After a few minutes, the weird feeling that collapsed her last time began to fade - not that it mattered much to Silva at that point, as her hands were now locked and she was restrained by a thug on each side, while her weapon was taken away. Aspis twirled it in his hand, seemingly considering whether to keep it or to sell it. As she figured out from occasional remarks between the bandits, she was hit with a paralysis dart, designed by the woman - whose name was Crucia, as it turns out. She, wrapping her red hair locks around her finger, was following behind Silva, just in case she freed herself from their clutches and tried to run.

"Fine construction," Aspis remarked under his breath. He led the group deep within the innards of the city, then inside a partially abandoned apartment building, where the two thugs roughly pushed Silva down on the ground and she was forced into a sitting position. Aspis flipped the sword in his hand - for a moment, his eyes focused on the hilt, then he gripped it, lowered the tip of the blade under Silva's chin and lifted it up. "It's Valean, isn't it? Where'd a runaway slave like you get this gizmo from?"

"You'll... you... you'll regret... regret doing this..." weakly, Silva slurred her words, the uncertainty of her threat extracting a brief laugh from the bandit leader.

"Oh, yeah, I'm quaking in my boots," he dismissed her threat afterwards and stepped away. One of the thugs, grinning, joked:

"Be careful, Aspis. Faunus are a dirty race, ya know. She might throw her poo at you."

That got a few more laughs from the gang. Silva's eyes briefly lowered down, settling on the bottle attached to her belt. If I can open it, maybe I can...

"Where're you looking at?" Crucia suddenly snatched it off Silva's thigh and inspected it. "Whatcha keeping in here? Poison?" For a second, she considered popping it open - the sight of the red-haired girl's fingers pressing against the lid getting Silva's body to brace for impact - but, disappointingly, she figured it wasn't worth the risk.

No...

With no other recourse, Silva clung to the last idea she had.

"A-Ashen..."

It was barely audible, but it immediately got Aspis to stop. Over his shoulder, he stared at the Faunus girl. An uneasy silence set in the dimly lit, dusty room for a few seconds.

"What did you say?" he asked. When Silva did not answer, he approached her, raising his voice. "What. Did you say?"

"I... guessed right. You were that person... that she said we were looking for..."

And, even keeping in mind that Ashen explicitly said that he was not to be trusted, she had gotten perhaps the worst possible first impression of the person that was supposed to be their ticket back to Vale. Aspis looked down on her. He could demand her to spit the name out again, but he could already assume who they were talking about.

"So she's back home, huh?" he remarked, grinning. Confused, Crucia asked:

"I don't get it. Who are we talking about?"

"Just a stray little bird," Aspis answered. His eyes then turned towards one of the grunts. "Let her go."

"Huh? What do you mean, boss? She will-"

"Let her go."

Though hesitant, the grunt did as he demanded - letting go of her shoulders and then carefully opening the lock on her hands. Silva was just as confused as the rest of the gang were - something told her, however, that the criminal intended this as some sort of favor, perhaps for bringing Ashen to him. What a joke. Does he really think I'll just... forgive him that easily? The tough, heavy metal clamp was slowly removed off her wrists, and Silva inspected her hands for a second before pushing the thug away. He did not expect it to come with so much force and his body painfully crashed into the nearest wall.

"Stand back-" Aspis barely managed to mutter out before the furious Faunus went for him. Her right knuckle collided with his shield, pulled off and raised in a fraction of a second. Despite the speed, despite the rage-powered strength, no shockwave came, nor tremble, shake, crack or even anything more than a soft thud. Silva was sure she hadn't slowed down at the last moment. Something had nullified her strike.

Aspis did not retaliate. He merely looked down on the girl from behind the cover of his shield. Come on, little animal. Run.

He couldn't read her mind, but he guessed correctly regardless. Witnessing that her surprise attack was ineffective, and the other thugs were about to join in, she hopped back and threw herself through the door.

For a second, the apartment building was left in silence.

"What... what was the plan?" Crucia asked. The smile on Aspis's face never left.

"After her. But keep your distance. See where she runs to."

Silva had enough sense to not immediately barrel towards the same street that she had last seen Firre and the others - however, she naturally gravitated towards it regardless. There was nowhere else she could go in a dense unfamiliar city like this. Nowhere that she would feel safe, anyway - it's not like the locals or the city guards will have any higher of an opinion of a Faunus as those criminals. After a few zigzags on the rooftops, she bee-lined for the street, dropped herself down to the surface, looked around for any signs of life, then dove straight to the basement.

Yche was standing guard behind the stairs, while the slow wait passed in the rest of the room. From her bag, Ashen procured a pack of cards - and after long insistence, Firre finally sat down to play a round with her. Reza was far tougher to break - all the tools Ashen had, from soft pleads to logic about needing to spend their time somehow, fell flat.

"H-hey!" Yche shouted when Silva rushed past her and then ducked into the corner of the room, her sudden appearance and speed whipping up a gust of wind that pushed a handful of cards over. Instantly, Firre dropped his hand of cards and ran to the frightened girl.

"Silva! What happened?"

She, however, did not respond at first. Cowering in the corner, she shied away from his eyes and even his offered hand to help her up.

"I'm... guessing nothing good?" Yche mumbled. And she didn't even bring their clothes.

"I was... I was attacked, and..." Silva's finger pointed at Ashen. For a second, she was taken aback by the focus on her, but just as quickly, she realized what had happened.

Oh, no...

Thud!

The sound of a boot stepping on the staircase that led down to their basement got the entire group to tense up. If Silva had been running away from someone, it seemed logical that whoever was pursuing her would show up next. After a brief glance at the frightened Faunus girl, Reza turned to Firre. He was already slowly drawing his sword.

"Control yourself," she whispered. They were still in hiding, after all, and since Silva just had to not be open with them enough to explain the situation in time, they still had no idea who they were dealing with. Was it a soldier or a guardsman, a thug, or maybe just some person who got in the way? Who knows if it's even they who's at fault? Maybe Silva got back to some old instincts and bothered someone completely innocent... It didn't seem like Firre was concerned with any of those questions in his mind, however. Her request fell on deaf ears and he drew his weapon to the fullest.

One step came. Then another, and another. Carefully, Yche walked away from the entrance - she too could see that their prince was getting ready for a fight and she would rather not get in the crossfire.

A boot stepped below the door entrance's "horizon", then the lower half of the man's body. Firre narrowed his eyes, focusing upon the target, then pushed himself forward. In a fraction of a second, a weak thud followed. The edge of his gunblade tapped against Aspis's shield. Once again, much like Silva's punch, its momentum vanished upon contact and the shield was completely unharmed. Behind the shield, Aspis cowered. He walked down the stairs in confidence, but even when protecting himself, he could tell from the prince's speed that he was dealing with someone... abnormal.

Then, he peeked over Firre's shoulder.

"Ashen!" he shouted.

"Aspis..." Ashen's somewhat less enthusiastic voice answered. "That's the one, Firre." she then confirmed as she approached him. Aspis made a step back from Firre - to keep himself a little bit away from a deadly weapon, obviously - and, once Ashen came close enough, he tossed his shield aside and pulled her in for a surprise hug.

Even Firre, who was still considering whether to strike again or not, and Ashen herself were surprised.

"Please don't leave me again, I missed you," he muttered, then, after breaking the hug, turned to the rest of the group. "I'm sorry for the poor first impression - especially to her," he briefly turned towards Silva and then promptly ignored that she was about to hiss at him. "Had we known you were with Ashen from the start, we would have helped her and joined up with you here. My name is Aspis. Aspis Tremulus. I'm a servant of the people."

Right... Firre didn't seem convinced, but he sheathed his sword for now.

"What, like a politician?" Yche asked. Aspis grinned and shook his head:

"You mean a noble? Not a chance. I would be as far away from the town as possible if I were. No, we take from those people and give to the rest. Fix a few of their mistakes."

Reza's eyes rolled. He's definitely a criminal. Ashen placed her hands on her hips, but right as she was about to ask, Aspis muttered ahead of her:

"That uniform... You... Did you really go and join them?"

"Aspis, we're here because we need your help," she bluntly explained instead. Caught off-guard in the middle of his own question, Aspis took a minute, but then smiled and answered:

"Of course, Ashen, anything." He waved his hand towards the rest of the group. "You'll all be safe under us - and I'll get you a better place to rest than this craphole. Come on, let's go!"

Reza sighed. "I wasn't expecting much, but we resigned to working with these types before we even stepped foot here, so..." Following her lead, the rest of the group departed after him. Only Silva wouldn't budge. Firre, right as he was about to depart last, turned back to notice her and walked up to her.

"I can tell, you don't feel safe under him. I don't know what happened between you two outside, but..." he went down on one knee and offered the Faunus girl a hand. "I'll keep you safe instead. If he turns against us, that bandit will die. Don't fret."

For a second, Silva stared at Firre's hand, then looked away and mumbled:

"I don't believe in knights in shining armor protecting helpless maidens."

A bitter answer, but not unexpected.

"...I understand. Then, I can escort you out of this city and help you escape."

This time, she did say something unexpected. She was surprisingly frightened by his offer and quickly walked back. "No, no, that won't be necessary, I'll be going with you all."

"...and so, I figured that we could head to you and ask you if you could help us get a boat. We slipped through the forests and reached the walls of Suchan after a week, then used the old smugglers' tunnel to get in. Which brings us to here and now."

When the Valean group first witnessed the Suchan cityscape, they had not yet realized that even such a densely packed city could hold an equally dense underground, accessible through numerous nooks and crannies throughout town. It was hardly much better than the "craphole" they left, however - Aspis led the team into what used to be an attempt at building the city a metro network. Apparently, indifference from Mistral's leadership, constant theft of construction materials and mounting costs meant that the project was abandoned, so the deep, long tunnels, interspersed with rusted lines of rail and the occasional station, were now a haven for the homeless and the criminals. Aspis and his gang had seized what should have become the metro network's central hub - the various offices and control rooms on the second floor became living quarters, while the wide waiting area on the first floor was transformed into a warehouse for stolen and smuggled goods. Here, between scattered seats and the occasional littering leaflet speaking about "the future of transportation in Suchan", Aspis sat with Reza and Ashen, listening to the latter explaining their story. She held some facts back. It didn't seem like Aspis immediately recognized Firre as the crown prince of Vale, so Ashen simply named him as a "noble tagging along with us". Mistral had plenty of those in the imperial court, so, surely, Vale had plenty scattered throughout as well. Aspis listened intently, but her final words briefly took him aback.

"So, you're only here to find a way to leave?" he asked.

"Well, I wouldn't describe it so harsh, but... we do need your help to escape back to Vale, yeah."

"That's... a shame. I was hoping that you'd finally come back to us."

"You..."

"When you packed your bags and vanished one day, none of us had any idea where you went. I sent Crucia as far as Mistral and Sumire, but we couldn't find you anywhere. I had no idea that I'd find you coming back here from Vale, and in that uniform. I still held out hope that you might return, though, even from this state - and it's been more downcast without you."

And I know that behind that soldier uniform and disciplined glare, a part of you must still be there.

Reza interrupted Aspis's melancholy. "So, will you be able to help us?"

The bandit smacked his lips. "I will try. I can't say my resources or ability are endless, though. With all these soldiers being moved here out of the continent, these ain't easy times, you know. And, how do you expect to slip a boat through the sea, again?"

"Are the sea routes closed?" Ashen asked, to which Aspis let out a depressed sigh and answered:

"They will be, starting with next week. Nobody goes in or out, except for military vessels on missions."

"So that's our time window, then..." It was still quite risky. I suppose, though, if we get stopped by a Mistralian ship on the way, that'll be easier to fight back against and destroy than the security forces of an entire city.

A little further away, Firre was standing around with Crucia. Now that her boss explained to her that he, Silva and the others were Ashen's friends all along, all of her dismissive cocky attitude vanished in an instantly, replaced with an uncomfortably sugary voice instead.

"So, all ya need to do now is aim the gun like this, and..." she muttered, carefully lifting up Firre's hand and pointing it at the target. He pulled the trigger. A dart fired from the repurposed nailgun and struck right in the middle. Sitting on a few boxes at the side, Silva briefly winced when she heard the sound of the shot. "See, ya got it! You're a good shot, your hand didn't tremble even once."

"I told you, this wasn't the first time I've fired a gun," he answered and handed it back to the bandit. Giggling, she stashed it in her bag and then began explaining:

"You know, you wouldn't regret it. I built this prototype myself. The darts use a mixture of chemicals that enter a person's bloodstream and quickly shut off most motor functions for several minutes. When their whole body goes limp, they collapse, and the dart is tipped with Dust so it can breach through Aura shields too. In a battlefield, that's basically guaranteed death or capture, ya know. So if we can work out a deal to smuggle me to Vale with ya all and give me a full pardon, I could sell this to yar army for cheap and you'd get a trick weapon up your sleeve... just in case Mantle attacks again..."

"Come on, really? Don't even start thinking about that," Yche suddenly spoke up, joining in the conversation from the side. "That's... a really ugly weapon, don't ya think? Imagine you were on the other side o' that gun. Ya get hit by something ya barely feel, then ya muscles give in, ya helpless body is pulled away and then skewered like a piece of meat while all you can do is watch..."

"I'm just saying," Crucia replied with a shrug. "Mantle ain't gonna hold back if you all are thinking of going to war with 'em. Why should you?"

"Well- well, unlike Mantle, we believe in some human dignity, you know!"

Firre seemed like he was barely listening to either of the women, but he actually followed their every word. His eyes briefly turned towards Silva. Judging from her cowering appearance, he guessed that she experienced this... prototype back then, and it didn't really leave her enthused.

But I suppose it does have its merits...

Quickly, his mind moved on from Crucia's sale pitch regardless. Whether or not he could use her weapon, he wasn't going to entertain her right now anyway.

Something else concerned him more, too.

After Reza's successful insistence, the grew drew lots on which of them was to stay up for the night - to guard their room much like they would when camping anywhere outside the city. Aspis's gang provided them shelter in their HQ, a room with five beds dragged in by his underlings, but she was determined in saying that without someone keeping an eye on what was going on during the night, there was no telling what they could do to them.

Firre drew the short stick. Literally. So, after a quick evening nap to recharge his energy, here he was, spending the night by the entrance, occasionally walking through the corridors, awaiting the passing of the night. Not that he had nothing to do to pass the time. There was so much garbage scattered throughout the building complex that he would pick up some thrown away boxes or planks of wood and practice with them, throwing them to the air and slicing them up. Nobody said thieves and bandits were good at cleaning up. At other times, he'd simply lie down and stare at the ceiling. For a little bit. Sitting around and reminiscing about the past turned out too boring to even continue, however.

I need to do something. Act on something. Just... sitting here feels like I am wasting my life.

But do what? And... right now?

Yes.

Firre's attention turned back towards the room. Carefully, to avoid making a sound, he stepped in and walked up to Silva's bed. Somehow, they actually managed to convince her to sleep with the rest - in the corner, away from the three other girls, but still.

Right as he approached, he heard a whisper:

"What is it?"

So, that was overly optimistic of him. Silva wasn't actually sleeping - sure, she had crawled up on the slightly dirty mattress and buried herself under the sheet, but she was conscious, and once she heard the faintest creak of the floor, one of her eyes glanced from behind cover. The call-out got Firre to stop in his tracks for a second, but, with a faintly disappointed glance, continued regardless.

"You're going to be even more grumpy if you skip your sleep," he whispered and sat down on the corner of the bed. Silva groaned and sank deeper into the bed covers.

"I'll be even more grumpy if I'm dead."

He was actually planning to wake Silva up for this, but if she is already awake, then...

"Since neither of us are sleeping tonight, do you want to do something productive instead?"

No whisper came from Silva's side, but a slight shift of her body indicated that she was staring at him from the corner of her eyes. So, Firre took it as a positive response and continued:

"Mistral is built on the backbones of slaves, like Mantle, and I'm sure this town is no exception. I don't want to simply pass through without doing at least something to help. I've no means of escaping slaves out of the city, but I can at least punish the people who are torturing them. I'm sure Reza, Yche - they wold say this is jeopadizing our mission, it could put us in danger - but I'll take that risk, and they won't have to know if they're asleep. What I wanted to ask is... do you want to tag along?"

"You..."

Refusing to believe what she heard, Silva threw the sheet off her and rose to a sitting position, meeting the prince's eyes. For a second, she stared at him, trying to glean whether what he said was truth or lie, all while her mind went through one thought after another. Should she enthusiastically volunteer, even though he's a human? Should she rightfully call him out for the smoothtalking liar he certainly is? She had worried about this exact same thing, was certain that she'd finally found the situation where this human's inevitable hypocrisy would come to light and she can finally be at peace with her understanding of the world. Yet, here he was, baffling her once more.

"You... you will... you will endanger yourself... and your friends... and get all of Suchan on your ass... and..." A faint sigh left her lips. "I've got an idea where we could target."

Now that they sneaked up close, the slave market she spotted on her first trip through the city turned out to be a lot larger than it appeared. It was, essentially, in the very middle of town, occupying most of a circular town square that interrupted the central road. A wide flat complex surrounded one of the the wide open area's sides in a half-circle, a wooden platform stood in front of it - there, presumably, the auctions were held during the day. The town square itself was actually quite pretty to look at - compared to the rest of the dirty run-down city, it was actually well kept and designed, the selection of green belts and differently coloured tiles was at least pleasing to look at.

"I saw people crowding this area when I was making my way to the clothes shop. With a lot of my people bunched up together, too... suppose I guessed correctly when I assumed that it must be a slave market."

She and Firre were crouching on the flat rooftop of a building on the other side of the street, five stories up, high enough that they could oversee the entire square from above.

"We don't have anything like this in Vale... thankfully. Since you're probably more familiar with an establishment like this, what do you think we can expect?" the prince asked. Silva shook her head and answered:

"We didn't have anything like this in Mantle, either... any Faunus captured in raids or purchased from elsewhere were simply distributed to whoever needed them by the government, not unlike any other resource... and without anything as chaotic and disorderly as an auction. If I had to guess, though, I would assume that whoever owns this place isn't living here. We're gonna find some guards, some catchers..."

"And, I assume, the Faunus themselves."

"Deep down, yes... and, there's one more thing."

"What?"

"Places like these, they... they usually have catalogues. Da-databases of everyone they have in ownership. They... use those to keep track of who they're supposed to have in the pits, and... and if anyone escapes, they... use it to track those people down. If they were somehow lost, they'd be blind for some time, since they would lose a lot of information about each Faunus..."

"Right..."

Firre's eyes settled back on the building. The entrance was a double sided door. There didn't appear to be anything special about it. He figured he could break it down and enter without much issue.

"Then we might need to split. You're clearly much more adept at sneaking around than I am. I'll attack from the front instead."

"I- uh, well... I'm not really..."

Hearing her stammer, Firre turned back to her. "What?"

"I mean... I can try... but I'm not really good at it..."

Briefly giving her an incredulous stare, he answered simply. "That's nonsense. You walked circles around me, Argo and Velinn's entire crew back in Sumire. Alright, have you got your weapon?" She was indeed clutching onto her pungi, handed back to her by Aspis's gang. "Good. Let's go."

Firre hopped down. Silva went around the town square, hopping from roof to roof and searching for any back entrance. After he showed her a thumbs-up, she vanished from his sights. Nothing else left to do but go forward. He unsheathed his blade, looked around to ensure there were no bystanders - thankfully, at least the central boulevard was barren tonight - and then approached the front doors. The approach was a lot more dirty than the rest of the square - but, presuumably, when they were herding so many people in and out every day, it was hard to keep it pristine.

He kicked the doors, smashing both open. It must have tripped some kind of alarm, because a loud bell rang out immediately after and the sound of frantic movement deep within the complex soon followed. The building itself was built out of a mix of wood and brick, and was more or less functional rather than decorative. There were no lights, so aside for the filtering of the moonlight through the windows, they were going to be fighting blind.

"Who's there!" a yell came from deep within. Making a sharp turn, a guardsman ran in, holding a Dust rifle. Wait... is that the same kind of design as the pistols back in Vale? Just scaled up to rifle size... The man's hands were shaking somewhat, but he nonetheless stood in front of Firre, ready to shoot. "Move! This is private property!" The sound of even more footsteps came from deeper in as he spoke.

Firre pointed back to the town square over his shoulder with his thumb.

"Private property of that market, I assume? The one where you were selling Faunus a few hours ago?"

The question baffled the guard a little, he then yelled out a frustrated "Yes!"

"Good. I just wanted to make sure I was at the right place. You'd best drop your gun now."

"No, no! Stay back! Stay back!"

Firre lunged forward. The guard fired, once, then twice.

On the other side of the complex, Silva carefully crawled off the rooftop of a nearby blocky house, leapt onto the wall and grabbed onto the edge of one of the building's windows. Breaking the glass would have raised too much sound, but the building appeared half-baked and poorly built, so... with enough of a tug and pull, the whole window got dislodged from its place and snapped off. After looking around, she dropped it on a pile of trash bags on the alleyway below to soften the impact and then crawled in.

It was dark, and she had no idea where to go. The sound of battle thundering in the background made it very clear where to not go, at least. Well, I suppose I should search the rooms and find any place they're keeping documents... It was certainly not the one she was at - from a quick glance, it must have been a storage room for cleaning equipment, largely unused and collecting dust.

Silva ran out into the corridors, where she then immediately ducked behind the door again. A guard was running past her - in the darkness, he did not see the Faunus girl's face and merely continued on his way, at least, until she sneakily tripped him and he fell flat on his face. Silva grabbed him by the back of his collar, ignoring his frantic flailing, and threw him out the same window she came in through.

An idea came to her mind. He ran out from somewhere. What's kept there-Aha! The other door open, some distance down the corridor, where the soldier had run from - it was filled to the brim with shelves and papers. Judging from the pen and half-written page left behind, whoever was staffing this room must have been assigned to record keeping duties before the emergency at the entrance got them to leave. Silva snapped the cap of her bottle open and then allowed its contents to rise into the air with the gesture of her hand. She drew a few lines with her finger, water collecting around them, then, with a thrust of her palm, sent them forward as slashes. Several wet cuts ran across the room, slicing up and making papers fly, breaking apart shelves and the table and sending splinters everywhere. She grabbed a big heap and threw them out the window, then another, and another.

The ground seems damp. It should blur whatever's written on them into complete unreadability.

At least, she hoped it would. She had little time. She still needed to get back to Firre without being noticed, after all. So, she ran through the building, searching for a way down.

A relative calm settled at the front entrance after over a minute of tense fighting. Standing in the middle of a battered battlefield with a bloodied sword, Firre flicked his finger downwards to withdraw his trees back into the ground. Just in time, as Silva dropped down from a hatch above, saying:

"Okay, I think we're-" The sight of what Firre had left behind startled her and silenced her for a second. "...oh, gods."

"I gave them a choice."

Firre sheathed his weapon and gestured towards the exit. He didn't even need to mention it for Silva to realize that they should leave while they still have time. It was a matter of time before the Mistralian forces went down on this building, and they both would rather not be here while that happens. The Faunus girl shook her hesitantion away, ran up to him and said:

"Right, let's go."