Bit late today as a car broke down on way home. Monday fun!

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 112

Blake scanned her fingerprint on the door and then bent down to let it scan her retina before finally entering in a six-digit code to unlock and slide the metal open with a hiss. Their new containment facility was looking good, all freshly decorated with clean metal walls and tiled white floor. ARC Corp had spared no expense when it came to the computers and systems, having little regard for money in the first place, and a less astute person would have seen that as a good sign.

She didn't, and neither did Jaune. They both knew the place was bugged to high heaven, which was why Timothy wasn't here. The spider was back at their office in the city where he could remain unregistered and undocumented. If he was brought here even as a pet, ARC Corp would find out and instantly take it as evidence of them flaunting the rules.

Which they were, admittedly, but that was beside the point.

"How was your time with Pyrrha and Terra?" asked Jaune.

"Rough. How was yours with your sister?"

"Rough," he replied. They shared grim smiles. "But it looks like we both survived."

"What did Saphron do?"

"Go over the anomalies we had and decide which were too dangerous to keep. Apparently, the camera was one of them."

"The one that ages you by frames of picture or video? Why? You'd have to take tens of thousands of photos for it to see a noticeable reaction."

"I said the same but, apparently, there's a new company policy in the works that any anomaly related to time or time manipulation must be destroyed." Jaune waved his hand dismissively. "Not that I can't see the logic in it, but there's a difference between something that changes the timeline and something that reverts an object back thirty seconds."

"I assume that argument didn't work on her. Was it destroyed?"

"Yep."

"Shame."

At least it wasn't a sentient anomaly. Losing any felt bad, but she'd not had to bleed and suffer to find that one. It had been here before she joined. And better the camera than Timothy. "Did any others not make it?"

"One or two that you never got to know but nothing you'd recognise. The collar was considered harmless enough, and the eight-ball might as well be a joke anomaly. The globe has some caveats about how it needs to be destroyed if the species ever discovers space travel. I managed to talk them down to a cataclysmic rotation."

Goodie. So, they'd give the globe a spin to cause natural disasters across a planet of tiny, sentient people rather than risk them discovering the world outside. That was kind of horrific to be honest, especially since it'd be her or Jaune committing genocide by giving it a spin. His sister probably didn't consider the anomalous people to be real people like that.

"Do we have any other responsibilities to the anomalies contained here?" she asked. "Is there anything ARC Corp needs us to do to not get in trouble?"

"Nope. No tests, no experiments, no analysis. As far as they're concerned, the best thing we could do is lock things up and throw away the key, so they didn't want to give us any quotas or such." Jaune tapped his ear and pointed upward. "We especially don't need to monitor anything."

Blake's eyes flicked to the ceiling and down again. Jaune met her gaze and nodded, to which she replied, "That's good," in a slow and measured voice. "We never did any testing anyway, and I'd rather not change that. We've never broken any rules so let's not start now and give your sister any reason to hate us more."

"Precisely." Jaune smiled, pleased she'd caught his message. "Well, I'm about done here today. Shall we head back to the office and get to work? No need to sit here all day."

"Yes. Let's do that."

/-/

"Is the office clean...?"

"Yes." Jaune pulled off his coat, hung it on a hook and reached down to tickle Timothy's head. The spider rubbed against his leg. "Saphron never came here or she'd have brought our little pet up. It's the facility that's bugged."

"I expected it, but recording equipment in the control room as well? I thought they'd just be looking over our files and anomalies, not listening in on our every conversation."

"I doubt anyone was listening just then. It's more that we're being recorded and if anything goes wrong later, they'll look back over the recordings for evidence of malpractice on our end. Better not to take any risks, though."

Watching their conversation in the facility was going to be a pain, that much she could tell. Maybe they could ask Coda to hack the system and tell them where the bugs were, but there was always the chance the intrusion would be noticed as well, and then it would be doubly bad. Plus, letting Coda know where anomalies were kept might not be the best call. The AI was an anomaly content to stay out of trouble, but that could change. If she decided to get aggressive later, there was no reason to give her ammunition.

"I feel like asking for this facility is proving to be more trouble than it's worth."

"It only seems that way for now," he said. "You'll change your tune if it ever stops an anomaly being stolen from us. Imagine if Cinder and the White Fang had managed to steal an important anomaly from us. What would Saphron's response to that be?"

Bad. "Fine. I'll give you that." Blake slumped down onto the sofa, making space for the six-foot arachnid to climb across her lap to be petted. "So, do we have any work on for now or is it another quiet week? I'd pay for the latter."

Jaune hummed as he went through his emails. "We've had a few leads but none look solid. One request from a video influencer to accompany them on a fake ghost hunt series, mostly because we market ourselves as professionals."

"How did you respond?"

"Hysterical and angry email ranting that we don't need to fake anything because ghosts are real, then blocked him."

"He'll probably make a video about it."

"Further selling our cover story. It's a win-win." Jaune had zero issue with being mocked online, which she chalked up to low self-esteem. Probably from his family. "But there hasn't been much other than that. I've checked in on Signal, by the way."

"Hm?"

"You remember the human scream we heard while we were dealing with the Schnee cache? I wanted to see if there were any missing person reports on Patch, either among the students or the population as a whole. See if anyone had been killed."

"Right. And...?"

"Nothing. No one injured and no one missing."

"That seems... convenient. Do we suspect anything yet?"

"I'm not sure. It could have been an anomaly with the capacity to scream, or it could have been someone who wasn't meant to be there – maybe another Schnee researcher who perished. Or some random person living in the woods. Cruel as it sounds, it's not a problem if no one notices, but it would have been a much bigger one had a student gone missing. We'd have had to fake a scene of death to Grimm. It wouldn't have been difficult but faking the death of someone always leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

Like they'd had to outside Argus with the ranch owner. It hadn't bothered her so much, but she could see it being painful if it were a child in school who died. Having to look their parents in the eye and lie about how their child perished would be awful. Blake was glad the Argus case had been left to Terra to handle.

Conversation drifted off and they worked in silence, Blake reading a newspaper with one hand while she stroked Timothy with the other, and Jaune tapping quietly away as he checked his emails and sipped some coffee. It was after a lunch at an eatery in the city and coming back for their afternoon work that a case quite bluntly dropped itself in their lap.

Coming from Saphron, no less.

Jaune set it to speaker.

"The case came through to us because the owner of the building resides in Argus," she explained, "but the building itself is in Vale, less than an hour outside the city. It makes no sense for us to go so far when you're living next door."

"Of course we'll handle it. What are the details?"

"There have been violent attacks at a countryside retreat's hotel. The manager looking after it has made numerous reports of paranormal behaviour, with guests reporting seeing unusual figures. We suspect these to be anomalies preying on the guests. For a while it became popular with ghost hunters, which will serve as a useful cover for you, but lack of evidence and the usual waning interest of the internet soon saw that dwindle."

"Is this the first recorded death?"

"To the best of my knowledge. You can ask more of the resort manager. The pension fund that owns the property brought it to the government's attention, then it came to us, and now and I'm passing it onto you. Deal with the issue, locate the anomaly and kill it. This thing is clearly violent and dangerous, so I expect it to be eliminated rather than captured."

"We'll look into it," Jaune said, evasively. "Email me through the contact information and I'll arrange our stay at the resort."

"You'll need to go in disguise," Saphron added. "I say the pension fund contacted us, but it really came through Argus' government as a tip-off. Officially, nothing has been decided, and the pension fund certainly doesn't believe in anomalies or ghosts. That's another reason this is being shunted your way. You have a unique cover."

"That we do." Jaune glanced her way and chuckled at Blake's irritated expression. "Leave it to us, Saph. We'll get on this pronto."

The moment he had hung up, Blake said, "I don't want to go as ghost hunters."

"It's a good cover for us. Unless you have a better idea."

Blake scowled, then paused.

And, finally, she smiled.

"I might have a better idea."

/-/

"Ugh! Is this the place? What a dump!"

Blake Belladonna slid her expensive sunglasses down her nose and gave the resort manager a dismissive look up and down. The woman was rather rotund, but not unattractive. It didn't matter. Blake was dressed in some of the most expensive clothes money could buy and had paid her friends at the spa to do her hair up in elaborate curls.

Behind her, Jaune was wearing faded hand-me-down jeans and a hoodie, and was clasping a camera pointed her way.

"Don't record me now!" she spat and slapped him over the head. "Idiot! What do I pay you for?"

"But you don't pay me at all," Jaune whimpered.

"Ugh. Excuse you? You're paid in the most important way possible, by working with someone like me! This is going to make your career, James."

"Jaune."

"Ugh." Blake rolled her eyes, flounced, and threw out an annoyed gasp. "Like, whatever. Just don't waste battery, nerd." Holding it in, but only barely, Blake flounced over to the main desk. "Go get your manager," she told the woman she knew was the manager. "I don't talk to the hired help."

"I am the manager. Kathleen Crystal. A pleasure to meet you."

"Seriously?" Blake peeled the shades down again and looked the woman up and down a second time before letting out a quiet snort. "If you say so. I'm sure I don't need to introduce myself."

"Actually, I have no idea who you are."

"Hah—!?" Blake reared back, her mouth opening as wide as she could manage it. A hand came up to touch her heart, and she gazed at the woman as if she'd just discovered an alien. "Like, is that a joke or something? I am the Blake Belladonna. Internet sensation, social media star. Women want to be in my shoes and men want to be in me."

Jaune choked behind her.

"Here!" Blake shoved a scroll in the woman's face, showing a fake social media page she'd asked Coda to set up. The AI had rather enjoyed cracking it open and making a vacuous and brainrot-filled video feed for her. Absolute garbage content but slammed with bots to give her some eight million subscribers. "Maybe you're just not clued in on what's hot. That's me, by the way. In case you were wondering."

The manager's eyes widened and she instantly became much politer. Or, at least, she faked it well. Blake didn't fault the woman for hating her guts even as she plastered on a smile and bowed her head.

"I'm sorry for not recognising you, Miss Belladonna. I think I have heard of you, the name jut slipped my mind. How can we help you today?"

"You can help me by setting me up with a lodge here," she said, flicking some hair over her shoulder. "This is the place with the ghosts, right? Don't tell me John brought me to the wrong place."

"It's Jaune—"

"No one cares, Jim. Ugh. And you better not be recording!"

"I'm not."

"Good. Uh. Like, so useless." Blake rolled her eyes at the manager. "So, is this the place?"

"It is, yes!" The woman looked quite excited to have it brought up. "We're the Pines Lodge and holiday resort, and we've had no shortage of paranormal activity here. Legends have it someone drowned in the lake and that they continue to haunt the resort to this day." The woman's smile faltered. "At least, it was a legend until someone... well..."

"Died?" Jaune offered.

"... I suppose there's no point hiding that, is there?" The woman shuffled awkwardly. "Yes, there was a death here under mysterious circumstances a few weeks ago—"

"Why aren't you recording!?" Blake hissed at Jaune.

He flinched, which almost made her burst out laughing. "B—But you told me not to!"

"Idiot! You can record now!"

He fumbled the camera on, and Blake jumped in front of it.

"Hey everyone!" she said, posing cutely with her hip jutting out. "It's your girl, Blake, and I'm here at the Pines Lodge where paranormal activity recently took the life of a guest! Oooooh! Spoooky! Anyway, we're here to find this ghost and make some hot content, so you'd better all like, subscribe, ring that bell – and make sure to subscribe to my private links as well. I notice a lot of you are only tier one!" she said, pointing her fingers down. "But tier one might as well be tier none!" Her fingers made zero-shapes. "And if you want to get into my heart—" Blake held her fingers together to form a love heart. "Then you need to show me how much you love me! Tee hee!"

Kathleen spasmed, her smile brittle.

"Anyways, this here is Katie—"

"Kathleen."

"And she's going to tell us about what happened here and the spooky death. Go ahead, Cathrine."

The manager scowled but recounted the story she'd just told, and that gave Blake time to consider it. The instances of ghost activity in the past sounded like a textbook case of guests spotting an anomaly in the dark, but the murder was new. That suggested it didn't do it as part of feeding behaviour because it hadn't needed to before, and because the case would be shut and closed as a Grimm attack if the body had teeth marks in it.

Had the anomaly been cornered and attacked in self-defence? Or had it grown curious enough to approach a person and then killed them without realising what it was doing? They'd have to find out, though she doubted the specifics would make much difference. It had signed its own death warrant by killing a person. There'd be no saving this one.

"—and the sightings were only ever just that until about five weeks ago. The body was found outside, by the lake, but the coroner's report said it hadn't been drowned. We don't know what happened or why and the police haven't gotten anywhere on the case."

"That sounds like a mystery to me!" Blake cheered. "And that's why I'm here. Love you all! Make sure to update your subscriptions. Blake, out!"

Pulling a huge cheer with one foot raised, Blake smiled like she never had before, and then dropped it into a scowl.

"Cut the video, idiot." Jaune did so. "So, we need a lodge," she told Kathleen.

"That'll be fifteen hundred lien."

"Um. Excuse you? Do you realise how valuable having this place on my videos will be? You're going out to over eight million people. The exposure alone is so great you should be paying me to come stay here."

They dickered and argued it down to a thousand lien and the manager showed them to a wooden lodge by the lake, with the back leading onto a forest. She explained there was a heavy-duty fence keeping Grimm out, so it was safe to roam and enjoy themselves. Blake kept to her persona the whole time, tutting at the state of the lodge and complaining about how cramped it was, even stating that Jaune would be sleeping outside so he didn't creep on her.

Eventually, the manager left, only too happy to be rid of her.

Jaune couldn't help himself. "I despise your influencer persona."

"Like, excuse you—!?" Blake held it in the face of his disgust and then laughed. "Okay, fine. And I'm just channelling my inner egotistical bitch. It was convincing, wasn't it?"

"Too convincing. I already want to see you come crashing down in a scandal video."

"That'll happen once the site notices the obvious botting and shuts the account down." Not a moment too soon in her opinion. "But it's a good cover for now. What do you think? I assume the anomaly lives in the area and people keep seeing it. Maybe it eats fish and comes to the lake to feed."

"That was my assumption as well. Someone might have attacked it and it defended itself. If it were aggressive, there would be a lot more violent incidents than this, especially with how frequently it's been seen. The manager was wrong about the cause of death by the way."

Blake glanced back from where she'd set down her shade. "What?"

"The manager said the cause of death was unknown but the coroner's report says the person was brutalised. Carved open. It's possible they haven't passed that information onto her or she just left it out so as not to get in trouble with the police. Important for us to know, however, since it means the anomaly can and will attack if threatened."

Claws or talons, then. Or something that could rip a body asunder. Concerning, but more to Jaune than her due to the lack of aura. "I'm surprised it wasn't written off as Grimm in that case, then."

"Me too, but apparently there were no tracks, and since it happened in the middle of the resort when there were plenty of people here, a Grimm should really have attacked others. The deceased wasn't a huntsman so it's unlikely they could have killed it."

A Grimm wouldn't have been content with one victim, either. It would have gone after more, not to mention the roaring and the noise of it would have woken others and led to a bloodbath. This was obviously something different, and the police must have realised it.

Five weeks, though. Blake couldn't tell if that kind of delay was a sign of little evidence or just normal. There might have been more pressing cases, especially with the anomaly that caused people to burst into trees dominating the headlines. They'd probably all been dragged onto that case since, even if this was a potential murder in their eyes, the killer hadn't struck twice.

"There are about twenty other guests here according to what Coda was able to find hacking their systems," Jaune said. "That's three families and one newly married couple. We'll have to work around them, but hopefully it won't be a problem. This anomaly has been seen for years without killing anyone, so we'll work on the assumption this was a freak accident."

"Shall we explore the forest?" Blake asked. "Might as well make it look like we're recording videos."

"As long as you drop the persona."

"But Jaune!" she gasped. "I'm approaching ten million subs."

/-/

It was early afternoon and the forest was splashed with red light as the sun came down in the sky. It was almost romantic, except for the whole "potentially murderous monster" vibe going on. The two of them had entered with camera recording, but soon turned it off and went back to acting like normal. Most of the other guests at the resort were swimming in the lake or enjoying dinner.

No one came here to get lost in a haunted forest. Other than them, of course.

They spread out and searched primarily for tracks. Along the way they caught sight of the odd dear and a good birds and squirrels, but there wasn't anything to suggest a creature. That didn't mean anything, of course, since the anomaly might not have been one that walked on legs, and it also might not live in the forest.

But it was important to rule out the forest at any rate.

"I just don't see how it could hide here," Jaune said. "This forest is tiny – barely more than a hundred trees here, with no caves or anything to hide in. You'd struggle to hide a Grimm here."

"The manager did mention the lake. Should we check that out?"

"I guess..."

Trekking back, she changed into her swimsuits and went to swim in the lake – but that got ruled out even quicker. The thing was natural, but it was also small, maybe six metres deep and twenty in diameter, with no underground caves or anywhere to hide. There were fish in it, but not many, and the largest were catfish feeding along the bottom. The reeds on the sides had been trimmed back to make it safer for guests as well, giving even less room for an anomaly to hide in. Not to mention that, while the sun was still up, the water was clear enough to see any large shapes, and there were plenty of people snorkelling and swimming who would have seen something down there if it existed.

"Forest is out and lake is out," said Blake, sunbathing to dry off. Jaune hadn't been able to join her due to his arms and remained in his clothes. That probably made her look even more of an egotistical bitch to the manager. "Where does that leave us?"

"It might live outside the fenced area and migrate in."

"Hmm. Good luck us finding its home if that's the case. Shall we stake out tonight and see if we can spot it, then?"

"Might be our only choice. At least we've got a good excuse to be staking out with a camera."

The sun was setting by the time she was dry, and she helped set up a few cameras around their lodge. Jaune had his laptop inside open up and ready to record, and Blake had caught a few hours during the day to prepare for a night spent awake. They'd eaten at the resort's restaurant and faked a few videos to sell their story.

"We'll do this in shifts," said Jaune. "Which shift do you prefer?"

"I'll sleep first. I like the sunrise." Blake glanced back and adopted an arrogant pose. "Don't steal a peek at your goddess sleeping, peasant."

Jaune rolled his eyes. "But imagine how many views some feet pics will draw. You'll hit ten million subs."

"As if I need—"

"AIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The scream crashed through the chatter, driving Blake to her feet and Jaune off the table toward the door. She caught up as he shouldered it open and spilled out – and he wasn't the only one. Windows in lodges across the resort lit up as people reacted to the noise, slowly stumbling out in robes and hastily-pulled-on shirts.

At one lodge, a man leapt out and raced around the back of his lodge. "GET BACK HERE!" he roared.

Blake and Jaune exchanged quick looks before jogging over. They reached at around the same time the resort's manager did, jogging along while panting and sweaty, with a flashlight in hand. It was honestly surprising she'd made it from the main building so quickly.

"What is it?" she gasped. "What's wrong?"

"My daughter saw someone here!" said the man. "Saw someone creeping through her window!" He pointed up at the thin lodge window above them. "And I saw someone running away when I looked out. Some creep was peeking in on my daughter!" he ranted. "And she's eleven!"

"Was it definitely a person?" asked Jaune.

The man rounded on him. "What else could it be!?"

"But did you see a person?"

"I saw... I saw a figure..."

The manager caught on, smiling lightly. "I wonder if it's our ghost. There have been sightings for years before this, you know. We used to get all sorts of paranormal investigators and ghost hunters here—"

"Fuck that!" the man growled, too angry for such things. "Ghosts? Get real. We have some child-loving creep here, and he's set eyes on my girl. Well, I warn you!" he shouted, suddenly addressing the whole resort. "She'll be sleeping with me and my wife, and anyone who comes near will wish they were a ghost when I'm through with 'em!"

"Please, sir, please calm down." The manager placed her hands gently on him. "Why don't I go and see about getting your lodge some extra locks from storage, hm? I can assure you your family is fine, but there's no harm in being safe." To all the watchers, she said, "It's okay. We'll look into this. Please all return to your lodges, I'm sure we can get to the bottom of this soon enough."

People retreated back into their lodges, locking the doors behind them. A pervert was more believable than a ghost, and apparently no one was worried about the old murder that happened here. That, or they didn't know about it.

Jaune was quick to approach the man's lodge and crouch beneath the window.

"The grass is disturbed here. Something was here." He looked up. "And here, look. There's a bit of chipping on the wood here, like someone pulled themselves up or put their foot on it."

Sure enough, there was a bit of paler wood where the surface and coating had been scratched off. Proof enough that something had been here, and that this something was a corporeal creature and not some intangible ghost.

"How likely is the pervert angle?"

"In isolation, maybe, but this has been happening for years. If that's what it is, it'd have to be someone working here rather than a guest."

"I feel like an employee would have been caught in the act by now."

"Maybe..." Jaune frowned and pushed himself back up. "It's easier to call this an anomaly, and the resort's history supports that. I'm curious about one thing, though. If this place became such a hot topic among ghost hunters and investigators, then why did they not catch any footage?"

"Because they're fake."

"They may be, but they'd still bring and set up real cameras just like we did, and it'd be a big deal for them to have real footage as opposed to staged nonsense. We've not even been here twenty-four hours and we already have an incident."

"Maybe they did get incidents."

"Can't have." Jaune shook his head. "The manager said this used to be popular with them, suggesting it dropped off. And we're the only ones here. If it were that easy to get footage, this place would still be crawling with them. Either our anomaly is camera shy, they were incompetent, or there's something more to it."

"Something like...?"

"I don't want to make any assumptions yet. They can taint our evidence. Best I consider this possibility and you keep your mind open." Jaune turned away, back to their lodge. "Get some sleep while I track the cameras. I'm going to watch some old videos from the ghost hunters that came here too. See what they did and what, if anything, they were able to find. I'll let you know the results when we switch shifts."

Jaune refused to say more, and Blake turned in to the sounds of him booting up one of the videos. Obnoxiously, the person narrating it sounded even more fake and egotistical than her fake influencer persona.

Next Chapter: 19th August

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