"Well, now I'm conflicted." Laura muttered.
She was currently snuggly tucked into Zenesha's bed, the fox's minty scent surrounding her. She was ordered to rest and was promptly tucked in. Considering for the past week she's been sleeping at only the foot of the bed, Laura felt fairly happy about her current position.
The problem was that Laura wanted to get up and continue investigating, but she also didn't want to move from this spot. With a great amount of will power the wolf managed to roll out of bed. She stared at the piece of furniture with longing before tearing her eyes away to get herself dressed for the day.
Once she went through her morning routine she went into Zenesha's closest and opened the door. A small little corner of the large closet was cleared out and in its place were a bunch of Laura's spare clothing. Alongside her new uniform.
A dark orange button down shirt, a black suit jacket, and black pants. The clothing was modified to be easy to move around in just in case she had to get into a fight, allowing her full range of motion. While it was called a uniform it was just a normal suit for the most part.
Other than the fact it was made from the threads of the Dark Livleth Moth cocoons, making it far more durable than normal clothing, there was nothing special about the outfit. After staring at it for a while she pulled the outfit from the closet and got herself dressed. Laura didn't bother checking how the clothes looked on herself, instead she teleported out of the room, and onto the roof.
The sharp cold wind hit her the moment she appeared on the roof of the tower. She squinted as she looked down on the world below. She needed to figure out where she should go next. She couldn't recklessly go out on her own and look for the Ather. There was a very real chance she could die, and she would rather have backup just in case so they can warn Zenesha if she perishes somehow.
"For now, I guess I'll try looking for any signs of Ather again." She muttered.
This time however she'll focus the search on the central tower only. She already knew where the Ather should be located, meaning anything that's not deep in the vault was unaccounted for. There was the added benefit of the central tower also being the place Zenesha lives, meaning security was high. She would be able to get help fairly easily from any part of the building.
"Let's get started then." She muttered as she sat down cross legged.
Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she reached out, searching for any signs of Ather. It felt as if it took a little longer than before to spread out her senses, but eventually she located two sources. One was below the surface, in the general area the vault would be located, but the other was on one of the administrative floors.
*Grrrr*
With a low growl emanating from her throat, Laura concentrated her senses around the second source. She needed to pinpoint which administrative floor it was on. Her agitation grew every second she didn't know this mystery person's location. For several minutes she narrowed down her search.
Eventually she only had five floors left to check, then four, three, two….
"You useless excuse for flesh!" She yelled with anger, the whites of her eyes turning black. "How dare you!
She found them, and they were on the same floor as Zenesha, and were currently inside her office.
=======
— Zenesha's POV —
I sat at my desk attempting to get back to work, but my mind kept wandering back to Laura. She said she was fine, but honestly, I didn't believe the wolf, she wasn't a good liar. Unfortunately, I did have to leave her for the day, which means she probably snuck out to continue working behind my back.
My face burned a little at the thought; Laura was helping me because she liked me and not because of some void instinct. I quickly shook the thought out of my head, it wasn't the time to be thinking about that. I look back to the files on my desk, it was information on the man that killed himself a week ago.
He wasn't one of my people in the slightest. From what the investigation team could gather everything about this person was fake. Name, rank, nationality, everything. His entire identity was nothing but a lie, and the only thing they could figure out was that he didn't exist a month ago.
I had the investigation team go through personal files to find any more suspicious people. So far everything seems clear, but there were also hundreds of thousands of personnel. To make things easier I had them narrow the search to those that were stationed here and the southwest border.
*Knock Knock*
"Come in." I say, hoping it was Laura.
Instead, a plain young man walked in with a cart… why… why do I feel weird looking at him?
"Ma'am I brought you tea." He said, taking a teacup and kettle and started pouring the tea into the cup.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked incredulously, eyeing the hot drink warily.
I don't let other people handle my food for me. Everyone should know this. My eyes narrowed at the….
'Wait he has fox features; how did I miss that up until now?'
"I, um sorry?" The fox man looked surprised by my words, almost as if he couldn't believe I would dare stop him from his actions.
"How did you even get this far with that cart?" I asked, my voice filled with suspicion. For some reason my head hurt looking at the fox man. "Someone should've stopped you before you even got to my office."
"I- I'm sorry I didn't know, I just thought you would enjoy some tea… ma'am."
"Everyone knows I don't take food prepared by another person." I slowly start to stand as the temperature in the room drops. "Especially those in the kitchens. That should've been the first thing you learned there."
"...."
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice cold.
The fox man tried to take a step backwards, but he soon realized his feet were frozen, the ice slowly creeping up his legs. Realizing he was trapped, he reached for his pocket, but I had already moved, jumping over my desk to secure the enemy. Before I could grab him, I was blown backwards by a sudden gust of wind.
I crashed into my chair and fell to the ground, hard. My back hurts, but I ignore that and quickly get back up. By the time I stood up I realized what he was reaching for. A gun. How did they get here with a weapon without being stopped? I'm going have to fire everyone on duty today, no unauthorized personnel should have weapons on this floor.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as I created a wall of ice as the young man in front of me lifted the gun and pointed it in my direction. The sound of gunfire rang out through my office. I had already ducked behind my ice wall. After a few seconds he had stopped shooting.
'Where the hell are the guards!?' I complained in my mind when no one showed up.
"I wasn't even trying to kill you today, you know." He spoke. "However, you seem unaffected by the filter unlike everyone else and just had to complicate things."
I didn't entertain the man with an answer, instead I stayed silent, and took out my own gun from its holster. Unlike the male fox shooting at me, the handgun in my hand was an essence gun. A pale blue barrel that gave off a chilly aura marked it as an ice attribute weapon.
I peeked out from behind the thick ice cover and fired my gun. By using my own power with the ice attribute gun, I didn't even need regular bullets. Instead, a high-speed ice shard shot out. Unfortunately, the man seemed to have made some kind of wind barrier, and my ice projectile course was altered and simply grazed the man.
"Gah!" He cried. "What?"
Ice coated his arm where the shard grazed him, seeping into it, freezing the flesh and blood. If he didn't stop it soon, he would get frostbite, or worse. Most likely worse since frostbite is actually the best-case scenario. He has a high chance of just having his arm freeze off.
I ducked behind my ice wall again just as he fired his gun once more. I waited till he stopped firing and peeked out from behind my cover again.
"What do you think you're doing, you filthy meat bag?"
Just then a person shaped figure appeared grabbing the male foxes head and slamming them into the far wall. Their trapped feet broke through the ice, leaving behind blood. Looking at the figure my heart skipped a beat when I realized it was Laura.
Here sclera was black, and her irises glowed an ominous orange. Her fur stood on end as she bared her teeth and growled at the fox beneath her palm. Energy crackled around us as her power flared, giving the air an electrical charge. She was even wearing the suit I got for her!
"What were you trying to do with my Zen?" She growled, the anger in her voice sharp enough to cut anyone that heard it.
I've never seen Laura angry before. The closest I've seen her get upset was the occasional sad look she had when speaking of her past. Yet the reason she was mad was because… was because… it was for my sake. She was upset that someone tried to hurt me. My heart raced at this realization despite the situation I was in.
"What… are… you?" The foxes voice broke me from my thoughts, helping me return my focus to the task at hand.
"I'm no one special, but today? Today I'm your problem, your worst nightmare."