The first-year Moka towed found keeping up with each bouncing step through The Roots difficult. "This place here has pizza. If it's right out of the oven? Not bad. But if it's been sitting for a while I'd go for something else. It's also pretty greasy so if that's not your thing you can give it the ol' napkin patdown or just avoid it entirely."

A smile came to the face outlined by sharp red bangs, and the first year's huge grey eyes agreed. "Noted, thank you!" she acknowledged, and the ashen mess that fell to her shoulders bobbed with the nod of her head.

Moka pointed ahead to the next kiosk. "Speaking of grease, this place here has burgers. A little heavy for me, but my friend Rowan really seems to like 'em. They do have special fries on Mondays though, and their special-spiced curly fries are the best thing I've eaten. From here, at least. Oh! And then right here is my personal favorite, the Skye Café. Fun fact, Headmaster Skye's family ran a coffee shop back in the day, before he got involved in all that huntsman stuff, and then the whole 'headmaster of Sentinel' thing. This is the only one in Vale! They've got the good stuff, too. Special roasts from around the world, all kinds of fancy lattes, you get the idea."

"Oooh, fancy," the girl said. "I'll have to try it sometime."

"I'm actually pretty good friends with his kids– Oh! There's one of 'em."

Caspian turned curiously to the sound of Moka's voice. She stood at the mouth of the seating area, accompanied by a girl he was pretty sure he recognized.

"Hey guys!" Moka greeted. "This is Ashe. She joined the Sparring Team and now we're friends and I'm showing her around!"

Rowan and Ichigo joined Caspian in his silence, before Rowan eventually greeted the girl.

"I thought your team was doing some training exercise today?" Caspian tested. "That's what Cat told me, at least."

Moka's eyes blinked a hair wider, and her tail flicked. "First I've heard of it. She told me she and Blaise needed the living area for some project. I didn't remember having a project, but it wouldn't be the first time I forgot. We don't have a project in Advanced Kingdom History, do we?"

"Nope," Caspian responded. He jabbed at the pasta he suddenly had no appetite for. "Hi, Ashe."

The girl greeted the table with a stilted wave and an upbeat greeting before turning back to Moka wit her thumb over her shoulder. "What was that sandwich place in the corner? Can you show me that one?"

"Sure! Let's go."

A new pair of faces replaced the two as they left, one of which Caspian didn't expect. Snow took a seat next to him, and Lazula bid a nod to the group and set her sheathed blade down before sitting at a table just across the aisle.

"Hey Snow," Rowan said. "Whatever happened to 'weapons aren't allowed in The Roots?'"

Snow had no reply. Rowan began to follow up with another good-natured jab.

"Ohh wait wait!" Ichigo interrupted, pointing at the television mounted above Lazula's table. "It's starting!"

Griswold Baine held each side of his podium, his shadow lighting the wall behind him with each camera's flash. "Two days ago now, at Sentinel Academy's Entrance Ceremony, certain claims were made about Frontline Biomedical and our Organic Androids," he began. "I am here today to assure the people of Port Cyrreine, and all of Frontline's loyal customers, that this is nothing more than a mean-spirited hoax. We've spent the last two days investigating all androids produced, and can say with certainty none are within the student body of Sentinel Academy." He cracked a smile, and his dark eyes glimmered in the spotlight. "Furthermore, the claim that we have placed androids in the city of Port Cyrreine in secret to enact some insidious plot is also a hoax."

"So he's flat-out denying it, huh?" Ichigo murmured over the laughter onscreen. "Bold."

"Frontline's rep is so clean, of course people are gonna believe him," Caspian added. "And only we know otherwise, so there's not much we can do about it."

"...Frontline Biomedical issues the same uniform with all units sold. In the case one does lack this uniform, that indiscretion is on the consumer's end."

The press conference ended with a flurry of camera shutters and a horde of microphones swarming the stage. The rest of dinner was a typical day for the Knights of the Round Table. They finished their food and talked a bit after, until sundown suggested they get back to their dorms and start homework.

"Hey, Cas?" Rowan prodded, his hand holding the door to his room open a crack. "How are things with you and Cat?"

Caspian started, and his thumb slid on the handle of his own door before coming to rest at his side. "Oh– they're... good," he claimed. Even he could tell how strained his reply was.

Rowan sighed before letting his door close. "Look, I– I don't know how to say this. And maybe it's not my place. But I'm not sure you two are right for each other."

The words felt like a plunge into cold water. Cold water in which all the doubt he'd tried so hard to push down to the bottom was dredged to the surface. Caspian wanted nothing to do with it.

"You're right. It isn't your place," Caspian managed. Despite his retort, he waited for a reply.

"I don't know. I think she might only be in it for the money? I just don't want her to use you, man. You don't deserve that."

"She explained things to me when we were in Mistral. It's not just about the money."
"And what was all that about Snow?"

"What about her?"

"You said Cat flipped out on her or something, I don't know."

"She didn't 'flip out,'' Caspian explained. "Snow was ordered to stay with either Lazula or me, and since Lazula's busy all the time, Cat's just getting tired of the fact we have to drag her around everywhere. She just wants alone time. I get it."

"Why does Snow have to stay with you guys?"

Caspian balled his fist. "No idea."

Rowan turned around to his door, but let it fall closed once again as he turned to Caspian with another question. "And what's she doing with Blaise today? I think it's kinda sus she told Moka one thing and you another. You should check in with her."

"No, I-I'm sure there's some good reason–"

The door to Caspian's right opened, and an unexpected third loomed over him.

"I can hear you two arguing from inside my room, and for once Rowan's thinking straight," Noxis grumbled. "I don't know much about you two, but it sure sounds like she's in bed with that Blaise guy right about now."

"No, that's not– she wouldn't–"

Noxis shook his head, eyes narrowing as he stepped into the hall. "How you're acting right now is exactly why I can't stand you."

"...Huh?"

"Not your place, man. Cas and I were just having a conv–"

"You outright refuse to face reality. If something upsets you, you run from it. Like how you're backing away from me right now. Like how your sister's leagues ahead of you, and instead of training, you sit back and whine about it."

Caspian took a breath and felt his back settle on the wall as he stared at the ground between his feet. Hiding from the truth. Cat, Blaise, Snow– He couldn't even look at Noxis as the verbal deluge continued.

"You bend over backwards for everyone, but hate every second of it. You hate yourself, too. You hate yourself so much you think you don't deserve to be liked. So you manipulate people into liking you. Or pitying you, at least. You have some fooled. But not everyone. I bet your little girlfriend reads you just th same. She smells that weakness in you. And she knows exactly how to grab you by the balls and twist you however she wants."

"Noxis."

"You try to act like some saint, but you're actually just spineless! You let people walk all over you, and apologize when they trip! And you know what I hate most? After all that, you still have everything. And you have the audacity to act like some kind of gods-damned martyr!"

"Noxis!"

"No..." Caspian whispered with a weak shake of the head. He continued past Noxis and toward his room. "It's fine. Goodnight."

Caspian and Cattleya decided on a restaurant just off the main promenade fed by Seacrest Bridge, just half a mile or so West of campus. The noise of the city disappeared as soon as the door closed behind the two, and found themselves in a new world. The restaurant looked modern and chic, with plants mounted on smooth black walls, maple paneling and tables with a minimalist chandelier hanging above each.

"For three?" the host, dressed in all black to match the decor guessed with a friendly smile.

"Two, actually," Cattleya pointedly corrected. She jabbed her finger toward Snow. "She's separate."

"For one, please," Snow added.

The host nodded, and guided the three to their tables. Cattleya and Caspian sat across from each other at a booth. Snow sat at a tiny, forgotten table about halfway toward the front of the restaurant.

"I wonder if their dumplings will be anything like the ones we had in Mistral," Caspian mused, admiring the sleek black chopsticks in his hand. "I'd fly back just to try those again."

"The ingredients matter. The ones back home were probably fresher."

"Hmm... well, the reviews were good, so I'm sure they're still pretty tasty," Caspian assured. "I can't wait to–"

Cattleya blinked at something over Caspian's shoulder, and she shook her head, eyebrows stitching together. "Snow. We told you not to bother us, remember?"

"Unless there's an emergency," Caspian added, fingers tensing around his chopstick. "Is something wrong?"

"We need to leave."

"What?"

Snow kept her eyes down, looking at the table near Caspian. "Look at the front of the restaurant."

"Are you serious? This is our night out. If you want to leave, go ahead. But Cas is staying."

Caspian looked to the front. At first, he couldn't tell which of the few people standing around the entrance bothered Snow. One man was being helped, and a family of four had just walked in. Then, he saw him. A full foot taller than the host guiding him to his seat. Black slacks, black button-down, black satin duster, and deep purple tie.

The same face Ichigo found in Frontline Biomedical's archives.

Arum Ceddrak's eyes crossed the room behind their visor, intent on Snow. They flicked to Caspian, and Arum bid him a cordial nod as he continued to his table, then thanked the host for seating him.

"Cat. I'm sorry."

Caspian dropped his wallet on the table in front of her, and began moving toward the front with Snow as quickly as he could without drawing eyes.

"Are you serious?" Cattleya shrieked. "Don't you dare leave me here!"

"Snow. I need you to tell me what's going on," Caspian insisted, holding the door open to let her leave before him.

After all, he only killed androids. There's no reason he should be chasing the two of them.

No reason at all.

Snow was already on the line with Caspian's father. "Headmaster. He's here."

The Headmaster cursed. "Both of you, put out a distress signal. I'll send Lazula and any available huntsmen to your location immediately."

Caspian shook his head. "Lazula's in the SFC, right? We're half a mile past the other end of campus. Even if she ran here, that's– what? Twenty minutes? Fifteen?"

"Where are you?" Headmaster Skye questioned.

"Near the bridge. I went out for dinner with Cat, and– he's outside. Go!"

"The halfway point will be just North of Slate library. I'm sending her over now."

Three seconds on the crosswalk. Nowhere near enough time to make it to the street and across five lanes of traffic, but Caspian didn't care. Snow had broken into a full sprint, and Caspian planned to follow her until he figured out just what they were running from, and why. The first car in line began to move as Caspian and Snow neared the opposite end of the street, blaring its horn as it came to an abrupt stop on the side of Caspian's leg. He offered half an apology to the shouting driver as he stumbled onto the sidewalk, and continued down the street toward campus. The way was filled with the typical crowd of a Saturday night. They yelped in surprise or demanded apology as Caspian tore past, begging help with any spare breath.

But, any time Caspian managed to grab someone's attention, they either didn't see, or didn't care.

Caspian felt an alert from his Holoband. Probably Cattleya. Or his father. As he brought his wrist up to his face he was met with the last name he'd expect.

Noxis.

"Hello?" Caspian answered between his breaths.

"Caspian. I got your distress signal. What's going on?"

Caspian's eyes blinked wider. He didn't expect help, but he'd welcome any that offered itself. "Snow and I! We're being chased! It's this guy– I think has been killing androids– I don't know why!"

"Really?" Noxis questioned. Something about his tone, that hint of excitement hidden among the question, made him uneasy. "Where's Lazula?"

"At the SFC" Caspian sputtered. Each word was agony. He couldn't remember the last time he had sprinted for more than a couple seconds at a time, let alone five city blocks. "We're meeting her."

"Got it. Keep your location open to me."

"Are you coming too?"

"Sure. On the way."

Lazula eyed the Sparring Team as they gathered in their indoor court. A few faces from last year had left, most because of graduation. So far the crowd had stayed the same, save for the pair of first-years, Ashe and Noriko. Ashe's combat outfit was simple and effective, a sleeveless burgundy tunic opened at front to reveal an armored grey and black bodysuit, and held in place by a pair of belts and a chestguard. Noriko's baggy, forest green pants and tube top matched the hair she pulled into a thick braid down her back, and showed off enough skin to display a sleeve of intricate black ink.

Both looked annoying to fight. Lazula wasn't particularly worried about Ashe's flaming sword, but her fire-dust arrows and control over smoke gave an advantage at a distance. Noriko, from what she had seen, was blindingly fast. And while her semblance was practically useless in most tournaments, given the right setting, she'd be a veritable threat.

"Alright, with warm-ups and logistics stuff out of the way, time for everyone's favorite part of the day!" Midas eagerly announced. "Do we have any challenges?"

A hand went up in the crowd. Before Midas could respond, the lights dimmed, and an inky haze obscured the windows. Lazula's eyebrows furrowed as the group settled into an uneasy murmur, and her hand came to rest on Impetus's hilt.

"This is a campus-wide emergency broadcast," the loudspeaker announced. "At this time, campus will be going into lockdown. Please find the nearest campus building, and lock all doors. We will notify you again when the threat has passed."

"Lazula," the Headmaster's voice called through her Holoband. Her wary eyes flicked from the dulling windows to her Holoband, and she tapped the tiny screen at her wrist to expand a map of campus. "Meet with Caspian and Snow at the location I just sent, North of Slate Library. This is an emergency."

"What is going on?" Lazula questioned.

"Are Cas and Snow in trouble?" Moka inquired, peeking over Lazula's shoulder. "If they are, I'm coming too!"

"Thank you. Tell everyone else to stay where they are."

The Headmaster's image blinked away before he had to answer any questions. As Lazula turned to leave, she saw Midas slipping out the door at the far side of the room. The smile he had just seconds before had washed away, replaced by a furrowed brow as he held his Holoband to his chin.

"Ms. Skye! Ms. Chino!" The front-desk worker warned as the two trudged past checkout and toward the blackened doors. "The school's under lockdown!"

"Direct order from the Headmaster," Lazula explained flatly, pressing forward without so much as a glance her way.

The first thing Lazula heard upon the doors sliding open was an ear-rending screech. Ravagers- had to be fifteen or twenty of them, swarmed above. Their red, leathery wings beat wildly in the twilight sky.

"Huh? Grimm?" Moka noted.

"The Red Claw must be here."

Lazula pulled Aegis from its sheath, and Moka raised her fist at the oncoming Beowolves. Half a pack of them, and a few Ravagers? Little more than an annoyance to most students, let alone the single greatest huntsman of their generation. Surely if it was an earnest attempt at attacking the Academy, they would have brought more.

As the first wolf's claw's bore down, Lazula ran out of time to think on her situation. She took the Beowolf's swing into her shield and added it to her own, dissecting it with her blade and the beast behind with a blast of pure energy. She pressed onward, thrusting her blade into the next beast's jaws and tearing out its throat to split the arm of the next down the middle before her blade granted mercy to both.

Moka shot bolts of lightning dust from her fists before being set upon by another pair of Beowolves. She ducked under the first swing with arms raised like a boxer, before brown static crackled around her arms, core, and legs to amplify the fiery uppercut that vaporized everything above the Beowolf's chin.

Moka's punch to the second Beowolf's gut left a shard of ice though its chest, and as it screeched in pain and fell back, she chased it down with a flying round kick that drove the spike straight through, into the neck of a second.

She shot another blast of lightning into the chest of a Ravager that flew too close. The beast's wings stalled for a second as it careened toward Lazula, who tore it down the middle. She cut through a Beowolf before another Ravager dove upon her, its daggers for claws scratching at the top of her shield as it attempted to lift her from the ground.

Lazula heaved her shield downward, smashing the body on pavement and skewering its chest until its wings stopped beating. She viewed the Headmaster's map behind her shield. Caspian and Snow neared the Eastern edge of campus, but she and Moka had hardly moved.

"We don't have time for this, damn it!"

Snow and Caspian's desperate dash for campus continued. Caspian couldn't be sure they were safe. Once he would look and see Arum on their heels, the next glance over his shoulder he was nowhere to be found. Finally, Caspian recognized the road. No cars, surprising even for the quieter end of the street. He and Snow tore across it, and between a pair of buildings– some administrative buildings Caspian wasn't even sure were ever used. But just one empty alley, then the footbridge to campus. The two were almost safe.

A low, electric hum behind them grew in a second to a wail of vibrato that reverberated in Caspian's core. The peculiar sound was capped by a blast nearly akin to a gunshot, and a flash of light.

Snow shrieked in pain, and stumbled to the concrete.

Caspian whipped around. The shot had pierced clean through her ankle, drenching her shoe in blood. Snow crawled along on her three good limbs, eyes frozen wide in terror.

"Oh, shit," Caspian gasped, looking between the gangly silhouette at the entrance to the alley and Snow's reddened face, strained in agony. Forehead drenched in sweat and fighting for breath through the tightness in his chest, Caspian lunged toward her, heaving her arm over his shoulders and helping her upright. "Come on. Come on," he repeated.

"I'm getting a bit old to be running like that," the silhouette taunted. Over his shoulder, Caspian saw him adjusting the side of what looked like a long, thin revolver with a spherical chamber.

Caspian struggled for each step, the exhaustion and panic blending together to grey the edges of his vision. He couldn't tell whether he was about to be sick, or if he'd pass out first.

Planting her one good foot, Snow heaved Caspian off herself with a surprising amount of force. He fell to the ground behind her, forced to watch as she pulled Absolute Zero from her belt and began to unload a volley of hard-light bullets at her attacker.

Arum winced as a couple met their mark at his chest and shoulder, but his aura held and he raised his own gun. Snow screamed as she whipped her weapon across her body in a bid to deflect the shot. It caught her weapon mid-transformation, destroying its blade with another blinding flash and deafening pop. The smoking hilt clattered to the ground behind Snow as she put too much weight on her bad ankle, and fell back to the ground.

Caspian crawled forward with sweating hands, standing on his knees and holding his arms out to shield Snow from their pursuer. "Why are you doing this?!" he begged. "Snow is– Snow is..."

In truth, between her showing up at the Skye Manor's door fresh from Frontline's headquarters, her unique nature, and her refusal to cooperate with the Arum Ceddrak case, he'd long doubted what she was. As much as he forced himself to believe she was human, Snow being an android made an uncomfortable amount of sense.

But he did know who she was. And he wasn't about to let her become the next victim.

"These bullets are specifically designed to eliminate Organic Androids. The EMP blast nullifies its EMRF, the electromagnetic field an Organd generates to simulate aura," Arum explained, stepping into a pool of flickering light. He raised his weapon. "But, they work just fine on the real thing too."

Sparks began to gather around the sleek revolver's chamber, and the low hum began once again. Caspian closed his eyes and grit his teeth, forced to hope his aura would hold.

He felt a hand grasp his shoulder.

Just before the flash of light and thunderous blast, he felt himself wrenched backward. His eyes opened to see Snow fling herself in front of the shot.

Her aura– or what Caspian thought was her aura– rippled around her body in waves before she went rigid with a gasp Caspian wished he never had to hear. She fell backward into his arms. With each gasping breath, deep red soaked further into the white of her outfit, spreading from the jagged hole in the middle of her chest.

"No. NO! SNOW!" Caspian sputtered. He held her tighter as Arum stepped even closer. He could feel the labor behind each breath. Her back twitched in agonized spasms, her fingers gripped the fabric of his shirt. "Y-You're okay! You're okay!"

"Pain is the emotional response to physical trauma," Arum explained with an infuriating calm as he prepared his final shot. "Its suffering is only simulated."

"STOP!" Caspian desperately screamed. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!?"

"Do you have ANY idea what Frontline has planned?" Arum snapped. "I'M DOING THIS CITY A FAVOR!"

The low hum again. Caspian could do nothing but hold Snow closer as the gun's barrel began to glow.