RWBY - The Pen and the Sword

by TwoChimpsWithoutOne

-For the Record- Surviving a plane crash? Not enough. Being hunted by super predators? Not even close. Hopping worlds? Why not? I'll see that, and raise getting recruited by a woman who fashions herself a goddess. OC/I

104. TLI2 - Firewall

Firewall

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The second semester started off running: Two research projects, a library of homework, prep for their first 'solo' field expedition, and a not-so-subtle suggestion that a freshman tournament may be organized this year, resulting in a mad rush to reserve space for team training. The stoic member of SSAD declared in her usually flat affect that she was extremely angry that the training rosters had filled up for weeks before they could even open the app, whereas their supposed leader was trying to keep his personal satisfaction at the fact hidden. Of course, being in a team with someone whose only superpower allowed them to read people led to Schwarz's efforts being in vain, but Ashley decided to play the politician in this case and not bring it up. This was primarily because she found herself in the rare position of agreeing with Dusty wholeheartedly - the telekinetic farmer professing a staunch belief that there likely wasn't any such tournament planned, but rather the teachers wanted to get everyone out of the vacation funk as fast as they could.

And really, as good and necessary as continued training was, there was an argument to be made that it only helped to a point. As they'd discussed, SSAD likely wouldn't ever really go that much higher than street level Huntsmen, and they likely wouldn't travel terribly far past the walls of any kingdom, so the endless training that had characterized their first semester had largely served its purpose: Building their team and cementing them together. Having done that, and having broadly acknowledged their limits, it was time to take some leaves out of Sylvie's book and dedicate themselves as best they could to what they could reasonably do. The more they learned, the more they could augment their moderate combat power with intelligence and tactics, and maybe finally start punching just a bit above their weight.

Besides, the rush for training time would die down in a few weeks, then they could get back to pestering Schwarz, if only for the fun of it.

Because of her team and their constant interconnected presence, Ashley found that, despite being at Beacon Academy - ostensibly the hardest school she would ever attend - her schoolwork was the easiest it had ever been. While none of them were polymaths, each of them had strengths in enough areas that they were able to bolster their teammate's weaknesses. The end result of this was twofold: They breezed through their schoolwork in record time, and without even realizing it, Ashley found they were coming together even more closely. The moment was increasingly rare when her first thought upon being presented with a problem was 'how can I solve this?' versus 'How can we solve this?'. It really gave her an appreciation for what Beacon was doing here, as well as for the general idea being four-man teams: Legends like Ruby Rose were rare, the rest could only find success in numbers and teamwork, so everything was designed to enforce and build that one core concept.

Sure, the part of Ashley that was still a little girl that wanted to be a superhero really wished she could hit some kind of breakthrough and go from little Ashley Lily to a Ruby Rose-tier heroine, but she had to admit, the idea that she was going to spend most of her career with her team was growing on her. Even RWBY didn't really survive long past the Fall of Beacon, but SSAD?

SSAD might just stick together as long as the surviving parts of GEMS had.

Of course… That didn't mean everything was perfect. There were the normal clashes between four people, petty miscommunications and the expected personality differences like their general stances on procrastination - which is to say, the entire team ganging up on Schwarz every time he let the clock tick down to the eleventh hour. There were the simple problems like 'pick up your damn clothes', 'leave the toilet seat down', 'stop leaving your books everywhere'. There were the complicated problems, like the battle lines that were still drawn between those of them that thought it was fine Dusty seemed poise to start dating a senior and those that thought she might be using him - Ashley loved Dusty to death, but he was too trusting, there was no way that girl actually had genuine intentions for him! There were even the more exotic problems, like whether or not Ashley actually had been followed by a PI when she was younger and if she was being followed again - Dusty was the only person on the team that actually thought there might be someone keeping an eye on her during their weekend trips, but his claim that they always changed their face led the other two to believe Ashley was wrong and Dusty was an excitable conspiracy nut.

Then there were the entertaining problems, like the metaphorical and literal fire Ashley was watching as the male half of her team cowered in a corner. Looming over them was a silent, stoic, five foot tall tower of rage, her arms crossed as she dropped a fire extinguisher before her. The two had been knee-deep in a 'boys being boys' moment, their conversation somehow having gone from things they'd never done, to things that were technically legal for Dusty to do since he was a Rookie Huntsman, all the way to Schwarz coming back from Vale with a pack of cigars. Ashley watched with bewilderment as the entire thing continued to escalate until Dusty prepared to make good on his claim that he could crack his whip fast enough to light a match and then light a cigar with that match. Despite how she actually was interested in watching the stupidity play out, she was glad she didn't participate, as with a deafening crack of his whip, Dusty lit the match, only to send it careening across the room with the lightning-fast second strike.

Fate properly tempted, Sylvie chose then to return from her nightly ritualistic library visit to find her bed on fire and both of the boys so freaked out by the fact that they'd taken such thorough leave of their senses that they didn't think to grab one of the five fire extinguishers every dorm was required to have. She beheld them trying to literally beat the admittedly small fire out for a full ten seconds before she quietly grabbed an extinguisher and put out the fire. She had been so still and so silent during the ordeal that Dusty and Schwarz had begun retreating even before she looked at them.

Ashley let the two cower for a few moments as Sylvie silently waited for an explanation. Just as she was about to step in and try to defuse things, she received a notification on her scroll. Ordinarily she would ignore it at this hour, but the notification had been the one she'd selected for her student account - a loud and hearty 'TIME FOR SCHOOL!' - and at this hour, something from that account was probably worth at least checking.

To her utter shock, it was an email from the headmaster himself!

It began with 'you're not in trouble', but that did absolutely nothing to calm her nerves when it proceeded to ask her to see him in his office post-haste. She had to read it twice, and even fully rebooted her scroll, before she was willing to believe it was real. Something inside of her told her to run as far and as fast as she could, but the rest of her rationalized that away: Aside from one stupid stunt before school started, which she was pretty sure had never gotten entered into record, she hadn't done anything worth noting, so there was nothing that should get her in trouble, right?

Bidding the boys good luck, Ashley threw on a less 'lounging about' outfit, gathered her courage, and left the dorm. She tried to ignore the growing feeling that she should be doing anything but this, continuing to rationalize that nothing should go wrong. These thoughts occupied her enough that she breezed through the twilight grounds of the academy, failing to notice any of the wandering students or the occasional staff member.

She stopped for a moment when she reached Beacon Tower itself, and looked up at the looming spire. For a few moments, the immensity of the building overwhelmed the feelings of 'I'm in deep shit' and 'Shut up, there's no reason for that.' The top was painted a bright golden color of the sun, while it grew redder and redder the lower one got, until at ground level, it was blanketed in shadow. The visual managed to distract Ashley for a moment, as she took it in. This moment ended when she felt hairs stand up on the back of her neck, and she turned around, feeling as though she were being watched, but seeing no one in the wide open courtyard.

Remembering first the memories of when her aunt had hired a PI, and then the more recent suspicion that she might have done it again, Ashley entertained the notion of calling her out on it until she got another message on her scroll:

"The view is much nicer up here, Miss Lilly."

Right. She shook her head, ignoring the shiver that went down her spine and dedicating to further ignore the fight-or-flight welling up within her.

She forced herself inside the tower, through the lobby, and into the elevator. After a brief delay when the computer needed to ping Ozma and clear her ascent, up she went to the top floor. At length, she arrived and was released into the enormous, but practically empty office - it took up the entire top floor of the building, but all that was present was the desk at the opposite end, and the man standing in front of it, staring out at the horizon and the setting sun.

"Please, Miss Lily. No need to wait." She heard the man call out, prompting her to approach.

Deciding the straight approach would be the best one, when she reached him, Ashley bluntly asked Ozma: "Sir, why am I here?"

Ozma let out a light laugh. "I can definitely see the effects of living with your aunt. Just as blunt as she was." He turned to face her, and though his features were blanketed in the deep shadows cast by the setting sun behind him, Ashley was still hit both with another wave of 'get out!' and that uncanny feeling she'd felt the first time they'd ran across each other. "To begin with a small amount of context, there are people in this world. Extremely, extremely unique people." He drifted off, going silent, before he shook his head stiffly. "I'm going about this the wrong way… I apologize, Miss Lily. Although I've told it more than once, this particular story is never easy to tell, especially not when I have so little time to prepare it. I had hoped to wait another year or so to approach this with you… But recent events have forced my hand. I may very well have even less time for you than I did the last time I had to tell it, for which I cannot apologize enough. If you can believe it, things are even more fragile now than they were then." He sat down at his desk, and indicated for her to do the same.

What the fuck was this about? Had Dusty and Schwarz spiked those cigars with something? Was she high from the second-hand smoke? Or had Professor Ozma actually just stood there and rambled for two minutes? What did he even just say?

It took some effort for Ashley to drag herself away from those thoughts. "I'm sorry?" She blinked numbly as she took her seat, and tried to steer this conversation literally anywhere that made sense. "Did something happen?" Oh Brothers, her aunts didn't call him did they?! Absolutely nothing from Torchwick since that brief interaction-by-proxy, they'd already gotten Ruby friggin' Rose on the case, and Auntie Ec was still kicking up a fuss?

Ozma tilted his hand back and forth, "not… Yet." He drawled, "but I know the parties involved, and thus know this might not necessarily be a fire I can put out." He straightened his back, "at the risk of jumping ahead, and…" He nodded to the side in a way that tried to be conciliatory, as though admitting a small amount of shame, but came across so uncannily that the meaning was nearly overwhelmed in the strangeness. "Aware that I might be seizing an opportunity to procrastinate, I can summarize the events that have accelerated my plans. I have it on good authority that a former student of mine has decided to declare war on organized crime. Her chosen target -"

Ozma was interrupted by Ashley groaning and falling forward, resting her face in her hand. "Oh gods." She murmured, shaking her head. "Oh no…"

The headmaster blinked, "you… Sound as though you knew about this." Ashley nodded into her hand, unable to believe this was happening. "What exactly is it that you know? And how?" He asked, slowly.

"My aunts. They think Roman Torchwick is out to recruit me, and they've just been escalating ever since." Saying it out loud managed to make it sound even more ridiculous. "I got into a fight before school started and was arrested. The cops let me go, but, well - my semblance let me read their lips. They said I was on Torchwick's 'white list'." She noticed Ozma grow even more unnaturally stiff as she said this, causing her to stumble for a bit before she continued on. "I… Uh, I told my aunts, and they've been worried he's planning on recruiting me. But I haven't so much as stepped a toe out of line since, and I've only started making regular visits to Vale this past month." And even then, only to humor Schwarz and Dusty, who were much unlike Sylvie and her in that their hobbies kept them in the open air and as far away from their homes as possible. "When I went home during break, I ran into Ruby Rose - they'd called her and asked her for help!"

"Really?" Ozma asked, his voice having gone from the cool collectedness of before to one of rapt attention now. "You manage to know things even I do not, then…" She still couldn't see much of his face because of the setting sun, but she could see his head turning up and down as he seemed to be physically reexamining her. She got the feeling as though he were seeing her with new eyes, and this just hit her full-force with another overwhelming desire to get out! "I didn't have that context, rather I simply was told by concerned parties that, though most of her old allies had refused her, she had acquired at least one, was working on another, and was resuming an old conflict she had with the kingpin."

Ashley swept her hands through her hair, utterly unable to believe how one bad call had spiraled this far out of control. She knew her aunts were over protective, but never in all her time in their house could she have thought they were this bad! This was so far beyond the PI she wasn't even able to laugh at it anymore. What on Remnant had them so convinced they needed to escalate things this badly? Why were they willing to use their old, tenuous friendship with Ruby Rose and her good nature to blow things this far out of proportion? As a matter of fact, why was Ruby Rose willing to go this far?

Yes, she was a fantastic woman - a true heroine who always seemed to be exactly as she seemed to be in interviews! - but surely there were smarter ways of going about this than going to war against the king of crime! She was Ruby Rose, she fought and ended an entire war when she was younger than Ashley! She'd only kept fighting afterwards, surely she had enough experience in the world to know that Torchwick was far from the mob boss he'd been twenty years ago! Unless Ashley's fanciful musings about her parents being spies actually hadn't been far from the mark, then why was this woman willing to go to war against a worldwide crime ring because a couple aunts were freaking out?

She decided to voice these questions, looking into Ozma's stony face and asking: "Why?"

"Two minutes ago, I had no answer." Ozma admitted, "but now I wonder if I might be able to divine one… You said you met her yourself?" When Ashley nodded, Ozma continued. "As tempted as I am to ask after her, I'll instead ask if there was anything noteworthy you heard her say, or saw her do. Anything at all quite possibly could equip me to put out this fire where I wasn't before." With each passing moment, the sun outside sank deeper below the horizon, and with the fading light, Ashley was able to see a bit more of Ozma's scarily uncanny face. His borderline unnatural expressions sent through her a wave of some of the most vivid feelings of fear she'd ever experienced.

Don't answer don't answer don't answer don't answer don't answer don't answer don't answer - Ashley shook the intrusive thoughts from her head. "Uh, I…" She shrugged sheepishly. "I didn't really see or hear much. I got home right when Ru - uh, Miss Rose, was leaving." She felt shivers go down her spine when he focused his golden eyes directly on hers, and noticed how, unlike any other person's eyes, his didn't so much as twitch when they were locked on target - there wasn't even the telltale dulling that happened just before anyone blinked! What was this guy's deal, was it his semblance?

"Anything at all, Miss Lilly." He reemphasized. "You will come to learn that as cliche as it sounds, literally any detail could be important."

Don't trust Ozma! More words from shadowy voices echoed out to her. Unlike her mental image of anyone else, she couldn't recognize these ones. Ashley shook her head again, filing it away as her subconscious raging at the intensely uncanny feelings Ozma was giving her. She spared a brief moment to wonder if this was why her aunts seemed a little worried about him, had he been this off-putting back then, too?

"I…" Those parts of her that echoed out with advice from her friends and family all but choked her out of talking, but she pushed them aside again and gave him the one and only thing she could think of: Her personal theory. "She mentioned she knew my parents from the war. Or, my Dad, at least."

Ozma tilted his head, as the sun sank deeper behind him, the twilight hours almost fully ended. "Your father?" He asked, and now that she could see his eyes, she saw him run them over her again. "I must admit my information isn't complete there, you only listed your aunts as family, I didn't think to look that far into things, especially given what you told me before orientation. Forgive my rudeness, but my assumption was that if they never came back for you, they must not have survived. Is that not true?"

The most bizarre conflict of thoughts shot through her mind at Ozma's words. One half of her refused to believe he was telling the truth, where the other half thought he was. It was a perfectly even split, and she couldn't find anything to push her one way or another. Trying to calm herself, she swiped her hand through her hair and shrugged, "I don't know, to be honest. The story I told you was what I'd always been told, but meeting Ruby, she suggested there might have been more to it. She said that my Dad was the reason RWBY and JNPR found Adam Taurus at all, but my aunts stopped her from saying more after that. I just…" She shrugged again. "It's silly, but I've been entertaining the thought that he was some kind of super spy, and that's why they're scared of Torchwick: They think he might sell my name to angry Faunus who might want revenge."

Ashley watched Ozma deflate, and she was assaulted by the most bizarre feeling. Looking at him, with his stiff movements and uncanny expressions, all she could tell was just that he had been interested a moment ago, but had been given something that had sapped that interest. For reasons she couldn't understand however, she felt as though he were letting out a breath of air - as though this deflation were equal parts relief and disappointment. In the moments between this and his response, she examined him again, but couldn't see a single hint as to where these feelings were coming from. "Life… Isn't often so dramatic, Miss Lily, but if what you say is true…" He drifted off for a moment. "I'll need to look into this. Speak with Professor Dorn." She now got the feeling as though he were going through the motions, more than that - as though he were an actor in a play, and these were the lines he needed to recite. "What was your father's name?"

Ashley looked to the ground as the sun finally set and the office was fully enveloped in the dark of night. Ashamedly, she admitted: "I don't remember. My parents were always 'Mom and Dad'. My aunts raised me longer than they did, so I've thought of myself as a 'Lily' for so long that if my aunt didn't like to use my full name when she was mad, I wouldn't even remember my…" It suddenly occurred to her, sitting here, that she knew so little about her Mom and Dad that she wasn't even sure who had taken whose name. Sure, tradition had it that the husband's name was used, but she'd met more than her fair share of people who just never changed their names at all, and a few who had even taken on the wife's name. "Paternal? Maternal?" Were the words that leaked out to reflect these thoughts, before she cut herself off with a shake of the head. "My old name, was Guilliman." She looked up just as the automatic lights came to life, breathing the office with pale white light.

The moment she finished speaking, without warning, Ozma's entire body jerked. He jumped in an obvious display of shock, so thorough that it traveled through his entire body. It was so sudden that it even startled Ashley!

"You -" Ozma stuttered, "what did you just say?" He leaned forward, and Ashley could see his face with perfect clarity.

"Uh -" Ashley stammered, her entire mind grinding a bit as she beheld the first genuine expression on his face she'd ever seen. It was like watching a machine that had done one thing so much and for so long that everything else had rusted, suddenly being ordered to do something else and shaking off all of that rust. "My -" Her intuition, however, was not so stunned - if anything, she was suddenly hit by a feeling similar to that when she'd walked into and sprang a verbal trap. "My parents' name was Guilliman?" Suddenly the 'super spy' theory wasn't feeling so far-fetched, if her family name had elicited this reaction from Beacon's Headmaster.

Much like how his current expression was the first hint of true, human emotion from the Headmaster, his processing her confirmation was the first time she could see the gears turning in his head. After a moment, he sat back in his chair, and suddenly the statue was back - all she could see was the outermost surface, filled with its uncanny stiffness. "Oh!" He leaned back and deflated again, sliding down a bit and placing a hand on his chest. "Oh my goodness!" He breathed, a stiff smile spreading across his face. "Oh, don't startle me like that!" His tone was the airy winds of someone that had been delivered a great shock, only to realize all was well. "I'm sorry, Miss Lily… Very sorry." He let out a long, relieved breath. "I have been very stressed as of late, and combined with mishearing you…" He paused a moment, then shook his head. "For context: Adam Taurus had a personal bodyguard throughout the war. Though he was only known by his codename, when he was killed we were able to identify him as a shark faunus by the name of Gillman. The man was… Extremely lethal. Though it will not be today, one day I will explain to you just why, and therefore why his name crossed my desk so often."

"Oh?" Ashley looked unerringly at Ozma, as she now found herself agreeing with the voices of her intuition: The man had just lied to her.

Ashley shook her head - of course he had! The only people in the world as important as the Councils of Three were the Headmasters, of course he knew things she didn't, and of course he would have to lie about those things if she brushed up against them. In a rare case of recent memories being more relevant to older ones, she recalled Dusty once egging Sylvie on about how pointless it was to game out combat scenarios. His entire argument had revolved around 'there's always another what if', and to prove it, he asked her 'what if' the rumors about people that could nullify semblances were true? How would she defend against that?

On its own, that sounded irrelevant - and Ashley needed another moment to process the memory's sudden reappearance to realize that, during this debate, Dusty did as Dusty does and went off on a tangent. Specifically about things he'd read on those conspiracy boards, about how the reason Adam Taurus had gotten so far, so fast, was because one of his generals had that ability. If the man's name really had been Gillman, then Ashley could understand why this would startle the headmaster, and why he'd clam up right after - even ignoring the absurdity of Dusty's rants, the Headmaster might very well have synced right up with her aunts for the brief moment he thought he had the daughter of Adam Taurus' bodyguard in front of him.

Needing to respond, she pulled the first thing she could think of: "A shark… Named… Gill." She wasn't sure if she was trying to deflect her increasingly concerning thoughts with humor, or if she were actually following those thoughts through and testing the man. Either way, a part of her really wanted to know if someone had taken a look at a fish person and named them 'Gill-man'.

"One syllable, Miss Lily. I missed one syllable, and for that moment found myself understanding why your aunts would go to such lengths to hide you from Roman Torchwick." Ozma grinned stiffly. "Which conveniently brings us back to why I brought you here today…" He let out a long breath, "given what you've given me so far, I actually find myself in dire need to make calls and gather information. Resultantly, I am in possession of even less time than I was when we began, so instead I will approach this differently. Would you give me your arm?"

Ashley suddenly remembered years of her aunts hammering in her a proper - and perhaps sometimes improper - amount of paranoia when it came to the police. Don't talk without a lawyer, don't cause a fuss, don't trust them at all - and endless list of lessons that, while not directly applicable here, nevertheless resulted in Ecru's familiar tones giving voice to Ashley's thoughts: Baby, if you give that man your arm without asking why I will beat your ass into next week!

For once tonight finding herself in complete agreement with her intuition, Ashley voiced these concerns - in a more diplomatic way. "Why… Do you need my arm?" She asked, leaning back a bit. "I don't think you've even actually gotten to why I'm here." She added, after having the epiphany.

Ozma hummed, "fair enough." He said, with a nod that seemed halfway between acceptance and pride. "To be brief… I suspect you to be possessed of a great and unique power. Something that goes beyond your semblance, though they may be related. I had wished to broach this subject tonight, but the information you have given me… I now need to spend the night penning many a letter and placing many a call. Thus, I now seek to take a sample of your blood. I can have it tested, and it can tell me whether or not I am correct in my theory."

"My semblance… Of seeing real well." With each passing word, Ashley found herself falling more and more in line with the darker parts of her intuition.

Ozma quirked an eyebrow, his golden eyes twinkling. "Is that all you think you can do?" She saw an uncanny smile tug at one side of his face. The administrator that yearned to return to the classroom revealed itself next: "Then for all your eyes are showing you, Miss Lilly, you see nothing. A semblance is much more than just a way to punch things harder. Pay less attention to what you can do in combat, more attention to your day to day, moment to moment." He waited for her to respond, and when she nodded, he continued. "Now… I understand why you may be apprehensive. Truthfully, you would not be the first, but like many of those who came before you… I make this request of you out of a dire need. Whether I am right or wrong, I will at least explain to you why I must do this, but because of what I've learned, that cannot happen tonight. Will you at least trust me that far?"

Ashley regarded the uncanny man for a long time. A large part of her wanted to refuse - she felt he would accept it if she did - but a different part of her managed to turn her around with a single errant thought: That sounded a lot like what her aunts had told her. Like with them during the semester break, there were a lot of complicated pieces moving right now. Like with them, he knew things she didn't, and like they had, he had promised to give her answers in due course, and, just like they had, had even given her a window of time in which to expect it. When added to the fact that things really were moving on much grander scales than she could comprehend, and that Ozma felt he had a chance to put out Ruby Rose's fire before it spread too far, she felt those paranoid parts of her fitfully fall silent.

This was Ozma, Beacon's Headmaster, and one of the key players in the end of the War of the White Witch. If she couldn't at least trust him a little bit, who could she trust?

So, minutes later, she left Beacon Tower with a small bandage on her arm, and a head filled with questions.

After all: As much as she was willing to trust Professor Ozma, that didn't mean she just ignored the intense reaction he'd had to her name. Yes, the elevator ride down to the lobby showed her that Taurus' bodyguard had indeed been named Gillman, but she just couldn't shake that that had been a quick and dirty way to cover a major slipup. His reaction to Guilliman had been the most human, least uncanny thing he'd done all night. Combined with her general intuition, his surprise with Ruby Rose interacting with her aunts, and indeed that event itself, she felt a pit opening up in her stomach.

She couldn't wait three years.

Yesterday she could have - an hour ago she could have.

But not anymore.

But this brings me back to square one: What do I expect to do? She'd already gamed this out in her bedroom weeks ago.

Well… She looked down at her hand, at the scroll sitting coldly in her palm. I could just ask. She was pretty sure if she just called Ecru in the middle of the night and bluntly asked 'Who were my parents?', she'd get an answer.

What was stopping her was that one naggling piece of doubt that wanted to believe there was still a rational, mundane explanation to all of this. That Ozma really was just monstrously tired, had misheard her say her name, and she was connecting a hundred different dots on the altar of one man's mistake. She wanted to believe that she was fresh off of learning her life was getting complicated, and might have been complicated already, and that was leading her to jump at shadows.

This was real life. This wasn't a movie - in all likelihood, those extremely mundane answers were the case. She had to remember this, so if she woke her already worried sick aunt up in the middle of the night and intentionally started a fire she'd have to put out, she could unwittingly be fueling a much worse blaze in the background.

Once again… What do I expect to happen? What can I reasonably do? She asked herself while crossing the grounds. I gamed this out. She reminded herself again, her eyes locked onto the stone paths that led to her dorms. My only option is to freak Auntie Ec the hell out… But I have a reasonable doubt as to whether or not that's necessary.

The entire walk to her dorm left her with no other ideas. She silently entered the room, and was stalled a moment by a humorous sight: Sylvie had claimed Schwarz and Dusty's beds, forcing the boys to share her burned one, with the sheets and blankets stripped.

The sight managed to calm her nerves for a moment, as she could imagine the boys trying to protest. One of them might have even complained it would be cold - probably Schwarz.

Of course, Sylvie's response would be an appropriately simple: You already warmed it up.

Ashley smiled at the sight, taking in her sleeping friends. It helped to ground her, and the brief reprieve from the not-so-normal complications of life and the very normal messiness of the human mind helped to calm her. She quietly entered the room and opened her closet to grab her sleepwear, where a tiny glint of light caught her eye.

Looking downwards, she saw the glass coin Dusty had made a fuss of.

Slowly, her brow knitted together, a few wayward pieces of information slotting into place. This coin was Goud Etiolate's, she found it under his bed. Dusty recognized it from CCT conspiracy boards, connected it to some kind of criminal underworld, and apparently had a replica of his own. Her aunts both had long and complicated feelings about Goud, and she had been left with the impression that he'd done something beyond just martyring himself. This connected to her father in some way, because when she heard them talking among themselves, they'd neither said Goud's name, nor her own - they'd used one she couldn't even spell. Her father at least, her mother possibly, had something to do with ending the second Faunus Rebellion, as said by Ruby Rose. Ozma had shown a visceral reaction to her parents' name, and though he had fed her an admittedly believable spiel about mishearing her, she couldn't shake the feeling that it had been a convenient lie.

It felt like some of these didn't connect perfectly to each other, but Ashley nevertheless was getting hit by the feeling that these were all connected. She felt as certain of this as she felt regret for the bandage on her arm. Whatever the connection was, she was ready to swear it was there.

She picked up the glass coin and frowned at it. She sat down on her bed and watched the coin catch the light.

For all of her whinging that she had no option but to force her aunts' hands, she might have been unwittingly sitting on an alternate path.

No… She shook her head. No, no, no. I'm thinking about this too much, this is stupid, it's crazy. But she didn't believe that, and she admitted it with a defeated sigh.

Ashley tried to game this out just as she had back home. What did she really expect to do? Start hopping on the CCT and looking up 'criminal glass coin'? Post a picture of this thing on Sawt and ask people for help? Did she really expect to get results that way? She had no idea how to start, let alone how to do so intelligently.

BANG!

Ashley jumped as the room shook. A moment later, she tried to force her heart to slow down, as she realized the sound and the shaking had come from the bigger of the two boys rolling right off of the bed he'd been sentenced to share. Dusty, amazingly, didn't so much as grunt from the impact, still sleeping like a baby.

Ashley continued staring for several long moments, feeling dumber with each passing second as the obvious finally dawned on her.

She let out a long, tired sigh.

If I do this, there's no turning back. I'll either find a genuine reason to call my aunt… She continued staring at the sleeping giant. Or I didn't make it a year in Beacon before I lost my mind. She fell backwards onto her bed, trying and ultimately failing to talk herself out of it.

The coin and the name. That would be as far as she went. She would answer those two questions, and if they didn't pan out, then she was thinking too much and that would be that.

She crawled under her blankets, unsure if she wanted to convince herself she was or wasn't crazy, but fully certain that the entire freshman dorm would hear Dusty's reaction when she asked him this favor.

He didn't disappoint: "Girl, are you fuckin' kidding?!"

Cringing heavily, Ashley responded through clenched teeth: "Dusty… Please." She looked over her shoulder, seeing their bathroom door shut, Sylvie still inside, and Schwarz having vacated the room out of a desire to not wait for his shower.

Dusty leaned in close, still feeling as though he were towering over her. "What's the - where's this coming from?" He whispered.

"I'm just -"

"No 'I'm just' girl, don't give me that. You like that I tell those tales, you don't like the stories themselves." He cut in, firmly, for once dropping the smile and the jovial tone. "Talk to me, what's eating you that bad?"

She really, really didn't want to tell him. Desperately so, as a matter of fact, because that would make all of her thoughts real. It would admit that on several separate occasions she'd mentally traced her way from mundanity to insanity. Dusty at least had the sense and the humility to admit how crazy the shit was that he was into, and never said he actually believed it all, only that it was entertaining. She, however, was outright open to the possibility that the crazies on the CCT might be right, and speaking it would mean she couldn't deny it anymore.

Worst of all was that if she spoke it was also opening her to the chance that he would listen to her, find her wanting, and outright say she was crazy. Worrying about it herself was awful, but baring her soul and hearing someone else say it would be crushing.

But, she didn't want to lie to Dusty. She didn't want to lie to anyone, but Dusty in particular always gave her the feeling that lying to him was like pulling the 'you want a treat' trick on a puppy, and then revealing an empty hand. The big guy was just too nice.

So, with a deep sigh, she laid it out for him. The version she gave him was abridged - she didn't know how long she had before Sylvie got out of the shower - but it got the critical details across. Just in time too, as when she finished, she heard the water in the bathroom cut out, and she and Dusty were left looking at each other in a quiet dorm room.

The silence grew thick and oppressive with each passing moment. Dusty's contemplative gaze felt heavy on her shoulders.

Then, just as Sylvie, now washed and dressed, came out of the bathroom, he cracked a grin, winked, and got to his feet.

"Girl, I swear, if you took all the hot water again!" He rounded on Sylvie, planting his enormous hands on his hips.

Completely nonplussed, the comparatively minuscule woman walked right by him, arms hanging from the towel slung across her shoulders. "Set another fire." Was her immediate response.

"I thought we paid for that!"

"I decide that." She said, her quiet voice somehow managing to overpower his. "I would also recommend a network hider."

Dusty was about to respond on pure momentum, but when his brain caught up with his mouth, the latter faltered. Ashley blinked as the implication dawned on her.

"There is no way." She sent the taciturn siren.

"My semblance is sonic in nature."

"That's your voice!"

"By necessity, my other senses must be tuned to accommodate, or I would be deaf by now."

"Uh… Wouldn't that mean you should hear less?" Dusty asked, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

"One would think." Sylvie responded, in a voice that carried every single one of the fifteen years she'd spent with her semblance. "Or do you think I am quiet because I do not like to talk?"

"Yes." Was Dusty's immediate return, while Ashley silently agreed with him. "And uh… What's a network hider?"

Sylvie stopped packing her schoolbag cold, and even Ashley turned to look at him aghast. The former slowly turned to look at him, her eyes wide and her thin lips pressed against each other, her expression radiating sheer disbelief.

"I should not be surprised… But I am." Sylvie turned back to her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "We will use my scroll."

"Okay, let's go back to that now - you heard all that? you're helping?"

"Of course." Said Sylvie.

"'Course she will! Shorty likes to pretend she's a cold heart, but she's a little ol' softy." Dusty added, rapidly getting back into stride. "Since it's three of four, might want to let Schwarz know too. Don't wanna be hiding stuff from him."

This managed to get out of control faster than she could have believed. While she had an initial urge to refute the big man on account of it probably being better to keep the number of people who knew as low as possible, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Knowing Schwarz, as much as he may think it a little weird that their new team project seemed to be trolling conspiracy boards on a wild grimm chase, he'd just roll with it.

Sure enough: She was completely correct.

"I mean… It's not my thing, but…" He shrugged, when Ashley spilled the beans during their lunch break. "None of you are over twenty five. If you're going to go out on a limb and do something stupid, this is literally the time to do it. It's basically expected you'll do dumb things and make mistakes." He dug at his food for a moment, looking pensive. "To be more on topic, I'd say you might have something at least, even if it will probably turn out to not be what you think it is. You have a point that there's more than likely a mundane explanation to all this… But you're forgetting truth is stranger than fiction. Past that, I agree that going right to your aunt without ironclad proof would just be freaking her out for no reason. If the woman went from zero to Ruby Rose at the possibility that a ganger might be eying you, Brothers only know what she'd do if she thought things were escalating, so…" He shrugged again. "Just keep me posted."

And just like that, Team SSAD had a new goal. They'd clawed their way to being a low-to-mid ranked team, they'd made friends, and now they were conspiracy theorists! Every day that passed after this started, Ashley felt as though she'd made the wrong call. She would fight this off with a mix of pragmatism - what could she do now that she'd gotten Dusty excited, ignited Sylvie's protective instincts, and gotten Schwarz interested? - and the nagging feeling that her intuition really was correct.

The fact that the first news story about Ruby Rose' first major hit on Roman Torchwick just served to remind her of why she'd gone down this rabbit hole in the first place. She did idly note that the news story only mentioned Ruby, but she wasn't overly surprised about that: Pyrrha Nikos was just as big a household name as Ruby was, she must have been busy, or outside of CCT range.

It had been about a week since she'd spoken to Ozma and lit the fire under SSAD. Ashley was largely unable to contribute to Dusty and Sylvie's 'extracurriculars' due to her just not knowing how in the first place, so she was killing time rewatching a cartoon she'd loved as a kid. During a commercial break, she got a text from Sylvie:

Incoming.

Ashley couldn't do so much as blink before the door to SSAD's dorm crashed open with a loud bang. She turned to see Dusty had chosen to use his shoulder this time, and got to watch as his excitement was briefly dimmed by a book flying at his head, courtesy of their stalwart leader. It bounced right off of him, but Ashley couldn't tell if that was because he was just that thickheaded, or because he'd thrown up a telekinetic barrier just so he could make it look like he'd taken the hit. Whatever the case, he caught the book and rocketed it right back at Schwarz, who caught it in his chest and was buried in the wall long enough for Dusty to turn back to Ashley.

"I think we got something! You ever been drinking before?!"

"I'm twenty."

"I had my dad's moonshine when I was sixteen."

Ashley closed her eyes tight. Of course his father was a brewer, and of course Dusty had swiped some at some point. Anyone else would think he was playing up the 'farm kid', but she knew him well enough to know the joke was that it wasn't a joke.

So instead she chose a different angle: "If your plan is to take us out drinking, you probably shouldn't have broken the ribs of the only one of us that can actually buy alcohol."

"Thank you!" Came Schwarz's croak, to which she nodded.

Dusty actually seemed stumbled by that point, until he was lightly pushed into the dorm by his much smaller partner in crime, who shut the door behind her.

"It won't matter." Sylvie sat down on her recently replaced bed and crossed her legs. "They'll either tell us what we need to know, or we're wrong."

Ashley raised an eyebrow, and even Schwarz seemed interested enough to give up the 'wounded chest' routine. "Care to elaborate?"

"Turns out the little tiger's pretty good at putting things together!" Dusty began, "she had us find a literal hundred corroborating -"

"Consensus says the way Dusty explained the coins was correct."

"C'mon, girl - gonna ruin the fun every time?"

Sylvie's response was just a grin so slight that Ashley wasn't sure anyone else noticed. She even had the indication that Sylvie had only done so knowing that only Ashley would notice.

"So… We just go to one of Torchwick's fronts, flash the coin, and spend it on information?"

Dusty shook his hand in a 'so-so' fashion, but Sylvie cut him off before he could speak. "Every crime is tied to Torchwick. Everything he does is tied to the underworld. But not every front of his is an underworld front." Sylvie continued.

"It's like how some companies own a bunch of children companies, who also own children companies, who franchise out. It all leads back to the same place, but your Ma and Pa Donut Hole isn't directly managed by the Schnee Dust Company." Dusty bashed his way back in, "so we can't just go find a cop bar, we need to find a cop bar. That's where we'll crack this wide open. We go in, flash the coin, cash in a few of the favors, keep our change, and roll from there!"

"This is assuming our aggregate information is correct." Sylvie added, calmly.

Dusty cringed behind a grin. "Yeah… These are the same websites that kept insisting that the name you were looking for belonged to an alien." He swatted Sylvie on the shoulder, "short and vicious here made us give up on that front just when it was getting good." He laughed, "I was on this one forum - they were convinced that the alien was a time traveling god whose job is to keep an eye on an also alien wizard… Who's immortal, and the father of all Grimm." He paused a moment, grinning from ear to ear as he made eye contact with everyone in the room. "You wanna know who the wizard is?"

"It's Ozma." Sylvie got an exaggerated look of pain from Dusty as he put his hands on his chest.

There was silence for a few moments, Ashley and Schwarz shared a look before turning back to the duo. "So… The coin." Schwarz steered things back on track. "You know where to go?"

Dusty's response was a big grin.

Three hours later, they were all in line at a nightclub. Ashley just felt more and more stupid with each passing second, but she also recognized that the entire situation was stupid. She had unleashed her conspiracy-nut friend on the CCT, and they were listening to the rumors of thousands of people collecting, swapping, and over time, warping their own stories. If it weren't for Sylvie filtering all of these down, they might not have even gotten this far, but even all that effort really only got them two pieces of dubiously actionable intelligence:

The coins really were exchanged for favors, and Junior's Bar might be a place where they could do it.

If either of those were wrong, they collectively agreed it wasn't back to the drawing board, it was time to close this book. They didn't need to be conspiracy nuts to know that one could spend a lifetime trolling those circles to try and find another clue to prove their beliefs, so if this didn't work, it didn't matter if Ashley's hunch was correct: They were going to consider it incorrect and just move on. This wasn't a 'I'm going to be a Huntress even if it kills me' situation, this was her barking up trees and literally chasing conspiracy theories. She was either going to win or lose right now, and she vowed to accept whatever she got at face value. It was healthier that way, and they could just write all of this up as a dumb little adventure, akin to kids digging up their backyard looking for treasure.

As she waited in line, Ashley looked at her teammates, and felt a smile creep across her face. Of the four of them, only Schwarz had dressed up for anything even approaching appropriate for a nightclub - Dusty was still wearing his heavily weathered working clothes, Sylvie was in her customary 'whatever fits' outfit, and Ashley had her traditionally utilitarian shirt and combat pants. Compared to Schwarz and all the others in line, dressed for a party and drinks, they stuck out a sore thumb, but money was money, and Juniors' in particular had a reputation for not caring over much.

Watching Schwarz try to remind Dusty that they were here to work, not to have fun, Ashley still remembered her reluctance to even approach Dusty about this, and the fear and anxiety that bloomed when things spiraled out of control in a day and her entire team figured out. She couldn't believe her good fortune in how every one of them were willing to roll with this. There was the very real chance that they all had similar ideas as Schwarz - 'this probably won't turn anything out, but it will be fun' - but it was still a gesture that warmed her heart.

"Excuse me."

Ashley blinked, then turned around, seeing a lean woman in a loose dress standing behind her. Ashley blinked as she took in the woman's appearance, something about it felt off, but what exactly she couldn't tell. The dress was tasteful, but definitely meant for a night on the town. The woman's bleach-blonde hair came to just over her shoulders, and her midnight blue eyes carried a warm but piercing gaze. On the whole, she was unremarkable, and at first glance there was nothing to jump out at Ashley, but something still felt wrong. This wasn't like talking to Ozma, this person wasn't an uncanny, animate statue, but looking at her face just set Ashley's warning bells off.

Deciding to actually listen to her intuition this time, and feeling a bit braver given the presence of her team, she tried to brush the woman off: "I'm not into women, and I don't drink."

The woman blinked, her head visibly flinching at the comment. Muted disgust rippled across her features, but she shook her head. "No, no - just… How old are you?"

Ashley could sense a pair of eyes on her back, and heard Schwarz's voice drop a bit - her team was listening, but not intervening yet. "I appreciate the concern, but I don't see how it's your… Uh… Concern." She stumbled a bit, cursing herself as she felt the 'back off, tough girl' persona fall apart almost as quickly as she tried to put it together.

The woman pursed her lips and quirked an eyebrow, Ashley found herself stuck between interpreting this as an adult being amused at a much younger adult acting older than they were, and the woman silently saying 'You'd be surprised'. "You don't look like you're of drinking age… And this is a bar." A beat passed, then: "A mob bar, at that."

Ashley frowned, realizing that her voice sounded strange too. There was a barely audible tinny quality to it, did she have a voicebox implant? Was this a huntress?

Oh… That's what I need tonight. Brothers forbid she run into someone that may eventually send word back to school.

Ashley shrugged, "Lady, I appreciate it, but I already know I'm making mistakes tonight." She said, as the line moved forward. "Unless you're about to tell me you're my aunt's PI, can you just let me screw up in peace?"

The woman looked like she was about to speak, but Schwarz cut in. "Law says that Huntsmen can circumvent the drinking age law and enter these establishments as long as they don't purchase alcohol." He slid into place next to Ashley, "kindly go away, thank you." Even Ashley was shocked at that, and as the woman did exactly that, she looked up to Schwarz, a quirk to her eyebrow. Schwarz just grinned, and patted her on the shoulder. "Learned when I was younger to stop caring about random strangers when I asked myself if I'd ever meet that fast food clerk again in my life. The odds were low, so screw it - I don't care to hear about her love troubles, just give me my hamburger." He indicated the woman while the two turned back to the front of the line. "Chick's a busybody, you won't ever see her again, so screw it and hit the ejector seat. Worse thing that will happen is a person will think less of you for an hour before they forget you existed."

Ashley found herself in awe of how smart and stupid that sounded. "What must it be like to live your life?" She once again found herself admitting there was a certain kind of carefree charm to just letting life happen like he did.

"A year ago I was an accountant, then I became a rookie Huntsman, then I became a kid wrangler only to be wrangled myself by the kids, now I'm a conspiracy chaser. My life is fuckin' weird." The two shared a grin, and soon found themselves in front of the bouncer.

The man had himself a moment when he found that he was half the size of their farm kid teammate. He looked up at Dusty, a shocked expression on his face as he took in the size of the Rookie's arms in comparison to his own. Dusty, meanwhile, just looked at the man with a big, dumb smile on his face.

"Hi sir, I'm Dusty! We still waitin' in line or is it time to go in? Anticipation is kinda cool, but it's also cool out here - temperature-wise, that is. How do these things work anyways? Do you guys just have counters and you count the people that go in and go out? I assume so, but I don't see anything like that on you! Do you split up groups like mine if just one person leaves or do you just let us all in since we're together? I heard Huntsmen can drink even if they ain't of drinkin' age, is that true? I don't plan to anyways - I'd rather remember my first club, but maybe later if it's an option. Hey wait, you're not wearin' a coat! Do you get space heaters in the winter or do you move the line inside? Why don't you just have 'em inside all the time? Is it an image thing or is it because the music's loud and you guys need to protect your ears? Do the staff inside have hearing protection? Could I get some if I asked? Who would I ask?"

Sometimes Ashley genuinely couldn't tell if this was innocent, or if he was playing it up, especially as it often seemed to be both at the same time. Whatever the case was, the man was so thoroughly overwhelmed by the enormous motor mouth, decades his junior, that unlike Busybody, he didn't even think to question the age of everyone present when it came time to let them in.

Ashley had never been to a nightclub before, but she'd seen them in tons of movies, games, and television. She thought she'd been prepared for it, until the inner doors opened and she was hit by the overpoweringly loud music. The multicolored lights were bright enough to light up a city street, with the dance floor itself seeming to be a solid mass of glass and light, ringed by similarly glass pillars that all radiated light like miniature suns. The percussive beats and overwhelming instruments hit her like a train, and the sheer volume of the music actually hurt her ears. She turned to Sylvie, only to find she'd gone so far as to pull out a pair of earmuffs and cover up with them. Schwarz, as was his wont, let it wash over him, his eyes closed and a light puff of air escaping him in a sigh, while Dusty's grin just got wider and he started pumping his fists in front of his stomach.

"Damn, can we hang out a bit?" He hollered, his loud drawl only just managing to reach everyone.

All eyes turned to Ashley, everyone wearing their own version of a 'This is your mission, what do you want to do?' expression. Ashley turned back to the club, letting it all wash over her again. A part of her - actually, the majority of her - wanted to say 'no', both because that wasn't why they were here, and because she personally had gotten her fill of this place the moment her ears started ringing. Turning back to her team however, she got a different feeling from them. Schwarz, though definitely radiating a 'good with whatever' aura, seemed to have a nostalgic bend to his smile, and looked like he might enjoy a night of not thinking; it made her wonder if he hadn't been a party boy when he was her age. Dusty was still dancing in place, in a shuffle that was only barely contained to his immediate area, and definitely looked like he wanted to go out onto the dance floor and do his best to convince people to square dance. Lastly, Sylvie, though definitely unamused by the noise and generally seeming to think everything in here was beyond pointless, nevertheless didn't really seem like she wanted to leave. Ashley was left with the impression that this was all so new, so alien to the normally taciturn bookworm that the faunus just wanted to find a quiet-ish corner and drink it all in.

So, in the end, Ashley decided to hell with it: They might as well just have fun. At least that way when they flashed the coin at the bar and the bartender looked at them like they were idiots, they could at least have a good memory of the night.

Plus: Her aunts had taken her to a few bar-and-grills before. Bar food was either some of the best one could ever have, or utterly terrible. She found herself wanting to roll the dice on that, given that Juniors was known the kingdom over.

So Ashley threw her hands up and waved them forward. Dusty vanished in an instant, barreling down towards the dance floor like a charging bull. Schwarz nodded silently, and - being the only one of them that actually could drink - bee-lined it for the bar, leaving Ashley and Sylvie alone.

"So, uh…" Ashley yelled out over the booming music. "Let's find a booth?"

"Please." Was Sylvie's response, though it was delivered at her usual tone and volume, and thus was completely inaudible over the noise.

At length, the two sat down in a booth along the wall. The difference in lighting between this eating area and the dance floor looked cool to the less taciturn of the two - it looked like all the light in the building was focused on the dance floor and the bars, leading the other areas to be so dark that if she didn't have her particular semblance, she might not have even been able to tell what color her skin was. It didn't do anything about the volume of the music though, and so when someone came by to take her order, they still had to yell to be heard.

The two shared a comfortable silence as they waited on their food. Sylvie was people watching, while Ashley located Schwarz at the bar, and then Dusty dominating the center of the dance floor, towering over everyone present in height and muscle mass.

"Do you think we'll get what we're looking for?" Ashley asked, after a steaming plate filled with burger sliders and fries was placed in between them.

"No." Sylvie responded, bluntly.

Ashley wasn't surprised, and to an extent agreed with her, but it still didn't feel good to hear that she might very well have had what she was pretty sure counted as a manic episode. She took one of the sliders and started eating.

"Nothing on the forums made you think there might be something to all this?"

Sylvie was silent for a few moments, as she watched a faunus couple grind against each other. "Maybe." She settled on, "but they're supposed to be convincing, or else the naive wouldn't believe it."

Ashley nodded to the side, deciding that was fair enough. "Dusty already weighed in on the weirdest thing he found. What about you?"

Sylvie turned to regard Ashley for a few moments, before she took a burger for herself. "I've always believed in the merits that space travel has been suppressed."

Ashley blinked, her head recoiling. "Wait, what?" She remembered reading once about space travel experiments, something about the ships' Dust cores failed when they left Remnant's atmosphere.

Sylvie said much the same: "The accepted explanation is that Dust requires life to function. Leaving our atmosphere for the vacuum of space separates the Dust from Remnant's life, so the ships lost power." She shook her head, "that isn't scientific. More realistic is the ships failed and they didn't want to admit it." A pause, as she chewed on her slider. "And there is verifiable evidence of artificial satellites in orbit."

"Wait, really?" Ashley had never heard of this before. She knew there were in-atmosphere communications relays kept afloat by gravity dust, but she'd never heard of anything being put in outer space.

Sylvie nodded, and dug in her pants for her scroll. "I did not believe it when I was a child, but I got a telescope and looked -"

"Wait, how do you find a satellite in orbit? Space is huge and satellites are… Like, the size of a car!"

"Math." Sylvie said, opening her scroll. "All you need is to know the vector, then you just look at a certain place at a certain time." She found what she was looking for and slid it over to Ashley.

On the scroll's holographic screen was a blurry picture of some kind of winged machine. Ashley could only barely make out the machine's shape because of the sunlight reflecting off of its glass-looking wings, otherwise it blended in with the darkness of space. She wasn't sure what exactly it was she was looking at, finding herself stuck halfway between thinking it looked like a camera and a cannon. At Sylvie's instruction, Ashley scrolled to the next picture, which was one of the telescope's viewing lens, where a significantly blurrier reflection of the satellite could just barely be seen.

"Did you take this?"

"I told you I did."

Ashley shook her head, dumb question.

"Why? I never took you for a space girl." Ashley had gone through a sci-fi phase when she was a little kid, but only because Pyrrha Nikos had said in an interview she liked the stories, and like any impressionable kid, she wanted to be like her heroes. This lasted until she finally got bored of slogging her way through lengthy explanations of science and rules, and then she grew to hate it. It wasn't until a year or two ago that she realized she'd just picked hard science-fiction books to read, and Nikos had been talking about those cheesy rubber mask TV shows, but Ashley still hadn't tried to get back into it.

"I was young, and hadn't learned to not believe everything I saw on the CCT." Sylvie responded. "Ironically, this made me think I could, but that did not last long."

"What is it, then?" Ashley asked, wondering what the point even was of putting things in space. What if they broke, how would they get fixed? What did it even do?

Sylvie shrugged, "there isn't an answer, and the Kingdoms refuse to acknowledge them."

"What do you think?"

"I think it's evidence that they're suppressing space travel." Sylvie repeated.

Ashley nodded to the side, and slid the scroll back towards her friend. "Why? What's the point?"

"If you put a camera in space, you can see anything on Remnant. Troop movements, naval deployments, Grimm herds, anything." Sylvie responded. "If you put weapons in space, no one can avoid them. If you can actually go there, you could mine resources, or set up colonies and outposts."

It felt far-fetched to Ashley, but she was also pretty sure that was the kid in her yelling out from behind a book she couldn't understand. If anything, she was more glad that she'd found something that got more than just the bare-bones responses out of the stoic woman. Granted, 'a little more' than monosyllabic was still the short sentences she was getting, but that was monumental, all things considered.

This was further evidenced by Sylvie saying something completely unprompted: "There are a lot of them."

Ashley tilted her head, "oh?"

"Space is a vacuum. There is nothing to slow down objects, so when they move, they move in that same direction forever. The vectors do not change unless actively changed." Sylvie responded, "so the explanation for when I found a second one was either the first one moved, or there were two. This was answered when I found the first one again, and by the fact that the second was moving in a direction antithetical to the first."

"Well, that's… Kind of cool, I guess?" Ashley leaned back in the booth, looking up to the ceiling and imagining a couple tiny metal cameras watching her from a million miles away. "How'd you find the second one?"

"The same way as the first." She took the vector data from the board and pointed her telescope where it needed to be. "I stopped looking for new ones after the thirtieth. They all were the same."

"Thirty?" Ashley found herself falling in line with Sylvie's thoughts - if there were that many satellites in outer space, then someone somewhere was lying.

"The boards had hundreds of vector equations."

"Alright, I'm with you then." Ashley laughed, taking another burger. "But that's something you proved, how's it plug into the conspiracy boards?"

"Dusty's conspiracy boards claimed every single one of them were sent up by Mistral, and Atlas spent half a trillion lien trying to shoot them down, but stopped when the cannons responsible were destroyed by the lasers on the satellites."

Ashley almost choked on the burger she laughed so hard. Mistrali space lasers! Sure, why not? "I'm listening to these same people." She half-groaned, half-laughed, after catching her breath.

"No, that forum had nothing with reference to the coins." Sylvie returned.

Sylvie rolled her eyes, "sure, that makes me feel better." It actually did, but only in so much that it distracted her enough to realize the two were having a discussion about conspiracies, space travel, and science, in a nightclub where they could barely hear each other.

"It was not - incoming." Sylvie turned to look outside the booth, and Ashley did the same, just in time to see an enormous farm boy arrive, covered in a thin layer of sweat.

Dusty slammed his hands on the table, an enormous smile on his face. "Hey pretty ladies! What're you doin' sitting alone tonight?! Scooch over, let me keep you company!" He laughed and slid in next to Sylvie, deliberately bumping into her with his hip and sending her sliding towards the wall. "I think I've found myself a new hobby! You think Emmy would like it here?"

"She's about to graduate. I do not think she has the time to go out clubbing." Sylvie responded, gracefully allowing Ashley to avoid talking about the woman. The two could get married and live their entire lives together, and Ashley would still think it weird she'd dated someone that much younger than her.

"Shit, that just means I can take her out to celebrate!" Dusty slapped his knee and laughed. "Ten Lien I can get Schwarz out there and embarrass himself!"

Mentioning their lazy leader got Ashley to look in his direction again. She saw the oldest member of their team nursing a bottle, but noticed that it was the only one around him, and it had been about an hour since they'd arrived, so she was thankful he wasn't going crazy like Dusty was.

She genuinely considered either waiting longer, or unleashing Dusty, when she saw that the person sitting next to him was the blonde from earlier - or at least, someone with similar hair and wearing a similar dress. Unfortunately, she already knew she was just procrastinating. If she held it off any longer, she might lose the courage to try at all.

She turned to her teammates, "why don't you two move to a booth over there?" She nodded in the direction of the bar, "I'm going to get us kicked out."

Dusty's face-splitting smile shrank to a more neutral, determined grin, and he nodded, while Sylvie adopted her own game face - a brow slightly more furrowed than 'not at all'. The two of them left the booth first and meandered over barside. Schwarz happened to take a look around the club at this moment, and noticed the action, as well as the two deliberately not looking his way when they did it. When Ashley approached a few minutes later, he understood the game being played, and continued to pretend he didn't exist.

One of the few times him being thirty is anything more than a joke. Ashley thought, as she took a seat at the bar. Who in their right mind would hang out with a bunch of kids ten years their junior? So while Dusty and Sylvie were nearby, ready to spring into action, Schwarz was right there in case things went south.

The bartender approached, sporting a formal suit and a bald head, he took one look at Ashley and said: "It better be water, juice, or soda, Rookie."

Now or never. Ashley silently retrieved the glass coin and planted it on the bar, she slid it forward an inch or two to ensure his attention was on it, and then removed her hand, revealing the flower emblazoned on its side.

The bartender stared at the coin for a long moment, whose silence was somehow made even more deafening by the music blasting through the club. Just as Ashley began to suspect he was going to ask her what it even was, he turned back up to look at her. She hoped her poker face was passable, because inside she was growing more worried with every passing heartbeat.

Then: "Give me a moment." And he walked off.

Ashley was thankful he walked in the direction Schwarz was sitting, it gave her an excuse to look at him out of the corner of her eye. He noticed, and gave a subtle shrug, while the blonde next to him chose this time to leave - having drank enough to be unsteady on her feet, if her flushed skin and shaking legs were any indication.

Actually… Ashley watched the woman walk away, realizing that she looked less drunk and more nervous. Was that a coincidence, or had she seen the coin and gotten the hell out?

Just as Ashley began to think she was reaching, the bartender returned - this time followed by a man in a much more formal suit. His face and head were covered in a salt-and-pepper hair and beard, and his eyes were glued to the coin sitting on his bar. Ashley noticed an honest-to-gods tremble work its way through him before he looked at Schwarz.

Schwarz looked back, and tilted his head.

The man snapped his fingers and pointed at the other end of the bar.

Schwarz gave him an offended look, but after being bribed by a free drink from any shelf, he took the offer and moved a few seats down. The man leaned forward, close enough that Ashley could smell his expertly applied cologne. His mouth opened and shut a few times, as he seemed caught between several things he wanted to say. Looking at him, Ashley felt as though there was something he knew he had to say, or do, but that was being fought by the fact that she was a baby-faced eighteen year old invoking this supposed ritual.

Oh my gods, there's no way. Ashley felt her heart pick up in her chest, and tried her best to keep her expression steeled.

Eventually the boss planted his finger on the coin, "where… Did you… You know what?" He shook his head. "No. No, this is - no. I don't need to know how how a kid your age got this. I don't need to know why you or whoever gave it to you didn't tell you not to flash it around in public." He said, throwing his hands in the air. "What do you want?"

Okay… Uh, assassin IOU crime coin. Ashley gulped. Don't let him catch on! But immediately after that instinct, she realized that all the improvisation in the world didn't mean jack when the entire point of her coming here was to figure out what this even was - and asking that would reveal the ruse instantly.

Suddenly feeling extremely stupid for not having even considered a decent story, Ashley just went for it: "I want to know what it is." Then, just as she finished speaking, inspiration struck: "Aldric… Gave it to me. He said that you'd know what to do." It was a shot in the dark, but it came from the wildest of connections: This coin came from Goud's bag, and when her aunts had been talking, Aldric had been the name they said, not Goud or Guilliman.

To her intense relief, the desperate gamble worked: The Boss' head snapped up to meet her eyes, his own brown orbs as wide as they could go. Ashley was ready to swear she heard his neck crack he moved so fast, and she could see fear and a mountain of shock and disbelief filling his eyes. He then looked down at the coin, his jaw going slack. He looked back and forth again, the sheer amount of shock radiating off of him making Ashley actually begin to fear this success. Whose name had she just invoked? Some kind of Torchwick type? A super-assassin? She tried not to let her nervousness show as he pulled some sort of device from his pocket, and held it to his eye. He held the coin up to the device and examined it.

Whatever he was looking for, he found it, and placed the coin back on the bar. He was beginning to turn pale now, as he swept a gloved hand through his hair and looked around the nightclub. "Is he here?" He asked, leaning in closer.

Ashley gulped, "uh - no. He's… Busy."

"I shouldn't be surprised, what with how Torchwick came rampaging through here a few hours ago. Is that why you're here?" Suddenly feeling like a kid going through mommy and daddy's room when they weren't home, Ashley had to fight to keep her face as straight as possible, and nodded. "Alright… Bit of advice since I can tell you're in over your head. Go down there, do your business, get out. There's a concierge that can answer questions, don't talk to anyone else. You do not want a nervous fallen Huntsman pointing you out to security. I don't know why Aldric picked someone as green as you to be his girl, but I've heard enough stories to know not to ask questions." He stood back up, and though he said this under his breath and was thus practically muted by the music, Ashley read his lips perfectly: "Gods, how many people are going to die this time?" He turned back to her, "the idiots in the booth pretending they didn't come here right before you did. They with you?"

Ashley was a little surprised her little ruse had been found out instantly, but then again - this was apparently the mob bar to end all mob bars, of course anything a bunch of Beacon students could come up with would be trivial to them. Nervously, she nodded, and when the boss proceeded to ask the same of Schwarz and reveal his presence was a known factor as well, she did again.

The Boss regarded Ashley again for a few moments, and then shook his head. "Oh, I - no, no, I know better." He turned and snapped his fingers, summoning the bartender from earlier.

In a whirlwind of activity, SSAD was taken by the bartender through the back of the bar. They were summarily ignored by all of the staff as they made their way to an elevator, which took them down a mind boggling number of floors - so deep underground that Dusty openly mentioned how surprised he was that it was possible to build this deep. The bartender didn't respond, nor did he respond to Sylvie asking if Junior's was the only way to enter this 'Garden'. Schwarz was the next to try and break the silence, but his question of whether or not the food 'down there' was any good was met with yet more silence. Ashley tried to get the man to break next, but he wouldn't tell them where they were supposed to go after this, either.

At length, they made it to what the elevator's display didn't even recognize as a level, the doors opened, and revealed a small, quaint lobby, at the end of which was a desk with a terminal. Approaching it, they saw a 'call for service' button which, when pressed, summoned a hologram that rapidly went from 'please wait' to connecting them to a well dressed, dark skinned woman in a suit.

"Welcome to the Garden. I apologize I cannot greet you in person, you have chosen one of our secondary entrances. May I see your proof of entry?" Ashley was quick enough on the uptake to produce the glass coin, which got a brief twitch of the woman's eyebrow, but no other reaction. "Very well. Do you require any assistance?"

The answer to that was an obvious and emphatic 'yes', which had worked last time, so she decided to go for broke:

"We're a little new, ma'am. Are there any rules we need to be aware of?" She figured knowing the expected etiquette was probably the best thing to ask for first, lest she - as the Boss had mentioned - piss off a fallen Huntsman and get nabbed by security, the former of which terrified her because what was that, and the latter of which terrified her because she didn't want to know what security guards were capable of when their express purpose was to beat up assassins, professional criminals, and 'Fallen. Huntsmen.'

"I see. May I ask first what the purpose of your visit today is?" Asked the concierge, before she looked away from the camera, gave a little bow, and held up one finger, before turning back.

Oh. Uh… Ashley decided to take the bone the Boss had given her: "Roman Torchwick came through earlier, we're here on Aldric's behalf?" She noticed Dusty shuffle about at that, but an elbow in the ribs from Schwarz got him to stop moving.

For the first time in the conversation, the woman's response wasn't instantaneous. She blinked once, her face tightening in a practiced poker face. "Mister Aldric is… Back again?" She said, surprise and awe radiating out of her voice - Ashley even heard a gasp from off screen!

"Uh…" I have made… "Yeah." A catastrophic error. Ashley was beginning to upgrade Aldric from 'super assassin' to full-blown Mangrim. Why in the Gods' name was she still here?! Don't make them suspicious… Get in, find the info people, get… Oh Gods, what am I even looking for again!?

The woman gracefully shook her head, and upon opening her eyes again, was once more the picture of professionalism. "I see. Is there anything else you intend to do tonight? Any services you will avail yourself of?"

"I'm hoping to find some information. I'll be leaving after that."

The woman nodded, "very well. In that case, the most important thing to understand is our primary rule: Do not, under any circumstance, conduct business within the Garden." Ashley had seen enough movies to know what that was a euphemism for, and the fact that that was this place's only rule just made her feel even smaller. "Our information brokers are on level three. You will find Torchwick and Professor Ozma on the same floor, meeting room six. Shall I notify them of your arrival?"

"No!" Ashley barked, before cringing, realizing how quickly she'd jumped in with that. "I mean… No." Wait, had that woman just said Ozma!? "We… Had… Specific instructions." She really hoped the woman's bullshit detector didn't stretch out this far.

To her continued shock, the woman nodded without missing a beat. "I remember Mister Aldric and his methods quite well. As always, our lips are sealed, guaranteed by our neutrality. Is there anything else you need assistance with?"

"No, thank you." Ashley croaked, to which the woman nodded, and the screen went dead after a polite goodbye.

Ashley felt her legs threaten to give out, but Dusty caught her by the shoulders. "My thoughts exactly, girl! Now, did that woman just say Professor Ozma's here?" He asked, as Ashley got her feet back under her. "And how did you know saying Aldric would work?"

To the latter, Ashley shrugged sheepishly, while to the former, Schwarz responded: "He's a headmaster. In many ways he's more important than the Council of Three. Now that I know this place exists, I'm not necessarily surprised he knows about it too."

"Ashley… I think we are in too deep." Sylvie bluntly cut in.

There was silence for a moment, the four of them regarding each other before Schwarz was the one to break that tension: "Can't help but agree. We're with you, but… We need to get out of here as quick as we can." He cast a glance over his shoulder and confirmed they were, indeed, still alone.

Without any further words, they entered the Garden. It was so strange, in that the entire place looked so ordinary, like a giant, underground, five star hotel. There were rooms with keycards, people casually chatting, if Ashley didn't know she was in a super criminal den, she might have been fooled into thinking the Boss had just pulled a fast one on her. They wandered about for a bit, Dusty idly commenting on how deeply reinforced this place must be if it had such high ceilings.

With every passing step, Ashley felt more and more like she wasn't just out of her league, she should be running away as fast as possible. This was only reinforced when they somehow managed to wander their way near a dining and lounge area, where she saw such an eclectic mix of suave and smoothly dressed men and women, and the most brutal, strong, scarred people she'd ever seen outside of a movie. Some people straight up had so many mechanical implants and replacements that they looked like they stepped out of a cyberpunk comic, and she was pretty sure one guy's semblance must have been 'fuck off' because when she got within ten feet of the dining room's concierge, she was struck with a feeling of absolute dread that didn't go away until she backed off.

What freaked her out the most though, was the one word she started hearing more and more frequently as time went on. Always spoken in hushed tones by people with wide or widening eyes, the word was passing over every set of lips and was causing every set of eyes to start looking around. Some people, after just hearing it, were even starting to retreat out of the public areas.

A word whose every repetition just made Ashley more and more anxious:

Aldric.

Each second that passed, each time she heard that word repeated, Ashley felt more and more like she'd made a titanic mistake in invoking it. With every pair of eyes that started to dart around, seeking out this enigmatic figure, she found herself feeling more and more like she and her team stuck out like a priest in a strip club. If it wasn't for Schwarz quietly informing her that rushing around in fear would only draw more attention, Ashley might have started moving more frantically. Eventually, with the help of a staff member - identified by the extremely scientific method of 'the guy's got a flower on his vest' - they found a stairwell that led them to the third floor.

There, they found a map posted to the wall. Everything was printed out in odd language - 'meeting rooms' was the only thing that was plain spoken, the rest were euphemisms like 'Florists', 'Botany', and 'Seed Department'. This led to a long debate over what they could possibly mean, with the eventual conclusion being that 'Botany' was a field of science, so that must be some kind of research and development thing, 'Seed Department' must be for straight up hardware, and 'Florists' must be the information brokers, since Florists were supposed to know their stuff.

Ashley had a terrible feeling when Sylvie pointed out that the Florists were right past the meeting rooms. They all reached a silent agreement: Stay quiet, make no noise, don't be noticed when they passed room six.

She fully, one hundred percent, absolutely intended to just walk right by the room.

She really did.

But this was when she learned that either this crime palace's meeting rooms weren't sound proofed, or Roman Torchwick could shout that loud:

"I. Don't. Fucking. Care!" Ashley felt her feet get rooted to the ground, her head snapping towards the door, through which the muffled voice of the kingpin could be heard. "I'm playing my part, Ozma! No, actually, more than that - I'm going above and beyond! I seem to recall, as per our agreement, that no one would target that girl or her sister unless attacked first! That little show before the Fall doesn't count. I am within my rights to fight back, but I chose not to because I'd rather be the good guy!"

Schwarz's hand landed on Ashley's shoulder, causing her head to snap around in fright. He just looked at her, his eyes wide, and shook his head. She didn't need him to speak, she knew everything he would say: "We are in the deepest shit. We should not be playing this close to the fire!"

Ashley agreed, but no matter how hard she tried, her damn feet wouldn't move!

"Yes, that's a part of it, my dear Professor - I'm glad to see your centuries of experience paying off. But here's the thing - I'm not you, I'm not Taurus, and I'm not her. More than that, fighting Rose isn't coming close to his little accident. If he turns on the news and sees I've killed Rose, he'll get curious, but see that she picked an old fight with an eighth of the resources, promptly learned I have no reason to hold back this time, and died. I stayed true to my word, we all did, end of story. I'm here as a courtesy, I want to see how, or if, you can stop this before I have to respond, and all you have is a secret I've known since before you even learned about the damn reporter woman." There was a deep sigh, "maybe you are losing your touch, old boy. Did the drunk really retire, or do you feel that safe? That little secret was right on your -" He was cut off by a loud ringing sound.

"Oh - shut up, you!" The ringing stopped, "I swear to the Gods, this better be an emergency."

"Ashley - Ashley, Ashley!" Ashley suddenly heard Dusty hiss, as from within the room:

"Uh. Oh!"

"Hey - HEY!" Suddenly, Ashley felt a pair of hands take her shoulders with an iron grip. She was spun around, seeing, in order: A taller woman with frantically wide, onyx eyes, Dusty recovering from having been bowled over, and Schwarz and Sylvie lunging forward for the woman.

The sudden ruckus was obviously picked up by the people in the room, and as the woman literally shrugged off SSAD's attempts to defend Ashley, the woman began walking forward - pushing Ashley out of the way of the door. Ashley found she couldn't tear her eyes away from the woman's frantic, borderline terrified gaze, but didn't miss how Schwarz leapt back to his feet, and Sylvie was hauled up by Dusty - who promptly threw her at their assailant, just as the door began to shudder and shake. Out of the corner of her eye, Ashley saw all three of her teammates get dragged alongside her by an unseen force, and just as the door to the meeting room opened, the woman whirled around, removing one hand from Ashley's person, and thrusting it in the room's direction.

Roman Torchwick lunged out of the room, his head swinging from side to side, his dark green eyes wide and worried. Ashley shut her own eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

"What is it, Roman?" She heard a deceptively calm voice call out from within the room.

"I…" Torchwick drawled, as he looked about again. "Remember when you called me Mister." There was a tremble in his voice that he fought to control, but he visibly had to slow his breathing.

Brow furrowed, Ashley slowly peeked through the crack in her eyelids, only to be presented with Torchwick staring right at her. Right through the woman's outstretched fingers.

"Why are you nervous?" She heard Ozma inquire, as he too peered out of the room, looking both ways down the hallway, similarly looking in Ashley's direction, and similarly not even noticing her.

"Huh?" Ashley whispered, only to have it be cut off when the woman's grip on her shoulder turned from iron to steel. The woman cast a brief glare her way, before returning to focus on the men.

"You… Would not believe… Who's here." Torchwick straightened up, and, after a moment, smoothed out his expensive-looking jacket. "Or rather… Who's got someone here for him."

"Oh no." She heard the headmaster exhale, as he fell back into the room. "Oh no."

"Oh calm down. It's like I said - he got curious. Just…" Torchwick looked around again, and then, with a frown, retreated into the room. "Earlier than I expected. Fortunately, Neo's replacement -" The door shut with a soft thud.

The woman suddenly went limp, the tension draining out of her limbs as she dropped her outstretched hand. The other, however, was still actively trying to bruise Ashley's shoulder. As the rest of SSAD recovered from being dragged halfway through the hall, the woman rounded on Ashley.

"You!" The woman snapped, pointing at Ashley with a finger that shook heavily. "You…" She hissed, kicking at a door behind her and opening another meeting room. "Get in here!" She pulled Ashley alongside her.

"Hey - hold on!" Dusty hollered again, bounding forward on all fours and using his body to force the door to stay open, despite a wave of the woman's hand. "Who're you!?" He grunted, as Schwarz came barreling in behind him, slamming his back into the door and forcing it to stay open, while Sylvie slid between the two of them and made it into the meeting room.

The woman watched the display continue as Dusty crawled inside, and Schwarz fell in before the door slammed shut behind him. Her entire body was shaking with equal parts excitement and rage as the assembled Rookies recovered and surrounded her, ready to strike at a moment's notice. She shook her head and promptly turned back to Ashley.

"You do not belong here." The woman breathed heavily. "You should not be here, and you should not be name-dropping people you don't know!"

Ashley blinked, her heart dropping out of her throat as she suddenly realized she might have just ran into a good samaritan assassin.

"Wha - I -"

"Rookie, I don't know what you think you know about him. But a man doesn't do the things he did and make the friends he did without becoming a gods-damn legend down here. If you're here - however you got here! - you should know at the very least that this is not a place you want to be known in! Street thugs tell stories about the Garden - Gardeners have been telling stories about him, and he'd tell you he's worse!" The frantically whispering woman grabbed Ashley's shoulders and gave her a shake. "Do you even know who he is?!"

As before, Dusty was the first one to move - planting an enormous hand on the woman's shoulder and heaving. It appeared to take a lot of effort, but he actually managed to make the woman budge, which seemed to impress her enough to get her attention.

"Hi!" He loomed over her, an outraged expression on his face. "I'm Dusty! She's my friend! You let her go right now or I'm BREAKIN' RULES!" He thundered, his farmer's drawl filling the room.

It got the desired result, but not for the desired reason, as the woman rounded on him. "You don't joke like that! Not here!" She whispered, "and keep your damn voice down!" She then turned back to Ashley, "you are so lucky it was me who saw you on that woman's scroll. Anyone else - ANYONE else would not care enough to help you. They'd let you get yourself killed and some would laugh while it happened. You need to give up. Turn around. Leave. Right now." She let go of Ashley's shoulder, "throw that coin in the harbor and forget you ever saw it. Pray that nobody asks who the new girl was tonight."

Ashley was going to take her up on the offer. Her nerves were so frayed that her entire body was trembling. She didn't know what she was in, nor did she know the name she'd invoked, but she'd seen enough movies to know she'd hadn't just stepped in something huge, she'd dove right into something so much bigger than she'd imagined that she couldn't even comprehend it.

Just as she opened her mouth, however, she felt a hand land on her shoulder. It caused her to jump with a fright, but when she looked back to see Schwarz briefly smile at her, and then glare at the woman, she suddenly felt the nerves wash away. Not altogether, but just enough. A moment later, she heard Sylvie settle in on the table next to her, and Dusty circled behind the woman, crossing his arms and looming over her, the frown on his face made all the more intimidating by how unnatural it looked upon it.

She had never felt more appreciation in her life.

The woman, meanwhile, was nonplussed. She didn't even seem to notice the rest of SSAD, instead focusing entirely on Ashley.

Ashley, meanwhile, knew she had a choice to make: There was now, verifiably, something here, and by randomly using the name with the coin, by coming down here, she was able to connect her aunts' actions to Goud. She had everything she needed and she was staring at a Huntress guarding a pack of Grimm. She had everything she needed. She should leave. She should absolutely leave. The smart decision was to leave. This was way. Too. Big.

She lowered her gaze down, thinking about the coin that had gotten her here, and suddenly feeling it was much, much more terrifying than it had this morning.

Game it out, Ashley. She gulped. What can you reasonably expect, pushing forward? There was nothing down there that she needed - she had her connection, she had what she needed. The safer option was to leave, right now, like the kind assassin lady was telling her, and just go to her aunts.

She gulped, and looked upwards, her mouth open and her acceptance of this woman's advice already traveling up her throat, only to be caught when she looked at the woman's throat.

There was a seam going around it. Not a scar, or a rope burn, but something that almost looked like there was another layer of flesh resting on top of her throat. Her eyes focused on this, she then realized that, above this seam, her skin was dryer than it was below it. There was a thin layer of sweat perfectly cut off around this woman's throat, leaving her head dry and everything below moist.

"Well?" The woman asked, making the mistake of speaking when Ashley was paying very close attention to her "What are you going to do, Rookie?"

So close attention that she could just barely hear a tinny quality to her voice, almost like a voicebox implant. More than that though, the bright, fluorescent lights of the office ceiling above them caught her face as she spoke - revealing a key detail in how they caught the air right in front of her face: Instead of illuminating her mouth, the light dispersed right then and there. Her mouth wasn't a cavern in her head, but a flat image. Pieces started to fall into place, and Ashley slowly looked back up into the woman's similarly fake eyes.

She was looking at a mask. A wickedly advanced mask that could replicate appearances and voices, but a mask nonetheless.

A second thought clicked into place: She'd noticed similar things about the blonde that talked to her outside the nightclub. Was this her? If it was, why was she invested in keeping her out of here, and failing that, out of the underworld?

Wait… Strange person following me around, after I freaked out my aunts… Is this - IS THIS THE PI?! Ashley blinked, her head recoiling as she examined the woman with new eyes. Was this seriously the private investigator? How the hell had they gotten down here? Had - did her aunts have coins? Did they hire a super-criminal to keep an eye on her?!

What did this mean? Why? How? What should she do with this information?

Or -no… What can I do? Game this out. Conjecture aside, this person wore a wicked advanced mask that could conceal their identity. They were trying to keep her from going further down a rabbit hole she'd already long since decided she was stupid for entering. Ashley knew she was in over her head, and she knew that she had the connection she needed to go to her aunts.

How would continuing to poke this bear really benefit her? What did she really expect to happen if she pointed out this woman was hiding her face? What did she really expect to happen if she asked this woman if her aunts had hired her to keep an eye on her? How would that benefit her? What would that change? It certainly wouldn't change the fact that she was diving headfirst into waters way too deep for her. This was the part of the movie where she'd be screaming at the protagonist to turn the fuck around before they made things worse. The end of this path was back on Patch, not further down in the criminal underworld.

So, she shut her mouth, nodded to woman, turned to her team, and left. She made it two steps outside before her unsteady feet nearly gave out from under her, but each member of her team were there and all provided a hand to keep her from falling. At length, they half walked, half carried her through the Garden, back up into, and then out of, the nightclub.

Ashley waited until she couldn't hear the beat of the music or the noise of the crowds waiting to get in, before she let her legs completely turn to jelly. The momentum gone, she fell completely limp, now held up only by Dusty and Schwarz' hands around her arms. They helped her down and sat her against a building.

"Uh, I, I'm, I -" She breathlessly gasped, the gears in her head grinding together.

"Hey." Schwarz knelt down next to her. "Deep breath. You're fine, we're fine." He said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "In… Out, there you go." He said, lifting and lowering his hand in time with his instructions.

"I'm sorry, guys, I, I, it's -"

"Hey, hey, no no no." Dusty knelt down next, "that was some deep shit we were in, you made the right call. We're all still here, we made it out, it's all good, girl, it's all good." He said, his drawl now low and soothing.

"Quitting while you are ahead is always the wiser choice." Said Sylvie, after taking a look up and down the street. "We proved the coin was real. We proved the Garden was real, and we got more. We learned Aldric is a person involved with the Garden, and is a name spoken of in whispers by the world's strongest and most ruthless. We are not even in the top half of our class. Creating trouble of any kind would have been lethal. Going further would have been worse. Evacuation was prudent."

"Let's go home. We'll -"

"No." Ashley protested, "no, I - I, I…" She stopped and took in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. "I want to be done with this." She groaned, limply sliding her hand into her pocket and retrieving her scroll.

"You're going to call them right now?"

"Yes." But she had no damn idea what she was going to say.

She hit the speed dial, and was ringing up Ecru before she could talk herself out of it. A few moments passed, and a few more - Ecru needing time to wake up.

Then: Click. "Ashley?" She heard the tired, groaning yawn in the word. "Baby, what's the matter?" There was also the sound of skin on skin - Ecru rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Ashley opened her mouth, but faltered at the moment of truth.

This was the point of no return - if she did this, she was forcing her Aunts' hands. She could just… Wait. She didn't need answers right now - not when they were coming in a few years. So what if Ruby Rose was starting a gang war? She was a living legend, she could take care of herself. So what if her parents and Goud Etiolate were connected to some kind of super-criminal that made other criminals scared? She didn't need to know this, she could just walk away, pretend she just had a bad day and wanted to hear her aunt's voice.

"Baby?" Was Ecru's soft call, the lethargy slowly leaking out of her voice. "Oh Brothers, did she butt-dial me at eleven at night?"

Ashley didn't know when she'd started shaking again, but she had, and didn't even notice it until she stopped when Dusty put a giant, gentle hand on her shoulder. She looked at him, his big, dumb, reassuring grin. She looked at Schwarz, at his expression that told her they were there no matter what she did in the moments to come. She looked to Sylvie, who though she wore her usual neutral, said everything she needed to with calm, silent presence.

"Baby, if you're talking, I can't hear you." There was another tired groan, and then a 'thump thump' - a tail hitting the bed as a certain service dog awoke with his master. "I'm gonna hang up, okay? I'll take Blue out, so I'll be up for another minute, but I gotta pick your aunt up in the morning. Got the… Interview at Signal next week. Call me back if -"

"Who's Aldric?"