Lissa frowned as she looked at the Crime Board inside Jun’s Room while Nina sat behind them, both of them gathered whatever information they could learn from the Ahrys. Given her suspicions towards her now fiancé, the two girls worked together as both of them noticed that something felt off about the agreement.

As for Nina’s presence, they just dragged her along for the sake of it.

But given that they’re such a new and rising Family within the Province, knowing the difference between what is Fact or Rumor.

“Right so let’s start from the beginning,” Jun said pulling out her notepad and looked through it.

“Desmond Ahrys, Twenty-One Years old and a Third Year Student that transferred late this Fall. He’s an excellent Archer with a strong preference for Ki based attacks, and due to being transferred so late into the Semester he is essentially lacking a Team.” Jun read aloud their findings. “His family background was a newly established House located within the Firrus Province after taking over a Mining Company known for questionable treatment of their workers. As a result, they now own a dozen mines within the Firrus Province. However, due to the lack of possible allies, they began resorting through marriage alliances with the Head of the Family marrying a Local Mayor and they have begun forming one with the Ikross Family.”

“Any other information about him is just about how handsome he looked, or how clean him and his family is in terms of under the table tactics and moves,” Jun said tossing aside the notepad on the floor.

“Ugh this is hopeless,” Lissa said throwing her hands in the air in direct frustration and sat down with a sigh. “Finding concrete information about him is basically trying to find a needle in a haystack!”

“Observation, perhaps we aren’t looking deeper enough,” Nina suggested as she stood up and looked at the Crime Board laid out before them.

“No matter how hard we look Nina it just comes to the conclusion that he is very much a new family with little to no ambitions,” Lissa said looking at the notepad. “But I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something off about all of this.”

Jun remained silent once more and then sighed and turned to Nina. “You don’t suppose you have a Lie Detector built into you Miss Automata?”

“…Jun wait—” Lissa said in mild shock. “How—”

“Reason Number One, no normal Human adds a Preface to their sentences. I get it if it was Third Person but Prefaces for no reason? I think that’s pretty suspicious.” Jun made a number one gesture.

“Reason Number Two, Oscar is a Technophile. For all of his smarts and creativity, he is very reclusive unless you’re a fairly good-looking blacksmith, a sweet mother of a Dragon, or your boyfriend. Therefore, Nina has either cybernetics that only he knows, which could veer into the creepy, or she’s a machine.” Jun made a number, prompting both Nina and Lissa to repeat the first part regarding Ren.

“And Reason Number Three.” Jun raised a third finger, turning towards her desk revealing a magnet and tossed it towards Nina only for it to immediately stick to the back of her neck.

“Okay that seems fair,” Lissa said turning to Nina who casually removed it.

“Surprised Comment, I never noticed that before. I should consider wearing a scarf then.” Nina said rubbing the back of her neck. “Addendum, but no I was not built with one. Speculation, however, I suspect that was designed to live more similar to fleshlings such as you two instead.”

“Won’t that make you a fleshling as well?” Jun raised an eyebrow at Nina who gave her a mildly surprised look.

“Back on topic, well if finding any information about him is close to impossible I have an idea,” Lissa said pulling out the address of the Ahrys Estate.

“Are you suggesting we break into their home and check their files? But that’s illegal…” Jun said in mild surprise.

“Nah I’m just kidding, let’s do it,” Jun said with her trademark cat-like grin which she makes when she gets into a good mood.

“Suggestion: Why not ask the others to break in for us, if they found out that Lissa the very Fiancé of the heir broke in their home then chances are that there will be some repercussions.”

“Nina is right,” Lissa let out a sigh and crossed her arms. “We’ll need someone that Desmond knows the least, but someone we can trust.”

“I know some guys,” Jun said shrugged. “Leave that to me.”

Later that afternoon, Lissa walked in the hallways. Since the date, she stopped visiting the Training Room since she couldn’t bear herself to face Thomas after everything that happened. These days she would just spar on her own while practicing her Ki combat with Kyle’s mentorship. But she spotted Desmond talking to Thomas, causing her to stop on her tracks and hide on the corner and listen to their conversation.

“So why did you call me out of nowhere?” Thomas asked mildly surprised.

“I wanted to apologize to you in regards to your relationship with—”

“I’m afraid just like me and everyone else, you seemed to have misread my relationship with Lissa,” Thomas answered with a somewhat dejected sigh, Lissa frowned becoming upset at herself for not being honest to her feelings for him.

“Sorry about that, I assumed you two had at the very least an intimate relationship given how much you two spend together in and out of the training room,” Desmond said with an apologetic voice.

“You and everyone else,” Thomas muttered dryly. “Look, don’t worry about my relationship with Lissa being affected. As far as I know, she just sees me as just an academic rival. Whatever you do with her is not my problem.”

There was a momentary silence and she spotted Thomas walking past her with a downcast look on his face. Lissa wanted to reach out to him but what can she do? Because of her own lack of social skills and singlemindedness, she essentially broke the heart of someone that most certainly liked her for who she is.

She let out a sigh and then felt someone place a hand on her shoulder, she looked up and saw Professor Erisa Bell her own homeroom teacher looking at her with a worried look.

“You alright Ikross?” She asked.

“Just a bit bummed out,” Lissa sighed, for a brief moment she looked at the direction where Thomas was walking and then at the wistful look Lissa was giving. She immediately placed two and two together and simply nodded.

“Boys am I right?” She simply smiled at Lissa. “You know I once had a similar encounter with the late Arios Elpis.”

“Wait really?” Lissa said immediately turning towards Erisa with a surprised look.

Oh very, your father was quite the moron when it comes to women, to be honest.

“Oh very, Arios was quite the moron when it comes to women, to be honest.” Professor Bell said, trying her best not to reveal too much but as per her and Thalia’s agreement to at least help out their children. “Wanna hear about it for the time being?”

Lissa paused for a moment, perhaps listening to someone’s experience with men could help her figure out her own problems.

“Sure, why not.” Lissa smiled with a shrug.

[Axis:Legacy]

“You got paid?” Ren asked Oscar in disbelief as they both hopped into a Sedan that was instructed by Jun for them to use for the mission they were given. Which was to explore and infiltrate the Ahrys Family estate.

“Yeah, you didn’t?” Oscar asked in confusion as they looked at the guns that were provided by Jun which consists of a pair of Suppressed Atraxia Model 23 Battle Rifle and a pair of Suppressed 9 mm Handguns, a handful of Mute Charges, smoke grenades and flashbangs, and a pair of night-vision goggles.

“No, no I wasn’t,” Ren said in a mildly infuriated tone.

In actuality, Oscar was paid 10,000 Thrones just for him to infiltrate the mining site and see what they can find from within. Meanwhile, Ren was simply convinced by Jun to do it for her, mostly because he couldn’t say no for her, and like everyone else within Lissa and Thomas’ inner circle found the whole sudden engagement strange.

“I’ll split to fifty if we survive yeah?” Oscar said as he grabbed both the AM-23 and a 9mm and hid it under their clothes.

“You better,” Ren said as he grabbed the same weapons as well.

“Dude just ask her on a date, you two are no different from Thomas and Lissa you know. I mean you like her she likes you why not?” Oscar said as they turned on Night vision.

“I just think she deserves better than just settling with just an orphaned blacksmith living in the middle of nowhere,” Ren muttered in a low voice as the two made their way into the estate, the two made their way towards a ridge that overlooked everything.

“That doesn’t look good,” Oscar commented as they both zoomed in and found several armed militias across the main entrance with a handful of armed Security which looked more armed that they originally should.

“Look over the east,” Ren said as he and Oscar turned and saw a handful of men armed with heavy ordinance all the while wearing Axis Liberation Coalition Fatigues, in contrast to the other guards which was armed with handguns and wore semi-formal outfits.

“That doesn’t look like home security to me,” Oscar commented as they watched them load heavy crates in a nearby warehouse. “Let’s go down there and see what’s down there yeah?”

“I’ll go down there since you’re a better shot,” Ren said as he prepared to get rappel down.

“Then you’ll need these,” Oscar said as he handed him a small canister and an extra goggle to which Oscar suggested he put it on.

“What’s this?” Ren asked hiding the canister on his back pocket alongside the extra goggle.

“A Visra,” Oscar said with a cheeky smile. “In case you’ll need to get indoors I’ll be able to see what’s inside. Now get going.”

Ren grabbed the rope and began to rappel down with his night vision on, thankfully as he got closer and closer to the estate more and more weapon crates are found across several warehouses.

“I see a pair of Guards heading your direction,” Oscar told him as he quickly crouched behind a nearby crate as he spotted a pair of lights heading his way, Ren nearly held his breath as two guards snuck past them.

“The weather is pretty chilly nowadays huh,” One of the Guards said.

“Yeah it’s almost winter anyway, I just hope any future attacks taking place during the winter though.” The Second Guard said.

“That would suck, winter warfare is always the worst.” The First one replied as the two shared a laugh as soon as they walked past Ren, he immediately snuck his way inside the courtyard finding four more, this time they were armed with handguns instead of the heavy ordinance all of them were casually smoking while discussing the arranged marriage between Desmond and Lissa.

“Ending the Mansion right now,” Ren spoke as approached a nearby fuse box and killed the power. “I can’t see you there from the overlook, time for you to pull out the Visra and the extra goggle,” Oscar answered prompting Ren to put on the other goggle pressed a button on the Visra causing the canister to transform into a four-legged mechanical spider.

“This thing lets me see in the house as a remote drone,” Oscar explained as the Visra scuttled into the halls guiding him into the Mansion as Ren followed him, eventually Ren spotted the Study Room of the head of the family.

Ren hid behind the corner carefully watching any nearby guards from approaching alongside the Visra.

“Hold on a—!” Oscar said but he was immediately cut off with silence and the Visra suddenly went limp.

“Oscar?” Ren asked worriedly as he cautiously checked his corners as the light went back on forcing him to turn off his Night Vision while grabbing the deactivated drone and placing it into his pocket.

“Looks like I’m on my own then.” Ren slowly opened the door for the room revealing a handful of maps and other documents found across the room spotting a nearby camera he quickly pulled out the battle rifle and shot the Security Camera and looked through the documents each one of them containing various documents each one detailing various areas of interest, weapon caches, and targets all of which operate within the Axis and in some parts of both Jorouse and Exavis.

“Sorry I got company earlier,” Oscar said with a slightly pained voice.

“What happened?” Ren asked as he read several more documents.

“Turns out there were some high ranking ALC members guarding the perimeter, threw her off the trail for a bit but you need to get the hell out of there right now,” Oscar said as he heard footsteps and gunfire from the distance.

Run hurriedly took pictures of many targets as he can as well as pictures and letters that the Ahrys family received from various members from the ALC as he heard the sounds of heavy footsteps making their way to the office. He quickly activated a Mute Charge and pulled the pin-out of a smoke grenade as he began to break a window as he leaped out of the window and landed on a nearby set of bushes. And before any of the guards can notice that he managed to escape he pulled yet another smoke grenade and sprinted towards a steep ridge leading to a river heading south, from where both of them entered from.

“Oscar, I’ll have to do an exfil through the river heading south pick me up near the riverbank miles from here!” Ren said as he run and gunned his way through the back yard all the while dodging bullets, arrows, and spells as he pulled both a smoke grenade and a flashbang as he leaped into the water before the guards can spot him.

He made a mental note to never take infiltration missions in the future no matter how much he liked the person giving him missions.