Safe

As the two women approached the station's gates, a tall man dressed in a thick coat with a police badge on the back turned around and looked at them. With dark bags under his eyes, the man snapped his fingers, and a small drove flew out from the ceiling and hovered behind the two women. The drone had a taser mounted to the bottom of his chassis that sparked aggressively.

"Hold it there, ladies. The city is still under lockdown."

"Tsk." Maddie groaned, monitoring the drone. "Why was shift change so soon?" Linda raised a brow at her companion's comment. Maddie then glanced at the officer. "Don't you think this is a little extreme, sir?" She used a charming tone to ease the officer.

The officer was unaffected and yawned in response. "Yeah, maybe." He sighed while waving his hands. "But you know, I haven't slept in 48 hours, and I'm freezing my ass off trying to survive while doing my damn job. And besides that, you know how suspicious it looks for two fine-looking women to walk around with a young boy on their backs? Especially since the city is under lockdown and no one should be outdoors? Not like you can since the snow and all." The office had trouble focusing on the women.

"So you see, officer…." Linda tried her best to persuade the officer that nothing suspicious was happening and that they hoped to get on the train to get the boy back home safe and sound.

"So, in other words, you are his legal guardian, and she is your relative." They both nodded.

"Yeah, sure. You two are coming with me." The officer walked the two women to his office and began a background check on the two. A female officer walked in a few moments later to hand the girls a change of warm clothes. After an hour, the officer was shocked to find out that the two women weren't lying and apologized profusely for his error in judgment. After leaving the officer's office, the two women made their way to the main waiting area of the station.

"That's some quick handy work you got there, Maddie," Linda said.

"Well, even if you checked out, I wouldn't have. So I made sure to match that story of yours." The two continued to enjoy some small talk before their train arrived. After waiting for about half an hour, a large red train stopped on the train platform, and the two women, with Alan on Linda's back, boarded the train bound for the station near the NaviCafe.

~~~T~~~

"Hmm….?" Tony and Maverick looked at each other in a very concerned way. On one side of the Cafe stood two men carefully analyzing data collected during the raid on the professor's laboratory. Since they had no way of confirming the situation outside and with Renne being wanted by Ouroboros, the group decided they would just use the NaviCafe as a hideout until things seemed safe outside.

"This really bothers me…." Maverick said while looking through the data.

"Yeah...this is just horrible…." Tony said.

"Is it really that bad?" Asked Isabelle as she brought the two coffee.

"Yeah, while we appreciate you going through the trouble of collecting this information, this will not be returned to you. Just the thought of releasing this to the public is enough to make me realize how fucked we will be." Tony said while holding the cup of coffee to his mouth.

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Isabelle said in a gloomy tone. While unnatural sounding, Tony decided to drop it. He had a hunch feeling she had made a copy of the information. If she were to expose the information found, things would be much easier for the police; however, he could not outwardly say that as it would mark him as a target by the city.

"Ah, but don't worry, you won't go unpaid. So how about $10,000?" Tony smiled at her.

"Huh?" Isabelle was dumbfounded. She was not expecting a high price for the information she had collected. At the very least, she thought it would be worth $1,000 at most.

"Yeah, 10k." Tony repeated, "For your efforts of risking your life to collect this info and to help with any inconveniences caused by our rash planning." Tony drifted his gaze onto the stack of envelopes before him. Each envelope was handwritten with the name of an officer who had died.

"..." Isabelle quietly stared at Tony. She then walked forward and grabbed his left hand. "Thank you, sir. I will never forget this kind gesture of yours." She said with a sparkle in her eyes, causing Tony to blush a little before he pushed her off.

"Ahem, I can see that the thought of money makes you happy." Tony sighed, but he enjoyed the distraction. "But that is an undesirable personality trait to have, especially when it comes to looking for a job in this city, you know."

"Hmm, what do you mean?" She tilted her head in confusion.

"You don't know?" Tony asked, shifting his tone into something more serious. "Well, most of the jobs here in the city were founded by the rich that had aided in rebuilding this city. Because of this, most jobs you can find cast out anyone asking for a raise or any mention of money during their interview. It's a weird thing that this city has just accepted as a norm, to be honest." Tony shrugged his shoulders and resumed working on the data.

"Hmm...so that's why those interviewers always threw me out the second I mentioned how much the pay is." Isabelle quietly muttered to herself. She pulled out a small notebook and wrote the information given to her.

On the other side of the room, Renne quietly stared at the three and thought to herself, "Maybe I'm being paranoid, but maybe she's-"

"Oh, would you look at that?" Shin interrupted Renne's thoughts, and all eyes in the room turned to face him. "Looks like they are back." Upon saying this, two women walked through the front entrance carrying an unconscious boy. The room grew silent as everyone in the room looked at Linda. Cold air swept through the lobby of the Cafe, and Maddie rushed to close the doors before any more cold air infiltrated the building.

"Heh...heh... I'm back…?" Linda said awkwardly, unable to handle the stares cast by everyone.

"Welcome back, ex-scientist." Tony was the first to break the silence. While the others turned towards Tony with an icy stare, Tony brushed it off and walked towards the women.

"So you found out, huh?" Linda replied in an empty tone.

"Yeah, Linda Norn, head scientist of the Ancient Awakening Project, or AAP for short." Tony's gaze grew hostile. "A project with the end goal of re-awaking the Ancient powers that have been erased from human history."

Linda carefully placed Alan on a nearby chair, then followed Tony to his table. "I guess I have to explain myself." She then carefully explained all that she knew, all the while avoiding touchy areas such as Masa and being Renne's birth mother.

~~~0~~~

Deep within an endless void filled with nothing besides a crimson mist lies a ghostly figure surrounded by a thinker mist that took the form of a bed. The figure slowly began to materialize into Alan. After the process was finished, another ghostly figure materialized into a girl with long, silver hair that seemed to flow, despite the lack of airflow. Her body was covered in black markings. She stared at Alan with a motherly expression as she approached his face. She gently caressed his cheek and moved her slender fingers toward his lips. Alice slowly leaned forward and tried to kiss him. However, just as she nearly touched him with her lips, Alan awoke from his slumber and stared at the semi-naked girl on top of him.

"..." The two stared at each other, giving off two completely different reactions. The girl stared at the boy with an embarrassed look, while the boy stared at the girl with an unamused look.

"Heh...heh...good morning?" The girl said as she slowly got off of Alan.

"..." Alan stared at her in silence as he slowly distanced himself from her.

"W-wait, I can explain! "

"No...no...I think I fully understand what your motive was, Alice." Alan continued to back away from Alice. "But to think you would try to do something to me while I was unconscious…."

"Well, not when you were unconscious. You don't have a physical body in this space when you are."

"You didn't even attempt to deny it." Alan drifted away from Alice as she followed.

Some time passed while Alice was trying to clear her name. While unsuccessful, she managed to get Alan to lower his guard a little so that they could chat before Alan returned to the real world.

"You know something Alice, we have only been a part of this crazy ordeal for less than a week, and it is completely tiring," Alan said while sitting on a small chair created using a nearby mist.

"Yeah... but you do know this whole 'ordeal' has only just begun, right? I do not know what Chronos is thinking, but what I know is that it is quite bad news."

"How so?"

"Have you not noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

"..." Alice looked at Alan in such a disappointing way that even Alan felt terrible for not knowing something he had missed. "I'm talking about how those girls were immune to the time freeze."

"Yeah...I overlooked that. Sorry." Alan apologized half-heartedly.

"And this is why I have low hopes for you," Alice whispered. "But there's one thing that bothers me more, though, not like you noticed anyway." She continued to give Alan a disappointed look. "Were you conscious during that fight?"

"Yes, but my body moved on its own." He turned to look at his left arm, "I vividly remember nearly killing Renne," he turned to look at his right arm, "and my arm being sliced off. But it didn't hurt. Even after I cauterized the wound during that fight, everything felt like I was just a puppet, feeling nothing but the emotions of the one controlling me."

"Yes... that is how corruption works."

"But... why didn't you control me?" Alan stared at Alice with a serious expression.

"To be honest, If I had controlled you, both Renne and Evangela would be dead."

"Why…?"

"Personal reasons."

"Huh?"

"Anyway," Alice quickly changed the subject in order to ensure Alan didn't try to pry any further, "I have a question for you. Why do you fight with wrath?"

"What do you mean by that?" Alan gave Alice a confused look as he stood up, called forth the Crimson Princess, and used the mist to create a few items to perform maintenance on the blade.

"What I mean is that you both seem to have your roles reversed. Renne has shown signs of sloth, maybe even envy, and you have shown signs of wrath...wait, are you even listening?" Alice looked at Alan with concern, as he was busy working on the sword rather than giving her his full attention.

Alan stopped what he was doing, looked up at Alice's eyes, and nodded. He then looked down at the blade and peered into the large, glistering crimson jewel in the center of the blade's base.

"Maybe she's like me. Just trying to not follow the path fate has set for us. She probably has a reason that she doesn't fight as actively as she should. I would guess my father has something to do with that, though." Alan resumed performing maintenance on the blade while Alice sat and stared.

"But...for you, you want to be helpful. You don't want to sit idly anymore and let others die. Is that the way you act the way you do? To not be 'slothful'?"

"..." Alan said nothing and slowly nodded his head.

"I see…That was all that I needed to know for now. I guess I'll disappear for now. Just be gentle with me, kay?" Alice said, embarrassed as she realized that her efforts to have a conversation with Alan were failing. She then transformed into a cloud of crimson mist that slowly flowed into the Crimson Princess, that rested on Alan's lap. Alan paid it no mind as he cleaned and sharpened the blade.

A few hours had passed, and Alan sat alone in the crimson dream world, waiting for his body to regain consciousness. He eventually got bored with performing maintenance on the blade, so he got up and used the mist to make a makeshift target dummy. Once created, he closed his eyes and raised his left hand to the dummy. Curious about what Alan was doing, Alice partially materialized next to her blade body and watched as a small flame appeared in the palm of his hand.

"So you can control it now?" She muttered softly to herself.

Alan opened his eyes and looked at his left hand. Although he was surprised, he didn't let it show as he aimed toward the dummy and shot out the small ball of fire.

"!?"

"Pfff!!!"

To Alan's surprise, he completely missed the dummy by quite a distance. Alice was laughing at his failure behind him.

"Not that simple, huh?" Alice said while still laughing.

"Shut up. Why are you even laughing anyway?" Alan barked back.

"I'm laughing because you had a completely serious face as if you were some master practicing his craft. But not only did you muster up a weak flame, you completely missed the dummy by miles."

Alan was too embarrassed to fight back. He gave up and sat back down. However, the second he sat down, the world warped a little. "So it's time?" he said out loud.

"Yup, your body is regaining consciousness. Anyway, I'm gonna rest for a while, so I won't respond to your calls for a while." Alice rubbed the black markings on her body. The crimson world faded to black, and Alan slowly opened his eyes.