65 As She Pleases

With Hal gone, Lydis's nerves spiked. In order to secure her from being a suspect even if they found traces, Lydis went to work immediately.

"Min-Young, how many good friends do you have?"

Min-Young paused before counting on his fingers, each one being accompanied by a whispered name.

"There are about thirteen people I could consider good friends. Why?"

"Go find them, we'll need as many people as possible."

Min-Young nodded but before he could run off, Lydis stopped him again.

"Take these four with you as well. I need to move alone."

"Yes!"

The four next to Lydis were pulled away by Min-Young. Left alone with her juice boxes, Lydis glanced at the kids around her. Spotting a group of people hunched over and talking amongst themselves, Lydis had found her target.

Stopping in front of the group of boys, one of them turned to face Lydis.

"Ah, Lydis. How'd ya do?"

Lydis couldn't remember his name but he had led Lydis to Crill earlier.

"I need to talk to Crill."

"Oh, he's still in his room. Ya need som'thin?"

"It's urgent."

The boy eyed Lydis's cold glare and shrugged his shoulders.

"Okay okay. Let's go boys." As the boy stood up, the ones around him stood up as well. "Right this way."

Lydis followed him and found herself walking the same halls, the children placed as sentries lowered their heads as the group passed.

Reaching Crill's room, the boy that led Lydis there banged on the door without restraint.

"Boss~su! Ya have a visitor!"

There was silence before the door quickly slid open. Crill stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

"Qian, what do you want?" It took Crill a moment to recognize Lydis standing next to Qian. "Lydis? What's going on?"

"Crill, I need you to put your people at the entrance and exit, stop any children from leaving."

"Huh?"

Without explaining further, Lydis turned around and left. Crill glanced at Qian and Qian shrugged in return.

"She said it was urgent. Boss~su?"

"We'll listen to her."

"M'kay. You guys heard the Boss~su. Get together and guard the back exit and entrance."

The people nearby nodded and left to gather the others.

"Also Qian, why are you calling me that?"

"What, you mean 'Boss~su'? I thought it was funny so I'm going to make the name stick."

Groaning, Crill massaged his head. If anyone got a nickname from Qian it would stick until a new one popped into Qian's mind.

"Just-just…" *sigh* "Qian, let's go too…"

"Okay Boss~su."

After leaving Crill, Lydis threa- uh nicely, asked the sentries to let her go past. She didn't want anyone from Crill's group following her so she left before the one called Qian could come after her.

Making her way up to the second floor, Lydis paused outside of her door before placing her palm on the scanner.

"Welcome home, Lydis F-"

"Bianca!" Lydis purposely raised her voice to drown out the robot's.

In the room Bianca was sitting on the bunk above Lydis's, Valfafer a sad lump of puffed up fur and ribbons on her lap. Upon seeing his master, Valfafer couldn't hold back the urge to jump with joy. Falling towards Lydis, Valfafer's mouth hung open in a slobbering smile. As quickly as he jumped down, Valfafer was instantly thrown towards Lydis's bed. The pillow and blanket softening his landing.

"Ah, Lydis! Did you need something?" Bianca was in the process of descending the small ladder leading to her bunk.

"Do you think you can gather any of the other Horoscopes?"

"Huh?"

"Don't ask. Can you?"

Bianca paused for a moment. Her eyes shifted to one of Senri's limp hands hanging over the ledge.

"I can gather maybe three…"

Lydis didn't like the hesitation in Bianca's voice but that was all she needed.

"Good. Gather them in the middle of the lounge area."

"Lydis wai-!"

Once again Lydis left without a word. Just like Crill, she didn't want Banca following her. Bianca's forlorn smile disappeared as Senri seemed to rouse. It would be a hassle and probably, no, most definitely a pain but Bianca had promised Lydis a minimum of three people. She couldn't back out now.

Continuing on with her rushed search for people, Lydis checked off two things on her list. The last part would be to get some Zodiacs to help keep the balance. Clicking her tongue, Lydis made her way to Hal's office. Since the rooms were decided by the academy, there should be a list of who's in what room.

"Ui, help me search for the student's room numbers."

Crawling out from Lydis's pocket, the little dragon quickly flew to Hal's desk.

"I shall try to enter through the online database. If their firewall proves to be too strong, I shall help look through the physical copies as well."

"Thanks Ui."

Lydis started to flip through Hal's messy file cabinets, each folder overflowing with papers and scattered notes. As the minutes passed, Lydis was slowly losing her cool. Each paper started to look the same, Central's unique font plastered in fine print on each page. Ui who had been plugged into the computer suddenly beeped.

"Ui, anything?"

"Negative master Lydis. It seems like I can only access the most unimportant files such as Hal's hobby, new ads for new helper androids, and numerous complaint letters."

"Seems like Hal really wanted a helper… Ui, start searching the papers in the room. There has to be something useful."

"Yes master Lydis."

The reason Lydis was in Hal's room was to find out where the other Zodiac's rooms were. If she went to each individual room and checked, Lydis would waste more time searching the whole building.

As Ui flew off from Hal's desk, it's eyes quickly scanned the papers on the floor around Lydis. After the quick scan, Ui found that some of the papers on the floor contained information on a student.

"Master Lydis, it seems that the answer is right under your feet."

Though the saying is usually meant to mock or point out the obvious, in Lydis's case it was very literal. She had been standing on the papers she was looking for. When Lydis first entered Hal's office she didn't think that the papers on the floor were important, precisely because they were on the floor, Lydis thought them to be trivial documents.

"Well, at least our search area shrunk but, how could Hal be so irresponsible so as to leave important documents on the floor like this?"

Ui recalled it's previous time in Hal's office with Valfafer and the outdated android, finding the cause for the mess around them.

"Master Lydis, when Valfafer was in here with Ui, Valfafer knocked the pile of papers trying to get out of the room."

Even now Valfafer was still causing Lydis trouble! In her mind, Lydis made sure to note that Valfafer would be punished when she got back.

Lydis swiftly scoured each page and document carefully. Ui was having a harder time pushing pages out of the way but it still managed to find the first helpful document, or rather the only documents needed. From under a large pile of folders and papers, Ui pulled out two thin folders. One in white and one in black, each with purple lining on the edges.

"Ui, what would I do without you?" Reaching for the folders, Lydis didn't forget to pat Ui's head gently. Although Ui was a robot and made of metal, Lydis felt that Ui was really another pet for her.

Lydis flipped through the two folders holding the small amount of information of each Horoscope and Zodiac in Hal's dorm.

"Hmm. It seems like there are only five Zodiacs and six Horoscopes in Hal's dorm… Guess that'll have to do." Lydis slid the two folders back into their spot and left Hal's office, careful to put things back as neatly as possible, which wasn't very helpful considering how messy Hal's room was initially.