LGDF stands for Local Grimm Defence Force. These are a mixture of full-time employees and reservists who concentrate on dealing with Grimm. Hunters and huntresses will often take placements of between two to six months with LGDF groups to deal with Grimm concentrations. They are separate from the police and the army.
I've moved this story to the M category. This chapter goes to some slightly dark places and situations.
/-/
Raven opened a portal to the road at the edge of the forest and, accompanied by Vernal and Emma, walked through to join Shady and a group of fifteen tribe members. Amanda, the teenager who controlled the drones, was also there.
Amanda assured them that for the next few miles, the road would be clear. This was because the cull yesterday had significantly reduced the Grimm near the forest. However, from all other directions, Grimm seemed to be converging on Watanabe. There was little sign of the Watanabe LGDF intervening – that might be because they had decided to concentrate on any Grimm which got close to the town.
While her talk with Malbec had been informative, his information was now about a day old. No doubt he had been trying to emphasise what he thought she would think of as the positive, and his informants would have been weighing their reports to fit in with what they thought he wanted to hear.
If it wasn't for having Emma around, Raven would have played for time. She knew if she went in too early, she could easily be involved in a human Faunus battle. Her plans needed both poor humans and the Faunus to give her the benefit of the doubt when she took over villages and towns. If she went in too late, there might not be enough of the town to be worth saving.
She had expected to send some human members of the tribe to Watanabe to take the temperature of local opinion. However, the speed with which law and order had collapsed in Watanabe had made this a more dangerous ploy for the potential infiltrators. Strangers were likely to be looked at with suspicion, and if what the refugees had suggested about the police was correct, things would be dangerous.
However, Emma, her biggest problem and opportunity, was around. She was an idealistic Maiden who had been sent to spy on and preferably kill her. Killing her would only result in a new Maiden who would be motivated to do the job properly. It was clear that either of the women who Emma had mentioned as admiring would be more formidable enemies.
Raven had instead gone on what was, at least by her standards, a charm offensive. Emma, AKA Debbie, had been convinced that Raven ruled the Badlands better than the Mistral government and took dealing with the Grimm more seriously than the Mistral authorities. She had even agreed to join the Tribe and help deal with the Grimm.
Still, if Raven appeared to care too little for the inhabitants of Watanabe, Emma could change her mind. The headmaster of Haven, James Moriarty, was by Mistral standards an honourable man who did not regard his personal interests and those of the Kingdom as being identical.
She hoped that by sending Emma back to Watanabe to speak to Major Verdi, she could kill multiple birds with one stone. First, Emma would be convinced not only that Raven wanted to save the town and was a real-life Tina the Bandit Queen but also that Raven trusted her. Second, she might find out what he thought was happening, especially what the governor of Kuroyuri and his military superiors in Mistral were likely to do about the emergency. Third, to show she was alive and persuade Major Verdi that she was carrying out her infiltration mission for Headmaster Moriarty. She would prefer that Ozpin and Fria not discover that Raven had recruited a Maiden, and Moriarty was unlikely to tell them while there was a chance that Emma would carry out her mission. Fourth, by asking if the Branwen Tribe could help with evacuating the Faunus, she would add to the legend that Raven Branwen was a woman you could do business with if you talked to her. The crime bosses already knew that as well as the consequences of messing with the Raven.
Shady handed Emma back her bicycle. Raven had a last look at Emma, AKA Debbie. Would the Major possibly believe that her disguise had passed muster?
Raven had bluntly told Emma on day one that as soon as she opened her mouth, it was clear that she came from a privileged background. Raven had early on brought in one of the actors who worked for the Tribe to refine "Debbie's" "disguise" to make it plausible that the Branwen Tribe had accepted that she was a travelling entertainer.
The actor had spent an hour with Emma on her voice and had then reported to Raven with an abject admission that he would take months to sound her like she came from the Badlands.
Luckily, Raven had watched Audrey Redburn in My Fair Lassie while at Beacon. Instead of getting him to make Emma sound like she belonged in the Badlands, she told him to aim to make her sound like she was a member of the Mistral lower middle class who had overdosed on elocution elections but occasionally lapsed. Even so, that would need work.
Fortunately, Emma was musical and could pass as a semi-competent entertainer. They had also made some adjustments to the outfit she wore as a travelling entertainer. It was now closer to the version used by Tina's best friend in the second season of Tina, the Bandit Queen, rather than the first. It was also less obviously brand new.
In the end, she just told Emma to take refuge in audacity. After all, one of the reasons Shady had encouraged Raven not to kill the girl had been that if she had been up to anything nefarious, she would have been less conspicuous.
Separately, she had sent one of the braver refugees plus a member of the tribe to the Faunus sector last night, and on the way back, Emma had agreed to collect a message from them in a designated dead drop box just outside town.
Besides, it was time to test whether her semblance had yet latched on to Emma. She's been thinking enough about her lately.
/-/
Emma cycled the twenty miles to Watanabe quickly. She ignored the Grimm she passed on the way unless they were directly on the road. She found that on her bicycle, she could use her quarterstaff as though she was an old-fashioned knight on horseback using a lance to tackle Grimm without slowing down. Some of the voices in her head approved of this and offered suggestions on her technique.
As she approached the town, she could see some buildings were looking badly damaged, but nothing was currently on fire. She could see a carrion bird was flying overhead.
Soon, she was approaching the gates. One of the refugees had advised her to dismount her bicycle well in advance of the gates, so she wheeled her bike the last hundred yards and stowed her weapon and her guitar with her rucksack on her back.
She saw it was a mixture of members of the Local LGDF and police at the gates rather than the police. She wondered whether that was significant.
She stopped at the gate, and her accent surprised the guards. One of them looked around and said, "Miss, things are under control at the moment, but if I were you, I wouldn't go out at night, and I would avoid saying much. Some people are blaming Mistral City for the riots."
"Are the hotels or inns open? I need somewhere to play my guitar and spend the night."
"Inns and pubs are closed. We don't need any other drunk idiots around." He paused, "Look, miss, it might be best to go to the town hall. They will know where it is safest for well-spoken people like you to stay."
A pause, "They may also be able to let you know when evacuation flights will start again. It will be best for you to return to Mistral City or Kuroyuri as soon as possible. People are blaming the Mistral City elites for what's happened."
Just then, a police sergeant appeared and invited Emma into his office. The LGDF guard grimaced and shook his head discretely. Still, she could hardly fight a person whose aura was almost certainly unlocked and disobeying might lead to a confrontation. Wendy advised her to obey the authorities for now. Another voice warned her to be on her guard.
The office was on the ground floor of the LGDF barracks next to the gates. They exchanged names. She used Debbie.
The sergeant was affable and said, "I'm afraid it's not safe for a young woman on the streets right now. I'll arrange for a car to take you somewhere you will be safe. Would you like some coffee and chocolate hobnobs?"
The man seemed tense when he came back to her with coffee and biscuits. Emma flared her aura slightly so that she could deal with unexpected attacks.
He said, "We haven't seen anyone entering the town from the west for days. How bad are the Grimm out there, and are there any farmers left to come in?"
"There were a few, but I was going fast enough to get past them before they had a chance to attack me. I didn't see anyone else on the road in from the forest." True, but misleading. There were plenty of people on the outskirts of the forest.
"If I may ask, Debbie, what were you doing out there?"
"I'm a travelling bard learning my trade." She felt self-conscious as he stared at her costume. The skirt was better for walking in and standing up rather than sitting, and the top, while covering everything it needed to, attracted the male eye. Outside, she heard the sounds of cars arriving.
The man breathed a sigh of relief. "Miss, the Chief of Police wants to talk to you. If I may give you some good advice, I would tell him the truth quickly. That's if you want to be able to wear a costume like that in public again. It's been a bad week for him, and he's under stress."
He disappeared out the door, locking it behind him. One of the older voices in her head muttered bad cop/good cop acts don't get any better, while another said that, in this case, the man might just mean it. Wendy was just outraged at anyone threatening a well-born Atlas young woman with torture or worse.
Drat. The chief of police was the one man she did not want to see. He had seen her before at the meeting with Major Verdi and the other notables. In the back of her head, Wendy made a suggestion and so she picked up her quarterstaff in its compact form and had it across her legs. She also moved to the chair behind the desk which the Sergeant had been sitting in, so she was facing the door and had some cover. She put her rucksack and guitar on each side of her chair. This was to make it difficult for anyone to grab her quickly from the side.
The chief came in with two other officers. The sergeant told him what she had said so far. She looked at the chief, who was unshaven, wearing dark glasses, and looked frazzled. He sat on the desk, took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one.
"Welcome once more to Watanabe, Debbie, if that is your real name." He did recognise her.
"Thank you, sir." The man puffed cigarette smoke in her eyes. Her hand tightened on her weapon.
"I know you left town a week ago and were travelling in the direction of that Faunus village. What did you find there?"
He listened as she told the story she had agreed with Raven. It didn't hurt that a lot of it was the truth. The village was content to be under the rule of the Branwen Tribe, who were dealing with Grimm efficiently. So far the bandits were behaving themselves and had simply confiscated most of the taxes which had been awaiting collection.
He motioned with his cigarette, and the other two officers started to circle on either side of the desk. She strengthened her aura.
"So you expect me to believe that horse manure? I know you are plotting with Major Verdi to see us out to the Branwen Tribe. The Mistral elite thinks we are too expensive and too independent and want to teach everyone in the province a lesson."
"Sir! I am a loyal daughter of Mistral." She did her best to sound confident and outraged, hiding her fear. Not so much for herself but what she would need to do to get out of this room.
"You expect me to believe that. As soon as you opened your mouth, it would have been obvious that you were a little rich girl playing at being a travelling bard."
"Well, that was the point."
"What the frack?"
"The very fact that I am so clearly a posh girl from Mistral is my best disguise. The local lieutenant of the Branwen Tribe said that if I were a real spy, I would have a far better cover."
Another puff of smoke in her eyes. "A likely story. Anyway, even if they decided you weren't a spy, I can't see them letting a prime piece of Mistralian posh totty loose without entertaining the troops."
"He said that the more people knew that life under the Branwen Tribe was not a nightmare, the better and travelling bards could be relied on to spread the word."
"A better explanation is that you are a traitor, and you are coming here to persuade people to fall under the yolk of that animal-loving sociopath, Raven Branwen."
Just then, there was a knock on the door. The sergeant plus another officer came through the door with a third man handcuffed and bruised between them. It was the LGDF man she had spoken to at the gate and who had tried to warn her about the sergeant.
"Caught him making a call on his scroll to the Town Hall."
"Did you catch him before he could say anything?"
The sergeant shrugged. "I think so, but I can't say for certain."
"Bring him over here."
One of the voices in the back of her head told her what she thought would happen next.
The Chief lit another cigarette, "Debbie or whatever your name is. I can tell that you don't believe that anything bad can happen to someone like you. Out here, policing can't work if we obey the rules designed to protect animal criminals, rich brats and traitors. Cuff the traitor to the chair, Sergeant."
The LGDF man was put into the wooden chair in front of the desk. The handcuffs were taken off and reapplied so that he was attached to the chair. The Chief took the key.
"Sergeant, you better raid the armoury for ammunition. Azure, you warn the men outside to watch out for any unwanted guests."
The Sergeant gulped and said, "Yes, Chief. Miss, remember my advice."
The Chief drawled, "I want to ensure that we don't have a failure to communicate. Major Verdi wants to blame me and my men for the events of the last week. I'll lose my job, my pension and probably my life. We all know what happened to police in prison. I want you to be very clear that I and my two colleagues are playing for the highest stakes. Our only chance is if you tell us on tape about the treason you and Major Verdi committed."
The voice which had spoken before told her that if she spoke on tape, then they would kill her afterwards. Well, at least try to.
"I'm not going to tell lies for you. Besides, you wouldn't dare hurt me."
She was making certain that she only acted when he attacked first.
"I knew we would have a failure to communicate. Let's lay it out for you. I am going to show you what I am prepared to do to another human being. Joe here went to school with my eldest son and I've known him twenty years. I never met you until last week. Just in case you have a gun back there, my boys and I had our auras unlocked earlier this week. Flare them lads."
Ok, she was justified in using force against them. "If I did talk, why would you keep me alive afterwards?" she used the time to ready herself for action, pushing her chair back and having her finger on the mechanism to expand her weapon.
"A fair point. Let's say that you have a choice between how painfully you die and what happens beforehand. You will tell us what we want to hear sooner or later. Best you tell us quickly, and then we will kill you painlessly."
The man put his cigarette on the LGDF's man's cheek. She lifted her quarterstaff and rammed it in the man's face three times – pop, pop, pop.
The man had been lying about having aura. He probably died on the first hit, but after the third, it was clear that he wouldn't have an open-casket funeral.
His two sidekicks reacted quickly and drew their guns. She leapt over the desk and, spinning her weapon, deflected the bullets before disarming the two men and, at the same time, breaking their right hands. One shouted "huntress," and both fled towards the door.
One of the older voices in the back of her head told her to deal with them before they could call on reinforcements. She charged through the door and let loose a lightning bolt from her staff. She believed that she only stunned the two men.
She turned back into the office and unlocked the cuffs after retrieving the key from the dead Chief of Police. The man with the burn on his face said, "Thanks."
"What's the best way out of here, Joe? I'm Debbie."
"There are about five more policemen and ten so-called deputised vigilantes out front."
"Let's avoid them." She mustn't think about the men she had killed until Joe was safe.
"Look, I did get through before that Sergeant caught me. Help may be on the way. Perhaps if we stay in the office?"
That was tempting, but then one of the voices in her head raised an objection. Later, Emma wished that she had simply done as was strongly recommended rather than consult Joe.
"Joe, where will they retreat if the army does turn up?"
"Frack, it will be inside this building. Ok, we could get out over the roof."
"Lead me there."
They were just out of the office door when they heard behind them they heard a voice shouting, "Chief, Serge, that bloody Major is here with some of the animal platoon."
Emma looked around and saw the man the Chief had called Azure panicked on seeing the two stunned men and pulled out a pin from a grenade in his hand. Joe shouted, "Don't throw that in here."
As Azure threw the dust grenade, Emma lifted the quarterstaff as though it were a baseball bat and hit the grenade back at him. He ducked, and then Emma watched with horror as the door at the end of the corridor opened, and the sergeant appeared with his arms full of weapons. She caught the look of horror on his face as he registered what was coming.
Instinctively, she grabbed Joe, flared her aura and called on her maiden powers to protect the two of them as she jumped through the window facing the office. This was just as well as the entire building blew up.
The world went dark for a time, and she couldn't hear anything. She opened her eyes and saw the face of Major Verdi looking concerned with a dog Faunus Lance Corporal, carrying a gun, standing behind him and looking around cautiously. On top of the rubble was a large black bird. It was staring with what passed for admiration at the carnage.
She tried to ask about Joe but couldn't hear the words. The major nodded and said something. He registered she couldn't hear and took out a notepad. He wrote, "He's alive and should make a full recovery. Play dead, and I'll get you to safety."
He took off his jacket and put it over her face as he carried her to a jeep just as ambulances and fire engines arrived at the scene. She looked around at the rubble and fires and wondered how many people she had been responsible for killing in the last ten minutes.
/-/
Raven had been reconnoitring the town when she had seen police cars and some accompanying vehicles with the pre-Great War Mistral flag on them driving towards the gate where she had last seen Emma. She followed them from above and saw what looked like a gang leader and his bodyguards stride arrogantly into the barracks. Shortly afterwards, the LGDF man was beaten up and arrested by the police. OK, so the police and the LGDF weren't seeing eye to eye. The other LGDF people were simply disarmed and handcuffed to each other.
She wondered whether and how Emma would deal with the problem. Even if things went wrong, Raven was confident that Emma would not blame Raven and the Branwen Tribe when handing over to her successor.
She had retreated a safe distance away when she saw the army trucks approaching. The panic among the police outside the barracks suggested that the forces of law and order were fighting among themselves. The town must be attracting all the Grimm within thirty miles. She'd spotted that the troops were Faunus.
What was the phrase in that film she and Taiyang had been to see all those years ago – oh yes, "I'm your worst nightmare. I'm an animal with a badge."
Even so, the fact that one of the police running into the building was followed almost immediately by a colossal explosion was not something she had been expecting. She had heard a larger explosion, but she had been expecting it. Blowing up the MBAD headquarters had been very satisfying.
It took some time for the debris to clear. The troops had escaped more or less unharmed, but the police, accompanying ruffians and the LGDF prisoners were not moving. To her surprise, she saw that somehow, there was a small piece of ground on which there was no dust or debris.
An officer, who she assumed was the Major Verdi Emma had mentioned, ran over to that spot together with three soldiers. Two of the soldiers carried an LGDF member out of the way, and Raven went to have a closer look. Good grief, had Emma survived the explosion and protected someone else? That was actually impressive, and Raven was glad she hadn't tried fighting the young woman.
Raven flew off when she saw that Emma was very much alive and kicking but that the major was pretending that she was badly injured. She knew that if she stayed any longer, people would start throwing stones at her to avoid her eating human remains. Besides, she had an occupation of a town to organise PDQ.
The explosion destroyed not only the barracks but also the gates, leaving a massive gap through which the Grimm could enter the town. To make things worse (or perhaps better), the buildings behind the barracks had caught fire, and the wind was helping fan the flames. In the background, she could hear ambulances and fire engines rushing to the scene.
She smiled to herself. For one of the few times in her life, she could do with having Glynda around. Still, she did have a couple of tribe members who had low-level telekinesis semblances.
/-/
As she was driven through the town, Emma noted with half-closed eyes that many shop windows were boarded up, and that broken glass was still left on the streets. The streets were virtually empty, and armed men and women were outside the food shops.
The army van stopped at a set of lockup garages, and the Major carried her in. There was a collection of valuables and clothes. He also wrote out for her, "What we saved from the rioters of the Mayor's possessions. His eldest daughter was – is - about your height and build. I don't think they will be coming back for them."
He turned his back, and she changed into a smart trouser suit and an elegant hat. When she got to the town hall, there were bullet holes in it and barricades in front of it. She walked through the entrance and realised that the two receptionists from last week did not recognise her. He took her up to the Mayor's suite of offices and was shown the shower.
By now, Emma's hearing was functioning again (aura had its uses in that regard), and after the shower, she was ready to answer questions. When she had got dressed again and dried her hair she left the bathroom. She saw the Major was working at the Mayor's desk.
He smiled wanly when she came back. "My dear Emma, your survival is the first pleasant surprise I have had in the last week. Do you need transport back to Kuroyuri?"
"No, sir. I will be continuing my mission. I just wanted to report back."
She told him, as agreed with Raven, that the village was peaceful and happy to be protected by the Branwen Tribe. She also said that the Grimm were being culled.
He nodded at that. "Glad to hear that the wilder bad rumours aren't true and the wilder good ones are. Look, do you really think it's safe for you out there? You obviously don't come from around here."
Emma repeated the story she had told the Chief of Police about being too obvious to be taken for a spy.
A barking laugh. "Refuge in audacity. Did you see any refugees from Watanabe over the last few days?"
"Yes, they arrived yesterday." She described the main ones who had arrived and that they were fine.
"Glad to hear it."
"Sir, what's been happening here? Even before this afternoon, the stories I heard yesterday were unbelievable and the town looks in a bad way."
Just then, the female receptionist arrived with sandwiches, a flask of coffee and a bottle of wine. She looked at Emma with a look which suggested that she did not think Emma was her on official business.
He told her, "Eat up. You must have burnt off nearly all your aura surviving that explosion. I have got your other clothes in a bag."
"Thank you, sir. The clothes?"
"I wanted to give you choices. As far as everyone here is concerned, you are one of my distractions from a fiasco which everyone expects to be the end of my career. The last thing anyone would believe is that you are one of Commander Moriarty's best agents. I can arrange a new bicycle for you, and I assume you need a new rucksack."
He then produced her quarterstaff in its compact form. "I saved this for you."
"Thank you. What's been happening?"
"The more unbelievable the story you've heard, the more likely it is true. The chief of police started rumours that the governor and Mistral City were abandoning Watanabe because he wanted to force the Mayor to resign because he'd found out about an affair the Mayor was having with his wife. When this resulted in humans rioting, he ordered the police not to confront them. A few disobeyed him and defended the town hall and the Mayor's home along with some of the LGDF and the small number of troops the colonel had left with me."
"Oh, what happened next?"
"The mayor and the then head of the LGDF fled along with their families and the Chief's wife. The latter is the now ex-head of the LGDF's brother, so he was understandably worried about the Chief coming after him. Besides, he wanted to escape with his ill-gotten gains."
"Ill-gotten?"
"Most heads of the LGDF skim something off the top, but this one had got greedy. As soon as he left town, his deputy came to me with the documentary evidence."
"Why hadn't he said anything before?"
"You don't whistle blow when the chief of police is married to your boss's sister. Wouldn't be surprised if he leaked the details of the affair to the Chief, but there's no proof." A wry laugh. "By the way, the Chief was in the building with you?"
"Yes."
"Great. It is in the best interests of Mistral as a whole to have someone to blame for the FUBAB situation who is in no position to answer back."
"FUBAB?"
"I would normally say SNAFU or FUBAR, but this was in the General Lagune class. Fouled up beyond all belief." Emma could tell the man usually used a stronger word.
The Major suddenly looked very old. "I don't know if I will get out of this alive, and if I do, by the time I'm in Mistral City, I will have been ordered not to contradict whatever the official story is. It's possible that, eventually, people will remember that the only person who ever did any good in this part of Mistral was the Commander, and he will need to know the truth when they ask him to come back."
"Is there any chance that Mistral City or Kuroyuri will send enough people to restore order?"
"None. The Chief's actions meant that what he feared came true. No one wants to pay for a proper military intervention here, and having two out of the three main civic leaders fleeing the town meant there was no one here with the authority to agree to pick up the tab. The rioting meant anyone with money who had a car left or took a bullhead- well, at least until the lancers arrived at the airfield."
"Oh."
"One thing I will be reporting to Kuroyuri and Mistral is how dependent the infrastructure here is on the Faunus workers. I wouldn't be surprised if it's true in many other places."
Emma knew this would interest Raven. "How did you learn that?"
"Understandably, the Faunus have decided that it's not safe for them to go to work if that involves leaving the Faunus Quarter. Among other things, this means the water supply isn't working, no one can work the boilers, and no one can service the LGDF bullheads."
"Surely that can't be true?"
"You'd have thought not. What I eventually got someone to tell me about the LGDF was that the humans who understand the systems moved to more prosperous parts of Kuroyuri and Mistral over the last 10 years. The boss found that the Faunus would work for less and were more likely to stay put once trained. They put a human in charge who was a relative of the head of the LGDF. In relation to the water treatment plant no one wants to admit that the only person who understands the systems has been run out of town."
"But surely you could bring people in from outside?"
"First, who in their right mind wants to come here in the midst of riots when the Branwen Tribe is meant to be arriving any day? Second, there is a swarm of lancers over the airport, and nothing can leave or land."
He smiled ruefully, "That's even before the Chief went insane and decided to pick a fight with the LGDF and the army and blew up the largest dust store in town."
"What will be the official story?"
"I was intending to deal with him tonight, and then the official story would have been that he died seeking to prevent the violence from spreading. The unofficial official story would have been that he shot himself out of shame when he realised that he had destroyed the town. I'm tempted to go with the man went mad with guilt and decided to take the town with him."
"The troops?"
"A section of thirty men. Faunus from Ansel province. Arrived yesterday afternoon,"
"Sir?"
"I persuaded the Governor and the Colonel that we needed to make certain that we didn't have a re-run of Kulsa. The last thing Mistral needs is a re-run of the Faunus wars or the Faunus civil rights groups resorting to violence."
"Sir?"
"If we had brought in local troops, the vigilantes wouldn't believe they would open fire to defend animals. This way, they know we mean business."
Emma took a deep breath, "Sir, the local commander asked me to give whoever is in charge a message if things were as bad as we were hearing."
"Why you? Are you certain that your cover held?"
"I'm a posh girl from a good family. He thought I could get a hearing and that people would trust me when I told them that the Branwen Tribe aren't as bad as they have been painted."
"Hmm. Suppose that is true. You said the LGDF man at the gate tried to send you here. So what's the message?"
"Would you like some help dealing with the Grimm?"
"Half the LGDF is either dead or has run away, none of the bullheads are working even if we didn't have to worry about the lancers, and one of the four main gates around the walls and half of the dust stores went up in smoke this morning. I can't trust anyone in the police. My troops aren't equipped to deal with Grimm as the army does not recruit Faunus with unlocked aura. The entire population will be radiating negative thoughts. Of course, I want some help and by tonight."
He grimaced, "I just need to think of a way to sell it to the people and my superiors, which doesn't result in me being shot for treason. Although they will pretend otherwise, everyone in Mistral and Kuroyuri will be delighted if someone takes Watanabe off their hands."
He looked at her. "I'm not saying no, but I have a few ideas. Give me an hour to work on them. I can get you a motorbike if that will help."
Emma suddenly thought of something. "How many people died in the explosion today?"
"I don't know yet. There are one hundred and fifty injured in the hospitals, but it will take days to remove the debris. Four neighbouring buildings were also destroyed. At least twenty people were outside the barracks when it exploded, and none of them had aura."
He looked at her, "Look, it wasn't your fault. Only a lunatic throws a dust grenade inside a building, and it's just bad luck it ended up in the armoury."
Emma suddenly fainted. She had promised herself never to kill a human. While she told herself that killing the Chief was an accident because of his lie about aura and she had tried just to stun his two sidekicks, the reality was that she was responsible for the deaths of many men and women. The sergeant had been ordered away from what the Chief was going to do to her and Joe.