11 What did happen and what didn't

Aurora was a little scarred she wouldn't ever get out of that dark place again but she also thought it would have been pointless for them to try so hard to make her believe they were good guys just to kill her minutes later. She decided to be brave and to believe she would get out from there again. She still had he budding-saurian to help her in case things turned to the worse but she still had not seen his fire monsters so it was a risky move to get him out of his ball. Maybe he even had a dragon which would be much worse than a fire type.

The building seemed to have been a foundry at some point. There were still a lot of machinery laying around in the darkness. Some chittering could be heard in the depths of the large hollowed brick shell. It was probably rats or something similar. There was a lot of small rocks, old debris and dust on the ground but aside from that, the area near the door was open enough for them to relax. Blaze closed the doors behind them and they were left with only the lamp to brighten the area since every window was boarded.

Blaze once again got his trusty thick blanket from his bag and spread it on the ground to let everyone sit on a more comfortable surface.

"Thank you Blaze, you're super kind like always."

"No problem, let's sit and have a talk shall we?"

They sat positioned in some weird triangle with the lamp in the middle. The distance between Blaze and Aurora was clearly longer than the distance between her and Gilly but Blaze taught it was to be expected and didn't mind. He just hoped he would get back his girlfriend soon from the scared girl. Both Aurora and blaze where detailing each other with their eyes.

Blaze opinion of Aurora was that she was a weak girl as thin as a stick, she looked frail to him. He thought he could probably snap her in half easily if he wasn't really careful. Overall, he thought she was a cute kid who probably loved to be spoiled but the fear in her big brown eyes were hurting his feelings.

Aurora thought that Blaze was very tall, taller than her father. His shoulder were large too which gave her the impression that if her budding-saurian was to try and tackle him, he wouldn't even move, like a wall. He had big fingers she could have wrapped her whole hand around and a serious face. His aura was somewhere between calm and sadness but his face just expressed seriousness, somewhat like her father in a sense. Maybe it was only because of his frown? He still looked like a movie bad guy to her, his black hair were a mess too and his dark eyes were sending shivers down her spine.

They were sat for only a second when Gilly broke the ice.

"Well then from where do we start? We have a lot to talk about, again."

"Yes" Said Blaze focusing his gaze on Aurora. "You have to answer our questions now but in exchange, I will answer yours too."

Aurora didn't know anything, she couldn't figure out what they wanted to know. Maybe they somehow knew about her abilities, she thought, renewing her panic.

"I think the most important thing to know for now is if you're hurt anywhere else. I have no idea what happened to you so I don't know if your injuries are serious. I don't mean to be rude but your face looks pretty bad right now."

Aurora was surprised this was his first question. Did he not have important things to ask her? Why did he care if she was hurt or not? Or was he just trying to lower her guard by pretending to be worried for her? After her surprise came the thought of how to even answer him? She didn't know how to explain this all without using words. So much had happened to her and her whole head was so painful. At least she should make them understand that she was mute, they seemed to not know this yet. It would make them ask yes or no questions for sure which would be so much easier for her to answer. Hoping they would somehow guess what she meant, she raised her hand and started making signs.

(I am mute.)

Blaze made a surprised face and Gilly started laughing. Aurora turned her head towards her, miffed that she laughed at her condition.

"That's why you were so quiet even through all that!" She exclaimed in between fits of laughter. "You're actually mute and I stopped you from talking by holding your hand! I'm so sorry."

At least she understood that she was mute. That was a good thing.

"I can't believe you were right and learning this will in fact be useful." Said Blaze with a face palm.

"See! I told you learning the sign language would somehow come in handy. And you thought it was a waste of time!"

Wait, what were they saying?

"How would I have known we would meet a mute person! It would have been useless in any other case!"

(You're saying you understand what I sign?) She asked in disbelief.

"Yes, we both understand, although you'll have to do it slowly for Gilly."

"I'm not that bad! I was the one who taught you!"

"Yes but you forgot half the signs in mere months."

Gilly had nothing to reply to that and just crossed her arms to express her discontent.

"Then," followed Blaze. "you aren't too shy to talk to us are you? Tell us what happened to you."

(The whole thing or just the pain?)

"I want to hear the whole thing but I would prefer if you went straight to how you got injured first, we need to know if we have to do something about that or if it will get better on its own."

Aurora nodded and told him what he wanted to know even if she couldn't understand why.

(The servant hit me in the face. He strangled me with his hand too. I couldn't move my mouth anymore. He wanted me to drink something but I couldn't. He closed my mouth with his hand and I felt horrible pain. My wrists and my shoulders hurt too but here feels the worst) She pointed at the side of her neck, just below the ear.

"It hurt when he closed it?"

(Yes.)

"Isn't that weird?" He asked Gilly.

"I'm not sure, let me take a better look."

Gilly approached her and asked a couple more questions.

"Can you open your mouth?"

Aurora tried but it felt really painful so she could only part her lips.

"Gods, how hard did he hit you?"

(I don't remember clearly, my head spun and I fell on the ground. Everything was fuzzy after that.)

"I will have to touch it to make sure it's not broken okay? It may hurt but you have to let me do it because we have to get you to a hospital if it's broken."

Aurora felt a little, maybe a lot, scarred of the pain. It had been the worst pain she had ever felt, she didn't want a repeat of it. Blaze tried to reassure her a little.

"Don't worry too much, Gilly isn't a doctor or even a nurse but she followed some classes on biology and she's very gentle. She is always the one who patch me up when I get hurt." (1)

"Speaking of this, it happens way too often."

"I'm trying my best, I'm not getting hurt for fun."

"Who knew?" smiled Gilly

She extended both her hands to Aurora's face and asked one final time.

"Can I."

(Yes.) made Aurora while shutting her eyes bracing herself for the pain. Gilly extended her fingers to her jaw and slowly traced it. She pressed a little harder on some places which made the girl's shoulder rise from the pain. She went from the front all the way to the back of her neck, trying to figure things out. Finally she released Aurora and asked one last question.

"It may sound strange but, are your teeth aligned properly? I mean like usual. Is your mouth closing different than usual?"

Aurora felt her teeth with her tongue to confirm but everything seemed as usual.

(Normal.)

"Mhn... I don't think anything is broken, I couldn't feel any bones moving but... The articulation of the mandible felt weird, they are so bloated. I think what happened is that it somehow got unhinged, dislocated, before it was snapped back in place. If you had told me it was in the wrong place, I would've had to place it back where it belongs but thankfully it seems to be in the right place already."

"What kind of asshole would hit a small girl so hard!" Blaze was angry, it was showing clearly on his face and his aura which was taking tints of red. "Can you fix this or do we need a real doc?"

"I think she's gonna be fine." Answered Gilly before saying some more to Aurora. "You will have to keep it closed for a while, don't move it or it could get out of its socket again, you have to let it settle back in place."

Aurora was glad she would be fine but felt disappointed with the next thing she said.

"I will wrap it in bandages with your head so it doesn't move by accident and you'll have to eat with a straw for the next few weeks."

"Weeks!" Exclaimed Blaze, reflecting the thought of the girl.

"Well yes, excluding the fact it's going to hurt if she tries to chew on something, if we let it move too soon, it could repair itself in a wrong position or damage it further. Just to be sure, we need to keep it there until everything is back to normal. A little more than a month maybe. And she will need painkillers too, this should hurt like hell even if it doesn't move."

It did, half her brain was occupied by the constant pain in her neck and jaw.

"What kind of painkillers?"

"Not too strong, the kind you take for a very strong headache should do, we don't want to knock her out. Could you hand me the first aid kit?"

Blaze searched through his bag to find it and brought it to her. She took the bandage roll in it.

"I'm going to roll it around bellow your chin all the way to the top of your head to stop it from opening. I hadn't noticed before because of the horrible state of your face but your hair is amazing! It's beautiful! Did you do it yourself?"

(Thank you, no, my mother did.) Was her hair really that good?

"Blaze do you think I could do that with mine?"

"No, I think your hair will get out of control way before you achieve that."

"You're right, I wish I had hairs like that too to make myself even prettier. Good hair is like a gift, you have to take care of it so that it can uplift your whole style. There is so many astonishing things you can do with hairs like that!"

Aurora was somewhat disturbed, had she talked to her mother? What was it with her hair that everyone found so interesting?

"What? You don't think so? Hey Blaze, what do you think about her hair style?"

"I don't think she is interested in my opinion."

She wasn't.

"Come on, please tell me."

"Fine, this gives me the impression that she is a pretty flower, it makes me think she is very careful and diligent. It think it gives her the look of some frail flower princess I need to protect, is this stupid?"

All of that from just her hair! He said she was pretty too! She almost smiled from the compliment but then the pain stopped her from doing so.

"It's not stupid at all! It's the power of a good haircut! Blaze, tell me, what do you think about mine?"

"I think it fits you really well, it's unruly and wild, fun and soft."

"Hon, thank you Blaze, I love you."

Both of their Aura took a matching pink hue that she taught was cute.

"See Aurora? The hairs are as important as your clothes, it lets people know who you are and lets you impress the boys too."

Impress the boys?

"Don't go teaching her nonsense, it's just a small girl. Put those bandages on instead."

She didn't know what that was about but still felt annoyed that he said she was small.

(I'm not that small, and I'm ten years old already.)

"You're half my height and half her age, it's plenty small to me."

"Urgh, don't say it like that, it makes me look old!"

"You're not old, you're young and lovely and I love you."

"Thanks, good catch."

Once she turned back towards Aurora to place the bandages, Blaze signed mischievously in her back (She's two years older than me, she's super old.) Aurora almost had a nervous laugh but the pain stopped her. Gilly placed the bandages carefully, no too tight to hurt her, just enough to stop her mouth from opening. Once she was done, Blaze talked.

"Alright then, it's your turn to ask a question."

(Really?) She felt like it shouldn't be her turn yet.

"Yeah, I need to be fair, I told you I would answer your questions if you answered mine. We will continue like this, one question for one question and no, I do not count that as a question, it is still your turn."

Alright then, She breathed in the most air she could and asked her biggest question.

(Why did you kidnap me?)

"We didn't."

He didn't even hesitate! It was a blatant lie though! She frowned and asked again.

(Don't lie, why did you do this to me.)

"We really didn't!" Said the girl. "You have to believe us, we had no idea at all such a thing was happening."

"In fact I wanted to ask you why you were captured too but I guess I won't find the answer from you."

Aurora wished she could read their aura well enough to know if they were lying right about now.

"My turn then. Would you please tell us what exactly happened to you? Who did this to you?"

(That's two questions.) She would make them ask as many things as possible so she would have more options to corner them.

"Oh, you want to play that game with me, alright. In details, tell me who was the one who hurt you."

(Hergis my butler, he worked for you but I didn't know. He worked in my home for a very long time, translating for me. He wasn't doing a very good job, was often missing and was no fun at all. I disliked him. It seems he really didn't like me too. He is a little smaller than you and his smile is scary. Now it is my turn to ask a question.) She went through the whole thing without taking a break, impatient to get her own answers.

What should she ask? He seemed determine to say he had nothing to do with those guys so she only had to ask him.

(Why are they obeying you if you are not the one responsible?)

"That's a good question, I will answer it as clearly as I can. Think of a pyramid. There is one person at the top, than two bellow, than four bellow them, then height and it goes on like this. The guy at the very top is the leader and at the very bottom, there are the guys from earlier."

Until there, it all made sense, it was simple logic.

"Everyone think I am the guy at the very top but I am not, it's a trick. You see, the guy at the very top taught it was really clever and told everyone I was the one at the top instead of him. The two guys bellow him know it's not the case and all the one bellow them continue to obey two anyway."

(If that's the case then why are they obeying you?)

"It's because the guy isn't as clever as he think he is. To make sure the police don't find out who the real leader is, everyone from the third layer all the way to the very bottom must be convinced I am the leader. If they get captured, they will say it's me. The good thing for me is, when there isn't someone from the top to tell them not to do as I say, they will just do it, thinking it's normal."

(You are trying to tell me that you aren't the leader but they are all doing as you say anyway?)

Aurora thought it was crazy and didn't make much sense.

(Why not just tell them to stop then? You could just walk in their base and tell them to stop.)

"I can't, I don't know where it is, they all think I am the leader but I don't have access to any of their resources or stuff and I don't know what they are doing or where they are doing it. Even if I knew were was their base, I wouldn't be strong enough to stop them because they only follow the strongest. They would immediately challenge me for leadership and crush me. I can scare the very bottom into doing whatever I say but it won't work against people that are actually strong."

This was so frustrating, he had a story all ready for this. His face seemed honest, almost pleading for her to believe him and his aura hadn't changed at all the whole time. She had no way of knowing if it was true or not. If only she could be absolutely sure about one of his lies, she could watch out for the same kind of aura...

She suddenly thought of something brilliant! She knew of something he would never want to reveal! She only had to ask the right question. He would lie for sure and then she would get her reference point for the other questions!

"My turn to ask two questions then."

(Two?)

"Yeah, because you asked me two. Why do they obey me if I'm not the leader and why do I do not ask them to stop."

She almost pouted in protest but it hurt too much so she didn't.

"Then, as my first question, please, tell us what happened, tell us your story."

It took her quite a while to tell them everything. She told them about her trip, that she was supposed to go to the Federation of Vanta, the betrayal of Hergis, her escape attempt, her pain, the blur in her head, the thing he said about a change of plan, the car, the plane and the men in black speaking another language. Remembering that Blaze told her she was small, she emphasized the fact that she would be considered adult once her trip was over. Neither of them interrupted her throughout the whole story.

At the end, Blaze stayed silent for a while thinking of what he had just heard. Beside the fact that this Hergis guy was a terrible human being, a lot of the story made little sense to him. It didn't feel logical. For sure, the girl wasn't lying, she told them everything she knew but it still did not make sense. What was his father thinking? What was the goal of this? How was it related to the rest? The silence stretched on and after a while of thinking, Gilly continued to talk to Aurora in Blaze's stead.

"Say Aurora, do you play chess?"

(I played it a couple of times with my father.) Answered Aurora, puzzled by the question.

"Did you play with or without a timer? Were you good?"

(We played without a timer, my father usually won.)

"I play against Blaze often, both with and without a timer. I noticed something very funny. Every time we play with a timer, I win but when we play without, it's always the opposite."

(That's strange, why is it so?)

"Blaze is really bad in improvisation but very good at thinking of every possible outcome of every single move. When we play without a timer, his turns always take forever because he thinks of the whole game and everything that could happen if he move any single piece before choosing the best one. When we play on a timer, he does the exact same, he can't adapt to the fast pace and runs out of time. Because of this, he often makes big mistakes that I can exploit to win."

That was an interesting thing to learn about an opponent, Aurora was glad Gilly decided to share this with her, it gave her more tools to deal with him.

"Right now, he is thinking of every single thing that could possibly explain why you are here. I have no idea how long he will stay like this but we should let him finish, once he is done, he will probably give us the outlines of what he thinks is going on. In the meantime, I guess I'll make dinner, it's going to be soup, mainly because we don't have anything left but also for you."

Aurora hadn't noticed it yet with all that stress but she was indeed starving. She hadn't eaten anything since she woke up in the morning. Adding to that the time since super the day before and the long plane trip in which she was unconscious, it had been more than a day since she had last ate something. When she heard Gilly talk about making diner, it made her quite impatient.

"I can see you really are hungry." Said Gilly giggling after seeing her look. "It's gonna take a little while to get it ready. Would you like to help me? There's not much we can talk about while we wait for him."

Aurora agreed to help because she indeed felt bored and hoped this would help her calm down a bit. She had seen the cooks work many time before but she had never paid much thoughts to what they did, even less of giving them a helping hand. Gilly had to explain every little thing to her in detail at every step but neither of them found it tedious or annoying. Gilly had fun teaching her how to use a knife, how to prepare vegetables, what seasoning to use and how to safely use the heater for the cooking pot. (2)

Aurora was very curious and liked to learn new things. She realized how hard it was to make only a simple vegetable soup She expressed her concerns as Gilly was mashing all the vegetables together with a big fork.

(Making a meal is super hard and very complicated.)

"Maybe. The thing is, you have to think of it as something else than a chore. If you are cooking for someone you like, for example, you want it to taste super good and you feel rewarded if he likes it."

What she said made her think of the cook back at home. They were always very happy when she praised their cooking. She wanted to praise them even more now that she knew it was so hard. No wonder her friends spent all their time in the kitchen, they had so much to do!

"The more you do things, the easier it gets, cooking is the same, the more you cook the better you get. I learned to cook first because I wanted him to praise me." She said pointing Blaze with her chin.

Aurora had nothing to say about that, She had no desire to impress that guy, she still wasn't even sure if he was evil or not. Come to think of it, that girl was on his side anyway you put it. Did she fall in some kind of emotional trap by relying on Gilly? Scare her first to force her to go towards Gilly when in fact she wasn't safer at all! The girl in question didn't notice what was going on in the head of her small helper and continued to talk about Blaze and cooking.

"It only half worked. He did like it and he did praise me but he didn't fall in love with me."

(Are you not his girlfriend?) It was confusing enough to give her an excuse to gather more information.

"Yes, I am now, but it wasn't my cooking that did it in the end. Not my clothes or my hair or any of that either. In the end, all I had to do was give him a kiss. Can you believe it? All those efforts for absolutely nothing."

(A kiss, it's a thing only boyfriend and girlfriend can do right.)

Gilly laughed.

"It should always be like that, only lovers should kiss but he was too dumb, I had to kiss him for him to understand I wanted to be his girlfriend. Even screaming it wasn't doing it, it was like he couldn't hear me. I hope for you that when you find a boy you like he will be less dumb than mine."

Aurora almost laughed but was once again stopped by the pain. She thought it was funny that Gilly was saying he was dumb but still her aura didn't show any hint of ugliness. She decided to ask why on the spur of the moment.

(Why is it that even when you mock him, you still appear as if you like him? I do not understand.)

"That's because it got nothing to do with if I love him or not. I love all of him, the good and the bad and he loves all of me too, good and bad. He is dumb about certain things but it is also part of why I love him."

(I still don't understand. When my parents quarrel, they do not appear as if they like each other. What is the difference?)

"I don't know, I have never met your parents. Maybe they like the good in each other but dislike the bad? I feel like Blaze would have to do something very extreme for me to be truly angry at him."

(The bomb?) Was that not extreme enough?

"I was super mad but not only at him. I was angry that he was so easy to find, I was angry at his dad, at the guys who made the poor security for the bomb and at myself too for telling him to do it. There was nothing in my heart that had changed."

(His father? Why were you angry at his father?) She couldn't understand what his father had to do with anything.

"It was his father who asked us to make that code. He is the guy that is really on top of the pyramid blaze talked about. He made us believe we were working on something for our childhood friends but truly, we were working for him. We fell for his trap so easily it felt unbelievable."

Was this really it? Was this the truth? That guy who looked like a movie villain was in fact the son of the real villain hiding in the shadows. It seemed too easy. She needed a lie sample to identify the truth.

Once everything was reduced to a paste, it was all put together in the pot with some water and left to cook as Gilly added some seasonings.

"Now, we only need to stir and wait for it to be ready."

(How Long?) She was very hungry, and couldn't wait.

"There's only vegetables in there, it shouldn't be too long. We'll eat when it's hot. If we waited longer, the taste would be better but I can see that you don't want to wait at all."

She felt saddened by the wait but couldn't do anything about it and so sat back down with Gilly on the blanket.

"Well, back to waiting. Is there something you want to talk about?"

Aurora couldn't use her good questions on Gilly because she needed to get her reference lie first. She had to think of something that wasn't super useful to know but could still give her an edge later. Maybe ask her about her battle monsters, or about Dawshield who was sprawled on the blanket. She could also ask about why she was with him but she didn't want her to talk about Blaze for the whole time. Maybe she just had to ask for something more practical.

(Can I call my mother?) Maybe the girl was kind enough to let her do that. If this was the case, she could get someone to come save her she hoped.

"Of course you can call your mother! Why Would I say no to that?"

It worked, unbelievable.

"No, don't let her do that, what are you even thinking?"

Blaze popped her bubble. His mind coming out of the depths of the void just at the right time to stop her.

"Come on Blaze, she is scarred and a lot happened to her, the least we can do is let her send a text to her mom!"

"We can't, there are still too many unknowns. Calling anyone related to her now could cause us terrible problems, we should finish our talk first."

"We could have done that like an hour ago if you hadn't fell asleep in the middle of a conversation."

"I'm just thinking I'm not asleep, I can still hear you when you say I'm dumb. Don't go an teach your nonsense to a small girl."

(I'm not small!) She was still growing too! She was a girl about get her majority that was maybe a little short but not so much considering her age.

"It's not nonsense, it's valuable tips on how to catch a good husband."

(I thought he was your boyfriend?) Her only real example of a couple was her parents, which didn't talk much to each other. Was a boyfriend and a husband the same thing? She had never heard her mother call her father boyfriend. Thinking about it, she had never heard her call him husband either, she just called him "your father".

"See? You're just going to confuse her."

"Then what did you find out Mr. 'I know best'? Tell us what is going on."

Both her and Aurora leaned in closer, awaiting the elusive answer as to why the girl was kidnapped. The answer was shocking.

"I have no idea what going on."

"What! After all that time you don't even have a clue?"

"No, I was able to cross a lot of possibility, too many in fact. There is nothing left, there is no reason to kidnap her that could possibly make sense. We are lacking a big piece of the puzzle."

That was disappointing felt Aurora. But then again, maybe he had been lying to her from the start and knew exactly what was going on.

"Then tell us, what is not going on?"

"Well, first, let's go back on what happened in order. They started by riling up the workers against Starfuel and more precisely Aurora here with the video. Then, the bomb blows up. Their plan change for some unknown reason and they kidnap Aurora."

"Yes, everything happened in the last couple of days, we all know those things." Said Gilly trying to urge him on.

"The first thing we can understand from the story that Aurora told us earlier is that this guy Hergis was supposed to train her into something. It means that the first version of the plan didn't involve kidnapping at all."

Aurora blinked. They didn't want to kidnap her at first but changed their mind?

(Why did they do it then?) She asked, angry that the matter seemed to have been decided on the flip of a dime. Shouldn't those decision be hard to make and even harder to pull off? Why had it been so easy?

"I'm sorry, that's part of the things I don't know. Since I don't know why you are here, what is the plan and what it was that changed it, I have no way of guessing why they thought it was their best option."

It was all so frustrating!

"The next thing we have to understand is about the video I haven't seen yet. Of what I understand, people on the web think you are responsible for kicking them out of their jobs, are you?"

(Of course not! It's a lie. I did say that but it's taken out of context, I didn't mean it.) She was just mad at her father, it had nothing to do with the workers at all.

"It's okay, I get it, you're not the only one who got tricked here."

That was still to be decided from aurora's point of view.

"Of course, since it led to you changing the place you wanted to do your coming of age trip we would be inclined to think it was done this way only to get you here but it would be wrong to think so."

(Why?) This was what she had thought happened, they tricked her with the video, let her convince her father she needed to go elsewhere by herself and change the destination at the very last second.

"The timing isn't right." Said Gilly.

"Exactly, the video was on the internet before the bomb even blew up which mean they still had not changed their plans at that point."

(Couldn't their plan change before the bomb? Before the video?) Asked Aurora, confused.

"They could have but it wouldn't make more sense. If that was the case, I'm sure there are better ways to kidnap you, think about it. There were so many points where everything could have gone wrong for them. If your father had not his back to you, if you had come across anyone on your way out, if your destination had been decided beforehand, if your father had disagreed to let you go to Gleanne, if he had just turned around a the right moment."

It was true, if only a little thing had been different anything could have happened.

"There are too many holes in that plot, every planet in the entire universe needed to be aligned for it to work but it still did. The only reason they would ever take such a risk was if they were in a rush. They even had to reveal their inside man to you. They needed you to be here immediately and it could not wait. This means, you are a very important piece to them, you aren't just some pawn that needed to be removed, they could have just waited to get you once you arrived in Kanto if it was so."

Of course she had not thought about this. She was so concerned about what would happen to her she didn't take the time to think of how she came to be there. The big question was why did they need her and Blaze was on the same level.

"Why did they need you so badly, for what purpose? Since your family is very wealthy, of course, the first thing we would think would be they needed money."

Her father was extremely rich after all, she would have thought so too but the way Blaze explained things since earlier, she knew it wouldn't be so.

"But, if they wanted a ransom, they had no reason to ship you halfway across the world. They only had to hide you somewhere nearby and ask the money. Furthermore, it doesn't fit with the initial plan since Hergis said something about training you. Then, maybe they wanted to keep you to force your father to act the way they wanted."

She hadn't even thought of that one.

"It doesn't seem right either, in that case, they still wouldn't need to train you for something. They would have needed to kidnap you in the first plan too so they would have been more prepared for it and if they planned to use your father, they would need him to be as strong as possible to be useful, there would be no reason to anger the workers. This wasn't it either. My third hypothesis was that they just wanted a doll."

"A doll?"

(A doll?) Like Gilly, she didn't get it at all, could they not simply go to the store. At least the other girl was as confused as her.

"You are too small for me to explain that. As for you, you are so perverted I'm sure you will understand what I was thinking in a second."

(I have the right to know, tell me! What's more, I am not small!) And what was that about being perverted? Gilly seemed kind to her, at least excluding the fact that she was possibly lying on everything she had said since they met.

"But that hypothesis was wrong too, you have no need to know about it, it's fine. It would have made sense to train her then but there is no reason to rush at all in that kind of scenario, Unless the guy who wants the doll is an absolute perverted scum."

"You meant that kind of doll!" Exclaimed Gilly.

Her whole face turned red as she hid her eyes behind her hands. Her whole aura shook and swirled with purple. What was she thinking about to cause such a reaction! Was a doll such a bad and horrifying thing? Maybe she didn't want to know after all. It wasn't the truth anyway, Aurora convinced herself.

"Yes, that kind, please don't yell. If they had wanted such a thing, they could have taken anyone. Even specifying rich people, there was no reason to take her instead of anyone else. After that, I searched for any other reason but nothing came to my mind. As I said, We are missing a piece of the puzzle, and a big one at that."

That was something she had asked herself too before. Why her? Neither her nor him seemed to have the answer.

"Besides that, there are some details I don't get. For example, what Hergis was really supposed to do or how they managed to get you banned from your dad security. It doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things but still, I'm curious. This is where calling your family or not comes in."

Aurora couldn't see what was the link between those small questions and calling her mother.

"Gilly talked about chess earlier. This is exactly what is going on, a game of chess. The thing is, their goal doesn't seem to be taking the king. We have no idea what they are aiming for or what more than half the pieces on the board are."

(That's got nothing to do with sending a message to my mother.)

"It does. We have to think of the best possible way to defeat them, and how to best use what we have. We need to capitalize on our advantages."

"I see." Added Gilly. "We intercepted her out of nowhere and got the police on their hideout. If this works, we can still play both sides."

What did she mean by play both sides? Her question was almost immediately answered by Blaze.

"Yes, we just have to wait for the cops to go there and then write on our social media page that we just barely dodged them. The Dragonlaw grunt will think we did as planed but had to escape. Still, the mission went well as the boss ended up with Aurora anyway. With some great luck, the guys who were there today will get caught by the police and won't be able to talk to their superior so they won't even know what happened to her, they just lost her. Even if we get unlucky and they know it was us, they can't do anything to take her back because they would have to tell the minions we aren't really their boss."

That made some sense but... Was he planning to keep her there?

"On the other side, no one in Aurora's house should know what happened beside the traitor, for them, you are still just on a regular trip. We don't know how they got so deep in your father's things that they were just able to lock you out without him noticing. We may blow up our cover if we contact them. On the other hand, if we don't, Dragonlaw could still pretend like they have you to get something from him. The best answer should be to let them know you are fine but it may trigger some move from your father or dragon law and we can't predict them because we have no idea what's happening. As long as everyone is in the dark on what is going on, the chessboard should stay still but the second you make that call, everyone will resume moving again and we will lose our chance to catch up."

"I think you are thinking too far in this now. We just have to call him and tell him we saved Aurora and that she is more or less fine."

"I think we should at least wait a little longer to see how the board has settled first. We should eat dinner, watch the news and settle our plan first before we let her do that."

(What about my questions?) She had no intention of letting him get away without answering everything.

"Of course, sure go ahead, I only have one or two left but I can throw them at you later. I give you unlimited question power and I will try my best to answer."

At last, this was her chance, she would know all the truths soon and wring his dirty plans out of him!

***

(1) As some sort of dumb disclaimer, I would like to point out that neither me (the author) or Gilly have any knowledge in medical study, for the love of Zeus, Poseidon, Hera or whoever the fuck you want, don't follow my, or her, medical advises. It's just a story made with minimal internet research.

(2) It's an electric heater plugged onto a big battery Blaze keeps around for camping. They haven't used it yet so it's still full for now. The laptop, according to the jumpdoc can be recharged by sunlight so he didn't use his battery for it.