Elsie

September 16, 34 AE, 4:28 AM

The rest of the neighborhood was still fast asleep by the time Blaire drove her luxury car out of her pristine garage. There was no indication that she knew there was a van parked right across the street, full of metas watching her every move and waiting to break in and steal stuff. Phrasing it that way, Elsie did feel a little guilty, but what choice did they have? Besides, Blaire was a jerk.

"Alright, everyone, it's time," Abby said, sounding surprisingly calm given the situation. "Remember: low profiles. If something happens, remember your training. Keep calm, and follow my lead. Understood?" Once everyone nodded, she continued. "Good. Now, watches on."

At once, everyone activated the watches on their wrists: the anti-eavesdropping devices Hitomi developed.

"Excuse me, but they are called Watch-Outs," Hitomi corrected, slightly offended. She turned to Camilla, who was squeezed between her and Elsie in the backseat. "Get it? They are like lookouts, but they are watches."

"Hilarious," Camilla mumbled back, unamused and tenser than normal.

Elsie couldn't blame her, not when they were right across the street from the place that held so many of her painful memories. There wasn't much Elsie could do, especially since Camilla was already tightly gripping one of Elsie's hands just from the sight of Blaire.

Several minutes later, Abby sent the first group out to secure the area. Immediately, Hitomi, Miles, and one guardian of the recon pair rushed from their van parked across the street and towards the house, their dark clothes blending in with the road but contrasting vividly with the bright-colored houses. Thankfully, it didn't take them long to slip into the narrow alley between the proportionally narrow houses, and the quiet neighborhood remained as such.

Several minutes later, three short flashes of light showed from the interior of the house: the first group had successfully made it inside, and Miles's illusions were in place.

"Second group, you're up," Abby said, not taking her eyes from the house.

This time, Nakia left, along with the other half of the recon team and the two other guardians that Elsie didn't know. They too quickly disappeared between the houses, and another three flashes of light followed soon after.

But Abby didn't send them out right away, and instead, took the chance to scan the neighborhood around them. While there were a few lights on in a couple houses, there was no indication anyone was watching them.

"Alright," Abby said, finally turning to Camilla and Elsie, the only ones left. "Let's do this."

As soon as they hit the sidewalk, Camilla and Elsie went ahead to follow the same route as everybody else, leaving Abby behind to lock up the van. As soon as they slipped into the alley, they were greeted by a tall set of stairs, and they rushed up as quietly and quickly as possible.

Up close, the alley was much more narrow than Elsie had originally anticipated, and she had to move carefully to keep her shoulders from hitting the houses on either side of her. It didn't help that the tall houses made their path almost completely dark, illuminated only by the faint moonlight. At least Camilla had no problem in navigating the familiar terrain, and Elsie simply stuck close to her.

They stopped once they reached the rock wall surrounding the backyard, and Elsie eyed the tall barrier skeptically. Camilla was already poised to give her a boost, but Elsie still wasn't confident that her pitiful upper body strength could complete the rest of the task. Plus, the short set of stairs they just ran up hadn't done her stamina any favors.

As soon as they got back to the hideout, she was definitely going to start working out. Maybe.

Since Camilla was patiently waiting for her, and Elsie didn't want to embarrass herself in front of Abby, it was now or never. So after mustering as much strength and determination as she could, Elsie stepped onto Camilla's offered hands, jumping just as she felt Camilla pushing her upwards. Thanks to Elsie's height, she managed to get herself most of the way up with Camilla's assistance, but she almost strained herself trying to complete her journey over the wall. And after barely managing that, she unsurprisingly ended her routine with an inelegant landing on the grassy lawn below.

A second later, Camilla landed neatly in the grass next to her, followed immediately by Abby. And much to Elsie's annoyance, neither of them looked the least bit exerted. But of course, when Camilla offered Elsie a hand off the grass, Elsie graciously took it, and the three of them rushed into the house together.

As much as Elsie wanted to stop and admire the house's spectacular interior, she knew better than ever that it definitely wasn't the right time, nor would it ever be the right place. But as soon as she entered, she couldn't help her eyes go wide at the sheer expansiveness of the place, especially since the house had looked so narrow from the outside.

While the exterior had been anything but modest, the interior screamed wealth, almost excessively so. Elsie supposed she should have expected it, given that the backyard had an abundance of impeccably trimmed foliage, an extravagant fish pond with a small waterfall, and a patio made with some expensive stone, but whatever.

Inside, the place looked like it was made solely to be shown off and not actually lived in. The first level was mostly open, and Elsie could almost see every end of the house right from the backdoor. While the furniture had a minimalistic design, it seemed to be intentionally so, so that attention wouldn't be distracted from the castle-like details covering the walls and ceiling. There were even carvings every so often to give off the appearance of pillars, and the large chandelier in the middle of the ceiling managed to still sparkle in the darkness.

"Holy shit," Elsie exclaimed softly, unable to keep quiet at the sight of a dining room that looked more like a scaled version of a palace banquet hall.

She half expected to be scolded for her unnecessary comment, only to hear Abby's low whistle from beside her.

"No kidding," Abby agreed, sounding equally awed. "Hey, Wyatt, where'd you say Ken's stuff was? In the east or west wing?"

"The dungeon," Camilla responded smoothly, not taking her gaze off her surroundings, her eyebrows furrowed.

Immediately, Elsie belatedly remembered how much Camilla despised the place, and she suddenly felt guilty.

"Sorry," Elsie blurted out, chiding herself for her insensitivity.

But when Camilla turned to her, she looked surprised. At least, that's what it seemed like; it was hard to tell in the darkness.

"Don't be," Camilla said. "It is a nice place. It's just... not for me."

Once they gathered the rest of their team—the earlier groups had been checking out one of the first floor bathrooms—Camilla led them down to the basement. Technically, it wasn't a basement since it was at street level, but that wouldn't be obvious just by looking at it.

While the main room of the basement was vast, its bland and boring design completely contrasted the level above. The adjacent rooms were also fairly large, and their empty door frames allowed a clear line of view into each of them. Aside from the clusters of shelving and boxes, everything appeared very simple and cheap, as if it had only been quickly fixed up on the off-chance that a visitor accidentally wandered down there.

"This is all of it," Camilla said, glancing around at the piles of clutter that were scattered around the room.

While the room was organized better than Elsie would have done in her own place, there were still a lot of things to look through. And even with ten of them, she wasn't sure if they could get through everything in time.

"Then we better get to work," Hitomi said, unperturbed, before grabbing a random box and plopping herself on the floor to rifle through it.

"Well said," Abby agreed. "Alright, Miles, just keep the illusions up to hide us, and don't bother with all of these boxes. Everyone, grab a box, and keep an eye out for any type of computer device, or anything related to metas. And use your eyes, not just your abilities—we don't want to miss anything because of complacency. If you see anything computer related, give it to Andou to check it out. And make sure to keep track of the boxes you already looked through." Then, she turned to Camilla. "Do we have to put them back a certain way?"

For a second, Camilla thought about it, then shook her head.

"Blaire—my mom never came down here anyway." She shrugged. "Besides, it was movers that organized all these boxes, not her."

"Hey, Cap," Nakia chimed in from across the room. "Which one of these had your dad's box in it?"

As Camilla went to show Nakia, Elsie found a space in an adjacent room to settle down and help with the search. A minute later, Camilla rejoined her, and the group worked in a joint silence.

It took them hours to go through over half of the boxes, and none of them had found anything worthwhile. As a result, they were all getting increasingly frustrated, nagging at each other for working too slowly or too quickly, or encroaching onto someone else's unofficial territory. On more than one occasion, Abby had to demand silence from the entire group, and at one point, she had to order the recon team to move to opposite corners of the room—they had obviously spent too much time with each other in the past several weeks.

The only people that kept to themselves were Camilla and Miles. In Miles's case, he avoided everyone from the start. But for Camilla, her silence was filled with tense stress.

Initially, Elsie wanted to be supportive, but she wasn't sure how, or if she was even welcome. After all, Camilla seemingly became more and more adamant at ignoring everyone, even her friends. So instead, Elsie just kept her eye on Camilla, ready to help when needed. Only when Camilla gave herself a papercut for the tenth time in five minutes did Elsie decide to step in.

"What can I do?" Elsie asked as quietly as she could, leaving her question as vague as possible. For all she cared, Camilla could ask her anything, from getting her a snack to leaving her the hell alone.

But Camilla kept shuffling through the stack of papers she was looking through, hunched over them like a squirrel.

"Nothing, thanks," she mumbled quickly, almost as if she didn't even hear Elsie.

"Milla," Elsie said, her tone slightly pushier than she intended.

At that, Camilla sighed and stopped what she was doing, but she didn't glare at Elsie and tell her to back off like Elsie expected. Instead, she stayed hunched over the papers, her gaze fixed to them.

"I thought we would've found something by now," Camilla mumbled, exhausted and dejected.

"We'll keep looking," Elsie said firmly, but she couldn't promise Camilla that they would find something. Not when there was no guarantee she could keep her word.

"And what if we still don't find anything?" Camilla asked, her stress steadily growing more apparent in her hushed voice. And when she finally looked up at Elsie, her eyes were wide and her gaze was desperate. "We'll have to look again, just to be sure."

"Then we will," Elsie said, but she started to worry about where Camilla's train of thought was heading. "We all will."

"And then we'd have to search the rest of the house, just to be sure," Camilla pointed out. "There are four floors total. Four."

Elsie shrugged. "Then we'll look through them."

"And what if we take too long?" Camilla pressed. "What if... what if she comes back by then?"

Is that what the issue was? Camilla was afraid of a run-in with Blaire.

"Then I'll deal with her," Elsie promised.

For a moment, Camilla simply stared at Elsie, her eyebrows furrowed as if she was searching for something. Eventually she sighed, and turned her gaze forlornly to the papers in her hands.

"Thanks," Camilla muttered. "But... I just wish I was able to face her myself.

"I thought I was ready," she explained. "Back at the hideout, I thought it wouldn't be a big deal if we ran into her. In fact, I kind of wanted to. I thought I'd changed, that I'd grown."

Camilla began fiddling idly with the corners of the paper, only to switch to running a thumbnail along each of her fingertips, as she seemed to have grown accustomed to. "But if she saw me now... I would only prove that everything she said to me as a kid was right. That... I'm too sensitive... I ruined her life... that I'm a failure."

Suddenly, Elsie felt a wave of anger roll through her. She had known Blaire was a narcissistic asshole, but she never pressed Camilla for details. But to say those things to a kid, to Camilla, was completely disgusting.

Elsie slowly reached for Camilla's fidgety hand, and when Camilla didn't move away, Elsie held onto her hand tightly.

"She's full of shit," Elsie said firmly. "You're not too sensitive, or a failure. And I for one would be glad if you ruined her life, so I'd consider that a bonus."

If the uncertain look that Camilla gave was any indication, Camilla didn't find Elsie' joke as amusing as Elsie did. Regardless, she nodded solemnly, and squeezed Elsie's hand in return.

"Thanks," she said quietly, then looked at the boxes that remained around them. "We should probably get back to looking."

It was an obvious redirect, but Elsie let her have it. As much as she wanted to show Camilla how truly amazing she was, Elsie knew that there were some things she couldn't help with. That was probably one of them.

A couple hours later, they finished searching the last box, and no one had found anything related to metas aside from a few comics. And while they did find several boxes filled with notes on Ken's old research, they only contained information on genetics before metas even existed.

"Did he have a study room?" Nakia asked as they slowly closed the last box they were looking through.

"He did..." Camilla began. "But Blaire turned it into a photo studio years ago."

"We should still search everything," Abby said. "We'll start from the top, then work our way down."

While the group followed Camilla's lead up the stairs to the main floor, Elsie lagged behind for a moment to rearrange one last box before rushing up the stairs after them. Once she rejoined them in the pseudo-palace, Elsie couldn't help but inhale deeply. She hadn't realized how musty the basement was, and breathing in the air on the main level was almost exhilarating.

She couldn't enjoy it for long though since everyone was already making their way up the stairs after Camilla. For Elsie, jumping over the wall in the backyard had been enough of a workout for one day, and she definitely couldn't see herself climbing up four entire flights of stairs. Unfortunately, Elsie also prided herself in being a supportive girlfriend. So she determinedly kept her complaints to herself and began to trudge up the stairs after them.

But as soon as she placed a foot on the first step, Elsie felt a hand seize one of her arms and yank it behind her. Before Elsie could comprehend what was going on, she yelped instinctively, forgetting that they were supposed to keep quiet. A hand quickly clamped over her mouth to muffle the noise at the last second, and that's when Elsie's fear finally caught up with her.

Thankfully, her shout was loud enough to get the rest of the group's attention, and all of them immediately spun around and positioned themselves for a fight. And while each of them maintained a stern persona, Nakia's expression quickly fell at the sight of Elsie's captor.

"Mimi?" Nakia asked tentatively, their voice almost sounding choked.

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