Annabelle’s Bastion

“Damn, girlie. The hells did you do?”

“I killed Gregory Martin.”

“Looks like you lugged around a body. Got some blood, too. Girlie...”

Aria went into her bathroom to change her clothes. While she took great care to avoid getting them messy, taking care of a body led to some noticeable markings.

Her outfits were all the same; light cargo pants, a form-fitting, sleeveless shirt, and military boots—all dark. She didn’t care much for changing things up as much as Annabelle did. But Annabelle said she liked it.

Once done, she returned to her room with Gromak looking like he was awaiting something from her.

“I interrogated him for information,” Aria said, her tone unchanging. She moved to her desk and pulled the chair out to sit. “He was a cowardly man, and it was informative.”

“Girlie, if they heard you talk like that...” He sighed, shaking his head.

“Why?”

“Why, she says,” Gromak scoffed. “Girlie. You say it so simply, but you just nonchalantly admitted to the torture and murder of another human.”

What was he getting at? That man had to die, even if he hadn’t tried to kill her—he was part of the group that targeted Annabelle.

“He wanted to do more than kill me and Annabelle.”

“You think I care about that? No, girlie, I’m sayin’ that you come across kinda looney right now. If you were to get caught for this…” He again shook his head grimly.

“I won’t.”

He smiled wryly. “You’re lucky you got me, you know.”

“I know.”

If she didn’t, she would not get away with it. His batting for her was the greatest shield, especially when he had never done so before. To have his backing meant her opponents had to—for the first time—be concrete with their accusations. Unless she was blatant, it should be fine.

And she was not that careless.

“Bah!” Gromak exclaimed, walking up to Aria’s desk. “Whatever, I don’t care about that. These folk have done far worse, try as they might to bury their shit.”

Of course—they tried to have a child killed. Regardless of how she felt about it, that was a good indicator of their characters.

“I properly disposed of his body,” Aria reassured. At most, they’d only know he went missing. That would gain widespread attention, but it wouldn’t matter.

“The ocean?”

“Yes.”

The island was artificial, and there weren’t any beaches either. To be safe, she weighted his body down as much as possible. Thankfully, the scarce security didn’t wander around the dorms. That was usually unnecessary since the dorm masters were always around.

Since the ocean around the island was almost never calm, she had no fear of anybody going that deep anytime soon.

Not only that, but she had a suspicion that if anybody died on the island through Bastion competitions, they’d simply throw the bodies into the ocean.

“Well, on it with; tell me what you found—this is important to me, too, girlie!” Gromak rubbed his large hands as he stood beside her desk.

Aria nodded. She pulled out her notepad, the same one she had been using for her investigations. It was better to write her thoughts—something Annabelle said would help her remember things.

“I learned a lot from him, especially in regards to Ashton Wells.”

“Wells? Ah.” Gromak then nodded. “Right, go on.”

“He approached Gregory Martin with a lucrative offer, and he seemed to know who he was—something that should be impossible.”

“True, but there can be exceptions. Was this Gregory—”

“No,” Aria interrupted. That was what she thought at first, but he denied it. “He was unimportant and would not be recognizable from someone in Ashton’s position.”

“Still not entirely impossible… But I suppose that means whoever funded this Ashton boy gave him details about who to… recruit.”

Aria nodded, writing that down as well.  “Whoever aided him is in a position where he would have knowledge of those brought in from Earth.”

“Ah…” Gromak grumbled slightly. “That don’t narrow it down much… you got any idea how many people they had goin’ out there? Anybody could have looked at the recruitment profiles.”

“Yes—for now, this is unimportant.”

“Hmm.” Gromak tugged on his beard, a sign of his deeper thinking. “But it’s a start. They most certainly are on the island or frequent it, and we can narrow it down with every bit of information.”

“Gregory saw him,” Aria added. “I believed that was the case before;  the only way he could believe Ashton’s words was if he saw him—someone that made him petrified with fear in a tangible way.”

“Presence, then,” Gromak said in contemplation. “There are a lot of mages who can exert that kinda pressure, but there are some abilities that transmit it to that degree. Assassin types love ‘em.”

“Good,” Aria said. That was something she intended to ask. She had felt pressure like that before, but nothing that she would describe as tangible like what Gregory seemed to feel. He froze at her presence, but he said it wasn’t the same.

“So someone with access to the recruitment records and has some kind of tangible presence ability.”

“Does that—”

“Nope!” Gromak said, shaking his head. He sighed. “People can have tens of Sigils, even three digits of ‘em. We don’t have a record of who has what.” He raised a finger. “That’s a good thing, girlie.”

“Ah, okay,” Aria said in disappointment. “But Gregory assured me the person resides on the island.”

“From his perspective. Unfortunately, that don’t help much either—I reside on the island, and so does Alisha.”

“Yes,” Aria agreed. “But I feel… I feel as though a solution is near.”

“Yeah?” Gromak darkly chuckled. “You need to move to the next quickly, girlie—they will find out quickly that their boy is missing.”

“Right,” Aria said. Then, she recalled something she left in her old clothes. “Hold on.”

“Hm?”

She went to the bathroom and pulled the phone out of her old pants pockets. Unfortunately, she had no clue how it worked beyond seeing the contacts within it—but those were just what he referred to as his minions.

“I have this,” Aria said, showing Gromak the rectangular phone that fitted perfectly into her palm.

“A cell phone!” Gromak exclaimed, quickly swiping it from her hands. It looked small in his massive hands, almost comedic. “Girlie, why didn’t you start with this!”

“Why?” She already looked through it—all it did was confirm his associations and her possible targets.

But she could only go after one more before either finding the man or going after Ashton Wells.

“You…” Gromak looked at her as though she were stupid. He waved the phone around. “These things are only on Earth! Earth, girlie! No student was allowed to bring one of ‘em into the island!”

She understood, then.

“How difficult?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Impossible for a student, girlie.”

“I… I didn’t ask him about it; I grabbed it when I was done because I remembered him using it.”

“That’s fine, girlie. He probably got it through the Wells boy.”

Still, Aria felt stupid for missing such an important detail. Gregory was talking to one of his subordinates, and they were discussing another ambush on her. Before that, he was talking to Ashton Wells—they set up a meeting. She’d have loved to sneak into it, but that was too much risk.

From the interrogation, she learned that they knew about her chains and that they wanted to make her kill another one.

Embarrassingly, it would have worked. If she saw that smirk again…

She shook her head. “How can they get these? Multiple people in his group have them.”

Gromak stopped fidgeting with it, poking it at various points and bringing it close to his eyes. “Very few people can get one—even the teachers have to get checked when they come to and from Earth.”

Aria nodded. “But some don’t.”

“The trusted ones, girlie! Alisha, Jaxon, Nora, Alice… people like that don’t gotta get checked.”

“So we can find out exactly who it was from this?” Aria asked, unable to keep her excitement from showing in her voice.

“Yes and no. There are still quite a few people; department heads, representatives, and various organizers. And sometimes exceptions occur, like if people get lazy.” He still seemed happy with it. “But this is huge! We just narrowed it from a thousand to—at most—a few hundred!”

If they could ask around without appearing suspicious, they could just ask about higher-ups who have a tangible presence.

But that would be too obvious.

“I don’t have time to investigate,” Aria said. “If the others only tell me the same as Gregory, then we will be no closer.”

“Well, girlie…” Gromak paused. He was swiping his finger across the screen with his eyes slightly squinted. “This boy is one who communicates mostly through these texts. We can use that.”

“To message who?” Aria asked. The only person worth investigating was one who had a closer link to Ashton than to Gregory. She hadn’t thoroughly checked the texts yet, but she doubted he’d save someone who wasn’t entirely loyal to him.

“This boy,” Gromak said, turning the phone toward her. “Theo Walsh. They don’t talk much, and it seems to only be when Evan is askin’ nicely that Greg stop ignorin’ messages or remindin’ him of places... Doesn’t say whose messages, but doesn’t seem that deferrant either. Seems like some kinda intermediary.”

“Theo Walsh,” Area repeated.

She knew the name. He was at least a little close to Ashton, but they barely interacted enough for her to form concrete opinions about his position. They were partners during the expedition, but Aria never saw them together afterward. And since she wasn’t able to investigate further, all she knew was his basic information—written down in her notebook.

Not being able to ask questions to anybody was annoying, but she couldn’t take a single risk during her so-called investigations.

To make it worse, Ashton kept his contact with most people Aria could consider his minions to a bare minimum. And he had plenty close to him.

Aria read the last message, which was as Gromak said, the Theo man asking Gregory to pay closer attention to his messages. She scrolled further up, and she found another instance of it.

“He’s closer to Ashton than to Gregory,” Aria said. Finally, a good name—and he was close enough to serve as some sort of intermediary.  She knew there had to be something, but she had no routes before today to make it concrete. “I will go after him next.”

Gromak nodded. “You just gotta make sure you got a good reason to message him. It seems they only do it when it’s very important—and you gotta do it now for the meeting to be tomorrow night.”

Aria nodded.

Gregory not being at combat training was going to lead to suspicion from that camp. Ashton would hear about it, likely within a day.

“So how do you see it goin’?” Gromak suddenly asked. His tone sounded more like he was a teacher gauging how she would move forward. Seeing Aria’s confusion, he shrugged and continued, “What do you want from Theo Walsh? Revenge only? You could just go kill Ashton tonight.”

Why the sudden shift? Gromak wasn’t one for trying to educate, and it felt forced.

Regardless, she wasn’t stupid.

“I can’t get to him that easily,” Aria said. She didn’t even need to check her investigation notes to recall that much. She shook her head. “He is always around people, sticks to familiar areas, and doesn’t leave his dorm unless he must.”

“Damn,” Gromak chuckled. “Is he expectin’ you? Seems a bit too on guard.”

“He was of some importance on Earth, and I believe this to be his natural behavior.”

“A coward, you mean?”

“Yes.”

Gromak darkly chuckled, then shook his head. “So, what?”

“Theo Walsh’s phone has Ashton’s group in it. He’d find it strange if Gregory asked to meet, but I can use Theo’s instead.”

“And that won’t be strange?”

“I will use Gregory’s disappearance to create urgency.”

“Acceptable!” Gromak exclaimed, clapping once. He sounded like a proud teacher, but even he seemed somewhat surprised that Aria wasn’t that stupid.

Was that really how he saw her?

If the phones didn’t exist, it might have been harder, though; she wouldn’t know how to proceed. Blind murder was what she originally wanted, but… there’s hope. Slim, almost nonsensical to believe—returning to Sorana.

Whoever aided Ashton might have some way to return. The one responsible for it got to the planet somehow, and teleport gates usually could be used twice or more.

Gromak put the phone on Aria’s desk. “Well, for now—”

The phone suddenly vibrated, interrupting him.

Aria immediately grabbed it.

“Careful, girlie. Those phones can’t be out willy-nilly; don’t respond.”

“It’s…” Aria read the message, and her heart fell.

“What is it, girlie?”

She didn’t say anything, instead turning it toward Gromak.

“Gregory didn’t hang up the phone. I was about to, but I heard your voice… and everything else. I assume it’s done by now.”

When he finished reading, Gromak’s expression was dark.

“Girlie… how could you make such a—”

“I… didn’t know how these things worked… I didn’t think to check,” she whispered.

Was she really caught so quickly?

All her planning, her murder… her hope… dead so soon?

“Girlie, you have to quickly find—”

It vibrated again.

Gromak read it aloud, the shock on his face bringing back some light.

“I want to help—meet me after class in the public cafeteria near your dorm. I’ll be beside the front entrance.”