steel plates encasing its tail split, and its stinger hanging by a thread.
Next, the trio of Beowolves. Each was only a bit taller than her, an easy kill. Just a pair of slashes to each, and a shield bash into the face of the third left the animatronics in a sparking heap.
"That's right," Lazula thought, grinning through a deep breath. "I've still got it."
An uncanny howl from the roof at her right demanded her focus. A Beringel. At least, an animatronic one. The hulk leapt from the roof, slamming the concrete hard enough to fling a wave of shrapnel into Lazula's shield. She looked up just in time to see the beast's fist flying her way and she sidestepped the blow, tearing down the creature's side until her blade glanced off the edge of its armor. She chanced a second stab into its dark flesh before pulling back.
The beast's two handed blow was too heavy to block- at least without a second to prepare. Lazula tumbled out of the way, risking a second of blindness to turn around and face her attacker.
A crushing weight forced the breath from her. Lazula choked and stabbed at the Beringel's fist as it wrung her waist, but to little effect. It heaved Lazula into the air before it let her gasp for breath, and jumped up to swat her out of the sky with opposite palm.
She hardly managed to raise her shield against the worst of the blow before she was flung backward into the second story of a worn-down parking garage. She nearly landed on her feet, but lost her stance and tumbled backward across the cold floor before she could stand.
The Beringel hollered as it climbed the side of the garage. Lazula gripped Impetus. She waited.
The ground beneath her boots quaked and a growing cacophony filled her ears before the concrete above exploded. Lazula hopped away as the beast landed on her floor with a howl, and a clanging of fists on its steel chest.
Before it could leap to her, Lazula sprung into the cloud of rubble, meeting the Beringel in the center with a jab to its gut, just between two plates of steel. She pulled her blade free and ducked under a wild swing, blocking the next and using its force for her own slash. Two more brutal swings met Aegis's face, and Lazula avoided a third before slashing down the animatronic's arm. It turned with a wide swing Lazula just barely had time to duck under before forcing her back with a loose chunk of concrete.
The Beringel used her second of defense, creating a vicious shockwave of splitting concrete with its fists on the ground. Lazula held her stance steady but the ground at her feet cracked and ruptured into a cloud of shrapnel, flinging her once again through the air and out the other side of the parking garage. She just barely managed to land upright on the street below.
The hulk leapt into the air with another vicious howl, its body blotting out the sun. Lazula held Aegis steady. She watched as the creature crashed back down toward the street, letting out a breath and lowering her shoulder to brace herself.
The Beringel's fist slammed into Lazula like a speeding truck. Her body crumpled nearly to the pavement, but she refused to buckle under its weight. Every muscle in her body tensed and her teeth clenched so hard she thought they would split. She let the energy gather in her chest. Let some free as she lurched onto her forward foot, stepping behind it with her back leg and beginning to swirl forward.
She straightened out with a wild swing that crossed the Beringel's body from hip to shoulder. The budding energy exploded forward in a single blast that sounded like a bomb, shredding steel like paper and vaporizing the false black flesh of the animatronic.
The resulting wave of wind hit the parking garage, leaving a cleft in its side. Lazula heard a couple of cracks from within as the top began to shift and flatten, and the whole structure- half the size of a city block- came tumbling down in a cloud of dust.
"...I believe I told you to limit damage to the animatronics, and the facility," her father's voice spoke from behind.
"The animatronic is the one that smashed the roof in," Lazula protested, sheathing Impetus and prodding a scrap of metal with her boot. "Maybe you should make these things a bit more durable."
The Headmaster replied with a dry chuckle. "Well otherwise, nicely done. Looks like the others at least will be in working order before this year's entrance exam." He adjusted his collar. "Come on. We should get back before they arrive."
Lazula paused. "Who's they?"
"Douglas and I have agreed that, due to certain circumstances, Snow will live with us for the time being. She's arriving this afternoon."
When Lazula reached the edge of Sentinel's practice island, she noticed Caspian waiting at the exit. He looked nervous about something. But really, he almost always did. He put whatever was bothering him to the side and smiled a bit.
"That was amazing! There's no way I could handle a Beringel, especially one that big." He laughed. Still nervous about something, by the way it sounded. "You took down a whole building with it. I still can't wrap my head around how strong your semblance is."
"Thanks. Train with me, and maybe I could teach you how to deal with one. We could finally figure out your semblance, too."
"O-Oh- yeah, maybe sometime." Was his noncommittal reply. He started fidgeting. "B-By the way, Cat was wondering. She wants to move up in the Academy League and maybe go on to the PHL, so..." Lazula crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, and Caspian's nerves doubled. "I guess she was wondering if you knew anyone? Like- to... get her in touch with someone who might..."
"Is that what this is about?"
"Huh? I mean, I did come to watch you train, it's not like I only-"
"If she wants to make a name for herself, she needs to put an effort in," Lazula snapped. "You don't move up in the huntsman leagues by knowing people, you move up by being better than them."
"So, what should I tell her?"
Lazula pressed past Caspian. "Exactly what I just told you." A few steps away, she bit her lip, and turned back around to her brother. "Am I all she sees in you?"
"Wh-What? What do you mean by that?" Caspian demanded.
Lazula turned back around. "Nothing. Let's get home."
Not ten minutes of practicing exactly what to tell Cattleya passed before a car door outside signaled Snow's arrival. Caspian made his way to the front door. In part, because helping them would be the nice thing to do. Part because doing so helped get his mind off that dreaded conversation with Cat. She asked one simple favor of him, and after a week of putting it off and telling himself he was waiting for the right time, he failed.
The one time someone relied on him, he failed.
Snow had surprisingly few things to move. The Skye Manor's guest room already came fully furnished, so Uncle Douglas, Aunt Holly, and Snow had no issue transporting the bulk of her luggage. The lack of work left Caspian to his curiosity. Holly laughed and clutched her husband's arm after a joke, showing off the wedding ring she was so proud of. No issues between them, that's good. Maybe it's work, and the two of them don't have time to take care of Snow? That wouldn't make sense. She's capable of taking care of herself, and the girl hardly seems bothered by solitude.
Caspian's mind moved to the investigation. Had they caught on? Did she tell them?
A gut feeling told him the answer lay somewhere near that thought.
As Snow took to organizing her new room, Caspian returned to his. It seemed to be one of those days where his mind moved a mile a minute, but failed to crank out anything productive. He lay on his bed with eyes intent on the ceiling, thanking the fact his room was air conditioned.
The news hadn't mentioned any more victims. At the beginning of Summer, he killed four within a couple of weeks, but more time than that had passed since Caspian had heard a thing. The news was silent, nothing online. Port Cyrreinne's serial killer was on everyone's minds and lips for weeks, but now no one else he knew besides his friends so much as mentioned it anymore. It was almost as if the whole thing had never happened.
Maybe the news found out the true identity of his victims?
Organic Androids. Hyper Intelligent computers rigged to a titanium alloy skeleton and carbon fiber body, wrapped in human flesh. Completely indiscernible from human beings- so much so their uniforms are the only way to tell them apart from their owners. But if that's the case, how did the murderer know he was killing androids, and only androids?
Caspian's mind wandered to the conversation he overheard from his father at the beginning of Summer, before vacation. "What are all the losses? EMP gun, External-Use BCS Analyzer?"
Wait.
"Holo, bring up pictures of External-Use BCS analyzers."
Caspian nearly gasped at the picture. It was a visor, a black band across the user's brow ridge with dark shades over her eyes and a small electronic box on one side.
"The External-Use BCS Analyzer was developed by Frontline Biomedical Technologies, and allows for employees to assess an Organic Android's Brain-Core System (BCS) externally. This device is unable to assess internal issues, but..."
The man in the surveillance footage was the killer. He used a stolen analyzer to search out androids, before returning at night to kill them, likely with the EMP gun he stole along with it. If the EMP gun and BCS analyzer are only accessible by Frontline employees, he was very likely one of them.
Finally, he closed in on the truth.
But what else was Headmaster Skye talking about? What is Operation Ark? And who is 'Eve?'
A knock at the door paused his train of thought.
As soon as Caspian opened the door, Snow let herself inside wordlessly. With a curious look, Caspian closed it behind her.
"Are you continuing the investigation?"
"Uh- no, not really. There isn't much to work with these days." Caspian did a double take between Snow and the door. "Did you tell them about it?"
"No."
"Then why are you staying here?" Caspian asked. "I mean, I don't mind, but..."
"Due to certain circumstances, they believe it's best I stay here." She stepped closer, her eyes intent on his own. "And while I'm here, I'm keeping an eye on you. If you choose to continue the investigation, I will have no choice but to tell both my father and yours."
A few days passed before Caspian found time to meet with what remained of Team CRIMS. Sentinel's campus had opened up some in the weeks since the news about the murders. This included the school's main library. Only a handful of students stayed on campus for the Summer, and of those, even fewer used the library when homework and exams were no threat. It was quiet, and cool. Better there than outside in the rare heat wave that gripped the city.
"Come on, man! You've left us in the dark!" Rowan teased. "When you said you found something big and told us we should meet soon, I didn't think 'soon' meant four days!"
Caspian sighed. "Been having to do it all in secret since Snow moved in," he replied. "She told me if she finds out we're still doing this, she'll tell my dad and hers."
Rowan pouted. "What a snitch..."
"She'd probably get suspicious if the three of us hung out without her. She's doing some kind of check-in or therapy or something with Frontline today though."
"Team CRIMS has lost its M and S," Ichigo mused. "Now all that's left is CRI. And I'm going to."
"Not so fast!" Rowan comforted. "Cas, you said you had news?"
Caspian smirked. "I do. Just before vacation, I overheard my dad talking about some stuff involving Frontline. He mentioned someone stole something called an External-Use BCS Analyzer and EMP gun. I did some research, and both of those things are manufactured by Frontline, for Frontline. Considering the security at their headquarters, I doubt anyone besides an employee could get close to those things."
"The android killer works for Frontline?" Rowan repeated.
Caspian made an urgent hush sign, his eyes flicking around to the few students who took refuge indoors. The two closest had headphones on, and the guy further away didn't seem to notice Rowan's outburst.
"That makes the most sense to me. But also, look." Caspian unstrapped his Holoband and lay it flat on the table, projecting an image of the BCS analyzer between the three.
Rowan blinked. "...What about it?"
"That looks just like the thing the guy from the surveillance footage was wearing!" Caspian answered. "It wasn't a perfect shot by any means, but we got a pretty good look at him from the camera in the department store. Ichigo. Could you look into Frontline's employee database? See if any former employees look similar to him?"
"Considering they make computers human-like enough to flirt with, I'm gonna guess it's not gonna be easy to hack in," Ichigo considered. "But yeah. Probably." He rubbed his chin, suddenly looking completely lost to his own world as he opened his computer and began mumbling. Caspian couldn't tell if it was to him, or himself. "If I'm able to get past the firewall I can get a RAT in there, and extract employee data from their system. Come to think of it, that's probably what that Kraken guy did to me. I practically made my own antivirus software that I thought was foolproof, but here we are."
With a bit more mumbling Ichigo got to work. After some time, his furrowed brow deepened and the frustrated eye rubs became more frequent. He finally looked up to Caspian and Rowan.
"Yeah. I was right. Frontline knows what it's doing."
As if waiting for an invitation, Kraken's textbox reappeared. Within it were four words.
"Let me take over."
Ichigo's screen went still for a couple of seconds, before the hacking resumed with renewed zeal. Caspian couldn't make the first hint of sense toward what was going on- a picture and four lines of text would flash before a wall of red text replaced them. Another picture, more lines of text. Repeat three or four times over per second, all while a second window logged each failed attempt with a nauseating string of numbers.
Finally, the red text was black. It disappeared, welcoming Ichigo with a white window filled with lines of ID photos and information.
"He... let me in," Ichigo marveled.
"How the hell does the Red Claw know how to do that?" Caspian questioned.
"Doesn't matter!" Rowan dismissed. Now that you're in, get to lookin'!"
"Just to be sure... they can't track you or anything, right?" Caspian checked.
"It's fine. I'm using a proxy system that links up across each kingdom and back twice. The system thinks I'm..." he leaned in toward the screen and fixated on the corner. Rufus Dowell, from Menagerie."
Countless lines of text and employee images flashed through the reflection in Ichigo's glasses. Twice during the few minutes of waiting and trying to decipher any hint of success from the look of focus on Ichigo's face, he paused to screenshot, and continued.
The scrolling stopped.
Ichigo's screen seized. Ichigo froze up too for a second, before lunging so close to his computer Caspian thought the lenses reflecting thick red text would touch it. "Nope. Nope. Not good. No thanks," Ichigo protested, smashing his keys in a frenzy before the screen went dark. He looked up to Caspian and Rowan, whose faces demanded an explanation. "Not sure the proxy worked. Darn security program attempted a direct link with my laptop. I probably shouldn't try getting back in, at least for a while."
"Well, did you find anyone promising in there?" Caspian asked.
"Two, actually," Ichigo answered. He pulled up the first picture, of a man with pronounced features, round glasses, silver hair swept behind his ears and darker sideburns to match the patch of hair on his chin. "First, Sylvester Arkit. IT lead for 18 years. 55 years old. Resigned last year with no official reason given. Says he's 6'0... and a faunus."
"That guy on the camera didn't look like he had any faunus parts," Rowan recalled.
"Yeah... I mean, Lilly and Laurel both have subtle features, but still," Caspian agreed. "Six feet tall seems a bit short for that guy too."
"Which brings us to Arum Ceddrak. Head of Organic Android Development Team. 48 years old, 6'5. Voluntary Resignation on June 15th of this year. Human." Ichigo grinned. "This guy's interesting, because when you compare him to the CCTV footage..."
Ichigo pulled up the best frame from the surveillance camera beside Arum Ceddrak's employee picture. His black hair was combed back neatly with a single lock approaching his left eye in both images. His eyes were near impossible to see under his visor, but the two images both clearly showed his long, thin nose and sharp jaw, covered by a goatee. He even wore the same shade of purple approaching black in his ID photo.
"No way..." Caspian whispered.
"That's the guy!"
"But... the head of Organic Android development quits his job, steals Frontline tech, and starts killing them? Something about this doesn't sit right with me..."
"If he had beef with Frontline you'd think he'd just activate a kill switch or something..." Ichigo pondered. "Sounds easier."
Rowan's eager grin fed the sickening feeling growing in the pit of Caspian's stomach. "This is huge! If only Snow and Moka could see us now!"
Caspian shook his head before lowering it to his palms. "Snow threatened to tell my uncle, another higher-up at Frontline. And everything about this case online is gone... they really don't want us knowing about this."
"Well we do, so... now what?" Ichigo asked.
Caspian gathered his computer and notebook, and zipped up his bag. "Let's go home."
"We just made the discovery of a lifetime!" Rowan urged. "We gotta look the guy up! Let's get some intel!"
"I'm going home. Snow's probably going to be back soon."
"So... pick back up soon?" Rowan asked, oblivious to Caspian's stonewalling. "We have a name now, so we can probably find out a lot about him from that."
Caspian began walking to the exit before his bag was slung all the way over his shoulder. "Sure, sure."
"You said we shouldn't confront him directly, but we can't just tell the cops and give them all the credit! Maybe we should bring it up with the school? Your dad has huntsmen..."
"I... don't think that's a good idea," Caspian answered. Finally, he was at the door.
There, in his usual button down and khakis, was Uncle Douglas. He swiped away a Holoscreen and pushed out from the column he leaned on to face the three of them. His amiable smirk was markedly absent.
"Cas. Rowan. Ichigo," he greeted in a low voice. "Would you three speak to me for a second?"
Caspian couldn't tell if his heart was going to stop, or beat itself to death. He choked out a reply with a nod.
"I'll get right to the point. Some time ago, Frontline Biomedical's servers were compromised by an external IP. We tracked the interference back to one particular computer on the campus of Sentinel Academy. Do you know anything about this?"
Rowan tapped Ichigo's shoulder. "You said they wouldn't find you!"
"I didn't think they would!"
"I see. And what drove you to bypass network security and look through our employee database?"
"I... like to hack into companies' servers and expose security flaws in their framework. Sometimes they give you money. Sometimes they're not as happy. Once I even got offered an internship."
"Hmm. It seems you took specific interest with the file of one 'Arum Ceddrak.' Why him, of all people?"
The three were silent.
Caspian's uncle leaned in, lowering his voice even further. "I'll cover for you this once. But listen. Frontline takes its security very seriously. If you were to be found out, you would be in a lot more trouble than you realize. Do you understand?"
A/N Hello again! Quick note, Arum Ceddrak's last name is an anagram of a famous character from a science fiction book/movie/another movie. And I think the two are pretty similar. Can you figure it out?