Scout stepped away from the controls.

"Well," he said, a massive grin on his face. "That's it -- the message is out. Sent it to all the family members."

They'd done it. They'd actually done it.

Lionel rubbed his hands together, a similar smile tugging at the edges of his lips. It seemed that even in this dark, grim place, excitement was infectious. The fact that the trustworthy Lionel felt the same actually gave Scout even more of a feeling of reassurance: he wasn't mistaken in his satisfaction.

"That's good work," he said, clapping a hand on Scout's back. "It's like I said: there's power in numbers. When you're alone, you're easy pickings for whatever assassins are wandering around this place. Together, they don't stand a chance. This is the start of your counterattack, man."

That simple grin still on his face, Scout went to offer a high-five -- only to be interrupted by the high, clear voice that suddenly echoed throughout the room.

"You're?" Chloe asked, glaring at Lionel.

Lionel blinked. "Huh?"

"You said 'you're easy pickings'. Not we, you. If you work for our Grandfather, you're a target for the Hunter Game too, right? Aren't you a little relaxed?"

Scout looked between the two of them. He didn't quite understand what was going on, but the tension in this place seemed to have just intensified tenfold. The air was holding itself still, like a snake about to strike.

Lionel snorted. "I was talking about you as in the main family members. Even if I'm an employee, the reward for my death is much less than the reward for your death. I'm not in as much danger, so it doesn't seem right to count myself among you guys."

That seemed reasonable; Scout found himself nodding along, until he was stopped by a harsh glance from Chloe.

"Why are you doing that?" she demanded. "Why are you just agreeing with him?"

"Well…" Scout mumbled, suddenly the one being interrogated. "It makes sense, doesn't it? That's just what I think."

"Funny," Chloe said, her glare returning to Lionel's face. "That's just what I think, too. But I don't know why I think it. Back in the tunnel, when he was talking… no matter what he said, it felt trustworthy. But I don't know what about it was trustworthy. You're clearly suspicious."

Lionel slowly blinked.

"I don't know what it is you're accusing me of," he said quietly, hands clasped behind his back. "You suspect me because I'm too trustworthy? Don't you realize how crazy that sounds?"

It did sound a little crazy, but… what exactly about the words she had said gave Scout that impression? She'd calmly stated her case, and the things she was pointing out were weird. So why did he automatically want to dismiss them?

Chloe didn't blink. "There's a simple way you can prove yourself to me."

"And what's that?"

"Give me your script. The person you were speaking to, your 'mission control' or whatever. I want to talk to them too."

Lionel frowned. "What would that accomplish?"

"That's my business, not yours."

There was silence in the chamber, save for the soft beeping of the automatics and the drifting audio of the surveillance. Chloe stared down Lionel. Lionel sighed, putting his hands on his hips. Scout kept looking between the two of them.

Lionel rolled his eyes. "That's it, then? You won't trust me unless I let you talk to mission control? Even though they're busy running interference for us?"

"That's right. Give me the script." Chloe held her hand out beckoningly.

With another sigh of annoyance, Lionel reached for his pocket --

"Ah…" he groaned. "You damn bitch."

-- and seized his pistol from it's holster instead.

The moment he pulled it free, however, he was intercepted. The lightning-fast tendrils of Bad Day's Parade lashed out from behind Chloe's back, instantly wrapping themselves around Lionel's hands and slamming him against the wall. The grenade pistol he'd used slipped from his grip and slid across the floor, where Scout hurriedly picked it up.

Lionel didn't show any sign of pain from the devastating blow he'd just endured. Instead, he opened his mouth wide as if to shout something -- only to be stopped as he was suddenly absorbed into a large amorphous jellyfish, his words swallowed by the fluid that washed around inside Midnight Disobedience.

Bad Day's Parade moved into the other jellyfish, firmly attaching itself to Lionel as a set of restraints, while Midnight Disobedience hardened it's outer shell to serve as a prison. His glare was visible even through that, eyes burning with fury.

It was only natural he was angry. In the span of a few seconds, he'd been utterly overpowered by a teenage girl.

"Wait," Scout blinked. "Who the hell is this guy, then?! And why'd he save us?!"

"Probably wanted to use us as hostages to draw in the others -- once we sent the message." Chloe glared right back at 'Lionel', confined as he was within the jellyfish. "Judging from the fact he's not so much as twitching -- and I'm having Bad Day's Parade pump as much pain into him as it can -- I'd guess he isn't human. An Aether construct or something?"

Scout gaped at the scene before him. Things had turned around to such a degree in the span of a single minute. Not only was Lionel not their ally after all, he wasn't even a person? What the hell had Scout been speaking to?

He gulped. It was strange: he was the older cousin, but in this situation he found himself deferring to Chloe rather than vice versa.

"Well…" he asked, mouth dry. "What do we do with him?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Chloe stared into the depths of Midnight Disobedience, at the thing trapped inside. It glared right back. It took her only a few seconds to reach a decision.

"We keep him here," she said firmly. "And when everyone else arrives, we find a way to make him talk."

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"Silver Vision?" asked Dragan, wincing as he brushed his bruised arm against the arm of his chair. "That's a surveillance system, I'm pretty sure. It's used to keep track of people's scripts on stations like this."

In his less injured hand, he held the script through which he was talking to Ruth. He'd received the call shortly after he and Skipper had arrived at this clinic -- Dragan's injuries had been less severe, so he was able to talk while Skipper was being treated. He'd already received some stimulants to get him back on his feet.

"Well, apparently that's where this Cott guy's at," Ruth replied. "Do you know where we'd find that place?"

Dragan put a finger to his lips, considering the question. "Well…" he said slowly. "You'd want the control hub for it to be in a place with consistent signal, so you can constantly keep track of the entire station. It'd be in some kind of tall building, a tower or something -- probably the tallest one around. As close to the centre as you can get."

"Right. Sounds easy enough."

Dragan hesitated for a moment before finally voicing the thought that had been scratching away at him. "You're seriously going?"

"Yep. We're not gonna get another chance like this -- and if we can do the thing as an ambush, I think we got a good chance of kicking his ass."

Dragan glanced over to the side, through the window where he could see an anesthetized Skipper being treated. Slowly, the doctor was plucking the shredded Neverwire out of Skipper's wounds -- apparently, that was how Masadora's weapon inhibited Aether usage.

"Skipper's gonna be here for some hours yet," he sighed. "He needs Panacea to replace the missing tissue in his wounds after this. He won't be able to help you guys."

He bit his lip. He hadn't wanted to sugarcoat just how bad things were, but he knew this would get Ruth worried. Skipper being in danger set her off more than anything else -- those two had a special bond.

The worry he'd expected in her voice was there, but not nearly as overpowering as he'd imagined. "How about you?" Ruth asked. "Are you coming to help?"

"Of course."

The words left Dragan's mouth before he even had a chance to think about it. For a moment, he considered taking them back -- or at least adding reasonable qualifiers -- but his mouth stayed firmly shut.

"I'll be there," he confirmed.

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Ruth returned her script to her pocket, turning to the rest of their strange group. "Dragan says he'll meet us at the bottom of the tower. We'll wanna get moving if we wanna get there in time."

Serena nodded, her gaze firm -- and Rico, still restraining Keiko, did the same with perhaps a tad less vehemence. The girl in the kimono just stared down at the ground, her eyes dull.

"Are you sure we can get there through these tunnels?" Rico asked uncertainly.

Ruth waved a dismissive hand. "Everybody's gotta piss. There's gotta be a toilet or something we can bust out through when we get there. Easy."

He grimaced. "Fantastic."

Serena had already started walking. "It's not fantastic," she said, her voice low. "It's Cott. If he's there, he's up to something. Those people he was with might be on his side."

"I can explain what's going on when we get there," Rico said, pushing Keiko along in front of him as he walked. "Scout and Chloe will listen to me -- we're close. Speaking of which, uh… what is going on? I'm still not sure who this Cott person actually is."

Serena went to open her mouth, but the voice that filled the tunnel in the end was not hers.

"He's a mercenary," Keiko muttered, her voice a dead monotone, all adopted smugness gone. "I don't know what he was when you knew him," she glanced to Serena. "But these days he works for anyone he pays. Any job, anything. Anything."

She blinked, and her eye was wet, even as her pupil was dilated in remembered hatred. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder at Rico.

"The bombing last year? That was him. He's the reason my sister's dead. The reason my dad turned into a drunken invalid. I saw him on the security footage. He was smiling -- like it was…" she swallowed. "Like it was nothing. I see him smiling in my dreams now. I can see him smiling right now, behind my eyes. All the time."

Her eyes returned to the floor, her head hung low like a puppet with its strings cut.

"I'm sorry," Rico whispered. "Hearing that… hearing what he did to Sora… I think I want to kill him too."

"Get in line," growled Ruth from the back of the pack.

Cott had hurt her friends, right down to the bone, and she wouldn't be able to rest easy until she returned the favour. This asshole seemed to have the talent of making anyone who knew he existed want him dead.

"But he was working for someone," Keiko started talking again. "Back then, and now too. Me and Aunt Carla were trying to lead him into a trap, trick him into revealing that person, but… I guess he saw through us from the beginning. This Hunter Game thing: whoever he's working for must be the one behind it."

"I see," Ruth muttered, scrolling through a map of the tunnels on her script. The restraint on Keiko's hands vanished as Ruth's gauntlet returned to her hand. "You can have one of his legs."

In this case, all of them were united by hatred. No point in keeping a capable fighter out of the game when you were going after someone like this.

If Cott was working for the organizer, that meant he was partially responsible for Mr. Fix being framed, too. She supposed she could add Dragan to the list of Cott-haters, too, then. Someone was about to have a really bad day.

Resolute, they marched into the darkness.

----------------------------------------

"You're still coming?" Carla blinked. "Seriously? With everything that's happening?"

She was staring at the hologram of her father, Abraham Oliphant, that the car's systems were casting in front of her. His size had been reduced a little -- his hulking body could only fit into custom vehicles, after all -- but his imposing presence went undiminished.

He nodded. "I will lead the family into a new decade of business. I have already told you this, girl -- and you know I do not change my mind. I'll deal with any remaining miscreants when I arrive."

"What about Jacques? You're really gonna risk…?" Her voice trailed off.

Abraham's brow furrowed in what appeared to be genuine, disgusting confusion. It took him unreasonably long to parse what his oldest daughter meant.

"Oh, that man?" he finally said. "His passing is unfortunate, but he has children. One of them can be groomed to take his position, given time. The loss of a single rivet does not sink the ship."

"But --"

"Girl."

Abraham's voice was dangerously quiet -- and any child of his would have learnt from an early age that that meant it was time to shut up. They'd been thoroughly educated by their bruises and scars. Carla found herself reflexively gulping.

"I dislike repeating myself," Abraham said slowly, fury brimming beneath the stoic surface. "It is not your job to tell me what to do. It is your job to facilitate my orders. You are good for little else. I will arrive on the Cradle in two days time, and that is final. Do you understand?"

Carla nodded, finding herself looking down all the while.

"Good. That is the correct answer." The hologram blinked away.

To tell the truth, Carla had pretty much expected this sequence of events. Her father was too stubborn to ever go back on one of his decisions -- even if it put him in danger -- and too proud to ever risk being seen as weak. When he said he would do something, that meant he would do it without a doubt.

At the very least, Carla smiled, things were going to become very interesting over the next few days.

Her car continued its flight towards Silver Vision.