June 5th
The Belly, Sector 38

Emiray was deep in the Belly, far below the University District. Sector 38 was about as deep and derelict as a place could get. Several times Emiray has to wade and deep as her chest and twice she had to swim though flooded portions. Three of Sector 38’s seven water pumps had been busted and there had been numerous faulty electronics and broken doors. It was Emiray’s job to come down here and make sure everything was in working order.

Dirt and mud crusted her short hair making it impossible to tell what color it used to be. Her clothes, a simple jumpsuit, was so smeared and stained it was hardly recognizable as clothes. It was also at least a size too small for her. The only thing about her that was clean where the numerous tools that hung around her belt. They were clean and almost shined the the murky dark cast by the small electrical lamp that she carried.

She stopped in front of a door and set down her lamp on a nearby pipe that was handing at chest level. The last of Sector 38’s water pump was beyond there and she would need to make sure it was functioning before she made her report to the chief engineer. Given the water level nearby she suspected it was malfunctioning like the others she had fixed. It has after all been a year since this section’s last scheduled maintenance and many of the old pumps couldn’t even last that long before breaking. Even the pumps that hadn’t been broken had still needed some maintenance or they wouldn’t have lasted more then a couple of more months.

Emiray looked over the door looking for any damage. It was a solid metal door and beyond the rust covering the bottom half it seemed to be in good condition. The grabbed the handle in the center of the door and started to turn. There as a squeaking sound and the handle turns an inch before grinding to a stop. Emiray gritted her teeth and pushed again but the door handle refused to budge.

“What do you think Rob?” Emiray asked as she let go of the handle and dusted the flakes of rust off of her hands. There was a click as the robot reached out its hand and pressed it on the door it moved its head closer to the hinges.

R08 was just a little bit taller then Emiray and would probably be thin if it wasn’t carrying a multitude of bags and other things strapped around it. R08 was an old model and would probably have been junked long ago had the Belly Engineer been able to afford replacements. So R08 was still around and had probably been doing the job of an Engineer’s assistant longer then any of the engineers had been engineers, certainly longer then Emiray had been one.

Its mask like face stared at the door for a few more seconds processing before it said. “THe InTERIOr iS LIkEly FlOODeD ANd ThE INSiDE GeARS BUSTED. WE WILL PROBABLY NEED TO REMOVE THE DOOR BEFORE ENTERING.”

Emiray nodded grimly. The door opened inward and if it was indeed flooded then it could take hours to remove the door and get into the pump room and then hours more to fix the door. Only a second rate engineer would leave a broken door behind them. She looked around and then pointed toward the vents in the celling. “Rob, Any chance those would lead me into the pump room. If I could get inside and fix the pump then that would fix the flooding and then we would be able to get the door open.”

“THAT SEEMS LIKE A REASONABLE PLAN. ALTHOUGH THE VENTS MAY NOT LEAD TO THE PUMP ROOM AND THE ROOM MIGHT BE COMPLETELY FLOODED MAKING REPAIRS IMPOSSIBLE.” Responding R08 in its lightly warbling tone. That always but Emiray, she had managed to keep it in good working condition since it had been assigned to her but she had never been able to fix that warble. There was nothing wrong with its speaker system so it must be some kind of software bug.

She reached up and pulled herself onto on of the pipes. A couple of minutes and her wrench managed to get the grate of the vent off and she squeezed herself inside it. “Rob, there isn’t enough room for you to come up here. Stay down there and see what you can do about the door. I’ll come back for parts after I found out what is wrong with the pump.” She heard an affirmative beep as made her way through the vent duck. Ten minutes and two wrong turns later she finally managed to find the vent leading into the pump room.

As she began working on the bolts holding the vent in place she began to smell it. It was the smell of something rotting. She had smell decomposing creatures before, rats and other animals sometimes made there home in the Belly and when they died it didn’t take long for it to start rotting. Emiray got the last bolt off and help the grate gently as she let it slide down. Once it stopped moving downward she slide herself out of the ducts and stopped dead.

There, floating in the middle of the pool of water near the pump was a human corpse.

June 5th
Space, Low Orbit

Lynn stared up at the stars. They were beautiful, they had always been beautiful and so far away. Now that she was as close to them as she had ever been they seemed even farther way. “Beep, Thirty Five Minutes Of Air Remaining” came a sound near her ear. That brought her two her senses and she looked around, the Earth hung below her like a giant gem, sparkling. While the stars still seemed so far away the Earth seemed small and insignificant.

“Lynn, the satellite is two hundred miles retrograde away from you.” Lynn heard the voice through the communication set in her suit. They had been telling her that for a couple of minutes now and would probably start to get annoyed if she continued to spend any more time staring at the stars.

She stared to her west and could see the satellite off in the distance, although it seemed very small. She reached out to it and then it was there right in front of her as if she had always been right next to it. She reached out and grab one of the satellites rails with her gloved hand. “I’m there, now what do I need to do.”

“If you would remember the briefing then you would know that the satellite has run out of the fuel needed to correct its orbit and keep it where we need it to be. Rather then send a new satellite up you are going to replace the fuel canisters. Now please follow my directions carefully.”

Lynn listens as the voice droned on. She followed directions not really paying attention. Twenty minutes later the fuel tank had been replaced and Lynn was finally free to enjoy herself again. Sometimes it was a pain needing to do was she was supposed to. It seemed that all of her time was spent participating is some kind of experiment or preforming some task that nobody else was capable of doing. However she still had fifteen minutes before she ran out of oxygen and she wanted to spend those moments staring at the stars.

“Beep, Five Minutes Of Air Remaining.” Finally she broke away from the stars and spun to look at the Earth. She needed to return back to Mü. The University probably has some test or some experiment they wanted her to perform. She sighed, taking one last deep breath and then the Earth was closer, much closer. She was falling and even through the suit she could feel the atmosphere wiping past her. Every-time her suit warned her that the tempetures were getting to hot there was a shutter and she began to fall again.

Just as her suit began to warn her about the critical low levels of air she flipped the pressure release and air began flowing into her suit from outside. It was thin still, but it was breathable. The Earth was hurtling toward her and she could see the ocean far below her and the city. It was still small but it grew bigger and bigger and she got closer to the ground. Like the stars Mü always impressed her, the largest city in the world floating on top of the ocean.

She could see the building get bigger and bigger as she fell through the clouds. If she kept at this for a couple of more minutes then she would hit the ground. Her eyes locks on one of the taller buildings and then suddenly she was standing on top of it.

“Ivan, I have managed to land safely in the Entertainment district…” Lynn paused for a second deciding, “Cancel any other plans that I have for this evening. Tell them that I am planning to spend the night in the Entertainment district.”

“Wait Lynn, You can’t just do that. You promised me…” Lynn clicked the communicator off and unlatched her helmet letting her hair roll down to her shoulders. “Sure I can, in fact I just did.” Said Lynn with a smile. Ivan would probably get angry at her but there was really nothing that he could do to stop her. Lynn doubted that anyone would be able to stop her if she didn’t want to be stopped and it wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong. Occasionally she wanted to act her age, maybe she would go see a movie or go to the arcade.

First however she needed to go get some clothes, a space suit was hardly the proper attire for a teenage girl. There would probably be somebody in the Entertainment district willing to try her some proper clothes in return for the suit. She smiled planning how she would spend her evening.

Then the roof of the building was empty and Lynn was nowhere to be seen.

I finished writing late last night and went to sleep right after that so I am posting the story in the morning.

Six Years Ago

The Belly, Sector 75

The last piece slide into position with a click and Emiray placed the small backplate on and screwed it tight. She picked up the small watch in her equally small hands and turned it around a couple of times. It seemed alright, though she didn’t know for certain yet. She twisted the crank several times and the gave out a giggle as the watch began to tick.

Smiling she hurriedly stood up and raced out of her room and down the dark hallway to her Uncle’s room. She knocked once before entering, no waiting for a response. “Uncle, uncle, look I managed to get it working again. All I needed to do was replace several of the parts and it was able to work again.”

Her Uncle looked up from his work bench and smiled back at her. “Come over her Emi and show me.” He took it from her as she got closer and stared it through his thick glasses. He put it close to his ear and listened before handing it back to her. “You did well, a quality repair job. It will probably last for ten more years because of you.” He reached out and ruffled her short hair. “I’m proud of you.”

She beamed back at him, “Do you think daddy will be proud of me too?” She asked innocently. Her Uncle froze, his hand still tangled in her hair. It was painful for him, he didn’t know what to tell her, he had never had to take care of a child before her father died. There were things that he wanted to tell her, things he should tell her, but he never managed to say anything.

“Yes, I’m sure he would be very proud.” He tried smiling at her but it was forced.

June 5th

The Belly, Sector 38

The water pump had been fixed, the water was pumped out of the room, and the door to the room had been fixed and opened. The rotting smell wasn’t any better but it had been a relief for Emiray to be able to leave the room and breath some relatively clean air again.

“Rob, how could that man have gotten down here. The door into the pump room wasn’t working and he couldn’t have been dead more then a couple of days.” Said Emiray when she got back to the room. She had put on a dust mask which made it a little bit easier to breath, but not much.

“I DO NOT KNOW. YOUR HYPOTHESIS IS SOUND HOWEVER. IT SHOULD BEEN IMPOSSIBLE FOR THERE TO BE A CORPSE HERE. HOWEVER THAT DOES NOT STOP THE CORPSE FROM BEING HERE.” Responded R08 in its warbling tone. It was great at any amount of useful engineering assistance but R08 just wasn’t able to be creative.

“I wonder who he was.” Said Emiray as he put on a pair of thick leather gloves. They were usually used for grabbing into hot object but she really didn’t want to touch the corpse with her bare hands. She began checking the man’s coat pockets, maybe he was carrying an ID or something that would tell Emiray who he was.

She didn’t really want to be doing this but since she had found the corpse she would need to give the chief engineer a though report of everything that she could find out. If it was murder then it would be serious business. “Rob, please start recording.”
“RECORDING STARTED…” Responded R08. It would be better to give an account as she saw it now then try and remember what happened later.

“The corpse isn’t very old, maybe a day or two at the most. I still have no idea how he arrived here. I have been unable to find an wallet or any sort of identification yet but since he is wearing what is probably a lab coat he must be from the University District. Since Sector 38 is below the University District that makes it even more likely.”

She pulled out a something from one of the coat pockets and examined it. “In one of his coat pockets I found a strange object. It is a long rectangular rod bar with something jutting from one end. It resembles a key, although it is very big if it is a key.” Emiray placed the object to one side and continued to search the body. “He doesn’t seem to have an ID on him and other then the unknown object his pockets are empty.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any external injuries on him so it is unlikely that he was murdered. Maybe he got lost down here and starved to death or drowned after some sort of accident. Although how he would end up in the pump room if that was the case it beyond me. Other then the grate I used to enter the pump room there appears to be no forced entry, or any form of entry.”

She spend a couple more minutes going over the body looking for anything else unusual.
“I wonder if he was a father. Rob, stop recording.”

June 5th

University District, Pegasus Research Facility #5

Professor Gray continued to fiddle with the settings for the program. They simulations all seemed to work correctly but the experiments always failed. He had burned through seven different hypothesis to explain the reaction but he had yet to come up with a compelling solution.

There was a hiss as the large machine next to him began to open. The mental resonance chamber should supposedly let you view a person thoughts or watch their dreams but so far the data it had been giving him had been mostly garbage. He took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair before saying, “Good job Edith. You can take the rest of the day off while I rework the machine and redo my hypothesis.”

“Professor Gray, Professor Gray, your phone is ringing.” Gray looked up at Edith for a moment trying to realize what she was talking about. Then his concentration snapped and he too noticed that his phone was ringing. That was strange, almost nobody ever called him on the laboratory line, they always called his cell when they needed to contact him.
He stood up and walked past the walked past Edith and the Mental Resonance Chamber before picking up the phone and answering, “Yes, This is Professor Gray in Facility 5.”

“The tortured Titan guides they way.” Every muscle in Gray’s body froze and he heard the words coming from the other end of the phone. He glanced up to check on Edith but she had already left once he had noticed the phone.

“And we shall pay the same price.” Responded Gray in a whisper. “What is it that I need to do?” Asked Gray in a strangled whisper. He knew this day would eventually come, he had prepared for it and was willing to go through what needed to be done but he knew they price the the Titan suffered that that he would probably share.

“You must recover the Euclidian Key. The scientist who invented it decided not to go along with our wishes.” Said the voice on the other side of the phone. Gray shivered slightly, he knew what would happen to though who didn’t go along.

“What to do you want me to do to recover the Euclidian Key?” Sometimes independent action was a good plan, but now was unlikely to try that route. The man on the other side of the phone was probably important and high up in the ranks. Gray was nothing more then a grunt.

“The Key can be used to distort space and the inventor used it to escape with the Key. However without a large source of energy he will be unable to use it again. According to our measurements the Euclidian Key placed him somewhere underneath the University District. We need you to recover the Euclidian Key and dispose of the scientist who invented it.

“Do you mean in the Belly?” Asked Gray. If the Euclidian Key was in the Belly then it would be more then a little difficult to recover it. Without the right permission a person could get in trouble for entering the Belly, not to mention the possibility of getting lost or finding some dangerous creature. Without an Engineer to guide you then entering the Belly might was well be suicide.

“All the necessary arrangements for you have already been made. You will be making a scientific inquiry into the Belly to study the roots of Mü. An Engineer will be provided for you and you must recover the Key.”

Gray nodded to nobody in particular before saying, “I will do what is needed.”

“For The Greater Good” Said the voice. “For The Greater Good” Said Gray.

June 8th

University District, Residential Section

“Ivan, how can he just be missing?” Asked Lynn in an angry tone. “Harold is a well respected scientist with ten assistants, a person like that just doesn’t disappear.” She tapped her fingers on the table restlessly. She thought she should have been happy that her meeting with Harold was cancelled but she had been working with him closely on several projects and it was disturbing to him suddenly vanish like this.

“He just is. His lab assistants haven’t seen him in days. He seems to have contacted nobody and there have been no records of him.” Explained Ivan slowly. It was often painful for him to deal with Lynn because she would often ignore him completely or simply dismiss his opinion out of hand. She could get away with it too, Lynn was a Level 8 Esper and probably the most powerful single person alive. If she didn’t want to pay attention to him then there was very little that he could do to make her pay attention. It was all very frustrating.

“Is it possible that something happened to him?” Asked Lynn, “Was there anything missing from his laboratory?”

This section of the story will continue tomorrow.

“Not that that I know about.” Responded Ivan. He noticed her worried expression before asking, “Is there some reason for you to think that anything would be…. missing” He paused for a second before the last word because just before he had said it Lynn was gone. She hadn’t left through the doorway or anything mundane like, she had just ceased to be there anymore.

After around a minute for swearing at the frustration of having to deal with her he pulled out his cell phone and dailed her number. There was a ringing sound and he looked up to see a phone sitting on the table next to him. Curse her and her bloody ability to teleport willy nilly. He really needed to find a new job.

June 8th

University District, Professor Harold’s Laboratory

It has taken Lynn several minutes to arrive at Harold’s Laboratory. There was too many intervening obstacles to make the teleportation any quicker. Still by going across the rooftops she had been able to arrive at the other side of the Research District faster then any other person was capable of doing. It was beginning to become evening and the doors to the laboratory were locked. Harold used to keep the doors open late working but since he was missing the must have locked the doors early. Maybe the doors hadn’t even been unlocked today if there was nobody to work here.

Locks never really bothered Lynn however and a moment later she was on the other side of the still locked door. She could have made a few quick jumps and nearly instantly arrived main research room but she walked instead. If something really had happened to Harold then any clue she might find would be interesting.

The rooms on the way to the main research room were empty of any clues that Lynn could find however and the room itself was equally useless. Sure it was full of all sorts of things, experiments that Harold had been working on before his disappearance. Many things were out of the ordinary but that was too be expected, but nothing there clued Lynn into why Harold has vanished. She hadn’t really expected to find anything though, the University Security must have already combed this placed and Ivan would have know had they found anything.

The room changed and Lynn was in the basement. Harold kept many of his projects down here where they were safer and father away from prying eyes. In particular one project was down here that Lynn had helped him with. That was the project that she had initially been worried about and had decided to come over to check on.

It was a relief to see the door into the special laboratory shut and still locked. Only her and Harold would be able of opening the door without breaking it, or at least that was the plan. There were probably other Espers that would be capable of entering the room so it would be best to go in and double check. She went up to the door and typed in the password to open the door and… nothing happened. Lynn frowned, the door not working was a bad sign.

She moved to the other side of the door easily, trying to type in the password had simply been a formality. The keypad on the other side of the door had been rewired as far as she could tell, possibly to stop the door from opening from the other side. But it didn’t look like the door would be able to open from this side either so she didn’t know why somebody would do it, had it been Harold.

She crossed the room instantly, her worry growing and found the case that usually sat there open and flung to the floor new to a small portable power generator that they had kept in the room for testing.
The Euclidian Key was gone.

June 8th

The Belly, Sector 36

It had taken Emiray several days sort everything out down at the water pump. After taking all of the notes she could about the body she needed to find a way to dispose of it. The distance was too far to take the body all the way back up to the surface and she didn’t want to even if she could have. Still she had to carry it, with the help of R08, several miles to something that functioned like an incinerator. It was a horrible way for someone to end, burned deep under the surface with nobody who cared about you to morne for you. It also reminded Emiray that when she died this would probably also happen to her.

After the body was dealt with it was still several more hours before she got to a communication station. Cell phones didn’t get service down in the Belly so engineers had to rely on regularly spaced communication stations to stay in touch with each other hand the chief engineer. Normally she would have made a report about everything that had happened and then been assigned another job in a nearby sector to go and complete. This time was different however. Somebody in the University District was making a fuss and she needed to personally travel up several sectors to return the personal articles that she had deemed important enough to save from the fire.

So she began they days long trip through the tunnels up to the University District. In straight distance it probably wasn’t that far away, only a couple of miles up but there was no straight path. The city has constantly built upon itself and as the top got heavier and heavier the bottom sunk deeper and deeper into the ocean. Now there were miles of tunnels and rooms and passageways all beneath the city. A person could be lost for years down in the Belly if they didn’t know the passageways between the sectors.
Emiray had grown up in the Belly and knew her way around many parts of the Belly. In the parts she didn’t know she was still able to find her way. R08 had been to many places that she never had been and engineers were constantly marking and remarking the correct paths and while an normal person would never recognize the signs Emiray knew them on sight.

When she finally arrived at Sector 37, not far under the University District she made contact with the head engineer again. The orders she received were to wait there Omar, another engineer. He was bring down one of the people from the University District. While it was unusual for people other then engineers to want to enter the Belly she suspected that a death of another person from the University District was probably important enough for that to happen.

Emiray waited at the communication station for Omar and it was only a couple of hours before he arrived. He wore the some type of stained jumpsuit that Emiray was wearing although his was a fair bit bigger then hers. He have her a bow and she nodded her head slightly in response. Following behind him was a robot, although his was much different then R08. He was a quadruped model, faster and stronger the R08 although not as good at delicate tasks. Omar’s was also more bulky and was less then a decade old, practically new by engineering standards. If something couldn’t last at least ten years then it generally wasn’t worth having in the first place.

A little bit behind the robot come another map. The man was huffing and leaned up against the wall as soon as he caught up to Ovan. Surface-siders always had trouble keeping up with the pace that Engineers tend to set. The man looked a little bulky and probably got too much to eat and not enough exercise.

“Is the the man.” Said Emiray. It was more rhetorical then anything else. Who else would be following Ovan down into the Belly. Ovan nodded enthusiastically. He had only been an engineer for three years now and still thought the job was exciting. Emiray thought that he had enough enthusiasm for two or three engineers.

“Yes, that is him. Bit of a strange old dude if I would say so. No disrespect but he always keeps grumbling. First it was about not having a decent cup of coffee and then it was about not taking a bath. Surface-siders can be soft can’t they.” Ovan laughed at his own comment, not seeming to realize that the man was not three feet away from him and plainly capable of hearing everything that was being said.

“Excuse me.” Said the man who seemed to have gotten his breath back. “I heard that there was an Engineer who found the body of a University Citizen an I to believe correctly that you are that engineer?” He paused for a second before continuing. “I mean not offense but you seem awfully young for the job.”

“Hey now, don’t go saying that.” Said Ovan heartily. “Don’t let her fool you. She is one of the best engineers that there is. She has been one longer then I have, she had been one most of her life, practically born an engineer I say, an engineering genius.” He paused to catch a breath and Emiray interrupted him before he could continue.

“Yes, that was me. I found the body down in Sector 38 although I still have not idea how he managed to end up dead locked inside a room. I brought with me all of his personal possession except his clothes. I will give you a full report before you are guided back to the surface.”

Ovan shook his head for a moment. “Actually you will have time to tell him on your way back up. I’m been instructed to pass the guide duty off to you and the head off to Sector 35. It seems that some of the platting is starting to weaken and it left then some of the building in the city above might collapse. Architecture is my strong suit so the chief is wants me to get on to it as quickly as possible. You are to guide Professor Gray here back up to the surface and then give all the appropriate reports before reporting back to the chief.”

Emiray looked over at Professor Gray and then back at Omar. “I suppose we should get going soon. Keep up the good work Omar.” Omar beamed at the praise and gave her what might have been a salute before motioning to his robot and head off in another direction.

“Professor Gray, do you want to rest a little longer before we start heading back up to the surface.”

“What, now?” He glanced at his watch before saying, “Shouldn’t we stop for the night. It took me two days to get down. This seems like a good place to stay after all.”

Emiray nodded, she could expect his professor to continue going if he had been walking all day. “Alright, although it should probably only take us a day to get back to the University District. Omar probably took the official paths but since I know this sector better then him we should be able to make the return journey much faster.”

Emiray moved over to R08 and pulled the blanket roll off of him and slipped the blanket out of the waterproof bagging. She glanced over at Professor Gray and tossed the blanket to him. “Here you can use that. I usually isn’t very chilly in the sector so I will be find without it.”

“No really, I couldn’t. This is your blanket, I can’t just take it from you.”
“The head engineer would be annoyed at me if I didn’t help any guests, besides I don’t usually use it anyways unless it is cold.”

“I suppose..”

Having gotten his agreement Emiray moved over to one of the cubbies in the wall and slide inside, making herself comfortable. R08 followed her and sat down next to the outside of the cubby. After a few seconds his eyes began to dim and then moments later they went out.

Professor Gray stood there is silent for a minutes watching the girl sleeping in the cubby. He had never imagined that any of the Belly engineers would be like her. She was young, too young, for the job. She could be any more then fifteen, maybe even younger. Yet, Omar had treated her with a great deal of respect and said she had been an engineer longer the he had been.

Gray had had a chance to speak with Omar at length on their way down. Some of their interests have overlapped, engineers knew a great deal about repairing machines and that wasn’t that much different then making them. Gray had gotten several new ideas about how to change his mental resonance chamber from his talks with Omar, resolving several electrical issues that he had been struggling with. If Omar thought of his girl as his senior then how good was she at the job.

He stood there hesitating. He slide his hand inside his coat pocket and touched the cold metal of the weapon had had hidden inside there. If she had kept Harold’s possessions then she must have the Euclidian Key on her somewhere. It would be over in an instant and then he could be able to easily recover the Key. Sure, he would be blamed for it since Omar knew he was with her but if it was for the greater good…

No, he released his grip and pulled his hand out of his coat. He moved over to the other side of the passageway and stretch out as best as he could, wrapping the blanket around him. If he dealt with her now then it would be virtually impossible to escape from the Belly before being caught. He would need to wait for them to leave before doing anything.

June 9th

The Belly, Sector 36

Professor Gray woke up to the smell of something… cooking? He rubbed his eyes and scrubbed his stubble before sitting up and looking around. Emiray was sitting next to a small pot which was sitting on a small electric stove. Gray stood up and went over to the stove and sat beside Emiray. He didn’t really know what to say, it somehow felt unconfortable to watch somebody several decades younger them him cook.

Emiray scooped up some of what seemed to be a mix of mush and stew and handed it to him along with a spoon. “Um, thank you.” He said thankfully. All of the food that he had eaten with Omar had been on the go, Omar never seemed to stop long at any one stop and it had just been dried meat and stale biscuits with him.

He took a spoonful and tasted it. The flavor was fairly bland but it was warm and that made it good enough. He paused for a second while he was chewing. “Is there fresh meat in this?” He asked, quite puzzled.

Emiray nodded, “I managed to get lucky this morning before you woke up.” Gray continued to wait, hoping for a little bit more of an explanation, maybe of what type of meat this was. Eventually it became apparent that Emiray wasn’t going to elaborate and Gray decided that it would probably be better if he never found out what type of meat it was.

They had finished breakfast and had traveled several hours before Emiray stopped and knelt on the ground. She stuck out her hand and pressed her finger into a puddle of strange yellow goo. R08 moved up need to her and examined the goo with her.

“IS THAT…” Began R08 before Emiray said, “Yes, Rob, I think it is.” She rubbed the goo between her fingers, feeling it carefully. Gray moved up behind them and leaned over.
“Is something the matter?”

“Shush… be quiet.” Said Emiray and she glanced around, looking for anything out of place. Beyond the puddle of yellow goo nothing was out of the ordinary. She dropped her hand down to the belt strapped around her jumpsuit and pulled out a large knife. She spun it in her hand until the point was facing up.

“Quietly, walk over to the wall and keep for back to it.” She instructed Professor Gray. She however didn’t move, except for her eyes which flickers back for forth across the corder looking for the almost imperceptible flicker that should be there.

Gray began obeying her order, backing slowly up until his back was against the wall. “What is it? Is there something out there?” Ask Gray, fear beginning to tinge his voice.
Emiray didn’t waste the motion to nod. “Yes, somewhere nearby is a Black Crocodile. We can’t proceed until I have found it or am certain it isn’t around.”

“What do you mean? Wouldn’t a black crocodile be easy to spot?” Asked Gray, the light of curiosity beginning to flicker in his eyes. Strange things always made him interested and once he was interested he could stop asking questions until he had everything figured out. “And why would there be a Crocodile here in the first place.”

“Quiet” whisper Emiray as she tried to concentrate. “Black Crocodile is a misnomer. It is actually just a big lizard, more like a chameleon then anything else. They are practically invisible, blending in almost perfectly with their background. Dealing with one of the is said to be like fighting a crocodile in the darkness, thus the name.”
“I’ve never heard of them before, such a creature couldn’t possibly be natural, could it.”

“I once heard that they were an experiment in the University District that managed to escape. Some of them found homes down in the Belly. Even so they are rare and most engineers have never encountered one before. Several engineers have even died dealing with them.”

“Have you encountered one before.” Said Professor Gray, cold ice running down his spine. Suddenly he was very worried. All his work would be for nothing if the Euclidian Key was lost down here with their deaths. Their bodies might never be found if they died here.
Emiray didn’t respond. She was too busy concentrating on her surroundings. If she wasn’t giving it her full attention she would miss the almost imperceptible blur that showed itself when the Black Crocodile moved. Everything was silent for one long instant when she could only here the dripping on water.

Then she saw it. It was only for a moment but she saw the slight blur at the joint of one of the pipes where the type of the pipe change. Emiray didn’t waste any time. She took three long steps and plunged her knife forward. There was a feeling of pressure and the red blood began spilling over her hands. The thing began to trash under her but she released the knife and took several long steps backward.

Now that it was flailing wilding in near death it could be clearly seen. The lizard was at least three feet long with razor sharp teeth. All of the tiny scales were colored almost perfectly with the pipe it had been crawling along however with the rapid movement the illusion of invisibility was gone.

Emiray waited for the thrashing to die down before stepping back to the Black Crocodile and pulling her knife out of it. Now that it was dead the camouflage had stopped changing. There was a large sigh of relief from Professor Gray who took several steps away from the wall and stood next to the lizard corpse.

“Well, you manage to get it. Good job. Nasty thing isn’t it, and quite big. I can see why it is called a Black Crocodile.” He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

“No”

“No, what?”

“No, it was small. They are usually twice as big as this one.” Emiray’s concentration hadn’t wavered for a second since killing the Black Crocodile. This one had been small, it must have been a young one. Did young Black Crocodiles say with their parent or parents. Emiray didn’t think they did but that was different from knowing and she couldn’t take any risks when dealing with a Black Crocodile.

Since I'm behind several days I'm posting by parts now. Part Five should have been done on the 5th but didn't get done then.

Part Five

There was one long moment where time seemed to stretch for Emiray as she strained every sense that she had. Gray was opening his mouth as if to ask a question to her but she blocked it out keeping everything tuned for that one instant. Gray’s hand set down on her shoulder for only a moment before she twirled and ducked, knocking Gray’s legs out from under him.

He cry out as he collapsed onto the floor with a loud crash. During that slow moment Emiray could see a large blurred shape leaping through the air where Gray and her had been a moment before. Then after time had been going so slow it seem to speed up in double time to make up for it.

Emiray leapt forward after the Black Crocodile, holding her knife perfectly still. She plunged toward where the Crocodile should have landed and felt the impact as the point of her knife reach it. It felt like molassis as the knife slowly sunk in. However it didn’t get all of the way in and before she could react something whipped out and knocked her back, sending her spinning to the ground.

Reeling from the hit that must have come from the Crocodile’s tail, Emiray clambered to her feet. She could feel the pain and was gasping for breath but she could see the knife, seemingly suspended in midair, moving quickly toward her. This Black Crocodile was bigger then the last one, much bigger. Emiray hadn’t know that they grew this big.

Emiray kept her balance the best that she could as the Crocodile rushed toward her in an indistinct blur. She managed to slip to one side, avoiding the mouth of razer sharp teeth by mere inches and grabbed the hilt of her knife. It slit a little as she lost momentum and she pressed it in deeper, hopefully deep enough. Then she hung on for her life as the creature thrashed. As it rocked backward and forward trying to dislodge her, she held on to the knife like her life depended on it.

The Crocodiles tale came up and lashed her hard across the back once and then twice. The pain was intense but she kept her teeth gritted and her hands locked firmly on the knife. Then it was all over the Crocodiles movement slowed and eventually stopped. Emiray then waited for minutes, making sure that the creature was finally dead. Only when she was certain that it was finally dead did she let go of the knife and collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion and pain.

Everything still seemed like a hazy to Emiray event when Professor Gray helped her up and lead her out of the pile of gore that she had been kneeling in. Things began to slowly come into mental focus, she first wondered how she should deal with the bodies of two Black Crocodiles. Eventually she gave up on that problem, she would report it and a couple of Engineers would come to clean up and make sure this section of tunnel didn’t have any more of them.

Eventually it began to dawn on her that she was covered in blood and grim and that everything felt a great deal unpleasant, especially her boots which squished a little when she tried to move her toes. The pain was also beginning to seep back into her body as the adrenaline that she had felt went facing down the Black Crocodile began to fade. Most of the time she never missed it but right now she could use a nice hot shower.

It took her a moment to realize that Professor Gray was talking to her. She shook her head to make it a little better, “I’m sorry, what were you saying. After what happened I’m not feeling very well.”

“Well I should think not. Your back is in pretty bad shape with plenty of cuts and it is bleeding all over. You need to get that treated and wrapped or it could get bad. I recommend getting real medical attention but since that it not available to use now we need to do the best we can and keep the would clean.”

“Rob should have bandages.” Said Emiray and R08 stepped forward automatically and pulled several small rolls of bandages out of one of the many bags strung along him. Gray took the rolls from R08 and began to unwind one of them. Staring with and annoyed look on his face Gray looked over the wound.The skill was cut in several places and there was gravel and grim all over, probably from the tail when it hit her. He needed to get the wound clean or any bandaging would just make it worse.

Unscrewing his water bottle he pored it over her back, making sure to wash all of the worst of it clean. Then he scowled and pulled out his personal bottle of liquor. He hated to waste it on something like this but the back needed to be disinfected and without proper tools this was the best that he had available to him.

“I need to disinfect the wound so this is going to be painful.” The scowl still on his face he poured the bottle of alcohol over Emirays back. She flinched but didn’t cry out. The back mostly clean he wiped away the rest that he could with the clean cloth that R08 had conveniently provided for him.

Gray smiled grimly at a job well done, medicine had never been his strong suit even though he had taken several courses. Maybe it was because of his oath, it was already painful for him to heal her given that the only reason he was doing it was to make sure she was capable of leading him to the surface.

Eventually Emiray managed to recover enough to begin leading them again. However, while she would probably be able to lead them to the University District by the end of the day in ordinary conditions it was now no longer possible for her. Her only seemed to have enough in her to lead them both to an Engineer safehouse a couple of hours away. There she was able to get hot water and enjoy a relaxing shower and bath before collapsing on a half sized bed. She could normally keep walking all day but the fight with the Black Crocodiles had drained her and the pain of her back had been making each step a new type of torture. It didn’t take her more then a minute to fall asleep after she had laid down on the bed.

Gray looked over at R08 sitting next to Emiray’s bedside. He had been impressed by her today. She was still a young girl but her skill was much higher then her age would merit, what kind of difficult life had she had. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to wrestle an almost invisible crocodile and end up victorious. It was all he could do to keep from running while Emiray had fought the beast. All thoughts of the weapon tucked away in his coat had disappear from his mind the minute he had seen the blurred look of the creature that had attacked Emiray.

He knew he couldn’t get attached to her, it wouldn’t end well, but he couldn’t help feeling things toward her. Predominantly to was respect for her abilities and pity that she wouldn’t be able to do more with her life. With her skills she would eventually have been someone important, maybe even the head engineer. He feel sorry that she had to get wrapped up in all of this.

It was many hours later that Emiray awoke. She was feeling better then she had been but her back and body were feeling incredibly sore. She felt like she would be able to make it to the surface today but it would be slow progress and would probably be night by the time that they arrived there, maybe a little bit less then half of her average speed.

Hot breakfast was a luxury that seemed to difficult at the moment so she passed out bread and cheese to Gray and eat some herself. An hour later after she had had Gray help her change her bandage they started making their way but up the passageways to the University District. The route hadn’t normally felt so long but she kept a slow pace that event Gray didn’t have any trouble keeping up with.

She kept an even close watch out on her surroundings then usual to make sure they didn’t get ambushed by another Black Crocodile. That never happened however and they reached the surface without further incident. Gray had occasionally tried to keep conversation up, asking her questions about her job, but it was just too much of a pain to answer so she just listened. Gray eventually switched from asking her questions to telling her stories of different experiments that he had done and what the outcome had been. She never really paid attention to the stories.

The passageway to the University District that she had taken was locked with a keypad. The security system was mainly there to keep unrulies out and to make sure new experiments didn’t get released into the Belly like Black Crocodiles had been. It wasn’t very complictated and Emiray then left Professor Gray back into the Academy District.

With the change of scenery around them Gray asked, “Are we finally back in the University Dictrict.”

Emiray nodded mechanically. “Yes, we are still below street level but was are definitely in the University District, on the east side of the District if you needed to know.”
“I see.” Said Gray, he sounded reluctant. “Since you are injured I can take the man’s possessions and give the description of events to the authorities if you want. They you will be able to get medicial attention without worrying about it.”

I also finished the first half of part seven. That and part eight should be up late tonight or tomorrow

“No,” Said Emiray who couldn’t see Gray’s growing frown. “I’ll need to give the report to them myself. I’ve come all this way after all and the head engineer would be upset if I passed my duty off to somebody else. I can’t let something little like this stop me or I would be a disgrace to the engineers.”

“I’m sorry.” Said Gray, there was almost a forlorn sound in his voice. “I didn’t want it to come to this but now I don’t have any other choice.” Emiray looked over her shoulder in confusion and she tensed as she saw what he was holding.

Gray had the gun pointed straight at Emiray. The small weapon didn’t pack very much firepower but against Emiray’s body it could easily kill her if she was hit by it. “What are you doing Professor Gray.” Said Emiray, her voice beginning to tighten as she stared at the muzzle of the gun. If she jumped him then she might be able to stop him from firing. If she could get close to him then she would be able to hurt him before he would be able to kill her, but getting close was the problem.

“I’m afraid that I need to get the Euclidian Key from you and since you insist on taking it to the authorities I’m going to have to take it from you.” There was still a measure of uncertainty in Gray’s voice which kept Emiray talking.

“The Euclidian Key?” Asked Emiray quietly. She was trying to keep him talking and maybe he would be put the gun down and let here leave. “I don’t know what you are talking about, but if it is anyone of the person’s possessions then I will give you all of them if you want.”

“That is no longer good enough. I can’t have anyone find out what has happened which means that I can’t just let you go. If you tell the authorities then I may not have enough time to do what I need with it and I can’t let that happen.” Responded Gray with a tinge of annoyance in his voice.

“Then what are we doing? If you need to get rid of me then why are we standing her talking with each other. You could just shoot me and be done with it. There must be a reason that we are talking.”

“Yes,” Said Gray, “We are standing here and talking because it is giving me time to think of a solution to my problem that doesn’t involve killing you. It is rather tricky because any method I could think of restraining you enough to prevent you from escaping would eventually kill you.”

“I see. How about you leave me locked up some place and then come back to release me after you have done what you need to do with this Euclidian Key. Then you could escape and nobody would be able to follow you.” Suggested Emiray in her meekest voice possible. She was trying to guess her chances of getting the gun from him before he shot and the best she could get was to the chance of messing up his aim enough to only get a life threatening injury instead of a fatal one.

“I thought of that one but the problem is that there is a high probability that I am going to die by the time that the plan if over and even if I tried leaving a message then it might be discovered before it is too late and I can’t risk that.” There doesn’t seem to be any good solution.” He continued to wait and point the gun at her.

She stood there frozen waiting for him to decide her fate when she saw R08 out of the corner of her eye. “No Rob, wait, don’t!” However it was too late. R08 with a clanking gate was rushing at Gray. R08 would walk just fine but with everything that it was carrying it was difficult for it to run without creating a lot of noise.

Gray noticed and moved his gun slightly to the side and pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang R08 collapsed with a hole through its placid mask of a face. Oil began to well and the hole and R08 began to slump to the ground. Even as she felt the pain at what could be called death to her friend she needed to move.

One step after another she counted as she sped toward Gray. One second, two. She reached down and grabbed the hilt of her knife as she got closer to Gray. Three seconds. Gray’s gun was beginning to point at her again. Four seconds. She was almost there but she had run out time. She jerked wildly to one side and there was a second controlled explosion. The pain bloomed in her shoulder and she struggled to take the last step that she needed.

She thrusted the knife forward but her aim was slightly off. She barely grazed Gray’s arm before Gray knocked her hand way with his gun and and pressed the gun to her chest. Emiray held her breath for that one last second.

Professor Gray lower his hand and dropped the gun. He didn’t need it any more and it sickened him to keep holding it. He could see the blood seeming out of the body at his feet. He hadn’t wanted to kill her but since it was what happened he had to deal with it. Gray turned his eyes over to the corpse, if it could be called that, of the robot. Gray doubted that Emiray would be carry the Euclidian Key, it has probably been kept on the robot just like most of her other stuff.

A couple of minutes later her had found the bundle and after unwrapping it her pulled out the long and slender key like object. Gray slipped the Euclidian Key into his coat and then turn away from the girl and the robot. As he moved away and began making his way through the building and out into the University District he began muttering to himself. “For the greater good.” He didn’t know if he believed it anymore.

Emiray was cold when she opened her eyes again. The pain was enormous and she could do no more then twitch her fingers. She had been shot once in the arm and a second time in the right side of her chest. The fact that the wounds hadn’t yet killed her was somewhat encouraging although she didn’t know how much that was worth. It was getting difficult to breath and she didn’t know how much blood she had lost, it must have been a lot.

She couldn’t seem Gray and didn’t know how long she had been unconscious for but he must have been long gone by now. Not this is mattered. She would probably die here alone. It wasn’t quite a locked room in the middle of nowhere but It felt the same. She looked over toward where R08 was, at least she wasn’t dying alone. However R08 wasn’t where it had fallen.

She opened her eyes wide and rolled her head, the only part of her that still seemed to work correctly. She searched for R08 desperately, Gray would have any reason to take R08, would he. Then she saw it. R08’s eyes were glowing softly and it was sitting not far from her and opening up one of the bags it had strung about it. A long set of tweezers were in its hand. The hole in the middle of R08 face was still there but it didn’t seem to inconvenience it.

“HOLD STILL, THIS WILL BE PAINFUL. THE BULLET NEEDS TO BE REMOVED.” The warbling that usually annoyed her so much was now comforting. “YOUR WOUNDS ARE VERY BAD BUT I WILL DO WHAT I CAN. TRY NOT TO DIE.” Emiray almost laughed but it was extremely painful to attempt even that so she gave up.

R08 drew closer to her and pressed the tool against her chest. Then her world was consumed again with pain and she collapsed into blissful consciousness again.

June 10th
Academy District, Top of a Building

It has been a colossal waste of time. The Euclidian Key had been stolen and she hadn’t been able to find out anything about the theft. Lynn had even tracked down the Phantom Thief Rose in the Entrainment District in hopes that she would know something about the theft but it was useless, nobody knew anything about it and Lynn was simply stuck with a missing Professor and Key and absolutely no clues to go on. It was disheartening and Ivan kept pestering her to give up on the search and return to her studies.

Lynn had even devoted hours to just reaching out and feeling for any of the spacial disturbances that could have been the result of using the Euclidian Key but that too had been a deadend. Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket and saw that is was Ivan calling her. Since she hadn’t found it by now she realized that she should probably go along more with Ivan, her studies and research were important and she couldn’t just ignore them.

Flipping the phone open she answered, “Yes Ivan, I’ll be there in a moment.” She was about to close the phone when Ivan yelled through it.

“Wait. I found something.” Lynn paused and put the phone back to her head.

“I’m listening.”

Ivan continued, “You mentioned the Euclidian Key to me briefly when I asked you what you were looking for, and I finally found something. One of my friends working at a hospital just called me to ask my opinion on something and I learned something interesting. Apparently there was a Belly Engineer that was shot not far below the city and her robot carried her to the hospital.”

“Ok, that is unusual but can you get to the point.” Responded Lynn grumpily. It was more then unusual for a Belly Engineer to be attacked. Custom dictated that you she treat them like your own family since they were the people who kept the city afloat. Even criminals treated them with respect, Lynn didn’t know who would want to attack one.

“Well, they asked her what happened to her. She is still in bad condition but some of the things she say was interesting. She told the hospital workers that she was attacked and that they took the Euclidian Key from her.”

Lynn dropped the phone as she heard what he was saying. The phone almost hit the ground and broke but just before it hit the ground it was instantly back in her hands again.

“Wait, this Engineer said that? What hospital is she being kept at?” Asked Lynn in a rush. She had already left the building she was currently on and was halfway down the block when she got the response.

“She is at Queen General Hospital in the intensive care unit. Apparently she had taken a wound to the chest that was severe. My friend said she the bullet had already been removed and the wound wrapped before she had even been brought there. She claimed that her robot did the operation and while that is hard to believe all the other options are event harder to believe.”

There was a crackle of static and Ivan took his phone away from his head in disgust. The phone had been disconnected and the call dropped. That only happened when Lynn teleported large distances quickly, she must be going directly to the hospital as fast as possible. Ivan stuck his phone back in his pocket, there was no point in calling her again for a while. He would give it a while, enough time for Lynn to talk with this Engineer and figure out what was happening.

June 10th
Academy District, Queen General Hospital

“I’m sorry miss but we can’t let you see her. She is in stable condition but her wounds are still bad and she needs to recover.” Said the doctor, Lynn tried to argue but the doctor shook his head, “Even if you are a powerful Esper, I can’t let you in until she has recovered. I’ve done the best I can and our healing esper will not be able to see to her until tomorrow. You will just have to wait until then to see her.”

Lynn ground her teeth in frustration. If this Engineer really did know where the Euclidian Key was then Lynn needed to speak with her before it was to late to do anything about it. That meant that Lynn really didn’t have time to waste talking with a fool doctor that wouldn’t let her see the Engineer.

“May I at least speak with the robot that was accompanying her here?” Said Lynn with the best modesty that she could muster. Speaking with the robot wouldn’t be optimal but it would hopefully be enough.

“No, that robot is her property and while she is unconscious I can’t let you access it. These are University rules and you should already know them.” Said the doctor. Lynn knew that but she was hoping that the doctor would let the rule slide. She was generally annoyed by people who always followed the exact letter of the law, they always kept tripping her up.

“Fine, I’ll come back tomorrow and see her then. What room will she be in when I come back?” Asked Lynn slyly. She tried to kept all of her intents out of her voice. She had no intention of following the doctor’s orders but it would be inconvenient if the doctor found out about that.
Lynn listen to the doctor’s response and then began to leave the building, making sure to take a short look at the map of the building to get sense of the room’s location. Then after she had left the building and heading a few blocks away she stopped. It only took her a moment to center her own location can calculate the necessary distance, she had been doing it for years and was not the most skilled person at doing it.

The world shifted and the was in a hospital room. A girl, younger then Lynn, was laying on the bed only a few feet away from her. Next to the bed, sitting on a chair was a strange robot. It was carrying an odd collection of bags hung around it and it had a neat circular hole in the center of its blank mask face.

Surprisingly the girl was awake and scrambling at her sheets trying to get free and away from Lynn who had just appeared in front of her. The girl was clutching at he waist like she was expecting something to be there.

Lynn raised and opened her hands to show there there was nothing to be afraid of. That wasn’t strictly true, Lynn could probably put the girl several hundred feet into the air before anyone realized what had happened but the girl probably didn’t know that. “Please calm down, I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to ask you some questions about what happened to you.”

The girl stopped moving and just stared at Lynn. It would have been unnerving if the girl didn’t have an expression of pain plastered on her face. “What is it that you want to know?” Asked the girl.

“You were attacked by somebody and the doctors remember you mentioning something called the Euclidian Key. I want to know who it was that attacked you and what they are doing with the Key.”
“What, are you going to try and kill me too.” Responded the girl bitterly. “That man attacked me because he wanted this Euclidian Key and he couldn’t have me tell anyone that he had taken it. I don’t even know that the Euclidian Key is so if you are going to kill me just get it over with already.”

“I’m not here to kill you.” Said Lynn in the calmest voice she could muster, it also hide her exasperation. “I’m trying to recover the Key to prevent anyone from using it. If somebody is willing to kill for it then I need to get it out of that person’s hands as quickly as possible.”
“Any why should I believe that you can’t trying to get it for yourself. If I was attacked to take it then surely it must be important. Wouldn’t you want it just as much as my attacker.”

Lynn couldn’t contain her laugher. “I don’t want it for myself because out of everyone in the world, the Euclidian Key is nothing more then a large piece of metal.” Lynn held out her hand to stop the girl from trying to speak. “I’m an Esper and the Euclidian Key was designed using the insights that were discovered when Harold was studying my power. There is nothing that I could do with the Key that I couldn’t do without it and many things I can do that even someone with the Euclidian Key would be unable to do. I would need a power source capable of powering half of Mü for it to be anything more then metal for me.”

“Any what is you already had an Ark Tunnel Generator” Responded the girl.

“A what?” Said Lynn, feeling a bit of confusion for the first time since she entered the room.

“An Ark Tunnel Generator, something capable of powering half of Mü.” Said the girl coldly.

Lynn stared at the girl with a blank uncomprehending look on her face. “That exists?” She said in amazement.

“Yes, don’t you know what powers your own District. It was heralded at the greatest discovery of the decade and it revolutionize power. I thought it was common knowledge.”

Lynn’s jaw hung open for a second but it snaped closed as she began to thing. “Well, I suppose that if I had the Key and a power source that big I could, I don’t know, um, rip most of the Academy District into pieces, travel to the moon, maybe tear open a hole into another dimension? It is hard to say, there are probably more things you could to with it, though you would probably need my experience to do more then attempt to rip the city apart. I hardly have a need for more power then I already have so I haven’t really put much though into what I would be able to accomplish with it.” She nodded, satisfied with her own explanation. “Though I suppose if anybody but me tried to channel that much power through the Euclidian Key then they are more likely to just rip themselves into a billion pieces then anything else.”

“So, if somebody knew about this then they would be expecting to die if they tried to activate it at full power.” The girl seemed to be in a calm state again. The girl crawled back into the bed and pulled up the sheets again. “Very well. I believe you. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Great.” Said Lynn happily, although she was concerned about the possibility that the girl had brought up. She had been planning to directly stop the Key if it ever got activated on a large scale but if there really was a energy source strong enough to power the entire District and somebody got ahold of it then she didn’t know if she would be able to stop the Key. “First I would like to know your name.”

“I am Emiray, Major Engineer of the Third Quadrant.” Said Emiray and Lynn whistled. She didn’t know much about the Belly Engineers but she knew that Major was a title only given to show their dedication to the city. As far as Lynn knew there were only a handful of them.

“And I am Lynn, Level 8 Teleporter.” Now the return was true. Emiray was showing signs of surprise. While the number of Major Engineers alive was probably in the dozen, the number of Level 8 Espers that have ever existed was less then that.

After the moment of recovery was over Emiray said, “I see, I guess that would be why the Euclidian Key would not be useful for you. I tank would hardly have need of a pistol. Since it appears that I believe you now, I guess I will tell you what I know about what happened. It all started down in the Belly when I found the corpse of a man…”

Emiray told the story about what happened to her to the best of her ability. She explained the discovery of the body in detail and of her meeting with Professor Gray. She tried skimming over the story about the Black Crocodile but Lynn questioned her about it and she told the whole story from beginning to end. It ended with her unfortunate showdown with Professor Gray.

“I think I wounded it but I doubt it was anything serious. He probably thinks I am dead, my wounds are still really bad but it was thanks to Rob that I escaped. Rob must have pretended to be dead after it got shot so that it could help me when it was needed. The doctors told me that it brought me here and I guess I owe Rob my life.”
Lynn nodded, “That is what I heard too. That is one impressive robot though. I heard that it managed to remove the bullet from your wound by itself, not a small task. I wonder where it learned to do something like that.”

R08 turned its head and looked over any Lynn and Emiray. “PRECISE DELICATE MOVEMENT IS IMPORTANT. I HAVE BEEN TRAINED TO REMOVE BROKEN PIECES FROM EXTREMELY DELICATE EQUIPMENT. THAT WAS JUST AN APPLICATION OF MY TRAIN.” The robot paused for a moment, “HOWEVER, ONE OF MY PREVIOUS MASTERS USED TO TAKE A LIKING TO ANIMALS WHICH BECAME LOST IN THE BELLY AND HE TENDED MANY OF THIER WOUNDS. MY OBSERVATION OF THOSE TREATMENTS MAY HAVE HELPED.”

“I never knew that about you Rob. What happened to that man?”

“HE WAS OLD AND RETIRED. HE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A WASTE TO HAVE ME RETIRE WITH HIM SO HE PUT ME IN THE CARE OF YOUR UNCLE. WHEN YOUR UNCLE DIED I THEN WAS PASSED ONTO YOU.” Explained the robot.

Lynn stood up and looked back and forth between the robot and the Emiray. “Well, I’m glad that you managed to survive that attack but you don’t need to worry about it any longer. Just get better and return to your home, I’ll deal with Professor Gray and make sure he doesn’t do anything bad with the Euclidian Key. Now that I have a name and description I should be able to track him down. Also thanks for telling me about the Ark Tunnel Generator, since it has enough power to supercharge the Euclidian Key, Gray is sure to try and take control of it and when he does that then I will be able to stop him.”

Emiray nodded, “Is it alright if I asked you a question?”

“Sure, you answered all of my questions after all. It seems only fair that I answer some of yours too after all.”

“That man that I found, who was he?”

“The body that you found sounded like Professor Harold. He was the scientist that I helped design the Euclidian Key. He was a great researcher. Given what I know he must have activated the Euclidian Key to escape. Either he stress of the teleportation must have killed him or he must have been trapped and died of dehydration.”

Emiray was silent for a few seconds before asking something once again, “Was he a father?” Her voice was quiet, like she didn’t want to know the answer but had to know.

Lynn paused before saying, “Harold, yes, I believe he had a son. Although I head that they have been estranged for many years now. Since I don’t know where he is I don’t know if he even knows about his father’s death.”

“I see. Thank you.” Emiray grew quiet and laid back down on the bed. Lynn waited to see if there were any more questions. Where she finally decided there were probably weren’t any more coming she said.

“I will be going now. I’ll come back to check on you once I have found and dealt with Gray. Try not to get shot again.” Emiray didn’t respond, she just laid there looking up and the roof of the room.

Lynn was just about to left, to be on the roof visible from the window when the door to the room burst in. The first thoughts that came to Lynn’s head was that these four men were armed, the second was that they were wearing University Security uniforms. It was when she connected those to thoughts that she noticed the third thing. These men, they were aiming the guns at her, her and Emiray. No, they couldn’t have possibly know Lynn was there, they were aiming the guns at Emiray.

That is when Lynn’s thoughts stopped and she began to move. It only took her less then a second to move Emiray from on top of the bud to underneath it. Lynn hadn’t had time to replace Emiray’s previous position with air so there was a sudden snap as air closed into the vacuum.

With that accomplished Lynn moved herself into a better position behind the men, this time with enough concentration to move to prevent the vacuum snap by moving the air that was where she was going to be into the place that she was previously.

The sudden lack of targets distracted the men just long enough for Lynn to remove all of their guns from them. She caught of glimpse of the guns through the window before they fell to the ground a floor below.

With the men unarmed it was an easy task to move the four men several inches down. Trapping their legs inside the floor. She pondered briefly what to do with the parts of the floor that had been where the men were now before finally moving it outside the building just like the guns.

Lynn finally took it a breath. It hadn’t been more then ten seconds since the door had been pushed open and the men had entered. Finally her brain was beginning to catch up with what had happened. Why had University Security been here and why where they attacking Emiray. Were they even attacking her, Lynn had acting so fast that she wasn’t even sure about that. Maybe they had seen here in the room through a security camera and came to Emiray’s rescue and Lynn had just attacked them.

No use pondering that now, best to just ask them directly. “Um, I hope I didn’t do anything wrong but why did you just attack us?”

One of the men, the leader if Lynn guess correctly, began to turn his head to look at her but she relocated herself to be in front of them again. “Lynn Tear, I should have know you would be here. You and the Engineer Emiray are arresting under article 7, section 34 for the theft of the Euclidian Key and the murder of Professor Harold.”

Lynn’s jaw hung there limply. This guard couldn’t be serious, she began to laugh at the absurdity before stopping. Could he be serious? “What? Why? How? That’s impossible? I helped Professor Harold make the Euclidian Key, what reason would I have to steal it from him, and murder him? What possible reason could have have for doing that.”

The officer struggled with his legs, trying to break free of the floor. “Humph, why would I know a criminal thinks.” The man spat at the floor in front of Lynn. It might have hit her but she move it out of the way. “However there is security footage of you breaking into Professor Harold’s laboratory where the Key was kept.”

“But he died far beneath the University District, how do you…” Lynn was about to ask how the man would explain that when it came to her, she could quite easily be able to do that. “Then why are you blaming Emiray. How could she be involved in this.” Lynn felt like she was grasping at straws, trying to explain why they weren’t responsible.

She was getting a sinking suspision that these men were actually University Security and if that was true it would be very bad if she did anything to them. She hadn’t hurt them in her initial attack so she should probably get away with nothing more then a scolding, if she could get this theft and murder charge cleared up.

“Harold was murdered in the Belly and then there was an attempted murder of the Professor who went to discover the truth about the body and you claim that she had nothing to do with it. What sort of a fool do you take me for.”

That is when everything snapped into place for Lynn, she glanced over at Emiray and asked, “I see, I think I understand now. You told me that Gray couldn’t let anyone who knew about what he did to live right?”

Emiray was already on her feet and had managed to secure some sort of long knife but was now holding it casually. “Yes, I said that didn’t I. If they claim that I attacked Gray then that must be what this is about.”

There was a single moment of hesitation where Lynn wondered if Emiray really did try to attack Gray but then it vanished. If that was true then there would have been no reason for Lynn to be accused of theft and murder. The only reason that she could think of for that would be to isolate the two main people who had any real knowledge about the Euclidian Key.

“Very well, I think we will be leaving here then.” Said Lynn. She glanced between Emiray and the robot R08 and the Lynn moved the three of them somewhere else.

Lynn placed them on top of a building about a mile away. Then completed a few more teleports to bring them far outside the University District. It was possible that the security force had put out an alert for them and there might be people searching for them. Lynn wanted to go back to her house to pick things put but it was too late for that now.

Lynn would probably be able to get in and out of her house before anybody knew what was happening but there were too many unknowns and the risk just wasn’t worth it.
“Um, where did you take us?” Asked Emiray as she looked around that the dilapidated building all around them. The place was overgrown that there was even a waterfall pouring out of one of the building from a long broken pipe. “This is No Mans Land isn’t it?” She looked around in interest, though that was shadowed in pain.

“Yes, I wanted to quickly bring us somewhere where we could be safe and that the University Security wouldn’t be able to find us. There are places we could have hidden in the University District but it was too much of a risk to bring us there without having some sort of plan.

“At least here we are unlikely to be found by anyone, least of all someone who is working for Gray. If he managed to convince the University Security that we were criminals that must mean he is not working alone and he has somebody up high in the ranks working with him.”

Emiray nodded, “You are probably right. He managed to convince the head engineer for a guide to meet me in the Belly, that isn’t something that just anyone can get permission for. There must be somebody important that he is working for, although without being able to make contact with the chief engineer I can’t figure out who that might be.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find everybody responsible and bring them to justice. However the first thing I should do is to finish bringing you to safely. If you can direct me I will be able to bring you to an entrance to the Belly or help you to a hospital in another district.” Said Lynn.

Emiray however shook her head, “No, I’m going to go with you. I’m not going to just be attacked and arrested and then just run away and hide. I would be a discrease to all Engineers everywhere if I gave up like that.”

“No, you can. It is going to be too dangerous and you are injured.” Lynn wanted to say that Emiray was also too young, but by most people’s reckoning Lynn was too young too. “I will be able to deal with everything all by myself.”

Emiray just glared at Lynn almost sullenly. “If you see a broken pipe then you fix it yourself, that is a rule of the Belly. If you aren’t going to accept my help then I am going to walk back to the University District and deal with the problem myself.”

Lynn contemplated the stubborn Emiray. She supposed that she could bring Emiray all the way to a continent and be back before evening if she really wanted to but that would be.. Inappropriate. The world away from Mu was, strange, at least to Lynn’s eyes. She just couldn’t bring herself to leave someone else helpless there, especially someone as important as an Engineer. Maybe that would make an appropriate punishment for Gray.

“Fine, if you put it that way then I guess I will have to let you help. Just make sure that you don’t get yourself killed somewhere along the journey. I’m not powerful enough to protect you from everything that might happen.”

“Don’t worry. Security Guards can’t be any more difficult then Black Crocodiles or Razor Squid.” Said Emiray. She was digging something out of one of the bags hanging on R08. Then she pulled out a longish knife. “I knew I had an extra somewhere.”
“Black Crocodiles? Razor Squid? What are those?” Asked Lynn, distracted.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. They are just things that sometimes live down in the Belly. They are one of the reasons that visitors aren’t allowed down there without a guide, aside from how easy it is to get lost down there without the correct experience. Both of them can kill somebody before you even know that something is wrong.”

“I see, I had no idea it was so dangerous down there.” Said Lynn was a new level of respect for Engineers.

“Most of the times it isn’t dangerous, especially on the commonly traveled paths. However you never know when you are going to make a wrong turn and run into a nest of Clockwork Spiders. It keeps you on the edge.”

Lynn frowned. Clockwork Spiders, that was another thing that she had never heard about. “Are those made of out actual clockw… No that really isn’t really important right now. The thing that we should be worrying about now is the Euclidian Key. Gray is probably going to go after that reactor and we need to stop him from getting access to it.”

“Couldn’t we just move directly to it using your power and then deal with Gray when he arrives there.”

Lynn shook her head. “That would be a fine plan if it wasn’t for the arrest warrant that the Security has for us. I know that the University District has several plans in place in case I ever went rogue and it is likely that one of them is in place now, although I don’t know what they are. I can only assume that the University would be able to detect any use of my power and possible damping it. That would make it difficult to confront Gray, especially if they acquire the assistance of another high level Esper.”

“And you were planning on stopping Gray by yourself how?” Asked Emiray quizzically. “I suppose that I would be able to lead us into the University using the Belly support tunnels that run underneath them. That could bring us relatively close to the reactor.”

“Not a bad plan but there was someone I wanted to get some assistance from. If there is anyone who would be able to break into the reactor without being caught then it would have to be Phantom Thief Rose.”

“We are going to ask a thief to help us recover a Key from another thief. This doesn’t sound like much of a plan.” Said Emiray skeptically. She had already been shot by one thief and wasn’t exactly comfortable about dealing with another so soon.

“Phantom Thief Rose is different, she isn’t part of the University District. It is from the Entertainment District.”

“Oh, I see, well that does make a difference.” Said Emiray like is was perfectly natural to believe that explanation. If the Phantom Thief Rose was from the Entertainment District that would make her very different from a University District Thief. Her uncle had told her stories about one of the great thieves that used live in the Entertainment District when he had visited there.

“Will be be able to observe one of her robberies?” Asked Emiray like an excited little kid. Lynn almost smiled but responded, “Probably not, since we don’t know how long until Gray tries to activate the Euclidian Key we won’t be able to stick around for one of her robberies before convincing her to assist us.”

Then Lynn did break into a smile, “But I promise that after we are done with this that I will bring you back there so that you will be able to see one of her robberies for yourself. They really are quite spectacular. Inspector Grim never does manage to catch her, but he always comes close.”

The Day Before, June 9th

Entertainment District, Emperors of the World Exhibit

Inspector Grim nashed his teeth impatiently. It was only ten more minutes until Phantom Thief Rose’s appearance and everything was already going wrong. The renovations to the security system were thirty minutes behind schedule and all of cops were asking like complete nincompoops. He had double checked the security of the building three times already and each time there was a new mistake they were making.

First the checkpoints had been letting people through with only a cursory glance over the person’s possessions. What if one of those that had been let through was the Phantom Thief in disguise. They were responsible for protecting the Crown of the Skies and he would have their hides before the Phantom Thief stole it from them.

The second issue was that the exhibit hall still hadn’t been clear out an hour before the theft. He had been forced to make sure all of the civilians left the building himself. The gawkers had all been there to see the theft in person. Weren’t the new companies doing a good enough job for them. It was bad enough that he had make concessions for the news.

Didn’t they know that this was a battlefield where he and Rose matched their wits against each other. So far the Phantom Thief was ahead. This was her 78th advanced message and he had manage to stop her from stealing 32 of those. Not the best record considering but it could be worse.

Inspector Grim finished checking on the security doors to make sure they were fastened correctly. If she was able to find an entrance that he didn’t expect then that could ruin all of his plans. She had done that before and now he always remembered to check every possible entrance and seal all of those that he could. He had many things he needed to check and he just didn’t have enough time. It would be easier if all of his subordinates weren’t so useless.

Even so, his plans this time should work. If everything went as planned then he would finally catch Phantom Thief Rose.

“Inspector Grim, the extra security measures are finished.” Said a young officer who had just approached Grim. “We were able to get some more policemen from the chief and they allowed us to finish much sooner then expected.”

“About time,” Grumbled Inspector Grim, although he was inwardly pleased. Now his plans were finally going smoothly. It was about time that everything went his way. “I will go check on it to make sure everything really is finish and you can go back to your post. This time we really will catch Phantom Thief Rose.”

“Yes sir.” Said the young officer as Inspector Grim stalked off through the exhibit. The young officer watch professor Grim leave before turning and heading toward the primary exhibit room where Crown of the Skies was being kept. The officer took off the hat and long hair fell down the officer’s back. The woman smiled as she reached the doors to the exhibit room and she swung them open.
The room lit up, displaying the Crown of the Skies which was covered with a dazzling array of gems, all of different colors. What was missing however was the police officers that were supposed to be stationed here. A few minutes ago a young officer had arrived and told them all that Inspector Grim needed there help finishing the extra security features.

The woman glanced at her watch and then up a back over at the Crown. It was still a few minutes until the designated time. She approached the case and slide a glass cutter out of her pocket and placed it lightly onto the glass.

“Phantom Thief Rose, you’re early.” Said a gruff voice from behind the woman. She smiled and turned her head to see Inspector Grim standing behind her. Police officers were poring in through the door behind him. “You almost had be fooled but I expected you to pull this sort of stunt. I told my officers that if they got any strange orders that they were supposed to double check it with me, one of my men which who had called away from here found me and told me what happened.”

Phantom Thief Rose straightened and slipped the glass cutter back into her pocket before turning and facing Inspector Grim. She raised her hands to show that she was unarmed. “Now Grimmy, your getting better. I’m almost proud of your growth. Just last month I managed to slip past you in disguise and you didn’t even notice. Now look at you.”

It was a sweet, sicking voice. Inspector Grim however just smiled at her, “Arrest her boys.” The police officers began to surround her when there was beeping sound that caused them to stop moving.

Phantom Thief Rose looked left at her watch which was now beeping and said, “Look at the time. Sorry to cut the date short but I’m afraid I have a theft to make and I can’t waste my time playing with you Grimmy.” Then the power to the building suddenly went off. There were shouts and people bumping into each other. Then the sound of breaking glass and running feet.

Inspector Grim fumbled out a flashlight and turned it on. There, in front of him was a shattered display case and a distinct lack of a crown. “You fools, go after her, she can’t have gone far.” While he was shouting the power flipped back on and they were able to see again, just in time to seem Phantom Thief Rose dashing out through one of the exhibit room exits.

Inspector Grim shouted into his police radio, “Phantom Thief Rose is in the building, lock the building down now. Don’t let anyone out of the build, not even me, until we had secured the crown.” He head more shouting on the other end before he finally go a conformation that they wouldn’t let even a mouse out of the building without making sure that it wasn’t the Phantom Thief.

Phantom Thief Rose was hiding in a broom closet while she heard the thumping of feet outside of the door. It was sort of embarrassing to hide in a place like this but nobody ever checked them so they made an excellent hiding place. She was making use of her time by changing out of the police uniform disguise and into proper clothes for a Phantom Thief. They were loose and black and flowing and very comfortable. She didn’t know how the police officers stood their uniforms, they were all stuffy and Rose would rather die then have to wear one of those all day. Phantom Thief clothes on the other hand were something she wanted to wear all the time, pity she had to wear normal clothes most of the day to hide her identity.

She threw the pile of police clothes on top of the tied up, struggling form of the police officer that she had tied up and hide in her not long ago when she had initially stole his clothes. “Thanks for letting me borrow them.” She said as she pulled out a small piece of paper. She then pulled out a black pen and wrote her name on the piece of paper before dropping it on the man’s head. “Here, have my autograph as a reward.” She liked to imagine bubbles of hearts appearing over people when she did this, it was nice to be popular.

The shouting and stomping feet were silent now so she slipped out of the room and began enacting her plan for magical escape effort. With the crown stashed in her black bag that no proper thief would be without she returned to the scene of the crime. The room was now empty, it was easy to lead the police officers around, especially Inspector Grim who always though so much of himself.

Rose tapped her watch several times and the waited. Just one more minute. Then Inspector Grim burst into the room again. “Ha, trapped are we Phantom Thief. Can’t get through all the exits because of all the guards to you try hiding here and hope we don’t find you. This time Rose, I’ve got you.”

“Yes, you have me just where you want me. In the middle of exhibit, far from all the exits. However will I escape.”

“I see you have an apt grasp for the situation.” Said Grim with a smile. Rose almost hit him, could that man understand sarcasm when he heard it.

Then she tapped on her watch. There was a blaze of sparks that surrounded her, causing the officers that were closing in on her to fall back and shield their eyes. Once the sparks vanished so had Phantom Thief Rose. In her place was a perfectly round hole in the floor. Inspector Grim didn’t wait a second before bounding forward and jumping down into the hole in the floor. Unfortunately the hole was Phantom Thief Rose sized so Grim was forced to squiggle and squirm before he finally managed to fit through the hole and drop into the sewers below the exhibit.

“I won’t let her escape that easy.” Said Inspector Grim as he chased after the barely seen form of Phantom Thief Rose. Yet he wasn’t able to keep up with her. He ran, holding his flashlight in one hand. He kept having trouble keeping up with her and eventually he lost sight of her in the darkness and ran blinding down the tunnels hoping he made the right turns.

After he had passed, Phantom Thief Rose slide out between the crevice between two pipes and took a few deep breaths. That man had more endurance then a monsters and she doubted that she would have been able to outrun him. Luckily she had scouted out this section of the sewers before hand and found several good hidey holes that she could fit in.

Turning and going the other direction as Inspector Grim she quickly found one of the exits to the sewers and climbed the ladder up. Pushing the manhole out of the way she pulled herself up onto the pavement and pulled off her night vision goggles, only a fool would run around in the sewers using only a flashlight.

As she slide the cover to the manhole closed she heard a voice from behind her, “That was quite impressive. You did a good job at losing him and I almost lost you at several points.” Rose spun toward the voice and began planning different escape routes. Now that she was outside the exhibit there were plenty of different ways to escape and she could easily improvise.

“What do you want.” She asked back. She could seen a silhouette in the shadow between the building but wasn’t able to see anything else. The only thing she knew was the the speaker was probably a woman given the voice.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to stop you. I’m from a different district and I just wanted to ask you some questions.”

“And that, is how I meet Phantom Thief Rose.” Said Lynn with a certain amount of pride. “I had tracked her down to get information on if she knew anything about the thief of the Euclidian Key. I knew it was possible that it had been Harold that had activated it but since I wasn’t able to find him I decided to look into the possibility that it had been a theft. Of course Phantom Thief Rose wasn’t able to find me any information but it was still a memorable encounter.

“Cool,” Said Emiray, a look of wonder in her eyes, “Did it really happen like that? Now I want to meet the Phantom Thief too.”

Lynn smiled at Emiray, Lynn guessed that even Emiray acted like a teenager sometimes.

“I FIND THAT STORY IMPROBABLE. YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT HAPPENED INSIDE THE EXIBIT SEEMS TOO THOROUGH. HOW DO YOU KNOW THE THOUGHTS OR BOTH INSPECTOR GRIM AND PHANTOM THIEF ROSE.” Lynn just stared an R08 and the robot didn’t continue that line of questioning.

June 10th

Mü, The Sky

“And your sure that this is safe? Aren’t you ever afraid that you are going to hit the ground and die?” Emiray tried to stay calm while plummeting toward the Earth but it was hard.

Lynn, just a hands breadth away from Emiray shook her head. The scenery shifted and they were suddenly higher up and the terrain below them had moved quite a bit. “Not really, although I’ve done this a lot so I suppose that I have gotten used to it. Don’t worry, I’ve done this a lot and I know what I’m doing. You may not notice but we had undergone many corrective teleports to keep the keep our bearing and speed correct. At this pace it should be no more then five more minutes to arrive at the Entertainment District.”

“Couldn’t you just teleport us directly to the Entrainment District without this sort of sporadic teleportation. Isn’t that supposed to in the the power range of a level 8?”

“Sure, I probably could assuming you don’t mind getting split in half by a building or ending up joined with another person. I can’t detect safe locations to teleport to at that distance so while this method is not quite as fast it is a much safer way of teleportation, plus I’m using gravity and momentum to speed up the travel even more. I suppose I could go faster but I find that multiple successive teleportations tend to make most people feel fairly sick.” Lynn smiled and the scenery shifted again. This time however they were closer to the ground.

“I think I could deal with being sick.” Said Emiray with a pale look on her face. “It seems to be better option then constantly worrying about hitting the ground.”

“If you say so, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you afterward.” Then the world flickered, and flickered again. Through the constantly flickering backdrop Emiray realized that Lynn was right, this was making her feel sick. Things changed before she even realized they where there. Emiray began to lose track of time during that weird kaleidoscope of world that she couldn’t make sense out of.

Then the flickering stopped and she suddenly felt incredibly sick. She managed to hold it in and after a few deep breaths looked managed to climb up off her knees and looked over at Lynn. “All right, you told me so. Next time we will go the slow method.”

Lynn smiled before waving her hand and saying, “Welcome to the Entertainment District, the place there all your dreams can come true.”

Emiray looked up and was almost blinded by the sight. The signs glared down at her and she looked around a the crowd of people that were moving past them. People where laughing and talking with each other, they were shopping, there were visiting stores that she had never seen before.

She gaped and smiled at everything like a child, however Lynn placed her hand on Emiray’s shoulder and said, “Now is not the time to stare, I am going to bring you to Phantom Thief Rose.” They shifted again and they were in an apartment complex. In from of them was a door to one of the apartments but the nameplate was blank.

Lynn knocked on the door a few times and then the two of them waited. After a moment the door opened into a dark hallways that seemed empty. Lynn motioned to Emiray and R08 and the three of them entered the apartment. The door clicked closed behind them and then the lights flickered on.

“Come in,” came a voice from the room in front of them. The three of them entered the room and found a normal scene. A woman with long hair was lounging on a couch watching television. She looked up at them as they came in and said, “Hello Lynn, back again are you? I believe I already told you that I don’t know anything about the theft that you told me about. And who do you have with you? Some fan that wants my autograph of something?”

Lynn laughed and said, “You know, I still wonder if the strange woman living by herself in an out of the way apartment is really the Phantom Thief Rose. Nobody would ever expect you to be living in a place like this.”

“Your the Phantom Thief Rose?” Said Emiray, “Lynn told me all about you. I really hope I get to see you in action someday.”

“But that isn’t why I am here this time.” Said Lynn with a wave of her hand. “I actually want your help with something. There is something that could use a thieves unique skill set.”

“Oh, I’m listening, though I don’t know if I will be able to accept. You aren’t from the Entertainment District so there might be a limit to what I can steal for you, plus it isn’t really my style to accept jobs from other people, it decreased my reputation as a Phantom Thief.”

Rose listened as they explained the situation with the Euclidian Key.

“I see, so you want to me to help you break into this reactor and steal back the Euclidian Key.” Rose grinned, “I didn’t think the University District could think of this sort of plot but it sounds interesting. Alright, I’m in, I’ll help you get this back for you. I’ve always been a sucker for hopeless situations.”

Rose stood up and moved over to her desk. Pulling out several pieces of paper she began writing, “I have a few things that I will need to do before I’m ready to go, I hope you don’t mind.”

Lynn shook her head, “No, we will need you in your top form. I actually had a question for you. The rumors said that you were trained in the University District. Does that mean you are an Esper?”

“Rumors say a lot of things. However I rather liked the sound of that particular rumor so I’ve been taking a few classes now and then. I even enrolled in one of the ability enhancement programs, so I guess, yes I would qualify as an Esper legally. I don’t really practice that much though, It would be against my code to use that sort of power during a theft and there aren’t really any other times that it could be useful.” Said Rose and she continued to write on the second piece of paper. She seemed to finish and began to fold up the two pieces of paper and put each one into a different black envelope.

“I see, it might have been useful so I wanted to know before we got into any trouble.” Said Lynn in a casual attempt to brush off the personal question she had just asked. Rose passed Lynn the two envelopes and said, “Do you think that you can deliver those two for me. The second one might be kind of difficult but I’m sure you will be able to accomplish it.”

Lynn looked at the addresses on the two envelopes an scowled slightly. “Are you sure. I understand that you are a Phantom Thief but this could seriously compromise our objective.”

Rose nodded, “Yes, I’m sure. Don’t worry, they will turn to our advantage in the long run, you’ll see.” Lynn scowled some more before putting them in her pocket and disappearing.

“What were those letters?” Asked Emiray in curiosity.

“Oh, invitations. A proper thief always informs the target of the thief before it happens. It is part of the allure behind Phantom Thieves. Plus it is a tactical advantage. They think they have an advantage on you because they know when you will be arriving, however that isn’t true. Knowing who is going to be defending the target before hand is very important for a Phantom Thief.”

“So those were letters to Professor Gray telling him we are going to take the Euclidian Key back? Isn’t that kind of dangerous. Won’t he speed up his schedule to make sure he gets it done before we arrive there.”

“Only one of the letters was for Professor Gray, the other was for Inspector Grim. If he knows that I am going to be there then he will be there too. He won’t be able to resist by first theft outside of the Entertainment District. I’m sure the look on his face is going to be priceless, I wish I could see it.”

“Wait, Inspector Grim? Isn’t he part of the police, why would you want to be him involved?”

“Because I know how he thinks. If he is at the reactor trying to protect it then it will be easier to expect what is going to happen next compared to if someone I didn’t know was in charge. Plus it will expose some of what Gray is doing to the light of day and he will have to act carefully around Grim. It is a win-win situation for us.”

“I see.” Said Emiray skeptically. “What are the rest of the preparations that you need to make?”

“Those I will be needing your help.” Rose raised her watch up and using her other hand pressed it a few times. There was a hiss and one off the walls slide open revealing something in the next door apartment. “We will need the right tools to break into a University guarded building, it will be nothing like making a theft in the Entertainment District. We will need the right tools and since you are one of the Belly Engineers I will be expecting you to help me as much as you can in preparing them.”

Emiray stared into the adjacent rooms with her eyes in wonder. “This is amazing, how did you get a workshop like this. There are people who would kill for a setup like yours. And that watch, what does it do, how much of the network is it connected to?” There was a look of wonder and excitement in Emiray’s eyes.

From now on I'm posting my story in 2000 word blocks instead of 1666 word blocks so that I will be able to catch up.

Inspector Grim glowered at the black envelope that was sitting on his desk. He had gotten up to go to the bathroom and when he had gotten back the letter was there. If looks could burn then that letter would be a smoldering pile of ash. Inspector Grim didn’t know what to do with it. He had seen many letters like this before, Phantom Thief Rose always sent them to the intended target before she stole something. Inspector Grim had never received one personally before though. Did this mean that she meant to steal something from the police station wondered Grim.

He reached out hesitating before grabbing the letter in his large hand and forcefully opening the envelope. After the paper ripped he pulled out the piece of paper that was inside. It was covered in Phantom Thief Rose’s flowing hand writing. The edges of the paper were covered with those weird systems that she liked to adorn her letters with. The cryptography had once spent days poring over those symbols hoping it was some sort of code but they were never able to discover anything.

“Inspector Grim, you are hereby invited to attend my next grand theft. This one will be like nothing like any of my past exploits. For the first time ever a Phantom Thief is going to leave the District and find a target elsewhere. My next target in the Euclidian Key. I will steal it on June 11th at 11:00pm from inside the Ark Tunnel Generator in the University District.

This heist will be like nothing that you have ever seen and I hope you will be there to witness it. I expect that our wits will clash again and that the outcome is fortuitous.

Sincerely Phantom Thief Rose”

Inspector Grim stared at the letter wondering if it was somebodies bad idea of a joke. When nobody broke into laughter, unsurprising because he was alone, he decided that the letter must be real. It was simply unfathomable, a heist outside of the Entertainment District. That never happened and it broke all the tradition and rules. Why was Phantom Thief Rose doing this. Inspector Grim simply couldn’t imagine. His read the letter again hoping he had mistaken something then his eyes trailed around the symbols surrounding the letter.

Huffing he shoved the letter into his pocket and stood up. He grabbed his hat and coat from the wrack near his desk and stormed out of the room. He stopped briefly the the desk of the police’s secretary to say, “I’m going on a vacation, I’ll be back in a couple of day.” Before storming toward the door outside. He heard muttering confusion behind him but he ignored it.

He couldn’t let Rose get away this the flagrant breaking of tradition, this time he was serious and he would make sure to catch Phantom Thief Rose if it was the last thing that he did.

Several hours later he was on a bus heading for the University District, it would still take him a while to arrive at the District but it would still be in plenty of time to catch Rose.

Professor Gray adjusted the machine another time. The Ark Tunnel Generator was a powerhouse but making the correct adjustments to connect it to the Euclidian Key was taking longer then he had expected it too. Considering that he had gotten a report that Emiray had managed to survive and then escape from the hospital she had been staying at with the help of the Esper Lynn, it made any amount of time too much.

It was both a relief and a disappointment that Emiray had survived. It had forced Gray to contact a few other members of Prometheus to call in some favors. Now he had the University Security force searching for those two for the murder of Professor Harold. Gray knew that it was too long, sooner or later one of the Student Counsel would find out too much and pull the warrant and discover that Professor Gray was behind it.

However Gray should have enough time. The preparations for activating the Euclidian Key should be done sometime the day after tomorrow, longer then Gray felt comfortable but he would probably get that much time. There was a knock on the door and Gray turned as a man entered. He was a well cut school uniform and carried himself with an air of command. Svenn was an Esper that was also a member of Prometheus. Gray hadn’t wanted to call on his assistance but with a level 8 Esper involved he had to take the necessary persuasions.

“Professor Gray, a letter just arrived for you.”

“A letter? Who would know that I am here, and who would send a letter?” Asked Gray in befuddlement. Who sent letters in this day and age, did they even have a post office in the University District. Gray didn’t think they did.

“I can only assume it was delivered by Lynn. None of the security officers say anything but it was delivered to our outermost defenses anyway. Unfortunately that is outside or our teleportation detection network so we didn’t notice until it was too late. I suspect that she has a method of detecting our network and deliberately worked to avoid it but I have no proof on that subject.”

Concern furrowed Gray’s face. “I see, do what you can to expand the network’s range. Divert more power from the Ark Tunnel Generator if needed, I won’t be needing the full power from it until all the preparations are made and when that has happened Lynn won’t be an issue anymore.”

“I understand Professor Gray. I will leave the the letter with you then.” Said Svenn as he set the letter down on the table near the door. “I will do my best to expand the network but it is already unstable at its current size. I will need to bring in another Esper to help stabilize it.”

“I understand, try to make it somebody expendable. I would hate to lose any more people to this project then is necessary.” Said Gray, “I’m sorry for getting you involved in this in the first place but when Lynn started meddling I didn’t have much choice.”

“It is not a problem. Things will never change if I continue to hide and wait until I am called upon. I would rather help now then never have the opportunity too.” Svenn smiled slightly before continuing, “For the greater good.”

“For the greater good.” Replied Gray as the door shut behind Svenn. He was growing tired of that saying. How long had it been since he had sworn his oath. He must have been around Svenn’s age when he had done so, young enough to think that he could really make a difference. Now he was just an old man doing what had to be done. There was so much regret that he didn’t know what to do with. Maybe when this was all over he would finally get a chance to rest.

Gray picked up the letter from the table that Svenn had left to open. The envelope was black, which seemed unusual, although not any more unusual then receiving a letter in the first place. He slide broke open the envelope with his finger and pulled out the paper. It was written in a flowing script with weird symbols all around the edge.

He read it once, and then a second time. It made no sense to him. It was short but that didn’t make it any less confusing.

“I will steal the Euclidian Key at 11:00pm on June 11th.
- Phantom Thief Rose”

He had heard of this before. In the Entertainment District they had Phantom Thieves but this was the University District, while it my be accepted elsewhere it was a just never done here. Professor Gray’s theft of the Euclidian Key from Emiray was already a crime that would probably have an extreme punishment when it was found out and this sort of thing would be no different. Thief of somebody else's inventions was simply not tolerated in the University District.

But then, if Lynn really did deliver this message then this Phantom Thief Rose could probably escape punishment by handing the Euclidian Key over to Lynn who was one of the co-creators and thus the owner of the Key.

What was even more confusing was why they had sent this letter in the first place, what possible reason could there be to inform him that they would attempt to steal the Key at a certain time. The only reason that he could think of was that it was a plot to distract to when the real assault came. That must be it, but just to be safe he needed to speed up the operation. He would need to get the Euclidian Key operational before the time indicated in case this Phantom Thief really did try to make good on her word.

Lynn flickered through the air as she headed back toward the University District. The first delivery had not be as difficult as she had been feared it might be. The police station had been practically unguarded and it had been easy to slip into Inspector Grim’s office and leave the letter while he had went to the bathroom.

The second letter had been more difficult. The trip back to the University District had been faster then it had been with guests. Lynn had not trouble flickering extremely fast when traveling, although mainly that was because she had grown accustom to it. She had initially become sick as a pig when attempting that sort of rapid teleportation.

Once she had arrived back at the University District she had to be more careful. She couldn’t just go teleporting around or somebody might recognize her. Now that she knew what to look for she had been able to find the Ark Tunnel Reactor just fine, especially with the help of the guidebook that she had bought.

Once she had gotten near it she had been able feel the weird sensation. It was like the air over most of the instillation was thick. When she closed her eyes and felt the spacial dimensions of the place she was able to get a better understanding of that net. She had been right to assume that they would be able to detect her teleportation. That sort of net would detect her use of teleportation instantly and the interference would probably lower her level at around one.

Lynn guess that there were probably several weaker Espers keeping that web up, but not enough apparently. The web was at it’s breaking point. If they tried to make it any bigger then they would need to add more Espers or risk the entire thing collapsing at any time. Knowing this Lynn was easily able to skirt the edge of the barrier and teleport the letter into a guardpost that was slightly outside of the net.

Once she had made sure the guard had noticed the letter she began to head back to Rose’s house in the Entertainment District. She even managed to make a quick side trip to her own house. She had feared that her apartment would be guarded but to her luck it was not. She was able to pick up some pare clothes and the backpack that she had left behind when going to visit Emiray at the hospital.

After she had collected her possessions she stopped at a connivance store to pick up some snacks for on the way back to the Entertainment District. She made sure to take her time so that she could properly enjoy her snacks. Most people might have trouble enjoying snacks while plummeting toward the earth but Lynn found it no trouble at all. She had managed to finish before getting back to the district and then she had speed up, Rose had probably finished any preparations that she had needed to make by now.

Lynn had hardly entered the apartment when she was grabbed and shaken by somebody. She was about to teleport away before she realized it was Rose that was shaking her. “Who in the world is that girl, you have got to tell me.”
Lynn began stammering in suprise, “Didn’t I explain it already? She is one of the Belly’s major engineers. Other then the stuff I explained in the story I don’t know anything else about her.”

“I don’t know what the Belly is paying her but it isn’t enough. I’ll double it, no triple it if I can get her to work for me personally. She managed to fix my motorcycle using spare parts the robot just happened to be carrying. Do you know how much the special effects department wanted to charge me for that? 2000 Naacals. Do you know how much she said the parts had cost her? 50 Naacals! And that is just the beginning…”

Tried of being at the whim of the bigger woman’s strength, Lynn carefully moved herself several feet inside the apartment and out of reach of Rose. “You don’t say. I’ll listen to your rant but would you kindly not so forcefully show your opinion.”

Rose reddened slightly before closing the door to the apartment. “I’m sorry, it is just she has already saved me thousands of Naacels on repairs and I swear that the stuff she fixes are better then they were when I bought them. It is simply amazing.”

Lynn noticed the large open section in Rose’s wall. “Ah, a secret thief hideaway. I’m not really surprised. Is this where Emiray is performing her magical repairs?” Asked Lynn but her questions was answered for her when Emiray poked her head out from behind Rose’s motarcycle.

“Oh, Lynn. You’re back.” She eyes seem to be shining. She held up something and Lynn saw that is was Rose’s watch. “This is an amazing device. It is capable for running all sorts of electronics at a distance. Whoever invented it was a genius.”

“Please be careful with that. It would be very difficult to replace if it broke.” Said Rose was a worried look on her face. Rose whispered to Lynn, “After what she did for my motorcycle and other equipment I wasn’t able to refuse her when she asked to look at my watch. I think that might have been part of her plan from the beginning.”

Lynn looked Emiray over, she seemed to be covered in black grease stains. “All right, I’m sure your having a great time disassembling Rose’s belongings and then putting them back together but we have a plan to see too and not much time. Rose I hope you don’t mind but I took a look at the letters you wrote. Your plan to go after the Euclidian Key tomorrow is a good one and since we came to you about theft advice we should follow your direction.”

Rose wave her hand back and forth, “No problem assuming you didn’t break the seal. I was waiting for you to come back before we went shopping. There are several things that we will need to get before attempting a thief in the University District. You know the most about the security there so I wanted you here when we went to get disguises. Emiray, are you done with my watch yet?”

“Yes, the high quality design made maintenance on it easy. There were a few parts that needed to be exchanged so I took the liberty of doing so. It probably would have lasted without the replacements but since you can’t have it fail at an inopportune time I thought it would be best just to make sure. Some of the pieces in there could probably be updated with newer versions but since the Belly generally runs several years behind other places I didn’t have the necessary parts to upgrade it.”

“I see, thanks.” Said Rose as she took the watch from Emiray and strapped it back onto her wrist. “Again, if you ever want to change your employment I could use your assistance.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Do, it would be fun working together. Now we should get going. Emiray, I need you to come along too. From what I heard the security measures in the University District are more advanced then those here and I want you to help me pick out appropriate countermeasures.”

Rose lead the two of them out of the apartment and to the elevator that would take them to the bottom floor. However instead of pressing the button to the lobby she pressed against the flat metal below the buttons and a secret drawer pulled out. On it was several buttons and Rose pressed one of the them before shutting the drawer.

The elevator began to lower and Emiray leaned forward to look at where the drawer was. “Nice, solid engineering. The seems are almost invisible. Did you have this done?”

Rose shook her head, “No, it was part of the building’s initial design. Most of the buildings in the Entertainment District have them. They are one of the worst kept secrets in the Entertainment District and anyone who has been here for very long learns about them. However it is considered rude to talk with people about them so they still remain a secret to those outside.”

The elevator began going below the first floor and deeper into the ground.

“Does this lead to the Belly or somewhere else?” Said Lynn interested.

“It leads the the hidden part of the Entertainment District. Most people call it Backstage. Special effects, props, tools, and everything else people might need are found down here. Criminals like me tend to use it extensively because some of the stuff we need can not be found in a normal shop, however most people in the Entertainment District find themselves down here every once in a while.

Rose continued, “I suppose the only real rule for Backstage is that unless you came with them you don’t know anybody. It shouldn’t be an issue for either of you but if you do recognize somebody don’t say anything. In return they won’t recognize you.”

“I see,” Said Lynn, “The place is very… Entertainment District.” She could find no better way to explain it. The Entertainment District was much different then the University District in may ways and this was just another one of the cultural differences.

When the elevator stopped they came out into a bustling underground marketplace. There were enough people that it felt busy. The only thing that was really different from the street level of the Entertainment District was that people seemed to be deliberately ignoring each other. Lynn thought about it as she walked and this place was making a great deal of sense to her. Phantom Thieves and others needed equipment and they couldn’t just buy it on the street, so this place must have been built underneath the city to meet that need.

It really was the backstage of the Entertainment District. There were even several restaurants where people could been seen relaxing alone or maybe talking with a group of other people. Many of the people at those places seemed to be intent on writing, generally on a computer but some of the were using paper.

“So this is Backstage.” Said look as she looked around. After several people glared at her she began to keep her eyes to herself. “This place is just touching the Belly and sells many useful equipment so sometimes engineers shop here. I have heard stories from some of them, though it is in the Second Quadrant so I have never been here before.”

Rose stopped before what was a clothes shop and motioned them inside. “Is this where we are getting the disguises?” Asked Lynn.

Rose shook her head and then eyed Emiray up and down. “No, here were are getting the esteemed engineer some new clothes. The ones you are currently wearing are far too small and boring. When was the last time you got new clothes?”

There was a pause as Emiray tried to find the answer to that question. Her current jumpsuit had served her well since she had gotten it, though she really didn’t remember when that was. After a second Rose grabbed Emiray and dragged her inside the store to try things on.

Maybe an hour later the three of them came back out of the store. “I don’t see why you chose those clothes, they are too plain. You need to think of your appearance more.” Said Rose.

“These are fine. Besides I like pants, and skirts are too inconvenient. They get caught on things and don’t protect your legs. They are hardly practical at all.” Said Emiray in indignation.

“I suppose,” Said Rose. She couldn’t criticize Emiray too much. Her own opinion of clothes was hardly normal either. Phantom Thief Clothes used pants for some of the same reasons that Emiray give, although those clothes were not exactly plain.”

“So where next? We still need to get disguised and security prevention measures right?” Asked Lynn.

Rose nodded and lead them through more of the underground streets. It took most of the rest of the day to finish up the preparation shopping and they had several bags full of stuff to bring back with them. Lynn had already made several trips back to the apartment to bring back the things that they had bought.

The bag Emiray was carrying was full of half broken electronics and parts. They had managed to find a electronics store and it had been difficult to persuade Emiray to leave there. She had been fawning over all of the pieces and parts inside the store and they had been unable to get her to leave without her making a large purchase of parts. Most of them were from a generous helping of discount broken electronics. Emiray was planning on taking those things apart and keeping all of the good parts that she could find. She had been amazed at how many serviceable pieces had just been thrown in a bin.

The only thing she had really splurged on was some porcelain patching kit which she was planning on using to repair the break in R08’s head. She would need to mix some other things into the mix to help give it strength but it would help close the hole.

One of the stores Rose hadn’t let either of the others enter. Lynn wasn’t even sure that is was a store. It was simply a building wall with a door in it. Rose went inside after telling them to wait and after around half an hour came back out and told them she her business there was over.

After they had finished getting everything she headed back toward the elevator. Lynn managed to convince all of them that they should get something to eat to they stopped at one of the restaurants.

When they finally arrived back at the apartment it was getting late and Lynn was getting tired. Emiray and Rose however seemed to plan however. Emiray had secluded herself in Rose’s workshop as soon as they got back and began working on the disassembling her parts and preparing the counter security measures.

Rose had turned on her computer and was looking over various floorplans. Lynn wanted to ask her what they were for but decided that it would be better to ask in the morning when Rose was done with whatever she was doing. Lynn didn’t really have anything to do, her powers weren’t really useful for this kind of preparation. Instead she decided to go to be early. The worst case scenario for tomorrow involved her fighting several high level Espers and then going head to head ageists a fully charged Euclidian Key. She didn’t know if she would be strong enough to deal with that much but she at least didn’t want lack of sleep to be the reason that she lost.

Yeah, I know it has taken me forever to finally get around to posting these again. I managed to finish my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo and now I'm going to start posting them again.


The Past

“Again.” The voice through the speaker system blared down at Lynn. She closed her eyes again and concentrated. She shifted the ball in her hands toward the slot for it a few hundred meters away. There was a blare as the sensors recorded that she was off by several inches again.

“That is enough Lynn. Please report to the results room.” She sighed and opened her eyes again. The Esper level test was going badly for her. She had hoped to have gotten better but it seemed that it hadn’t happened.

When she arrived the the results room she receives the paper with her results on it. Like it had three months ago the paper said that she was a level four Esper. Three months and her results hadn’t improved at all. It had been nearly a year since her power had increased at all. It had been nearly a year since she had started her special training. Maybe is was about time that she gave up on that and continued with her real training again.

She sighed and slipped the piece of paper into her pocket. With the end of year Esper tests over it was time for her to enjoy her new years eve. She didn’t really have any plans, most of her friends were going to go celebrate their increased scores however Lynn didn’t really feel like doing it. One of them had managed to reach level 5 this time, Lynn was happy for her but it also made Lynn feel inadequate.

Lynn had managed to reach level 4 before her friend and now she had been passed by, in fact most of them were beginning to get better then her. She wondered the streets of the University District trying to decide what to do. Nothing however stuck her interest and she ended up reaching her apartment. She unlocked her door and slipped inside. She could have probably teleported inside, she was capable of short personal teleportations but it seemed like too much of a pain.

She sat down on her couch and flipped on the TV. It was talking about the new year and what the different news casters were planning for their new years resolutions. She remembered the resolution that she had made last year and felt regret at not having accomplished it. She stared at the remote that she had set down on the coffee table.

She closed her eyes and mentally reached toward remote willing it into her hand. When she opened her eyes the remote was still on the table. Of course it was still on the table. No teleporter had managed a reverse teleporation, the ability to move an object at a distance to the teleporter. She had told herself last year that she would be the first one to do it, that she would spend all year trying to accomplish it.

It had been a year since then. A year of trying and failing to do the impossible. She hadn’t initially thought that it would be impossible, she had thought that if she just put in the time and effort to try it then she would be able to do it but life wasn’t that easy.

She had tried everything she could think of. She had thought that she would be able to bring things back through the spacial tunnel that was created when she moved an object somewhere else but that proved to be a faulty assumption, the spacial tunnel collapsed after the object finished moving through it and the attempts just ended up making things explode. While some people might think that would be useful it was hardly what she had been attempting.

Reversing the tunnel didn’t seem to work. Whatever it was that she did to create it in the first place was enough beyond her that she had no idea how one would reverse it. So in the end months of wasted effort was spent trying to accomplish something that dozens of Espers before her must have already tried and failed to do.

Now she had a year of failure to show for her stupid new years resolution. If she had practiced the standard way then maybe she would have been a level 5 too now. She looked at the TV again. There were only a few minutes left to go until midnight. It looks like she really did fail last year’s resolution. It was probably better just to give up.

She wondered what she should make for this year’s resolution. Maybe she should aim for becoming a level 5 Esper, that seemed like an reasonable goal. Most people’s powers peak out at around there so she should be able to accomplish that too.

She stood up and moved toward her balcony, opening the door and stepping outside. It was cold but not to much so. Mu was almost always a reasonable temperature. The concentrated for a minute and then opened up a spacial tunnel to move herself onto the roof. Once it was completed she panted, it was always more tiring then she expected.

She laid back on roof and stared up at the stars. She had always loved looking up at the stars when she had been a child. She father had been an astronomer and had told her all about the stars. The brightness from the city all around her made the stars dim and difficult to see but she could still make out many of the constellations.

She didn’t mind being a teleporter but she had really wanted to be able to fly. If you had asked her what Esper power she wanted it would have been telekinesis. Powerful Espers with telekinesis were capable of lifting themselves in the air and flying.

She reached out her hand toward the sky as if trying to grasp at the stars. What was it that she really wanted. Why was it that she was trying so hard at this stupid resolution. She wasn’t really sure herself. The stars seemed so far away, so very far away. How far would she need to reach to catch them.

She heard the tolling of a bell somewhere off in the distance. It was almost midnight, it must be the countdown before the new year. It would be easy to just give up on her resolution and pick up a new one, one that she knew she could accomplish. But what then, won’t that just be the same as giving up. Was it wrong to give up on an impossible task. Lynn just didn’t know.

The bell tolled for the seventh time. She felt like she was running out of time to decide what to do. A silly idea really, the changing of the year didn’t really mean anything. The bell tolled the eight time. How high could she reach, she wanted to know that. It was part of the reason she had volunteered to be an Esper in the first place. If she gave up know would she ever be able to reach the stars.

The bell rang the twelfth time and Lynn sat up. She should probably get back to the apartment. She looked up once more at the stars. She wasn’t ready to give up now. It didn’t matter if it took another year or ten, she wasn’t going to give up on making her resolution. Espers were supposed to do the impossible, however was her plan any different.

She stood at the edge of the roof and looked down at her balcony. It took her a moment to focus and open the tunnel to it and she stepped through. Stepped through? She stood on the balcony and walked through it in her mind. Somehow the process seemed different then it had a couple of minutes ago. She stepped through the mental steps she had used to teleport herself. They seemed clearer to her then they had previously.

There was something different about how she teleported herself and how she teleported objects. She closed her eyes to remove the visual distractions. Then she opened up a tunnel in preparation of teleporting herself. However she just stood there keeping the tunnel open. Then she reached out, felt herself being pulled in by the tunnel. The remote on the table, she felt it, like she was touching it with her fingers. It was like she was letting her senses, her awareness, get sucked through the spacial tunnel. She could feel the remote like she was holding it in her hand, then in a random stab in the dark she open up another tunnel, this open leading back to herself. She funneled her awareness through the new tunnel and then, she was holding it.

The remote was in her hands.

Lynn woke to find herself lying on the couch in Rose’s living room. She still remembered the dream about her past. It had been a turning point in her life. The new discovery the she had uncovered was quickly incorporated into the standard teleporter training plan. Once it was explained to a teleporter that was a least level 3 they would be able to use the trick themselves.

However the thing that had really changed for Lynn that night had been something else. She quickly grew stronger from that day, quickly becoming level 5 and exceeding all of her friends. It had only been a couple of years since then, she had been acclaimed as one of the fastest growing Espers. The fact that she had so quickly became a level 8 however isolated her.

Most of the new discovers she had made on her way to her current strength had been shared with the University however some of them hadn’t been replicated by other Espers. She had tried to explain her corrective teleports which allowed for extremely accurate long distance teleports but nobody had been able to replicate her achievements.

Rapid predetermined teleportation was likewise another trick she had been unable to teach. That had been disappointing because those two tricks combined was what allowed her to teleport faster and farther then any other teleporter before her and were a major factor in her rise to level-8-hood.

However that was the past, something that had happened a few years ago. Now however she felt the same sort of feeling that she had then. The spacial tunnel opened and she was in the air. There were a couple of extra almost imperceptible flickers and she was high in the sky above the Entertainment District.

This high in the sky the stars were easily visible and very bright. The light from the city below her barely hide their luster. She reached out toward the stars like she had once done years ago. This feeling, the feeling of uncertainty. It felt like an old friend that she hadn’t seen in a while had come back to visit her. How long had it been since she had felt like this, a year, two years? It felt like a lifetime.

Yet, hanging in the sky, using the momentum of occasional teleports to keep her from falling, she felt that nostalgic feeling once more. The desire to be more powerful, to reach beyond what she already had, to not be content with the moon but to desire the stars. She had been unable to recognize it year ago but now she clearly felt it, that barrier that her mind had erected in front of her. The mental block that prevented her from becoming more powerful.

The wall was a hard a stone, comprised of her uncertainty of whether getting through this wall was possible and the fear of what she would be able to accomplish if she did get through it. Until just a minute ago she hadn’t recognized that the wall even existed. Now it was there, looming on her mental horizon. However now she desired to get past it, to exceed her own strength, to be strong enough to protect the entire Academy District from the Euclidian Key. No, to be strong enough to protect Mü from whatever might happen in the future.

The desire was just the smallest crack in the wall of her fear and uncertainty but it would be enough. She decided to bring down the wall, reach beyond the moon and toward the stars. It might take time to tear down the wall but tear it down she would, stone by stone unless every block of it was gone.

Then she started to fall. She had released her corrective teleports that had been keeping her airborne and now she was in free-fall. She closed her eyes and felt the wind streaming by her and waited as the ground got closer to her. She had wanted to be able to fly and she guess that this was good enough.

When Lynn stepped in from the balcony she found Emiray moving around the in kitchen. Lynn glanced at the clock. It was still a while until dawn. Even at the altitude she had been at it had still been dark. “Aren’t you still supposed to be asleep?” Asked Lynn. Lynn had gone to be early to she had gotten enough sleep but Emiray had probably been up hours after Lynn had gone to bed.

“Oh, sleep, I’ve got plently. I’ve had a good four hours and that is enough for me to keep working all day.” Said Emiray as she managed to fish out a bowl and spoon from somewhere.
“Four hours? What sort of robot are you? Can you really function with that little sleep?” Just the thought of getting that little sleep made Lynn sleepy. She did find it amusing however that her death defying stunt through the air just now hadn’t even pushed away the last remnants of tiredness. Humans could get used to the strangest things.

“Four hours is about how much rest Rob needs to recover its energy cells so I guess I must have adjusted to that schedule. Now it seems quite normal to only be getting four hours of sleep. It is actually harder to sleep longer, I’m too used to getting up and going to work in the Belly to break the habit today.” Lynn shrugged as she searched though the cupboards for something to put in her bowl.

“Rose said she was a bad morning person and the we should help ourselves to breakfast when we got up. She said she would join us later but probably not before ten.” Emiray managed to fix a box of cereal and stared at it quizzically as if she wasn’t quiet certain if that was what you really ate for breakfast. She was more used to jerky and other long lasting meals with the occasionally hot meal created by a lucky animal trap.

“Emiray, have you ever had a mental block? Like maybe you wanted to get better at Engineering but you found it difficult to until something special happened to you?”
Emiray poured some of the cereal into the bowl and then began to eat it without milk. “I suppose, although it wasn’t quite what you describe. Engineering has a lot to do with study and practice but both of those eventually come down to motivation. If an engineer is motivated to get better then they will, it is as simple as that. Now there was once a time when I didn’t want to keep being an Engineer. My uncle taught me everything he knew about being an engineer but when he died,”

Emiray paused with a look of pain on her face, “When he did I wanted to stop being an engineer. I wanted to escape from it all, to run away and never look back. Eventually I managed to realize that if I did then then my Uncle would truly be gone. That everything that he taught me, all those precious moments together with me, would all be wasted. It was that thought that eventually rekindled my passion for engineering and got me learning again.”

“I’m not certain if that is a mental block like you mentioned but it did keep me from learning more engineering.” Said Emiray. She stuck another spoonful of dry cereal into her mouth before continuing, “I don’t know why you people like this stuff. It isn’t really that great.”

Lynn laughed, “Well, most people eat cereal with milk.” Emiray glared at Lynn with a ‘Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?’ look. Lynn continue to distract Emiray way from that annoyance. “I suppose you can call that a block. It is close enough I guess. Yours was more situation then mine but I guess the final effect is the same.”

“Is there a reason that you are thinking about this now?” Asked Emiray as she open the fridge door and pulled out the half gallen bottle of milk inside.

“It’s just,” Lynn hesitated, “If the Euclidian Key really does get activated using the Ark Tunnel Reactor then I don’t know if I will be able to stop it. I’ve grown so used to being strong enough to handle anything that I feel uncertain at the prospect of unknowing. Now that I want to get stronger I realize that I don’t know how to get stronger. It is a strange mental block I suppose.”

Emiray pondered those thoughts as she took her first bite of milked up cereal. “After I came back to engineering after my uncle died I was given my own post in the Belly. That meant I was alone, except for Rob, and I had to deal the the problems that I found down there by myself. I said that getting better at engineering requires study and practice but there are some things that you can’t study or practice for. Sometimes an engineer is given a problem that they don’t know a solution for. What do you think they do in that situation.” Emiray waggled her spoon at Lynn in question.

“Ask one of the most experienced Engineers what they should do?” Asked Lynn.

Emiray shook her head, “No, while that might work for a regular engineer, a master engineer can’t do that because they have nobody to go to for advice.” Emiray raised her spoon before continuing. “When you find a problem for which you don’t know the solution, the correct answer is to create the solution.”

Lynn looked confused at the younger woman, “And how does that help be get stronger. How can I just create the method for getting stronger.” However she did understand what Lynn was getting at, she had invented dozens of techniques that improved the usefulness of teleportation. However those didn’t effect a users raw power, how much energy an Esper was able to use. That was something that seemed to grow naturally as an Esper trained until it reached a certain point.

“No, not how to get stronger,” Said Emiray, “What it means to be stronger. Instead of wondering how to become stronger, instead think about what you would want to be able to do if you were stronger.”

Lynn thought back to her dream and the memories that came with it. “I see, I already had the solution in my hands but confused it for something else. I knew what it meant to be a stronger teleporter, to do what none had done before. It was once I had accomplished that that I became what I am now. Now that I am the strongest teleporter I need to decide what it means to be a stronger teleporter. It can’t just be speed or distance, those come with being a stronger teleporter they aren’t what make a stronger teleporter.”

Emiray nodded in approval, like a teacher regarding a student that did well. Lynn found that fairly annoying considering she was older then Emiray. Emiray said, “Since you have found the right question, you just need to find the right answer.” Emiray shoved the last spoon full of cereal into her mouth and the set the bowl down of the table, “Now I’m going to make sure that everything is in working order, it is always a good idea to double check things before everything gets dicy.”

When Emiray left Lynn sat down on the couch and looked blanking at the vacant television. Even if she knew the right question she didn’t know if she could find an answer. Over the last couple of years she had burned through her ideas about what a teleporter should be able to do. Now that she could accomplish all of those she didn’t know what a stronger teleporter would be able to do that Lynn wasn’t already capable of doing.

It was a conundrum alright and Lynn didn’t even have a the faintest clue about how to solve it, she just knew that she wanted to solve it.

Rose eventually woke up and crawled out of bed. She was still tired but when she looked at her bedside clock and saw that it was already eleven. She yawned and began putting on her clothes. Finally she managed to stumble into the living room still yawning. “Oh Lynn, Emiray, I see you are both already up. Did you have a good nights sleep, where you able to find something to eat this morning.”

Emiray looked up from a book that she had taken from one of the shelves around the room. Rose had a surprisingly large collection of history and culture books, probably a result of being a Phantom Thief. A Phantom Thief needed to know what was valuable to select correct targets, “Yes, everything was fine. Also, your shirt is on backward.”

Rose looked down at her shirt and realized that Emiray was right. “I’ll change it later, first I need to get something to eat. I’m starving.” Rose moved into the kitchen and past Lynn who was sitting on one of the stools starting off into space. “What is wrong with you Lynn, you seem about of it. Did you not get enough sleep.”

Lynn turned surprised before responding, “Oh, Rose, good morning. No I had enough sleep, I got to bed before both of you after all. I was just thinking that is all. I was just thinking about that a stronger teleport then me would be able to do that I can’t.”

“Huh, Aren’t you the strongest teleporter? Someone capable of doing things that is stronger then you? Would that really be teleportation at that point?” Asked Rose as she open up the fridge an looked inside. Eggs sounded good, Rose usually liked eggs. She pulled them out and began making herself some breakfast. “Did either of you want some eggs?”

Lynn was looking at Rose as Emiray mumbled an affirmative from across the room. “What do you mean they wouldn’t be a teleporter?” Asked Lynn.

“What, are you taking me seriously?” Rose tried pondering the question to find a real answer while she continued cooking the eggs. “I suppose, Well, since you are the strongest teleporter then you must know everything about teleportation. If there was a teleporter that was capable of doing something that you couldn’t then that person wouldn’t really be a teleporter. I mean, I can’t think of anything a teleporter could do that you aren’t capable of doing. The University District says it is impossible but wouldn’t somebody like that be a multi-powered person. Then they would be a Teleporter and still be able to do things that you aren’t capable of doing.”

Lynn sighed, she had hoped that Rose would be able to see something in the problem that Lynn couldn’t but she guessed that wasn’t going to happen. “So your saying that to get more powerful I would need to become a multitalent.” She laughed softly, “You are right about something, multitalent is impossible…” She paused for a moment considering. Sure, multitalents were supposed to be impossible but hadn’t she already done something that was impossible. Even if it was a strange possibility she would need to file it away for future study.

“Don’t give it too much though.” Said Rose. “I’m hardly an expert on theses things. I’m only really good at stealing things. The way to be a better thief is not luck or quicker reflexes. It isn’t the ability to pick locks or outrun police officers. If a thief only has those skills then they would get caught eventually. The skill a good thief needs to have to do heist after heist is to be able to plan. They need to know what could go wrong and how to deal with it if it does. So when you can’t pick the lock or outrun the police officers you are still able to pull it off.”

Rose pushed some of the finished eggs off onto a plate and handed it to Lynn, “I suspect that the same can work for you. Even if there is somebody more powerful then you then if is still possible to pull off a win. You just have to know what you plan to do when you finally meet them.”

Lynn hurumphed as she took the plate, “Both of you just seem so full of advice today.”

“If you didn’t want to head it then don’t ask for it. I’ll give you that advice for free.” Laughed Rose as she took two more plates into the living room and handed one to Emiray. “Eat while you can. Peaceful things never last for long and you want to keep your strength up for when the bad stuff happens.”

It wasn’t very long after that that Rose’s watch began to beep. She looked down at it and smiled softly. She clapped her hands together and said, “Alright everyone. It is time to get ready. We will be heading out soon.”
Lynn furrowed her brow before saying, “It is only around noon. There is still another eleven hours to until your given time of theft. Didn’t you say that was when it was going to happen. While it might take a while to arrive there if we went the normal route, I will be able to get us there in half an hour without hurrying.”

“NO, SHE MEANS THAT THEY ARE ON TO US.” Said R08. It had been keeping out of the way for a while and Lynn had almost forgotten about it.

“What do you mean they are on to us?” Asked Lynn.

Emiray was looking at Rose’s watch, “She means that since the letter was delivered to the University District they have come looking for us. They know we are with the Phantom Thief Rose so it was only a matter of time before they found us.”

“But isn’t this a secret hideout? How would they know this is where she lives?” Said Lynn.

“No honest Entertainment District citizen would even think of coming and looking for me here.” Said Rose, “However, these are probably University Security who are blatantly ignoring tradition. Sadly I’ve lived here long enough that it probably didn’t take them too long to discover this location.”

Lynn went over it, “I see. An Entertainment District secret won’t hold water when you are threatening to steal from the University District. The Entertainment District can’t also legally stop them because you are tenically a wanted criminal here.”

“Grab the bags we will need. We need to get out of here quickly to avoid being caught. Lynn, I believe I can trust in you to make sure we can make our get away.” Said Rose.

“No problem. Once all our stuff is here it won’t take me but a minute to get far away from these people. However I could go deal with them now if you want me to. I handful of University Security shouldn’t be a problem.” Said Lynn.

“Ah, but they almost certainly have a high level Esper with them. It would be crazy to go against you without some sort of plan do deal with you. Since they know you are here with me they have a plan. We just need our plan to be better. That is why we need everything prepared before they get here. Emiray, Rob, have you gotten what we need?”

Emiray and R08 were both bringing large bags in from the secret workshop. Rose nodded and said to Lynn, “Good, take these, Rob, and Emiray three blocks north. I’ll meet you there in three hours.” Rose pulled out a flashdrive and tossed it to Lynn, “If I’m not there then then use these plans. It will be more difficult with one less person but you should be able to accomplish it without me.”

“Wait, what are you doing then? I could just take you with me. Why are you staying behind.”

“Didn’t I tell you Lynn? The most important thing about being a Phantom Thief is the plan.” Rose tapped her head with a finger. “The plan is all in here and ready to begin. Once you leave and I go out there the steps will be in motion to bring us to the Euclidian Key. You have to trust me on this one, I don’t have time to explain.”

Lynn glared at Rose. Then why hadn’t she explained earlier when they did have time. Was that part of the plan too? “Alright, I’ll wait three hours but you had better be there.” Then without waiting for everyone to get close to her she just open up the spacial tunnels and move all of them except for Rose outside of the building. Sixteen quick teleports later she was certain what nobody would be able to know where they had gone from the building.

“What is that woman thinking? If there is a plan here then I don’t know what is it.”

“Neither do I, but that is probably part of the plan. Right now we just have to trust Rose and follow her instructions.” Said Emiray, “So right now we need to find a place to hide for the next three hours while we wait for Rose to come join us.”

Three Hours Later

Emiray, Lynn, and R08 were waiting at the corner three blocks north of Rose’s apartment. “She isn’t head yet. We can not continue to wait for her any longer. We only have 8 hours to take the Euclidian Key back.” Lynn said as she held up the flash-drive that Rose had given her before they parted.

“Rose packed her laptop among the gear we were supposed to bring with us. We can use that to access the drive.” Said Emiray as she pulled out the laptop. It was a small laptop, most suitable for traveling. Lynn nodded and took the laptop from her, turning it on and inserted in flash drive.

The drive contained a large list of files. Maps, security guard routes and many other things. Lynn pulled up the plan and began reading through it. “This is strange.”

“How so?” Asked Emiray as she looked over Lynn’s shoulder to read the file with her.

“These plans only refer to me, you, and R08. Rose isn’t anywhere in them. It is like she never actually planned to do the job herself. I bet she is just leaving all the real work to us so that she can get more sleep.” Grumbled Lynn.

“Why would she go through the trouble of making such detailed instructions if she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to join us. No, that actually makes more sense, if she knew she wasn’t going to be able to join us then she would have to create more detailed instructions so that we would be able to accurately follow them.”

Lynn scowled as she scrolled through the instructions. ‘Well, I guess we should start at the beginning then. Since it recommends that we relocate to the University District we should do that. If we keep waiting around here then some more of the University Security might fine us and that would be annoying and would delay us.”

Then why began their journey back to the University District. Lynn took the trip slower then she had on the way to the Entertainment District to kept I easy on Emiray. She also kept the very high in the sky so that if anyone was looking up then they wouldn’t be able to notice the three of them.

She finally landed on the edge of the University District, far enough away from the Ark Tunnel Reactor that there couldn’t possible be any guards watching for them here. She checked her watch again when they stopped. Only 7 hours left, reading through the instructions and the trip over here too longer then she had expected.

Looking over the instructions she saw that they were still on time for the timetable that Rose had devised.

Three Hours Ago

Rose was wearing her Phantom Thief outfit. It really was the be set of clothing that she owned. Practical, comfortable, and stylish.

She tapped her watch and the door into her workshop slide closed making the entrance invisible again. There there was a grating sound, she knew her entire workshop was lowering into a lower apartment floor. It would be bad in the University Security found all of that stuff, plus she didn’t want her motorcycle to accidentally get damaged. Rose then switched her watch into safe mode. It won’t be able to help her like that but nobody would be able to distinguish it from a regular watch.

Rose looked at the spot Lynn and Emiray had been standing just a few minutes ago. She had wanted to tell them the entire plan but there were several reasons why she hadn’t been able to do that. She hoped that the two of them would be alright on their own.

She strapped on a small bag around her waist that carried all of her useful thief tools that Lynn hadn’t taken. She pulled out a small stun gun and raised the power on it a little. It was a newer model, much like a regular gun except with non fatal consequences. The security almost certainly weren’t using live ammunition, the Entertainment District wouldn’t allow that sort of things, so they were going to be using a weapon like hers. Of course they would be wearing armor which would protect them against her weapon. Without a direct hit on an unarmored location she would be unable to take them down.

She waited next to the door for the security to approach. Then one of the officers kicked in the door and two of them stepped into the room. Rose had been waiting for that moment. With to clicks and an electric sounding bang the two officiers where on the floor. She had managed to hit both of the in the groove at the neck where the armor barely covered them.

Rose then retreated back through the living room, keeping out of the way. There was certainly more then two. There were probably 10 or more, plus an esper or two. She slipped into her bed room hand put her back to the wall. She could here them starting to enter her main room, this time being more careful to avoid being hit. She wouldn’t be able to get another easy shot off like she had before.

She peak around the corner and saw that there were seven of them, at least that she could see. The Esper was not visible, probably waiting for Lynn to make her appearance and then make a surprise attack. That sort of thing worked on most people, even level 8 Espers. Rose supposed that once they realized that Lynn wasn’t here that she would be the person surprised.

There, she moved just enough to give her a clean shot and one of the security officers went down. She managed to pull back fast enough to see the stream of needles going by. One hit from one of those and she would be immobile for hours. So they were using that type of stun gun, unlike the electrical version that she was using.

She now kept her back to the wall. Now that they knew where she was it would be difficult to get another attack like that. She could probably hide under the bed or in the closet to catch another one or two of them off guard but then she would be caught by the rest of them. She guess it was time for the escape plan. She moved over toward the other side of the room and pulled the concealed latch, opening the door which lead into the apartment next door. On one side of her apartment was her secret workshop while the other had this secret exit, all self respecting Phantom Thefts had a few extra escape plans.

She pulled a sleeping gas canister out for her bag, pulled the pin and through it through the door into her living room. The soldier’s helmets probably filtered gases but it would buy her some time. She moved it the other apartment, which was empty. She owned this apartment too, to make sure she could escape at any time.

Even though it was supposed to be empty she was careful. The officers might have suspected that she would have a secret exit here and placed guards. She closed the secret door behind her and crept through the apartment to the door. She peeks through the peep hole and seeing nothing, opened the door a creak to look outside.

There were two more security guards standing outside of the door to her apartment. She wouldn’t be able to sneak out without both of them seeing her. She pointed the stun gun at them and shot once, then twice. The first one crumpled into a heap before he even realized what had happened, however there was a long enough gap between the two shots that the second guard managed to scream a warning before he too collapsed.

Not wasting any time Rose darted from the apartment and began running down the hallway toward the stairs down. She could hear commotion in her apartment she they must not have been effected by the sleeping gas, but luck seemed to be on her side and they took a while to exit her apartment. The gas must have at least hindered their visibility.

That is when she saw the young kid at the end of the hallway, near the stairs. The boy was wearing a school uniform. She couldn’t turn back now, so she pointed the gun at the boy and shot. The air between them suddenly grew and the air seemed to boil between them. The electrical charge that had been going toward him was gone.

Rose felt the gun in her hand begin to grow hot and she was forced to throw it away before it burned her hands. She had suspected the boy had been an Esper, no kid like that lived in this apartment, but she hadn’t expected that a fire esper was going to be sent to stop Lynn. This kid was obviously fairly high level too. Rose kicked down the door of another apartment and was about to enter when a wall of fire blocked her path.

She turned back to the boy and then back over her shoulder. A wall of fire was there too. Slowly Rose raised her hands signaling defeat. The raging fire behind her lowered and several of the security officers come up behind her one of the pull out handcuffs and locked her wrists together. The other began searching her.

The bag around her wast was swiftly taken away from her although it took them several minutes more to be certain that she wasn’t carrying anything else dangerous. Once they were satisfied they stepped back and let the boy take a step forward. Rose noticed an armband around his right arm. So he was a member of the student council, that explained his presence here and his high level.

“Where are the others?” Asked the boy.

“They aren’t here anymore.” Rose decided to answer truthfully, at least mostly truthfully. That made it easier to slip small lies in when she needed them to count. “Lynn brought Emiray away while I stay behind to distract you and make sure they had enough time to escape.”

“I see.” The boy motioned to the security officers, “Take her up to the helicopter. We are going to bring her back to the University District. The other two are most certainly going to be heading there. We can use her as a hostage to ensure their cooperation.” The officers saluted and they forcefully brought her up the stairs and onto the roof. Here there were several helicopters. Some of the officers were carrying their stunned compatiated up onto the roof.

Rose was forced into one of them and the boy took a seat across from her. “If you try anything then I am going to burn you until you stop. I hope you understand that.”

Rose nodded as she sat down in between two security officers. Once a couple more hand taken seats near the boy the helicopter began to take off. Moving through the sky it was bringing them toward the University District. It would take a couple of hours to get there by helicopter, by that time Lynn and Emiray would probably be worried about her. However Rose would be at the University District before them.

Rose had to conceal a smile. Things were going according to plan.

Rose had kept silent most of the trip. The officers surrounding her seemed to glare down at her even though most of them were about the same height as her. Eventually when she saw that the University District was getting near she asked, “What is it that Professor Gray is attempting?” Asked Rose.

“I don’t know what you are implying,” Said the boy. “Professor Gray is acting in the best interest of the University District. A criminal like you wouldn’t understand.”

“Yes, I find it difficult to understand why somebody would want to help Professor Gray activate the Euclidian Key using the full power of the Ark Tunnel Reactor. Or why he would any to do it in the first place.”

“I’m afraid that you are mistaken then. Professor Gray is only helping us protect the Euclidian Key from thieves like you and Lynn. If it gets activated then that is Lynn’s fault. If she plans on stealing it when she should expect that we would us it to keep that from happening. That is the only reason the Euclidian Key is being kept at the Ark Tunnel Reactor.”

The helicopter began to pull into a landing stop outside of what looked like a large power plant. Rose recognized it as the Ark Tunnel Reactor. She had looked over the floor plans enough that it wasn’t very difficult to recognize. “No wonder you where the one to retrieve Lynn. You don’t know what is really going on do you?” Asked Rose with a mocking smile on her face. “Had you gone up against Lynn then you wouldn’t have had a chance. You were sent because it didn’t matter if you succeeded or not.”

The boy glared at Rose, “I was not sent anywhere. I was assigned this task as part of my duties to the student counsel. You on the other hand are a theft, collaborating with criminals to steal the Euclidian Key. Why should I believe anything you have to say to me.”

The guards pushed Rose out of the helicopter and onto the landing zone. “Because you care about what is right don’t you? Don’t let the sweet lies fool you. Don’t let my words push you around. Find out for yourself what is really going on.”

“Take her to a storage room and lock her inside. Make sure to post guards and send for that noisy Inspector. Hopefully he will leave off of us if he get what he has been looking for.” Ordered the boy.

Rose cooperated with the guards as they led her into the facility. The room that they led her too was small and was generally used as a storage room given the stuff that was scattered around. The officers removed the cuff from one of her hands only to attach it to one of the pipes running through the room. Then they made about clearing the room of everything. They must have deemed the random things around the room were to dangerous to leave with a Phantom Thief. Eventually they left her alone in an empty room.

Alone she smiled to herself. “Hello ladies and gentlemen. Watch in amazement as I am locked inside a box and then miraculously escape.” She the began her magic trick. The guards outside never saw her escape.

Inspector Grim had just been informed about the capture of Phantom Thief Rose. Now he was being escorted through the complex to see the prisoner. He found it hard to believe that they had captured Phantom Thief Rose with only a handful of men and a boy but it seemed to have happened. Still, if the boy had been an Esper on the Student Council like the officer had said then it might have been possible.

“Here it is.” Said the security officer who was leading him. Inspector Grim had been irritated when he had arrived here and been ordered around by mere security officers. Since those and the Student Counsel was the closest the University District had to a police force there was no helping it, but what sort of place didn’t have a respectable police force.

Grim opened the door and stepped inside the room. There was a moment of silence before he said, “And how is this anything like capturing the Phantom Thief Rose?” The security officer looked at him in confusion before looking into the room himself. The room was empty except for the hand cuffs which were dangling on the pipe that they had been attached to. Phantom Thief Rose was missing.

“I can’t believe you left a Phantom Thief alone in a room.” Grim began shouting at the security officer, “What do you think a Phantom Thief does for a living? Wash windows? She could probably pick the lock with a toothpick. And how the hell did you let her escape this room? Were you sleeping or something.” Grim know that the officer could plainly see what he was talking about. Other then the door he had come in through there were no other exits to the room. No windows, no other doors, no ventilation ducts, nothing.

“Quickly, search the room. Just to be safe we need to make sure she isn’t hiding in the room and waiting to make her escape while we are distracted.” The officers who had been so reluctant to follow his orders before were now nodding and beginning to search the room. Once it was clear that Rose wasn’t hiding anywhere in the room Grim sent some of them off to go alert the Student Counsel about the escape.

The only thing that had been found in the room that was unusual was a single piece of paper with Rose’s scrawling hand writing on it. “Sorry Grimmy, but today is important so I am going to cheat. Try not to be angry with me.” Inspector Grim just balled it up and shoved it in his pocket when he had read it. He hated it when she called him Grimmy. It sounded silly.

Searching for Phantom Thief Rose was probably pointless but he send several more of the security officers off anyway. There was no reason to left Rose with a reason to relaxed. Grim had managed to gather quiet a crowd of security officers at this point. Without leadership from the student counsel he had managed to gain control of them rather easily. He knew what he was doing and people like this know to follow orders from people like him. Maybe these security officers weren’t so bad after all.

Professor Gray held the Euclidian Key gingerly. It was quite literally the key that would answer many questions. All of the data recording information had be correctly set up. It was a pity that it would need to be activated in the University District but the Ark Tunnel Reactor was the only source of power large enough to produce the necessary amount of power. When if activated it would provide new information. The research that had been done on Lynn was useful but without the scale and power of this experiment there was a limit to how much could be learned.

If the calculations he had received from Prometheus were complete then the Euclidian Key would temporarily unravel local space. Watching that would reveal who knew how much. Things like warp travel would no longer be impossible after observing such and occurrence. Such a colossal discovery would dwarf even the loss of life that was necessary for this experiment. Everybody in the reactor would die and probably a large section of the University District too, but it was all for the greater good. Professor Gray hesitated, he had always thought the greater good was what mattered, if he was willing to give his own life for that then why not other people’s lives.

Svenn was there next to him, “Best not to dwell on what is right and what is wrong. It is too late to now, you have already done too much. All of those feeling are temporal, they will leave eventually. Once records, knowledge left will last. Those are the things we must strive the discover and protect. People die, placed decay, only knowledge has the ability to last forever.”

Gray slipped the Key into his coat pocket, “Yes, of course Svenn. You are right. I can’t let my emotions trick me into letting go of the greater good.” Gray then looked up at the young man. “How is everything going. I recently complete all of my preparations. If everything is going well then I am going to begin bringing the reactor up to the correct power level. That might take a few hours but it will be done at least an hour before the announced theft time.”

“All the preparations are ready but I do have something to report. Apparently the Student Counsel member that was sent to capture Lynn and Emiray came back with a captured Phantom Thief. You were busy with preparations so I was going to inform you later. However the Phantom Thief managed to escape our custody and is now hiding somewhere in the building.” Said Svenn.

“What? How did she escape? Shouldn’t she have been guarded, she is a Phantom Thief after all.”

“It should have been sufficient. There room was guarded from the outside and there were no other exits from the room. None of the guards outside of the room noticed her escape but somehow she managed it.”

“You should be able to track her down, correct?” Asked Professor Gray.

“Yes, but that would require diverting my attention from the teleportation detection field that I am helping form. If I did that then Lynn would be able to sneak in without our knowledge. Since I can only assume she is able to sense the field because of the letter that was delivered I must also assume that she will notice if the field fails and will take advantage of that. Without me coordinating the efforts of our three teleporters they would be unable to maintain the field.”

Gray nodded, “I suppose that even if she is a Phantom Thief that there is only so much that she is able to accomplish. Increase the guard in the reactor room just to make certain that she doesn’t get inside. I’ll head over there with you to make sure she doesn’t make an early attempt at on the Euclidian Key.”

“Also,” said Svenn, “That Inspector, Grim I think he name was, used the escape to take command of many of our security officers. It may become an issue. Should I make sure he is sent away?”

Gray shook his head, “No, let him do what he can with them. He is experienced with dealing with Phantom Thief Rose and should make sure she doesn’t bother us anymore. Give him a squad to control and make sure that the others are placed either under your control or the Student Counsel.”

“What is Enforcer Wade decided to break the commands of the student counsel and oppose us. He has an independent streak in him and had a chance to speak with Rose during the helicopter flight here. He may begin to look into what we are doing and then try to stop us.”

“If he does then I will expect you to deal with him. Your level is higher then him so that shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Yes, he is only a level 6. I should be able to handle him as long as he doesn’t join forces with Lynn. My current network had enough Espers in it that he should be quickly dealt with if necessary. Although again I wouldn’t be able to keep up the teleportation detection field if that happened.”

“I understand, don’t oppose him unless absolutely necessary.” Gray stood up and began moving toward the door, making sure to shut his computer behind him “Come on then. We should get to the reactor room and begin the increase in power. If you see Wade then tell him it is in preparation if Lynn decides to attack early.

Enforcer Wade looked at the phone he was holding in his hand. He had just gotten off the phone with the Student Counsel 2nd Vice President. The things he had been told by the Phantom Thief Rose during the helicopter flight had been bothering him. He knew he couldn’t trust the words of a Thief but he had decided to give a call to the Vice President just to check things out. The call however had made him even more worried.

He had been told directly by the Vice President that there was no point in asking questions like that and that he should just follow the orders that he had been given. Wade didn’t like following orders just because he had been ordered to do so. It really cut at his nerves when that happened.

He didn’t yet know what is was but something was definitely fishy about this entire situation. A level 8 Esper had gone rouge and only he had been sent to deal with the problem. With a level 8 Esper only another equally powerful Esper should be able to handle it. Normally one of the Vice Presidents or the President himself would make a person appearance to deal with it, possible even multiple of them.

Instead it was just him, no not just him. He knew there were other Espers here as well, although he didn’t know how many or how powerful they were. That man, Svenn, was almost certainly an Esper and probably quite strong. A level 5 maybe. Nothing that Wade wasn’t capable of handling, although now knowing what Svenn’s power was could mean trouble if Wade was surprised.

A security guard was approaching him. “Enforcer Wade, I have bad news. The Phantom Thief Rose managed to escape from under tight guard and we have yet to recapture her.”

Wade ground his teeth. Things were going from bad to worse. Lynn could start making a move at any moment and now the Phantom Thief had escaped. “Tell me everything that happened?” Said Wade in impatience.

The security guard explained the situation, both Rose’s escape and how Inspector Grim was beginning to take charge of the search for Rose. Wade nodded as he listened. The looked up at the officer, if he remembered right this officer should be trustworthy. “I need you to do something for me. I want you to go report directly to Svenn and help him however you can. However I want you to keep an eye on him. If he does anything strange come and report directly to me about it.”

The guard nodded but asked, “Do you not trust Svenn, do you think he is in league with the Phantom Thief?”

“Not exactly but something is wrong about this entire operation. Something strange is happening and I don’t like the smell of it. The way things are currently looking the University Security force and the Student Counsel is going to take the brunt of whatever is going to happen. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen. Now remember, take care and report anything strange to me.”

The officer nodded and began heading off. Wade didn’t waste any time and began heading toward the security station for the Reactor. If there was a place where they could be caused the most damage it would be there.

“Is this really going to work?” Asked Emiray. She felt that she was looking kind of silly in the black and blue uniform that the student council wore. The entire uniform made her uncomfortable, plus the silly armband which showed her supposed low rank in the student council made it all worse. What if somebody realized that she wasn’t an Esper, that could ruin everything.

“How should I know, it was Rose’s plan and she is the one who should be certain that it will work.” Lynn wore a disgusted look of her face. She was wearing the same style of uniform that Emiray was and she liked it even less then Emiray did. “I’ve spent more then a year trying to avoid wearing one of these and now here I am wearing one. Do you realize how hard it is for a level 8 Esper to avoid joining the Student council? They practically break down my door trying to get me to join and once they actually did break it down.

Lynn adjusted her hat, making sure that all of her hair was correctly underneath it. Nobody should be able to recognize Emiray but it was a different matter for Lynn, all the members of the Student council would certainly know her on sight and so would a great many of the guards. So she wore a hat to hide her hair and the makeup that Rose had provided in the bad had done wonders to make her look like a completely different person.

Sure the hat was against Student council regulations but the dress code was very laxly enforced when most of the members were high level Espers who generally liked to show their own unique style. The only part of the uniform which was always required was the armband that signified she was a member of the student council. The really ironic part was the if she had really been a member of the Student Council she would have a higher rank then her current armband indicated. An Esper’s strength meant a lot in the Student Council and Lynn would have had an easy track to becoming a Vice President if she had join. She might even have been able to become President if she had any talent at manipulation and politics.

Still even the lowly generally affairs officer armband irked her. She had always felt that the Student Council was too manipulative and secretive. They might have had too be with the highly political atmosphere that hung around importance in the University District. It was the sort of atmosphere that only really appeared when even the lowest ranking officials could wield enormous power. There was certainly more intrigue inside the Student Council then there was outside of it.

Lynn looked like a different person with the makeup and uniform but Emiray wasn’t even recognizable. The radically different clothes and the haircut seemed to change her into someone completely different. Without the work torn clothes and grease smears she seemed even younger. That wasn’t an issue, age didn’t matter to the Student Council only Esper power did. Emiray’s rank was only lower then Lynn’s rank, it was the rank that really amounted to no more then a servant.

The only thing that made them looked like their normal selves was that there were two of them. That might be an issue if they dealt with a real member of the Student Council, especially if there was one from General Affairs here. Two lowly members of the Council wouldn’t attract very much attention and they should be able to sneak in without arousing suspicion. Then the objective was to get as close to the Euclidian Key as they would get without alerting anyone. If they got discovered then the difficult part began. They would need to get close enough to the Euclidean Key for Lynn to touch to before they could make their escape.

Unlike most things Lynn knew it would be more difficult to teleport the Key, it’s construction had to make it especially spatially stable to that it could handle the teleportation powers. That had the side effect of making it difficult to teleport while it had any sort of charge.

R08 however wouldn’t be able to enter the reactor with them. It would be too difficult to explain the presence of a robot and why a couple of lowly members of the Student Council would need to bring one around with them. Instead R08 had been set up in a hidden location with all of the maps and plan information. Through the small transponders that they had they could keep in touch with R08 and each other if things when bad. They would need to remain silent on the channel until it was important though. There was no knowing if somebody would be listening and discover them.

“Is there anything else that still needs to be done before we are ready for the plan to begin?” Asked Lynn.

Emiray looked over the plans on the computer one more time. “No, we have anything we need. There is still three more hours until the estimated theft time. Rose’s plans say that the Euclidian Key should be ready to activate for until at least an hour before the announced time. Still I think we should hurry, they might have found a way to speed up the process.

Lynn nodded, “I agree. I guess it is time to go then.”

The two of them left R08 in the hiding spot and began walking toward the entrance to the Ark Tunnel Reactor. They were stopped by the guard who glanced at their arm bands and asked, “More Student Council huh? What is it that you need?”

The rehearsed lines stumbled for a second in Lynn’s mind before she finally managed to pull them out, “We are members of General Affairs sections three. We have been sent to make sure that the full report of today’s activities gets filed correctly.” One of the main duties of General Affairs was to take care of mundane affairs like reports.

The guard nodded, “Alright then.” The officer opened the gate for them and let them in. “You should go see Enforcer Wade. He should be near the security room. I’ll call you in so that he will be expecting you.”

Lynn tried her best to smile thankfully. Inside she was cursing. Informing the other members of the Student Council was the last thing that she wanted to happen. The longer it took for them to find out Lynn and Emiray were here the better. When two Student Council members failed to show up for a meeting it would sound alarm bell, probably literally in this case. “Thank you. We will make sure to go see him immediately.”

The officer nodded and the two of them walked through the gates and toward the reactor building. Once they had left the guard’s earshot Lynn said, “Already something is weird. I know of Enforcer Wade, he is a fire type Esper. His firepower is impressive but basically useless against me. Somebody higher up in the Council must be interfering if Wade in the one in charge. A rogue level 8 Esper like me should be dealt with by somebody more powerful then Wade. Also there is at least one other strong Esper here. Somebody is keeping a very complex spacial disturbance web across the entire place.”
“Is that a type of teleportation? I thought teleportation should only move things.” Asked Emiray.

“Only a little bit. It is like teleporting your senses elsewhere with the sole intention of detecting teleportation. It is a rather complex and tiring activity. Most teleports wouldn’t be able to accomplish it, especially one this wide. The weird thing is that is doesn’t feel like a teleporter is doing it. The web is unstable and rough, normally someone good enough to make one this large would have the skill refined. It is more like several Espers are maintaining it together, though that is no small feat by itself.”

“Are you sure teleportation is all you are capable? This spacial sensing thing doesn’t sound like teleportation at all.” Said Emiray.

Lynn was about to answer that it was just a differently applied method of teleportation when she actually stopped to think about it. She remembered that Rose had said that to get better she would need to cease being just a teleport and become an impossible multitalent. Sure, forming the web was a form of teleportation, the ability to detect other teleports was something all teleporters learned and the web was just expanding the range using spacial tunnels. However was her refined ability to detect the web really teleportation. It had been one of the tricks she had been unable to teach people. What if those tricks she that she had been unable to teach weren’t teleportation but were a separate talent entirely. Grudgingly Lynn said, “Who knows. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell what is one talent and what is another, especially for high level Espers.”

Then Lynn though of something. If other teleporters were unable to detect a web then she could set up her own without being detected. If she traced the spacial tunnels of the current web she would be able to locate the Esper or espers that were forming it, all without being detected herself. The question was how to trace the origin of a spacial tunnel. That was when Lynn really smiled, she had found her chink in her mental block, something a more powerful Esper could accomplish. “Come on Emiray, we had a little bit of extra time. I have something interesting that needs to be done.”

“That sounds dangerous.” Commented Emiray.

Lynn ignored that comment. There was no sensible path that a spacial tunnel followed so she would need to invade the returning tunnel which brought the information back to the teleporter. She connected her own razor thin spacial tunnels, connecting and leeching off the small tunnels all around. Suddenly her she could feel the tunnels through the air connection her location to other places.

Emiray walked silently beside Lynn watching the blank face young woman. Eventually Lynn furrowed her brow and commented, “There are three minor teleporters keeping this web up, however they are in completely different places. Somehow they are connected so that they can synchronize the web. I’m trying to feel out how but there seems to be no spacial connection between them like they are all individually doing it but somehow managing to avoid missing areas or overlap.”

“On another important note,” continued Lynn, “It seems this method is capable of location the Euclidian Key. The Key has a very strong resonance and I am able to detect it. If the maps are correct then it is where we expect it to be, in the main reactor room.”

“Good, that is one thing we don’t have to worry about. But how do you think the minor teleporters are communicating? Cell phones?”

Lynn shook her head at Emiray’s question. “No, to be able to accurately maintain a web like this with three people you would need to be able to sense the tunnels that the other Espers are generating. These sorts of spacial tunnels are not detectable except at their origin, myself excluding, so they should be unable to do this from different locations.”

“What if there is a fourth Esper helping them? One capable of coordinating the efforts at a long distance.”

“Possible, given the situation. Although advanced planning and exact partitioning of where each Esper is in charge of could manage this. That would require practice though. Another possibility, although just as unlikely as the first. Either way we need to be careful.” Lynn paused and considered an idea, “I could cut off the warp tunnels by creating reverse flows at the same location. Although that would show that we are here.” And possible injure the people creating the web, reverse tunnels placed over current tunnels caused things to explode. She had learned that when first trying to figure out ways to get distance teleportation to work.

Enforcer Wade frowned as he entered the main security center for the Ark Tunnel Reactor. The room was dark except for the computer screens which cast strange shadows all around the room. The room shouldn’t have been empty. Even if the guard was stronger elsewhere there should still be people in this room. It was where all the security camera footage was and it contained the entire alarm system. If there was a security breach in the reactor then this room would be the first place that would know about it.

However nobody would know about it if there was nobody here. Wade lit several floating fires before continuing into the room. It was a large room, big enough for plenty of people but that meant even with his light the room was still covered with shadows. He tried flicking on the lights but there was no result. He could feel crunching under his feet and he understood the reason.

Shards of glass covered the floor. Looking up Enforcer Wade saw that the lights had all been broken out. Was this caused by Phantom Thief Rose, or maybe Lynn and that other girl, or was in something else. He moved over to one of the computer terminals and checked the monitor. Everything seemed to be working correctly. Why would somebody break the lights and make all the officers that were supposed to be here disappear but leave the computers functioning.

“This is quite a conundrum isn’t it?” Said a silky voice from behind him. He spun around to see Phantom Thief Rose standing in the doorway. She was wearing a Security Officer’s uniform, although how she had managed to get one which seemed tailored for her she didn’t know. She seemed preoccupied with looking around the room.

“Is this your doing? What happened to all the guards that were supposed to be stationed here?” Asked Wade. The balls of flame hanging around the room pulsed and grew bigger. Wade would be capible of cutting of Rose’s escape path instantly but he wanted her to feel that he was dangerous.

“No idea. I just got here myself. Maybe the found out something they shouldn’t have and then Professor Gray’s crony had to deal with them before they told you about it.” Rose messed with one of the computers and one the first try got the name and password of a security officer who had been too loose with his money in a bar several weeks ago.

“What are you doing?” Asked Enforcer Wade menacingly. The balls of fire grew hotter momentarily, changing color several times before settling down to red again. Suddenly all of the screens in the room were displaying the same same video. It was off the primary room of the Reactor. The reactor’s power gauge was already well into the red section which signified a dangerous level of power. Nearby the reactor was Professor Gray. He was connecting the Euclidian Key to the reaction using lots of cables and strange devices.

“I see. Professor Gray is just preparing the Euclidian Key to use against Lynn. The power overload must just be a coincidence. I’m so glad that you were right. I will cease by thief attempt immediately and turn myself in.” The sarcasm in Rose’s voice was very difficult to miss.

Enforcer Wade glared daggers at Rose and then back at the security camera feed. Those power levels were incredibly dangerous. Wade didn’t know much about how the Ark Tunnel Reactor worked but even he knew that what Gray was doing was foolish. Nobody would go through that much effort to stop an Esper, there were ways of dealing with even a level 8 Esper that didn’t require that much power. If there was the slightest mistake then the entire power plant would be destroyed, no even if there wasn’t a mistake it was likely that there would be nothing more then a crater in the ground when the Key activated.

Wade looked back toward Rose but she was gone. She had slipped away while Wade was looking at the screens and now that she was out of sight Wade wasn’t able to do anything to her short of melting the entire building. Leaving the security room, Wade began heading toward the Reactor Room. He had a few choice words to trade with Professor Gray. The first would probably involved a punch to the nose but he wasn’t sure how he wanted to follow that.



Once Enforced Wade had left the room, Phantom Thief Rose stepped out off her hiding spot. That trick worked so many times it was silly. Step into a hiding place while somebodies back is turned and they automatically assume that you managed to leave. Inspector Grim was getting better about checking places before he expanded the search but other people continued to make the same mistake. Well, you only learn from mistakes if you know you made one.

Rose stepped back toward the computer and flipped through several different security camera feeds. Eventually she found one that she was looking for. It showed two Student Council members walking though the hallways. Good, it looked like they were on schedule. Things were probably going to start going bad very quickly but they should have some time to spare.

She flipped through a few more of the video feeds before spotting the other person wearing a school uniform walking through the halls. It was the mysterious Esper Svenn. That person was turning out to be more of an issue then she had though. She had only barely managed to avoid running into him three times. There was something different about that youth. If Svenn and Wade were the only Espers here that were sent to deal with Lynn then one or both must be extremely powerful. From Rose’s experience, Wade was powerful and while he might be able to meet blows in a fight with Lynn, he would never be able to stop her from stealing something.

Therefore it must by Svenn which Professor Gray was banking on being able to stop Lynn. For that to be true he either needed to have a power which would neutralize a teleport or be of approximately equal strength with her to neutralize her long enough for the Euclidian Key to activate. Rose didn’t know how to effectively neutralize a Teleport so that must mean that he was a high level Esper. That made things difficult. She needed to avoid powerful Espers for her plan to have a chance at success.

However that was still step two. The first step was about to happen. Enforcer Wade would distract the unknown Esper Svenn so that Rose would be able to put the first plan into motion. She searched the controls for a minute before she found it. Then she pressed the fire alarm. There was an ear shreeking sound throughout the entire facility as the alarm went off and then the spinklers began to spray water everywhere.

Rose lifted up the umbrella which she had found in the locker room with the uniform she was currently wearing. It was there conveniently, many things were convenient for Rose because she planned for them. In this case she had bribed a security officer yesterday to convince them to bring the uniform and umbrella to work.

The computer were all beginning to shut down now. They were set up to shut down and preserve data in case they got wet. There had probably never been a real fire here otherwise those in charge off the building would probably have removed the sprinklers from the computer room. Rose sat down on one of the chairs which was still mostly dry and waited.

It didn’t take very long. Soon Inspector Grim and a half a dozen Security Officers burst into the room. “Hello Grimmy. I’m taking a back role in this theft so I thought we should have some fun together before everything exciting starts happening. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Rose.” Shouted Inspector Grim, forgetting to even add her title of Phantom Thief to her name, “I have no idea what you are planning, but attempting a Theft in the University District is against everything that you have previously stood for. I may have occasionally been lax on you in the Entertainment District but that isn’t going to happen here. This time you will really be arrested and the University justice is less forgiving then the Entertainment justice.”

“Arrest me? There are lots of things you should be more concerned about then arresting me. Things like, I don’t know, maybe the demolition charges that I have set all around the building.” Rose looked at her watch casually. There there was a loud, far off explosion. The building slightly shook like it was during an earthquake. “There goes the first one. It is only a matter of time before the others ones start to go off. You should probably get out of here now.”

“That’s it.” Said Inspector Grim. He was literally quivering with rage. He stepped forward and with one quick movement slapped a handcuff around Rose’s hand. The other end was connected to Grim’s hand. “I don’t know what changed but you are no longer Phantom Thief Rose, you are just a criminal. And since you are a criminal it is my duty to arrest you.”

Rose slowly stood up and straightened. At her full height she was just a hair taller then Grim when she stood like that, something Grim always resented. “Your right, I’m not a Phantom Thief now. I’m just a person, doing what needs to be done. What are you Grim? Are you an Inspector, arresting a criminal or are you a person who is doing what needs to be done.” She looked over his shoulder at the Security Officers behind him.

“Grim, get those people out of here. Once you have done that you can come back for me if you want. I won’t stop you then. However right now there are things that I need to do. I’m not playing by the rules right now, neither are you. So decide. Either continue to chase me or make sure this building is empty. If you don’t then a lot of people are going to die here.”

Rose lifted her handcuffed hand and held it so that Grim could see, “Sorry Grim but today I’m cheating.” Then slowly the handcuff passed though her hand and then dropped, swinging back and forth with the other side still connected to Grim. During that one moment Grim was dumbfounded. Then he realized that Rose looked shorted, no, she was shorter. He looked down and then watched stunned as Rose slipped through the floor and was gone.

There was a long moment while Grim considered what happened and what Rose had told him. The reason she had called him out here, the reason she wasn’t acting like a proper Phantom Theft, the reason why was acting with assistants, the reason she had started the fire alarm, the reason she had set the explosives, and the reason she had spoke to him. Then everything clicked into place like the gears in a large machine finally in the correct position.

“This building is rigged to explode.” Yelled Inspector Grim at the security officers. “Make sure to get everybody out of here. You have ten minutes. Find anyone you can and make sure all off them leave. After the ten minutes are up I expect all of your to leave the building yourself.” Some of the officers looked at him in surprise, “Come on, do it. Lives come first man! Go! Go! Go! I’ll deal with the Phantom Thief. You work on making sure that everybody survives.”

Finally the security officers began to obey his orders. They are began running in different directions. Inspector Grim ran with them for a couple of minutes giving new orders to security officers which they came across. Soon most off the officers in the building had gotten the message.

“Hello Enforcer Wade. I see that vixen has tricked you.” Svenn stood outside the reactor room. He was calm and looked like he had been waiting for Wade to arrive.

Wade stood there outside the room staring at Svenn. “Somebody has been tricking me. That I am certain of, it has yet to be seen who it is that is tricking me. Now step aside. I need to see Professor Gray. It had come to my attention that the reactor is reaching critical power. Even to stop a level 8 that is still too much.”

Svenn stood there not moving, “I’m afraid that I can’t do that. Nobody is allowed to enter until the experiment is over. Leave and I will inform Professor Gray that you wished to speak with him at his earliest convenience.”

“That isn’t good enough. I need to speak with him now. Under the authority given to me by the University Student Council I demand that you step aside and let me see Professor Gray.” Said Enforcer Wade with the menacing tone.

“You just had to press the issue didn’t you. Then let me tell you plainly. I am not letting you through this door no matter who’s authority you act with. The only way you are going through it past my dead body. I hope that is plain enough for you.” Svenn spoke almost casually, like he didn’t even consider Enforcer Wade to be a threat.

Wade growled, “Well if that is the way it is.” He hands glowed with intense heat and a ball of fire formed between his hands. He threw the ball at Svenn, missing him by a hair. The wall behind Svenn blacked and the top layer began to dribble down to the floor. Svenn however had not moved even an inch. He had just stood there and watched the ball of fire miss him by a hair.

Svenn then began to step closer, “If that all that you have. That pitiful fireball isn’t enough to stop me. I expected more from an Enforcer. I hope you managed to bring out something more interesting so that I will be able to enjoy myself. Svenn was smiling as he continued to step closer and closer.

Walls of fire began to push up around them, surrounding them with burning heat. Svenn didn’t even seem to notice. Wade formed another ball of fire and threw this one directly toward Svenn. Svenn however stepped slightly to the side and avoided the ball with almost no effort. Step by step Svenn grew closer and closer to Wade. As they got closer Wade began to get scared. He continued to throw balls of fire but Svenn kept avoiding them by barely moving.

Wade didn’t know what to do, nobody stood in the rain of fire like that and cleanly avoided all of his attacks. This man just kept stepping closer and there was nothing Wade could do to stop him. The man wasn’t even using his Esper powers.

Then Svenn was within the last step of Wade. Svenn reached out his hand to grab him when Wade suddenly decided that he had had enough. Fire erupted around him spreading out in all directions. No matter how he tried Svenn couldn’t avoid a sheet of fire spreading outward. Everything turned into an inferno for seconds.

Then a voice came from the wall of fire in front of Wade, “This is a little better I suppose.” The wall of fire began to flicker and then out of it shot large columns of ice. When they made contact with the fire they produced huge clouds of steam which began to freeze again when a gust of icey cold wind swept out from Svenn. The fires were swiftly extinguished and Wade stared in shock.

“Your an ice esper?” He said in surprise, “There are many things I expected were possible but an Ice Esper was never one of them.” Then Wade suddenly began to grin, “However not expecting it isn’t going to protect you. Your powers are level 5 which isn’t going to be able to stop me when I get serious. I hope you are going to enjoy this like you said.”
The temperature suddenly began to spike again. Water and Ice flash melted and then even the water vapor seemed to burn away. The air suddenly began to feel dry and hot. However in the steam Svenn had managed to vanish from his sight. He turned around looking for him when suddenly he felt a hand grab onto his shoulder.

“I never said I was an Ice Esper now did I?” Came the dry, uninterested voice of Svenn. Then Wade felt and heard the buzzing. Suddenly his entire body went into shock. It felt like he had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Then the feeling went on for what felt like hours. Wade collapsed onto the ground as soon as Svenn let go of him.

He laid on the ground his limbs not answering him and the fire kept escaping his grasp. “What? An electrical esper? Then how did you do the ice?” Enforcer Wade was feeling afraid something that hadn’t happened to him an ages, he was afraid that he was going to be killed. However even that feel didn’t mask his surprise, how had this person done what had just happened.

“Electric? Wrong again Wade. Too bad I can’t give you another chance to guess but it is time for you to go to sleep. If you are lucky then you might even eventually wake up, but don’t count on it. This entire facility is unlikely to exist in an hour. So rest until then.” Svenn then pulled back his boot and kicked Wade in the head. There was another feeling like a lightning bold hit him and then Wade was unconscious.

Svenn stood over Wade with a feeling of satisfaction. One problem down, three to go. Svenn turned and began walking down the hallway. He didn’t want to leave Gray practically unguarded but the other threats needed to be dealt with before anything else happened. He should have done it earlier but now he would deal correctly with the invaders. Gray could deal this any problems by himself, after all the Reactor was mostly charged and Gray could activate the Euclidian Key as protection.

“I understand, as soon as we make contact with Enforcer Wade we will make sure to immediately leave.” Said Lynn with a nod to the Security Officer. She had been worried when the officer had approached them a few minutes after the first explosion. She had been afraid that they would be discovered but she managed to relax after she realized that wasn’t the case. It seemed that something was happening in the facility.

“Are you certain that is what is happening? That the Phantom Thief Rose managed to escape and place explosives all over the building?” Emiray tried to control her emotion as she spoke. It was good to hear that Rose had managed to escape captivity but it was surprising to know that she had managed to get here by being taken captive.

“As certain as I can be. I was told directly by Inspector Grim what happened. The security is now under orders to make sure that everyone evacuates before the building comes crashing down. I need to make sure everybody knows. Now remember to get out of the building as soon as you report it Enforcer Wade. I don’t know if he knows the situation so make sure you tell him when you see him.

The two of them nodded in agreement as the security officer began to head off in the opposite direction. After the guard was out of earshot Emiray said, “Do you supose that Rose got captured deliberately so that she could be brought her by a different method.”

“That is very likely. However I still don’t get why she did it. She could have just as easily came with us and the split up after we arrived here. Do you suppose that she is destroying the building to cause this evacuation. It is certainly convenient for us, any suspicion that would be thrown on us is discarded because of the panic.”

“We had better get to the Reactor Room and make sure the Euclidian Key is disabled. Even though the theft isn’t supposed to happen yet I would suggest that we hurry. Gray certainly isn’t just going to wait around while all of this is happening. He will probably activate the Euclidian Key as soon as the power peaks and he might not even wait that long. Who knows how long we even have at this point.”

“Yes, we had better hurry. Now that we are close I think it is about time to disrupt this temporal web. WIth the confusion that is going on nobody will be in any state to be informed that it has fail.” Lynn closed her eyes to aid in concentration. She stretched backward through the temporal tunnels that spread throughout the facility. Then with a single flow pushed backward through all of the tunnels. She could feel them snapping all around her, breaking like thin threads. The everything suddenly felt very silent. The web was gone and now she felt like she could really stretch her muscles.

“Come on Emiray, we have work to do. Let’s go pay Professor Gray a visit and really make his day miserable. Once we had dealt with him I will be expecting you to find a way to shut down the power plant. I would rather not have to destroy the entire thing because I would have no other option if you weren’t here.”

“No problem, the Ark Tunnel Reactor has many similarities with other Reactors. I will be able to find a way to shut it down.”

Across the reactor Svenn felt the spacial network break apart. Lynn must finally be making her move. That should be fine, the web had done a good job of delaying Lynn and now the reactor had plenty of time to charge and the Euclidian Key should be activated at any moment now. However there was one last thing he wanted to deal with before that happened. A certain Phantom Thief was still an annoyance and he wanted to deal with her personally. Many of the things that went wrong today were her fault.

The security was in shatters because of her bomb threat and Inspector Grim making everybody leave the building. His battle with Enforcer Wade had also been her fault, he had wanted to lead him around and help work against Rose and her friends but she had managed to corrupt Wade away from the greater good.

Now it was personal and Svenn wasn’t going to let Rose get away. He was free from managing the temporal web so he could divert his attention toward finding her. Her presence was easy to location but when he actually sensed her, he was surprised. This should have been the first time he sensed Phantom Thief Rose but he recognized the feeling. Ahah, so that was the identity of the Phantom Thief Rose. That explained many of her strange tricks.

Svenn smiled to himself and he walked through the hallways leading to the room that Rose seemed to be waiting it. He wanted to know if Rose already knew who he was, had she been opposing him without knowing? It seemed unlike that Rose would have gone out of her way to avoid him unless that was true.

It would be an interesting reunion, the two of them finally seeing each other after a long while. It would be an interesting encounter and the evening promised to end with a space shattering bang. He could feel the shivers. He could talk to Gray all he wanted about how only knowledge matters but even he knew that when everything came down to it nobody truly believed that. Even he had something that took priority now.

Lynn shifted the security officer sideways to avoid the attack and then proceeded to shift the officer all the way outside the building. Normally she would have dealt with them in an easier and faster method such as shifting them slightly into the floor so that they would be stuck there until somebody dug them out. However this time she couldn’t risk that. If they were left there and something went wrong then the officers might die without being able to escape.

While Lynn was dealing with the first officer Emiray kicked the legs out from the other one. While that officer fell Lynn was able to finish the teleportation and moved the other officer outside of the building next to the first one. Then to make sure that any other officer’s wouldn’t be able to follow them, Lynn moved a section of the wall into place blocking the hallway.

These had been the first officers which hadn’t been convinced by their story that they were members of the Student Council. They had tried talking their way out of it but things had gone wrong that the two of them had forced to deal with them. They were getting closer to the Reactor room so it made sense that the security was tighter here.

They rounded the corner and ran down a hallway before the found Enforcer Wade lying on the ground. “This, this is Enforcer Wade. What is he doing here and what is he doing unconscious?” The both examined Wade for a minute. Her initial impression was correct, it seemed that Wade was unconscious and not dead. His chest was still rising and falling.

“Well, we can figure out what happened to him later. We should just be glad we didn’t have to deal with him.” Said Emiray as she put her hand on his shoulder and lifted him slightly up so she could prop him against the wall. “Do you think you can bring him outside of the complex too. We shouldn’t just leave him here, who knows what might happen.”

Lynn nodded and was about to move him when his eyes flickered open and he looked at the two of them, “Ah, Lynn and you must be Emiray. I see you made it.” He rolled his head a little bit but it seemed like he was unable to properly move his body. “Your under arrest.” He chuckled a little bit to himself, “I don’t quite know what you are doing but it is still breaking the law, however something is strange with Svenn and Gray. I tried to stop them but I failed. I’m going to invoke my right as a Student Council member. Lynn your punishment for attempting to steal the Euclidian Key is community service. I expect you to protect this facility from getting destroyed by the Euclidian Key. Do that and I will consider your crimes forgiven. Understand.”

Lynn smiled and nodded, “Sure, that sounds like an acceptable punishment.” She knew this was sometimes how the University District operated. You weren’t allowed to break the rules even if it was because it was the right thing to do but when that happened the punishment that followed was usually not a punishment at all. It was probably the closest thing she would get to an apology. “Now relax again. I’m going to move you outside the building.”

Wade just nodded and then he was gone. Lynn stood and looked down the hallway. The room at the end was where the reactor and the Euclidian Key. They were almost there, just a bit more and they would be able to recover the Euclidian Key.

However Lynn wasn’t given that chance. The entire facility shook and the she felt it, “No, no yet. It can’t happen yet.” Shouted Lynn as she vanished. Lynn reappeared only a few feet from where she had been standing. She then flickered again, this time appearing a little bit behind where she had been. “No!” Then Lynn began to run down the hall.

Emiray didn’t get a chance to ask Lynn what had happened, although she had a sinking feeling that she knew what had happened. Suddenly the earth tilted upward. The walls creaked and broke in front of them as everything began to tilt. Lynn grabbed onto Emiray and then the two of them shifted. “What? Again?” Growled Lynn as they appeared only a few feet from where they had been. The hallway continued to shift and they began to fall. They shifted again and this time it seemed to work. Lynn had moved them to the edge of the hallway, just before the shift was happening.

“That fool has activated it. We are too late. That fool device is messing up all of local space. I’m having trouble compensating for all the changes.” Lynn looked frustrated.

“Will you be able to stop it?” Asked Emiray. The walls seemed to be bulging around them, yet the amount of space that was in the hallway didn’t seem to decrease. Emiray was feeling a bit disoriented by that.

“Stop it? I don’t know. Temporarily at least. Managing a spacial distortion on this scale is something that nobody is trained for. Hopefully I’ll be able to compensate for the difference and get my teleportation working again. When I can begin repairing the tears that are beginning to form. However all that will do is buy some time. I will need to get to the reactor and move in into space while keeping everything in tact.”

“No.” Said Emiray, “You deal with keeping everything together. I will get to the reactor room and shut down the reactor. That way you can keep your entire attention on preventing space from distorting too much. Once I get to the reactor room all I will need is a few minutes to shut down the reactor.”

“But…” Said Lynn, she couldn’t leave the job of stoping the reactor to this girl. It was Lynn’s responsibility and she needed to stop it herself. Had she never working with Professor Harold then the Key would have never been created and this never would have happened. It was all her fault and she couldn’t let someone else do this part for her.

“No buts, I’ll deal with it. We both have a better chance of success if we each do a different job. If you tried to do it by yourself then you lower the chance of success. We can’t risk that, we are running out of time and we need to get this done.” Emiray then turned around and began heading down the slanted corridor which was not dangerously unsteady.

Lynn wanted to object, to tell Emiray that she would do it all herself. However Emiray was right. Together they stood a better chance of success. It would be easier for Lynn to hold back the Key’s power if she didn’t need to concentrate on destroying the reactor. She looked one last time at Emiray and then shifted somewhere else.

The spacial tunnels were more difficult now then they had been in ages. It was also difficult to judge distance, she had meant to end up one floor higher where most of the disturbance was beginning to localize. However she overshot and ended up on the room. This place would have to work then. She reached out around her feeling the local space. It was more confusing then usual. Then Lynn began to make stuff up. She opened the tunnels all around her, feeling through the entire facility so that she could tell all the problems that were happening.

Most of the facility was still fine, however the bludge that was building near the reactor was beginning to spread. She would need to deal with that before Emiray could get there safely. She reached out to that location and held. That was the best that should be explain it. All around her she worked to keep space steady, it was a more difficult task then she had thought it would be.

She tried to mentally find a simililie to compare what she was doing to. It was like trying to keep a boat steady by grabbing onto the waves. With that idea she latched upon some possible solutions. Mü was floating in the ocean like a giant boat but it had ways of keeping from floating away. There were long pylons which were stuck in the ocean floor and then connected to Mü. She reached out to the stable space around them can connected it to her to help generate stability. She didn’t know exactly how she connected to it, it was similar to a tunnel but more stable, less like a pipe and more like a bar of steel.

Then she continued to hold to keep the entire place from crumbling and falling about. Everything was being torn about, broken down. She hadn’t know that was something that the Euclidian Key was capable off, a kind of unmaking where space was torn apart. She couldn’t help but realize that she would be capable of doing the same sort of think. She shivered to think that such an act of destruction was possible for her.

She could feel sweat breaking out on her forehead. It was difficult to maintain this many spacial tunnels that were bearing this much load. The weight of everything was overwhelming. She felt like Altus, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. It was like she was slowly being ground to dust by the universe. However still she held on, this was her responsibility and she would hold on until Emiray managed to shut down the Reactor. The only other thing that Lynn could do now was hope that Emiray managed to shut down the reactor quickly, otherwise Lynn might break from the strain.

The Phantom Thief stood in the hallway. The black clothes stood motionless. She was waiting, waiting for that man to arrive. She had made all her preparations. She didn’t know if it was going to do any good however, against the opponent she suspected she would be fighting preparations were useless. Then Svenn walked into view around the corner.

Rose took a deep break and said, “Now that I see you in the flesh I am certain. Your appearance and name are different but you are still the same person aren’t you. It has been a long time.”

Svenn stopped a few yards away from Rose, “Yes, it has been a long time. Six years I believe. I didn’t expect you to ever return to the University District. I guess you still have a soft spot for lost causes.”

“You seem to have made a good place for yourself since I left. I connected the security system to my watch and I got to see some of your battle with Enforcer Wade. You have gotten a lot more powerful since I saw you last. What are you now, level 6 or is it 7? I don’t think I ever expected you to get that powerful.”

“That is because I am not like you Rose. I had determination, something I wanted to accomplish. Even if you had a natural talent and I didn’t I have manage to surpass you. When you hit your block you collapsed under the pressure and escaped to the Entertainment District to become a Phantom Thief. I managed to surpass who I was before and be reborn anew.”

There was a paused between them before Svenn spoke again, “Frankly I didn’t expect you to help Lynn. She is like you, she was a genius who rose through the ranks but like you she hit her block and couldn’t progress any further. However that is when her story becomes different from yours. While you gave up she wouldn’t. Now she is more like me, someone who succeeds because she will never give up. I’m surprised you don’t resent her for being what you could not.”

“That was six years ago Svenn, I’m not the same person that I was then. Being an Esper was just something I was good at, it wasn’t something that I wanted to be. Even I know that I gave up being an Esper as soon as I refused to break by block. Now I am a Phantom Thief. That is something I do not desire to give up, it is who I am. No block is going to stop me from being one.”

Rose smiled, smirked really, “So you are wrong. I don’t resent Lynn because I understand why she was able to break through her block and I wasn’t able to. But you resented her don’t you?” There was a barely visible flinch from Svenn but that widened Rose’s smile, “You have hit another block haven’t you? You seen Lynn above you and you resent her because you can not get to where so is? Level 8 is too far for you to reach.”

“I bet that you didn’t know that Lynn is dealing with a block of her own. She however is breaking through her block. What will happen then I wonder, will she be the first ever level 9? What will you then?”

Svenn just stood there staring at Rose, “Your right, I am blocked but since I do not think either of us will be surviving the evening that will not be an issue.” Svenn squinted and looked deliberately into Rose’s eyes.

“However I do not understand how you are doing that. I can see your plans all laid out, all the preparations that you have made but I can not find the reason. The why of the plans isn’t there, like you make your plans without ever considering what they were going to be used for. I don’t know if you make undirected plans deliborately or if you are somehow hiding your true plans from me. Even the fact that I can not determine what is strange.”

“It isn’t polite to go rummaging around in somebodies mind like that.” Said Rose, “I never liked that about your power, invading people’s thoughts like that isn’t polite. However I’m glad that my little mental trick is working, I was afraid for a little bit that it wouldn’t and that you would be able to see what I am really planning. I guess even I can learn something new.”

“So, Svenn, are you ready to begin the game? We used to do it all the time before. We would fight to see which one of our powers were stronger. I used to always win, didn’t I?”

“No, I won once. It was just after you hit your block. You ran away after that fight and I never spoke with you again. I always though that that was the reason that you gave up, because I was finally able to beat you. Now do you really expect to win against a level 7? Against someone like me it doesn’t matter what you have planned or what you managed to hide from me. Power can’t be stopped by someone weak like you.”

“Is that so, then why did you come after me instead of trying to hold back Lynn? Wouldn’t that have been the better choice.”

“The Euclidian Key was almost ready to activate when I left. I doesn’t matter how power Lynn is, she won’t be able to handle that. Instead I wanted to meet you again. I wanted to show you that my win wasn’t a fluke, that I really am more powerful then you.”

“Very well, a rematch. I haven’t used the name is a while, but for this battle I will be my old self again. Today I am not Phantom Thief Rose, I am Ghost.”

“Very well Ghost. I will be my old self as well. In my last evening I will be know as Switchboard again.”

The air began to grow colder and then lances of ice began to form in the air around Svenn. Rose, no Ghost, only leaned forward and reached into the ground and from inside pulled out the stungun that she had hidden there. As she did the lances of ice reached her and passed through her. She stood there holding the stungun, completely unharmed.

“Ice is a new trick, you managed to get somebody new to join your network I see. However I’m not going to just let you win so easily.” Rose began to run toward Svenn. The air around her began to flash freeze her in place but she passed through that as well. She had almost reached Svenn when he was suddenly father down the hallway. Rose smiled and tapped her watch and the wall next to Svenn exploded toward him. He gazed at it casually and a fall of fire rose us and turned the rubble into ash.

“You forcefully added Enforce Wade to your network. I’m surprised that you were able to do that.”

“I’m at a different level then I was before Rose. You shouldn’t be surprised by a simple trick like that. Your passthrough might be more refined when it was before but it is obvious that you haven’t learned anything new. Sooner or later you will make a mistake or get too tired to use your ability correctly. It is only a matter of when that will happen.”

Svenn began walking toward Rose again, “And even if you have managed to hide some things from me you can’t keep your current actions hidden from me. It is impossible for you to even hit me.”

“Blah, blah, blah. You always talked big every time and then you lost every time. You have to show me different to convince me.” Taunted Rose.

“You can’t convince me to become angry and to make mistakes when I can tell that is what you are doing.” Said Svenn, completely unperturbed by Rose.

Then suddenly everything seemed to shift. Svenn looked as surprised as Rose when everything seemed to turn upside down. They both crashed to the room and as they stumbled to their feet Svenn began to smile victoriously. “You see, it is already too late. The Euclidean Key had been activated already. Your friends have failed to stop it. Soon this entire reactor will cease to exist, torn apart by the Key.” Svenn almost began to laugh.

“Is this your way to escape your block? To kill yourself and everyone around you. Doing that won’t make anything any better. If you had really wanted to break your block then you wouldn’t have given up. Now I’ll show you what it means to never give up and what it means to be a Phantom Thief.”

Then the roof under Svenn’s feet exploded under him. As it did Rose moved forward and before Svenn could even move away she managed to grab his leg and pull him down. Then together they began to pass through the ceiling and into the room above. Rose then began to feel the tug of Svenn pulling away through space. She adjusted her passthrough and was pulled through the spacial tunnel with Svenn. Rose was slightly surprised that it had worked, it had been so long since she had tried something knew with her powers. During some of Lynn’s teleportations with her she had formulated the theory that this might work but she had never actually done it before.

Svenn had seemed as surprised at Rose that it had work. Rose however had been trying to do it so she was able to react faster to the success then Svenn had been able to. She pressed the stungun directly to Svenn’s body. He was able to tell what she was doing fast enough however. He switched gears and with the crackle of electricity redirected the force of the stungun back toward Rose. She was forced to passthrough it and Svenn took that moment to break from her grip and take several steps backward.

Svenn didn’t know where he was. Something had messed up the teleportation, probably the Euclidean Key. He normally had three Teleporter Espers in his network but whatever Lynn had done had managed to knock out two of them. The last was in a bad state and his ability to teleport was hindered by that. There was also something wrong with his ability to sense Rose. His ability to sense her thoughts was flickering in and out which made it hard to figure out what she was going to do next.

As Svenn stumbled to his feet and took a few steps away from her, he figured out what she was doing. “You, your using passthrough to avoid my power. How? How are you doing that?”

“So you managed to figure it out.” Said Rose, “You see, it has been years since I have used my power regularly. I seems that somewhere along the way my block seems to have vanished. I’m not certain how myself but I managed to find new things I wanted to do with my power. Passing through spacial tunnels and through mental powers were just a couple of the things I though of. Strange isn’t it, the block that seemed so impossible for me to get through is gone now.”

“That’s impossible. A block can’t just vanish like that. If it was that easy then everybody would do it.” Yelled Svenn, this time it real anger. She hadn’t been concealing her thoughts that time. She was telling him the truth, her block was gone. How could it just be gone, it had taken him months to break his block and become better then her. She can’t just on up him like this, not after all that had happened. “You know, you are the person that I resent the most. You take everything you have for granted, even now. Everything you do, it makes me furious. Why is everything so simple for you even after you give something up. Why are you always better then me?”

“Why am I always better then you? I’m not.” Said Rose as they stood on the ceiling. The floor seemed to be peeling upward like it was the top of a can getting ripped away. “Even if my block has broken you are still a stronger Esper then I will probably ever be because that is not who I am now. You even beat me once before. If this was just a battle of Espers then you would eventually win. I can’t keep up my passthrough long enough. But, that doesn’t mean you are going to win. Do you know why?”

He clothes began to flutter in the breeze caused by the breaches in the facility walls. “That is because I am a Phantom Thief and a Phantom Thief always gets what she wants.” Then Rose pulled out several small balls from her pocket. They erupted in a burst of blinding light which caused Svenn to recoil. When his eyes began to adjust again he couldn’t see Rose anywhere.

“Where are you? Do you think you can escape just by hiding. Your ability to hide your thoughts is still imperfect. Sooner or later I will be able to tell where you are.”

“Escape?” The voice seemed to come from all different directions. “No, a Phantom Thief does not escape until after the theft has been accomplished. Can you not tell where I am Svenn? That is because a Phantom Thief can strike from anywhere and you will never expect her. Where do you think I am going to strike next.”

“It doesn’t matter if I do this.” Svenn pulled on Enforcer Wade’s power and formed a wall of fire surrounding him on all sides. He would be able to use Wade’s power to days still until Wade regained enough power to resist his ability. “Now what are you going to do. I can wait like this until you reveal yourself.”

“Too bad, that isn’t good enough.” A hand reached out from the ceiling beneath Svenn and pulled the leg several inches into the ceiling. There was a loud snap. The fire died and Svenn was several feet away. His leg was bending at a strange angle. A side effect of his power allowed him to better control his own feelings and he was able to mute the pain enough to prevent collapsing. That woman had pulled his leg far enough into the ceiling and then released the passthrough. The floor collapsed into his leg breaking it. His leg might have been completely removed if he hadn’t teleported fast enough.

There, Rose finally made a mistake. He could feel her thoughts as she approached him. He couldn’t see her so she must be on the floor below him. She was going to strike him again like she did before but this time he wouldn’t let her. The floor beneath his feet melted and he fell through the floor. As he fell he filled the room full of fire and without a second’s pause froze the room afterward, making it an entire block of ice.

He looked around for Rose. He couldn’t see her but he heard a clatter at his feet. He looked down a small globe of some sort. It took him a bare second to realize what it was but by then it was almost too late. By the time he had managed to teleport out of the way one of his arms was badly burned and most of his clothes were in tatters.

Then he saw her again. She was standing several yards away. She was holding another one of those ball, although this one looked darker then the other. She raised her hand and threw it at him. This time however he was prepared. The wall of flame meet the ball and turned it into ash, or at least it should have. Instead the ball kept coming at him. He panicked, how had the ball survived the wall of fire, was she using her passthough on a distant ball. That moment of hesitation was just long enough for the ball to hit him in the face. He felt the hard impact of stone as the round rock made contact with his face. He collapsed to the ground in agony.

He could feel the blood trickling down his neck. He looked over and Rose who was just looking at him. Something was wrong, they were fighting and she was winning. All his power was being useless against her. Svenn couldn’t see anything that could be done, everything that he did she managed to counter. Without being able to read her mind he couldn’t predict what she was going to do next.

Still, something else was wrong. This battle was going on far too long. The Euclidian Key should have torn this place apart by now. What was wrong. Even with the limited teleporter that was still in his network he was able to tell that the Euclidian Key was still active. Was it possible the Lynn was keeping back the power of the Key? That must be it, Svenn knew she was powerful but this was more then he had expected. But that couldn’t last for too much longer, no matter how powerful she was eventually she would get tired and be unable to keep it up.

But Rose, he had fought her many times before years ago but it had never been like this before. He had lost to her before but he had never been afraid of her before, why was he frightened of her now.

“Let me guess what you are thinking.” Said Rose, “Why am I afraid of her?” Rose smiled. “The answer is simple. Because I am not fighting to win. I am fighting to defeat you. It is the difference between a war and a slaughter. It doesn’t matter if I get injured, since if I fail to defeat you there might not be time for me to worry about that. I need to give Lynn and Emiray enough time to stop the Euclidian Key.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Svenn started to regain his composure. “I don’t need to deal with you. I just need to stop Lynn. Then everything will happen correctly.” He had forgotten his reasons for wanted to deal with Rose in the first place. Now just stopping her goals were enough for him. If he could just stop Lynn then he would be the victorious one.

He looked down at his feet. The feeling that was getting through the teleporation was that there was a great conflux of power in the air above the facility. That and the Euclidian Key’s influence was probably why gravity was working strangely. Then he realized that Rose wasn’t there anymore. He first thought she was going to attempt another sneak attack. Then he realized that he had spoken his attentions out loud. She was going to try and beat him there so that he wouldn’t be able to stop Lynn.

He shifted and found himself on the roof. Strangely gravity was working normally here so he fell backward onto the roof. He saw Rose only a couple of yards away. She was staring up at the sky, a look of awe on her face. Svenn followed her gaze and stared up at the sky as well. Then he felt like everything had come to a stop.

Lynn was hanging in the air. She was suspended, not the almost motionless of quick teleports but truly hanging still in the air. Everything seemed curved, like the world was folded around her and she was hanging in the center of everything. There was what could only be described as a glow, the sun was hanging directly behind Lynn. Yet that looked strange, when Svenn turned his head that didn’t change, the sun still hung directly behind her.

Rose could see Svenn staring at Lynn and she knew she was feeling the same thing. This wasn’t some minor Esper show of ability. Lynn was holding space together around her, keeping everything in tact with sheer power and force of will. Rose knew that this was a power beyond anything she would ever be capable, was this what a level 9 was capable. A being so powerful that nature bent around them.

“This, this is impossible. What am I supposed to do against that.” Svenn had sunk to his knees, his eyes never leaving Lynn. “That, I couldn’t even get close to her without getting torn apart by the spacial riptide surrounding her. How am I supposed to stop something so power, it would be like stopping a volcano, like trying to stop nature.”

Rose shook her head, “You always seem to be so wrong. She is doing just what you are afraid to do, she is standing on the edge of the volcano and preventing it from erupting. I can see that even in that state that she is in pain, keeping back the power of the Euclidean Key is straining for her. You however are just afraid, you can not imagine stopping the volcano so you believe it is impossible. She however decided that it wasn’t impossible, that she had to do it even if other people thought it was impossible. Trying to stop someone’s will with a feeble desire like your, of course it looks impossible to you. If you really cared about what you were doing then you would do it anyways.”

Rose took several steps toward Svenn and continued to speak, “No unless you are prepared to do the impossible I suggest that you run away. I am willing to do just a much as Lynn is to accomplish what is right.”

Svenn finally broke his gaze away from Lynn and returned to looking at Rose. “We are different then we were before, both of us. You truly have broken through and become yourself. I’m still trapped however. I’m locked in a cage, trying to do what is right, trying to become better then I am. But it is impossible for me, I always knew it was. Now I have seen proof of my inadequacy. None of what I do will ever be remembered, I left no knowledge behind. Mine is truly a worthless existence.” There was a look of hopelessness on his face. It was a saddening look which made Rose feel pained.

“So you tried to end it by participating in this fool idea which would kill you?” She hiked him. “Do you think that will make anything better, that it will make your life any better?” She stared down at him in pity. “Look back at her, this isn’t going to be the end for you because she and Emiray are going to save us. Then you will have your life again. Next time however I suggest you think of something else you want to be. Is an Esper everything you wanted to be? Was there something you wanted to be before you became an Esper? Maybe the reason you were never content is that there was something else you wanted to do.”

Rose sat down beside him, no longer worried that he would try and attack her. “I traveled a while after I found that I couldn’t break my block. I finally managed to find my way to the Entertainment District. That is when I got caught up in a Phantom Thief’s theft. It felt like something amazing to me, something impossible. But there was something magical about it that I couldn’t forget. Eventually I decided that that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be that magical being that inspired. It took me a while but eventually I managed to become my own Phantom Thief. It was rewarding like nothing I had done before was. I realized that everything I had done before I hadn’t done for myself. Those had been other people’s dreams and desires, the researchers and my parents. Being a Phantom Thief was my own dream, something I wanted to be. That is what made it magical for me.”

Emiray climbed the hallway as she continued to make her way toward the Reactor Room. The path was taking longer then it should have. As she kept getting closer things began to get weirder. Up and down seemed to be confused which was which. Corridors seemed to stretch on endlessly and connect to rooms in other parts of the reactor. Emiray still knew that she was getting closer however. Even Emiray was capable of detecting the oppressive atmosphere that was caused by the Euclidian Key, like the pressure was too high.

Then Emiray saw it, the main door to the Reactor Room. There was a tinge of fear that the door would actually lead somewhere else and that she would still need to continue to reach the Reactor. Those last few steps toward the door seemed to take forever like time was being stretched. The handle turned very slowly and after what felt like an eternity Emiray stepped through the doorway and into the Reactor room.

Suddenly everything felt normal again. Whatever was happening outside as a result of the Euclidian Key was not affecting this room. She could see the Ark Tunnel Reactor. It was surprising small, a marvel of science and engineering. In the front of it was a tangle of cords connecting it to some machine that Emiray didn’t recognize. Plugged into that machine was the strange piece of metal that Emiray now knew was the Euclidian Key.

Leaning on the machine, sunk to the floor was Professor Gray. He was looking wobbly but he had holding the gun steady. Emiray recognized the gun, it was the one he had shot her with before. Just thinking about it made the aches and pains from her gunshot wound flare up.

“Hello again Professor Gray. Are you going to shoot me again?”

Gray held the gun for one more second and then it clattered to the ground and Gray fell along with it. Emiray stepped forward and kicked the gun far out of his reached before kneeling beside him. Gray managed to push himself up a little and looked at Emiray for a few seconds. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Everything is over, I have done everything that I needed to do. The greater good has been accomplished. Soon this place will be ripped apart and science will be advanced and my sins will be washed away.”

He meet Emiray’s eyes and held that gaze for a little bit before breaking away, “If you had just stayed away then you would have been able to live. Nobody would have come looking for you and you could have returned to the Belly. I’m sorry about what happened and that you are going to share my fate.”

“Gray, do you know why the needs of the few will always defeat the needs of the many?” Asked Emiray. She moved around Gray and toward the reactor. “Is it because the few will never give up.” She pulled a wretch out of her belt and began removing one of the panels on the Ark Tunnel Reactor. Once she got it open she looked through the maze of wires and circuit boards. She selected several wires and gave them a sharp pull. They came free with a blaze of sparks but Emiray ignore them and threw the pile of cables onto the floor. The power of the reactor continued to build. It must be beyond critical stage. The control systems were no longer working. She would need to disable the reactor manually.

“Did you ever hear the story about how an impossible city like Mü was created in the first place?” Emiray asked Gray. Of course Gray had heard of it. Everyone on Mü had hear the story. “The founder initially set it up as a theme park for the wealthy. However because of the number of people who needed to live here to keep the theme park operating it became a city. Watching that city the founder came up with a plan.”

Emiray managed to climb up on top of the Reactor and began opening another hole in the reactor. She would need to stimulate the cooling system enough to bring the reactor below critical levels. If she would do that then the safety equipment would began to shut down the reactor. It was the only safe method of weakening the reactor. Lynn had told her that is was possible that if she just disconnected the Euclidian Key that it could go wild and the reactor might melt down. Since that would still probably kill everyone in the reactor it was a last resort.

Emiray began working on opening the cooling system while she continued to talk. “It was the founder’s impossible dream that caused people to come to Mü. It was a city where your dreams became reality. The city grew and grew becoming the largest city in the world. I heard outsiders used to call it the city of wishes. It was then that the founder died.” Emiray grew silent and she pulled off the top of the coolant system and felt the massive heat pushing out of the tank.

She wasn’t planning on fixing the coolant system, she was planning on breaking the coolant system. If she could break the coolant control valve then it would overcharge the coolant and bring the temperature of the entire reactor back to what is was supposed to be. However that would require her to stick her arm down into that heated container and remove the control valve. She gritted her teeth and thrust her hand deep into the depths. She could feel the scorching pain and she felt around. Her fingers were nearly numb but she could feel the valve. She gripped it and will all the effort that she could muster she pulled the control valve free.

Once it had been removed she dropped it and adverted her eyes from her burt hand. She couldn’t think about it, if she did then she would probably lose consciousness. The reactor would now probably fail by itself once the temperature began to get under control. However that would take hours for it completely power down, all the while the Euclidian Key would continue to attempt to tear local space apart. Emiray know that Lynn was still out there holding back the Key. Emiray didn’t think that Lynn would be able to last the hours required for the reactor to shut off. She needed to finish shutting off the reactor quickly.

As she moved positions she continued to talk to distract her from the pain in her arm. “Mü almost fell into ruin after the founder died. The founder had been the pillar that everybody had expected to always be there. It was anarchy for a couple of years I hear. Then several factions began to grow in power. These factions are what created the order we had today. Those factions eventually became the districts of Mü. Now what is the lesson that you are supposed to learn from this story?”

She began opening another part of the reactor. The safety persuasions to keep the reactor from overloading must have been disabled. She needed to begin the automatic shutdown of the reactor. That should be possible now that the coolant system was being overworked. Still, pressing down the heated shutdown rods would be difficult and painful.

“The moral is simple. Everything that happened, from the building of Mü, to the creation of the district. All of it was created by people who were following their dreams. The people who were creating what they desired. A future that was better then the past. Greater good has nothing to do with it. Instead of wondering what is best of everyone just figure out what is the best for you.”

“What about you?” Said Gray who hadn’t moved from the front of the reactor, “Aren’t you doing what you think is the greatest good? Isn’t stopping this reactor and saving people doing the greater good? How are you any different.”

Emiray looked down at the opening into the reactor. The shutdown rods where there. They looked cooler then things had been near the coolant but she would need to apply her full force to the rod to push it down. However that was the only quick way to shut down the reactor.

Emiray smiled a little to herself, “No, I’m not that good of a person. Sure saving people is admirable but I am doing this for more human reasons. I got involved because of you and Lynn. I couldn’t let go after you shot me. I was betrayed and hurt, not just physically. If this is the reason that you shot me then I can’t let you have it. And Lynn, she carries a heavy burden. She feels responsible for everything that happens because of the Key. I haven’t know her very long but it already pains me when she feels like everything is her fault. I don’t want my friend to feel that kind of pain. Are those reasons enough for you? They are enough for me.”

Emiray reached out her hands and pressed both of them firmly on the shutoff rod and pressed with all her might. She could intensely feel the pain in her burnt hand. Her other hand was in pain too. The cooling had only just begun and the rod was still intensely hot and painful. The rod slid slowly down and she kept pressing despite the heat. Then the rod clicked into the end position and Emiray felt the slackness in her limbs. She had done it. Now the reactor will shut down in minutes. The pain finally caught up with her and she fainted.

Inspector Grim caught her before she fell into the Reactor. It that had happened then her injuries would have been even more severe. He slowly lowered her off the reactor and onto the floor. Taking off his coat he wrapped it around her. It wouldn’t help her burns but it should keep her a little more comfortable. Inspector Grim then walked around the reactor and stood before Professor Gray. “That girl is in pretty bad shape you aren’t in very good condition either. Something must have happened when you activated the Euclidian Key which caused some sort of backlash. I must have been painful.”

Grim adjusted his hat and sat cross legged in front of Gray. “Professor Gray, you are under arrest for attempted murder and the theft of the Euclidian Key. You have the right to remain silent. Anything that you can be used against you in a court of law.” Grim took a breath, “I should really give you a good beating for what you did to Rose and the others but since it appears you already have got a beating I’ll let you off. However I do have a few questions for you, off the record. Tell me everything that you know about the Prometheus Project.”
Gray shot his head up in surprised at Grim. “How? How do you know about that?”

“I know a great many things. I didn’t believe too much in it. A conspiracy inside Mü that put the greater good above everything. There are a lot of rumors and I never really had any evidence to back up my claims. However I overheard some of your conversion and your talk about the greater good made me suspicious. You reaction was good though, until then I still wasn’t certain that the Prometheus Project did exist.”

Gray looked down in momentary though, “I’m tried. Doing the greater good is tiring and painful. It isn’t worth it. Alright, I’ll tell you what I know. It isn’t much, I’m not a very important member and information is very tightly guarded in case anybody gives away information.”

“Anything that you can tell me is good.”

Lynn hung holding on to everything. Space was easy to hold on to, it was like a burden that she had always had, easy and comfortable. Other things were more difficult to hold onto, thoughts were one of them. Every time she tried to grasp a though it fluttered outside of her grasp, elusive and impossible to capture. Another was her memories. She had trouble remembering the events that lead up to this, or anything at all from before now. Holding onto her self was the most difficult. Who she was required her to hold on for her life, if she let go for just a second she didn’t know if she would be able to catch it again.

Her senses were distorted too, at least that was what the scraps of her memories told her. However the empty place that she stood in seemed normal now. Everything was blank in every direction. The only thing that existed in this place was the wall. It stretched up higher then she could see and to either side. She looked back over her shoulder and could see something else. There was another wall behind her, however this one was not nearly as tall and had a hole in the center of it. Now she remembered, she had broken down that wall to get here. How could she have forgotten that.

She looked back at the wall in front of her. What was she supposed to do now.

“Are you afraid?” The voice was her own. Her looked up. There was a ledge on the wall in front of her. On the ledge was herself, looking down at her. However this version of her was slightly different. She looked older, longer hair, different clothes. Lynn wasn’t really that surprised to see herself. It almost seemed normal.

“But beyond that was exists something I should never touch. That is forbidden territory, a place that no human should tread.”

The older Lynn sat there looking down. Out of all the differences that Lynn’s eyes were the most different. They were deep, so very deep, like a galaxy could be lost inside of them. “How do you know? No human had crossed that wall before. Nobody knows what is beyond it. Don’t you want to find out what is behind that wall. Don’t you want to touch the stars instead of just reaching for the moon?”

“Why do you desire to see what is beyond that wall?” Asked Lynn.

“Because I am the you that has seen beyond that wall. I have seen what is beyond this wall and I want you to see it as well.” The older Lynn reached behind her hand lifted a hammer and threw it down to younger Lynn. “Don’t you want to protect everyone, to save everyone?”

Younger Lynn looked at the hammer and lifted it slowly. “No. You know those aren’t my feelings.” The older Lynn smiled from up high. “Everyone has their own life to live. I can’t save everyone. All I can do is live my life and deal with the consequences. If the pain people are suffering is my fault then I must also fix it. That is the duty of being powerful. However it is not my obligation to save everyone, they need to save themselves. Otherwise they will never be able to find happiness.”

“Then does your happiness lay beyond this wall. Is that why you have continued to break wall after wall approaching here? Is it to find your happiness?” Asked the older Lynn.

Younger Lynn shook her head, “I don’t know know.” Then she smiled, “But I think that is rather the point isn’t it? I think that if we knew where to find our happiness then life would be a little boring. This was is much more exciting.” She hefted the hammer onto her shoulder, “You know, I may have already found my happiness but there is a problem. This giant wall is blocking my view. Don’t you think my mind would look a lot better without this nasty thing blocking my view?”

She looked back up at older Lynn but she was no longer there. Perhaps she had never been there. After all both of them were Lynn and there was only one of her. She lifted her hammer and swung it against the giant wall.

Then her memories returned in a rush. The pain and pressure of the space rushing in around her. Then, amazingly the pressure began to weaken. She almost though she was imagining it. After an eternity of pain the pressure couldn’t weaken. But it did. Slowly, ever so slowly, the pressure weakened more and more. Eventually sight began to return to Lynn who had been doing everything off feeling for ages.

The first thing she recognized was the setting sun. Then strangely she thought she could see the stars beyond the sun, but that was impossible. Space around her tingled, that feeling that could only be described as normal. It was something that she hadn’t feel in ages. It took her a while longer to realize that everything seemed small. Then she realized that she was in the air, floating, flying. Her mind wrapped around that for a second and once it did she began to fall. She plummeted toward the earth before finally catching herself. She hung suspended in mid air again still uncertain what she was doing. The then moved herself to the room.

There she stood for a moment overlooking what used to the the reactor building. Parts of it were torn up and seemed flung around like piecemeal. She looked up again at the sun and stars. Was it possible that she was dreaming.

“Are you alright.” Came a voice from her side. She looked and saw Rose standing next to her. Rose’s cloths were dirty, torn, and burned in several places but the Phantom Thief outfit was still mostly in tact.

Lynn didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure if she felt alright or not. She was dreadfully tired but at the same time she couldn’t stop her mind from racing forward. She asked the first question that came to her mind, “Can you see the stars?”

Rose looked up at the sky and then back at Lynn, “No, it is still fairly bright. Are you sure you are alright. That stunt you pulled didn’t mess with you eyes did it?”

Lynn returned her gaze to the sky. The stars, she could still see them. It was like the sky was gone from her vision, leaving only the universe in front of them. “Maybe, but I will be fine. It is probably better this way anyways.”

“Well, then. Since that is taken care of we should to look for Emiray. She is probably in the reactor room.”

“Wait,” There was a voice from behind them. There stood Svenn, he had a look of loss on his face, “What should I do?” His face strained like he couldn’t express what he was feeling any better then that. His entire life had collapsed before his eyes and he didn’t know what to do anymore.

“How should I know?” Asked Rose, “It’s your life isn’t it? Probably turn yourself over to the Student Council. They might lighten your sentence if you do that now.” Svenn slouched, still uncertain about what to do. But it was too late for him to ask anything else. The two of them were gone. Even with the lingering connection to his network Svenn hadn’t been able to detect Lynn’s departure. Something had changed about her, yet Svenn couldn’t grasp what it was.

Inside the reactor room was almost empty. Nestled against the reactor wearing an old coat that was far too big for her was Emiray. She was still unconscious. Lynn kneel beside Emiray and looked at her arms. They were burt and swollen. It would certainly leave scars of some sort and Emiray would need to see a doctor soon. “Thank you. I would never have been able to do this without you.” Said Lynn. She turned her head toward Rose, “You either.”

Rose however was walking toward the front of the machine. She checked her watch and smiled. “Perfect timing, like usual.” She reached out and pulled the Euclidian Key from the socket that was holding it. She slipped the Key into one of her pockets and pulled out a note.

It read “The Phantom Thief Rose has stolen the Euclidian Key.” She set the note where the Key was and then walked back over to Lynn. Then she pulled the Key back out of her pocket and offered it to Lynn. “I believe that this is yours.”

Lynn looked at it. She passed her hand over it and there was a tiny silver of metal in her hand. Lynn broke the circuit in half and tossed it to one side, “You can keep it now. After all a Phantom Thief can’t escape without taking her prize.”

Rose smiled back, “Just so.” Before slipping the Key back into her pocket. She gave Emiray a look, noting the coat. “I will have to thank Inspector Grim.” She then turned her back on them and began walking toward the exit to the room. She wave behind her, “A Phantom Thief shouldn’t stick around the scene of the crime. But take care, tell Emiray that she is welcome to come visit me any time that she wants, you too. We can steal something again together some time.”

And the Rose had left. It wasn’t quick as sudden a disappearance as when Lynn vanished but it made her feel a little bit lonely. She had once wondered how lonely she would continue to be as a powerful Esper. That was no longer an issue for her. She held Emiray for a second staring at the husk of the Ark Tunnel Reactor.

Then she opened the spacial tunnel and brought them straight to the hospital. The distance was fairly long and previously she would have gone there is several shorter teleports to make sure she could tell where she was going. This time however she could simply bring them there, she hadn’t realized it had been so easy.

They stood in the lobby. Lynn holding the unconscious Emiray upright. “Um, I don’t suppose you could see to some intense burn wound? She is in a rather bad state?”

There was a moment of silent.

Epilogue

Student Council Building 5, Vice President of Security Office

Enforcer Wade grumbled to himself while he wrote the report about the operation. The vice president that he had been following the orders of had disappeared and because of the recent events Wade had been temporally promoted to acting vice president until there could be a new election. Now he had been placed in charge of dealing with the entire debacle at the Ark Tunnel Reactor.

The entire incident was trying to be swept under the table but because of Inspector Grim and Phantom Thief Rose being involved that was turning out to be extremely difficult. Wade was glad about that anyways. Hiding things they wanted to forget about was an unfortunate habit of the Student Council and he was doing what he could to remedy that.

Rebuilding the Ark Tunnel Reactor was one of the primary concerns. Most of the power in the University District had come from that reactor. There had been thousands of complaints that day when power failed. They were now importing energy from the Business District but that was expensive. So however was replacing the Ark Tunnel Reactor.

He scanned down the list of engineers that were working on the project. The one on the top of the list was probably the most instrumental. They had saved countless hours of labor and tons of money by hiring her. That more then made up for the normally outlandish fee she was charging. Wade guess that was to be expected considering what happened. They should be glad they managed to convince Emiray to help at all.

The other thing he had to deal with was letter of apology to the Belly. It seemed they have been furious that Emiray had been attacked and put in such a dangerous situation. It had taken days of negotiations to finally get them to calm down again. No district could survive without the Belly engineers willing to support them. The apology had included a generous offer of access to the University District technology and the Belly had quickly taked them up on that offer.

With that over with there were still more issues for the temporary Student Council Vice President to deal with. Wade thought this must be a special torture designed specially for him because he had failed to defeat Svenn. Svenn, yes, he had to be dealt with too.

Normally someone who committed crimes like that would be locked up forever but the Student Council never let talent Esper like that get away from them. Svenn had been put under constant surveillance and under the direct command of Wade. Wade sighed and looked over at Svenn who was sitting at a nearby table. At least he had someone to help him with his tasks as Vice President.

Then there was the issue with Professor Gray. Apparently Inspector Grim and Gray had talked for an extended period of time before Grim handed him other to the University Security. Grim said it had to do with secret organizations but would give specifics while saying that he would deal with it himself. Gray might have said something but only a few days after he was imprisons somebody managed to break him out of jail. Wade had people trying to locate Gray but so far they had come up with nothing.

At least Phantom Thief Rose was not turning out to be an issue. The University District had formally withdrawn its charges against Phantom Thief Rose. Vice President Wade had heard that the entire incident had caused a huge increase in fame for Phantom Thief Rose, the first Phantom Thief to be successful outside the Entertainment District.

In fact it was apparently so popular that a famous jewelry store in the Business District had hired a Phantom Thief to steal from them as a form of advertisement. Wade didn’t know which bothered him more, that a company had decided to do that or that it was apparently working. Unfortunately for Wade he hadn’t managed to make any profit or save any money because or Phantom Thief Rose’s theft of the Euclidian Key. In fact he still hadn’t gotten a raise even after getting promoted to Vice President. Life was so cruel to the young.

Lynn had been formally pardoned as well but she seemed to completely ignore all the publicity. Wade had been in charge of attempting to recruit her into the Student Council but Lynn seemed to be avoiding him. He had even gone to her apartment to speak with her only to find a note saying that she had to cancel the appointment because she wasn’t to visit the moon.

If it was possible is seemed that Lynn had gotten even more powerful. The University was attempting to convince her to go through the level testing procedure again but that was going about as well as getting her to join the Student Council was going. Until the testing happened they couldn’t officially recognize her as the first level 9 but the records had already been changed to mark her as a level 8+.

Lynn also didn’t see to be around very often. Wade had gotten numerous requests from Ivan that they need her assistance with various research. Wade suspected that it would take her a while before she wanted to participate in any more research. What happened with the Euclidian Key still probably weighted on her mind. Still Wade had tried to pass the message through both Rose and Emiray. Those were the only two who seemed to have very much interactive with Lynn.

Wade looked over his papers again. There was still the funeral of Professor Harold to oversee. Wade had been responsible for informing all the necessary parties. Harold had a son whom Wade had been trying to track down. It had been quite a pain but he had managed to locate the son and inform him about his father’s death. Surprisingly Emiray had asked to see the man after she found out about the funeral.

All in all everything had managed to wrap up quite well, except for the large amount of paper work that Wade was responsible for doing. He briefly wondered how long he would last. He hoped that the new student elections would come soon so that he could retire from being a Vice President and return to the relative peace of being and Enforcer.

Epilogue

Student Council Building 5, Vice President of Security Office

Enforcer Wade grumbled to himself while he wrote the report about the operation. The vice president that he had been following the orders of had disappeared and because of the recent events Wade had been temporally promoted to acting vice president until there could be a new election. Now he had been placed in charge of dealing with the entire debacle at the Ark Tunnel Reactor.

The entire incident was trying to be swept under the table but because of Inspector Grim and Phantom Thief Rose being involved that was turning out to be extremely difficult. Wade was glad about that anyways. Hiding things they wanted to forget about was an unfortunate habit of the Student Council and he was doing what he could to remedy that.

Rebuilding the Ark Tunnel Reactor was one of the primary concerns. Most of the power in the University District had come from that reactor. There had been thousands of complaints that day when power failed. They were now importing energy from the Business District but that was expensive. So however was replacing the Ark Tunnel Reactor.

He scanned down the list of engineers that were working on the project. The one on the top of the list was probably the most instrumental. They had saved countless hours of labor and tons of money by hiring her. That more then made up for the normally outlandish fee she was charging. Wade guess that was to be expected considering what happened. They should be glad they managed to convince Emiray to help at all.

The other thing he had to deal with was letter of apology to the Belly. It seemed they have been furious that Emiray had been attacked and put in such a dangerous situation. It had taken days of negotiations to finally get them to calm down again. No district could survive without the Belly engineers willing to support them. The apology had included a generous offer of access to the University District technology and the Belly had quickly taked them up on that offer.

With that over with there were still more issues for the temporary Student Council Vice President to deal with. Wade thought this must be a special torture designed specially for him because he had failed to defeat Svenn. Svenn, yes, he had to be dealt with too.

Normally someone who committed crimes like that would be locked up forever but the Student Council never let talent Esper like that get away from them. Svenn had been put under constant surveillance and under the direct command of Wade. Wade sighed and looked over at Svenn who was sitting at a nearby table. At least he had someone to help him with his tasks as Vice President.

Then there was the issue with Professor Gray. Apparently Inspector Grim and Gray had talked for an extended period of time before Grim handed him other to the University Security. Grim said it had to do with secret organizations but would give specifics while saying that he would deal with it himself. Gray might have said something but only a few days after he was imprisons somebody managed to break him out of jail. Wade had people trying to locate Gray but so far they had come up with nothing.

At least Phantom Thief Rose was not turning out to be an issue. The University District had formally withdrawn its charges against Phantom Thief Rose. Vice President Wade had heard that the entire incident had caused a huge increase in fame for Phantom Thief Rose, the first Phantom Thief to be successful outside the Entertainment District.

In fact it was apparently so popular that a famous jewelry store in the Business District had hired a Phantom Thief to steal from them as a form of advertisement. Wade didn’t know which bothered him more, that a company had decided to do that or that it was apparently working. Unfortunately for Wade he hadn’t managed to make any profit or save any money because or Phantom Thief Rose’s theft of the Euclidian Key. In fact he still hadn’t gotten a raise even after getting promoted to Vice President. Life was so cruel to the young.

Lynn had been formally pardoned as well but she seemed to completely ignore all the publicity. Wade had been in charge of attempting to recruit her into the Student Council but Lynn seemed to be avoiding him. He had even gone to her apartment to speak with her only to find a note saying that she had to cancel the appointment because she wasn’t to visit the moon.

If it was possible is seemed that Lynn had gotten even more powerful. The University was attempting to convince her to go through the level testing procedure again but that was going about as well as getting her to join the Student Council was going. Until the testing happened they couldn’t officially recognize her as the first level 9 but the records had already been changed to mark her as a level 8+.

Lynn also didn’t see to be around very often. Wade had gotten numerous requests from Ivan that they need her assistance with various research. Wade suspected that it would take her a while before she wanted to participate in any more research. What happened with the Euclidian Key still probably weighted on her mind. Still Wade had tried to pass the message through both Rose and Emiray. Those were the only two who seemed to have very much interactive with Lynn.

Wade looked over his papers again. There was still the funeral of Professor Harold to oversee. Wade had been responsible for informing all the necessary parties. Harold had a son whom Wade had been trying to track down. It had been quite a pain but he had managed to locate the son and inform him about his father’s death. Surprisingly Emiray had asked to see the man after she found out about the funeral.

All in all everything had managed to wrap up quite well, except for the large amount of paper work that Wade was responsible for doing. He briefly wondered how long he would last. He hoped that the new student elections would come soon so that he could retire from being a Vice President and return to the relative peace of being and Enforcer.

June 15th
Prometheus Project Secret Hideout

“Professor Gray, you have failed. I hope you understand the gravity of what you have done.” The dark figure stared down at the figure huddled on the floor. The old man on the floor was bruised and beaten, tired and hungry.

Gray managed to rasp some sound but it was nearly inaudible. “Due to your failure several key agents had to abandon their positions, and for what? Nothing!” The voice screamed down at Gray who was flinched away from the voice.

“I was forced to give up my position on the Student Council because those who knew about by orders managed to survive. No apology is enough to recover from your failure. Not to mention that in the last crucial moment you failed to do what needed to be done.”

“The Prometheus Projects is devoted to the greater good. We are willing to suffer if that is what is needed for progress but you. You are making us suffer for nothing. What would the titan think if he saw you? He would be disappointed.”

The former Vice President paced back and forth in thought. Then he turned back to Professor Gray. I hope you are ready for your punishment. It will be as eternal and painful as the titan’s, I hope you will the appreciate your failure. The man turned his back on Gray and opened the door out of the room.

“I hope I am not intruding.” Said a voice from the other side of the doorway. The former Vice President startled backward and began pulling out a gun. Then he saw who it was on the other side of the doorway. The gun clattered to the floor and he collapsed to the floor.

Lynn stepped through the doorway and stared down at the man, “I hope you weren’t expecting me to just give up. You hurt my friends and I am not going to just let you get away with that. I heard what you were saying to Gray so you shouldn’t mind suffering as intense and the titan suffered. It that right.”

Lynn grabbed the man by his collar and grabbed Gray’s dirty and stained coat with her other hand. Then they were high in the sky. Both men screamed in horror and the plummeted toward the earth. Then there was a jerking sensation and everything stopped moving. They were holding still in the air.

“As entertaining as it is to hear you both scream, could you please avoid that. I might get distracted and accidentally let you fall to your deaths. You wouldn’t want that to happen now would you?” The two men shook there heads vigorously.

Lynn smiled. She couldn’t actually distract her enough to make her accidentally drop them but the noise had been annoying and getting them to stop had been important. If she had scared them too much then good, they deserved it.

She pointed. “Look, it was your secret hideout Mr. Former Vice President.” She pointed toward the building that Gray had been kept in. “Boom.” Said Lynn and the building exploded upward. Bits and pieces of what used to be a building clattered down. “Now, I’m not to ask you nicely once so make sure to answer. Who is in charge of the Prometheus Project.”

There was stumbling words spoken by both Gray and the Former Vice President. “Speak up now, I can’t head you well.” Then the former vice president spoke the name. Lynn frowned before saying, “But that is impossible.”

“It is the truth. At least that is what the leader goes by. I have never meet the leader so I don’t know any more then that. I promise.” Stammered the man.

Lynn nodded and then they were falling again. Just before they hit the ground Lynn moved the further along toward her destination.

There was a clatter at Vice President Wade’s window. He looked up and saw a hand waving at him. Standing up he moved other toward the window and looked outside. There, standing in mid air was Lynn. She was holding two scruffy men by their collars. Wade blinked as he recognized both of them. “What? How? When?” Wade stammered.

“No important. If you want to know then ask them. I’m sure they will be happy to answer your questions.” She tossed them through the window. “This is really the Student Council’s issue and since I have decided not to join the Student Council I am leaving them in your hands. Is that alright with you?”

“Ah, yes, I will be able to deal with them. Since I am temporarily the one of the Vice President they fall under my jurisdiction. But I don’t know if I am strong enough to pacify the former Vice President.”

“Don’t worry about that. If he gives you a hard time them I will pay him another visit.” She looked at the huddling man and Wade suddenly got the impression that the former vice president would be on best behavior to avoid that visit. Lynn spoke again, “Now I have to get going. I promised Emiray that I would bring her to see on of Rose’s thefts. Since I have been busy tracking down those two I haven’t had a chance yet. Maybe I’ll see you around.” Then Lynn was gone again.