Shadowthorn was...upset. I could see it, hell I could FEEL it. There was a palpable aura of cold malice rolling off of her. That wasn't an exaggeration either, I could literally see frost forming on the ground. Something about the darkness of her ability clearly interacted with temperature, and she was apparently unable to suppress that particular issue given her obvious rage.

Callie looked...conflicted. Seeing how furious her former friend was at her being put in danger probably reminded her of how close they'd been. Still, she stepped forward to stop her, putting a tentative hand on the older woman's shoulder. "Shadowthorn, don't kill them yet. Since you have them restrained we have someone with questions. This place is involved with some pretty bad stuff, and they have information about the disappearances of a bunch of kids if we can get them to talk."

Shadowthorn glared at Callie, which I think shocked both of us. I'd never seen the F ranker get mad at Callie for any of the things she said to her, but she was livid right now. "What the hell were you thinking? Coming down here to this place looking for people like this? Are you stupid? There are twenty of them, you could have been killed. Almost were killed. What were you even doing here? Why would you come looking for these kinds of people? This isn't Velan, you can't just run around playing detective without telling anyone and expect everything to be fine!"

Callie's jaw clenched and she pulled herself up to her full height, staring down the older heroine. "I was thinking that they were actively trying to murder my friend. I was thinking that this place is G ranked and that we could handle it. Which by the way, was still a possibility. Don't count us out so soon, twenty four isn't too much for us to handle. I appreciate the assist Shadowthorn, don't get me wrong. But you don't get to lecture me. That's not the life we live. Danger is something every hero deals with, and I believe my reasons for doing so are good."

The F ranker's shoulders were tense, but she clearly knew this wouldn't go anywhere. They both had a point honestly, but Callie's point was 'fuck you keep your nose out of my business' and Shadowthorn's was based on concern for her former friend and current stepdaughter. I stepped forward. "This is a moot point anyway. We didn't come here looking for this. It was a recon mission that went sideways. Regardless of what you might think we aren't idiots. That said Nightstrike is right, they have information on missing kids and we should use this chance to question them."

It wouldn't do any good as far as getting info from them went, but it was possible the handler would let something slip. She exhaled a bit once I explained. "That...is different. Recon was a sensible choice here, getting caught is...unfortunate, but I'm guessing the scale of this place is a bit more than you expected. Now tell me about these children you mentioned? Why have they been taken, how did you find out? This seems like something the Unity should have been apprised of, recon only or not."

I shook my head. "This started out as us tracking down a threat that was made against me. We only found out about the kids tonight. During our search we met a bounty hunter looking for his little sister. We didn't know it was related until we ended up here. Apparently they've been taking kids for years, though we don't know why. The group has some bad blood with my father and they were threatening me over that."

There wasn't really a need to elaborate on that issue. They knew from my starting stats I probably had at least one high ranked parent, but social convention (and self preservation) forbid them from asking too much about it. Regardless it was perfectly reasonable as far as excuses went. She made a small sound of understanding before nodding to herself. "That...sounds like a mess. But those kinds of things aren't uncommon, nor is a situation spiraling out of control. I...I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions."

I expected Callie to be pissed or make a dig, but she just shook her head. "You were worried. We may not be ok, may never be ok again, but I'm not enough of a bitch to bite your head off because you were concerned for me. Just don't show up and snap at me without asking what happened again and it's bygones." Her tone was...not soft or compassionate, but less harsh than it could have been. Despite their relationship Callie was a good person, she knew when to go on the attack.

Glancing at the captives, I waited a minute before cutting in. "In any case maybe we should get Cark back in here. He might have information that could help us uncover something." I wished I could hand the bastards over to Zeke. I was positive a B ranker would have some way of bypassing their hypnosis, but sadly that wasn't an option because of my dad's geas. Even if they didn't talk though, it would make Cark feel better to have the chance to question them, and we owed him that. He's protected Benny and Jessie when he hadn't had to because he trusted us, and I'd be damned if I didn't pay that back.

A quick call to Benny on the scan ring had them heading back. As they returned I considered how to handle this. I was pretty sure they wouldn't say more about me, especially since they wouldn't say more about me TO me when I'd asked. I could theoretically ask for help from the Unity with this whole mess, but after weighing the pros and cons again it still felt...wrong. I could just feel that it would end badly.

Aside from the obvious fact that them more involved they got the more possibility my position would leak, the Unity was a MASSIVE organization. There were so many places that a sleeper could easily hide themselves in their ranks it was crazy. Opening up this issue to that level of bureaucracy was just asking for holes in our information security, not to mention the possibility of sleepers being used to feed us false information or deploy us into a trap somewhere. Granted those options still technically existed, but we weren't really operating under their aegis, not like we would if we were part of an official operation aimed at rooting out the Heartrippers.

It came down to trust, and honestly I just didn't. I didn't trust the Unity to have my best interests at heart. Hell I didn't trust the WCP either, though I did trust Zeke. The fact was that at the moment I was a nonentity to any of these forces. I didn't have a major impact on the way something on the scale of an entire faction would operate, and I could accept that. I needed to keep that in mind as I moved forward.

It would be easy to look at my abilities and decide that I was special, that I should run to the Unity and tell them everything and become their new golden boy. But that would be stupid. The Unity was a big faction. Assuming the boss decided I was an asset, which was far from assured, there were still dozens of competing interests within the guild that would benefit from me disappearing quietly.

There was a reason Zeke had told me that at the lower levels anonymity would be my best defense. Granted most people wouldn't mess with me, but even aside from other candidates who could and would just kill me off to get rid of the competition there were bound to be powerful groups stupid or crazy enough to snatch me up and shove me in a box so they could get their hands on a private wish granting machine. Even if the WCP came and sprung me later on (assuming whoever showed up wasn't someone who might benefit if I quietly disappeared) I could spend potentially centuries stuck in a prison being forced to do who knew what. Ascendants didn't need to rush, they had all the time in the world.

All of this was going through my head when I made the decision not to involve Shadowthorn more than I absolutely needed to. Having her help would be damn useful as this little encounter showed, but it wouldn't be for free. It would come with strings, and ones I wasn't comfortable tying on because I wasn't sure I could get them off. She could help with the questioning because we needed her, but once we left here we would be back to doing this on our own. Any other way wouldn't be worth the risk.

Cark finally arrived, looking tense and nearly shaking with anticipation. As he dropped down to the floor of the arena to meet up with us he shot me a grateful nod as he passed, clearly aware I was the one who had asked to bring him into this. But his eyes didn't linger on me long. Flicking past to settle on the trapped sleepers, unmoving and unnaturally quiet as the stared at us blankly. He stalked up to the edge of the pit, looking up at the sleeper closest to him. "You know who I am?"

So many possible outcomes flashed through my head, with the most prevalent being that he would just be ignored, but the one I least expected was for the sleeper to crane it's head slightly and speak. "You are blood of the chosen. You seek to undo the honor bestowed. You will not succeed. She is in her proper place now. You attempts to undermine destiny are futile." The voice was clinical, as the others had been, clearly responding based on orders from someone else and with no real thought or emotion of its own.

The question had to be asked then, how much of this was the handler and how much was just the brainwashing software responding to orders given. I got the impression we weren't hearing someone talk through them like a scan ring call, this was more like someone relaying a message. But how much of this pompous fanaticism was the software and how much of it was the puppet master themselves. Were they a brainwashed lunatic too? Someone with a more permanent mental warping?

For his part, Cark didn't seem to care, he just snarled at the sleeper. "You can bet your ass I'll succeed. What did you take her for? Where did you take her? I'm giving you this one chance. I'm going to come and get my sister, there's nothing you can do to stop it. Cassidy is coming home no matter what you say. If you return her right now I won't make sure you all burn to death in the process. I wont come to your places of worship and your homes and set them ablaze while you're still inside. If you don't give her back I will hunt you down to the ends of the world. You don't want to play with me."

Something changed. It wasn't the face because that was covered, it was something about the body language, something about the sleeper became more...fluid. More real. Less like a meat robot. The eyes behind the mask focused on Cark for the first time, and I heard malicious glee in the voice as it echoed into the pit. "Ah, but I do. So by all means, undertake your hunt, and let the games begin." And then the heads of every single one of the sleepers exploded in a rain of gore and brain matter. We all stared in shock for a second before I cursed internally. Well, there went our only lead.