"Don't joke about stuff like that!"
Twiggy was on the verge of tears. How was she this unlucky, getting hounded by a ghost woman without a break?
"I'm not joking. That ring really does give off a matching Ether reaction."
Geno's Ether Sight showed it plainly. Not one detail of the ring's before-and-after change had escaped him, and presumably the reason Twiggy couldn't pull it off was Miss Ghost herself.
"I don't want this!!!"
Twiggy was genuinely coming apart. Not only could she not remove the ring, she had to live with a ghost woman hiding inside it. If the thing turned up in front of her face while she slept, she might never wake up again.
"Then I guess I don't need this finger anymore."
"Calm down! Just calm down!"
Having apparently pictured that horrifying future in full, Twiggy whipped out her combat knife to lop off her own middle finger. If Geno hadn't caught her arm, hand and digit would already have gone their separate ways.
"We'll think of something later. Don't do anything rash! You've only got the one of those!"
Geno was panicking hard. As an Ethereal he could regrow a severed limb; Twiggy, mere flesh and blood, could not.
After a great deal of coaxing, Twiggy finally spared her finger, though the sour twist of her mouth made it clear she was still fighting the whole arrangement.
"I want to get back to the lab and take this thing off already."
There was nothing Geno could offer against Twiggy's muttering, so he picked up the pace toward the west tower. Clear the Ethereals out of the other building, go home early.
Credit where it was due, though: this was the first time he'd seen Twiggy like this. Kind of cute.
That, of course, was a thought best kept behind his teeth. Saying it to her face would earn him a beating.
The gates on both sides had already been pulled, so Geno and Twiggy headed straight for the original passage. But when the two of them came back to the big door, they stopped short.
"The door… it's open?"
"There isn't another ghost, is there?!"
Twiggy suspected she was developing a bit of PTSD, though a quick check said this wasn't that.
"So there's someone else in the building besides us?"
Geno rubbed his chin. The two of them had come here on Mayflower's commission. Who else would be showing up at Ballet Twins at this hour?
"Hollow Raiders!" they said in unison.
Who else could it be? Aside from Hollow Raiders, Geno couldn't think of a single other possibility.
It was hardly a secret that the Hollow holding Ballet Twins had started to contract, and a few well-connected Hollow Raiders were very likely to seize the chance and go exploring.
"That won't do. If this lot damages the client's property, we're the ones who get the complaint."
The moment it clicked, Geno's expression went cold.
There were two things this man hated above all else.
One, people playing the rat. Two, people who wouldn't let him play the rat.
He hadn't even gotten around to being a rat, and here was someone doing it right in front of him!
Tired of living, clearly.
"Come on. Let's go see what these little rats are up to."
Hauling Twiggy along, Geno switched into bloodhound mode and used his Ether Sight to start tracking the Hollow Raiders straight off.
Catching rats was his favorite thing in the world.
The two followed the trail forward without running into a single Ethereal on the way. The Raiders had evidently cleaned house.
"These guys have saved us a fair bit of work."
That didn't mean Geno intended to let them off. They kept going, and finally, outside the door of one room, they heard voices.
Those voices, though… they sounded familiar.
"Eat this!"
"Shatter the darkness with thunder!"
"It's Show Time!"
Crashes and bangs rolled out of the room. Geno and Twiggy traded a glance. They knew those voices better than anyone.
"How about we scare them a little?"
Realizing exactly who was inside, Geno got a wicked idea, and sure enough, Twiggy nodded right along.
The two drew their weapons, pressed up against the shut door, and waited for the noise inside to settle.
Inside the room, lightning and gunfire took turns, and the Ethereals winked out of existence under the barrage.
"Hmph. That's what happens when you cross me."
"As expected of Boss Nicole!"
Inside were the three Cunning Hares plus one Bangboo Proxy. They hadn't been at Ballet Twins long before Eous led them straight here.
"Is Perlman really in here?"
Anby put her weapon away. She trusted the Proxy completely, but the uneasy feeling nagging at her pulled the question out before she thought about it.
"Relax, the intel is airtight. I saw him with my own eyes, being marched into this building."
Eous thumped her little chest in guarantee. This was the conclusion Fairy had reached after combing through eighty percent of the cameras in New Eridu, and they even had footage of Perlman being escorted inside.
"Besides, the intel's already gone to Public Security. We're only a step ahead of them. If we find him first, all the better."
Eous raised her tiny hands as she explained. She had in fact tried to reach Geno and Twiggy as well, but for some reason those two had been out of signal range the whole time.
"Then why are we going in ahead of them? Wouldn't it be better to wait and let Public Security sort it out?"
Billy scratched his head, not understanding why they had to take the risk, and got another rap on the skull from Nicole for it.
"Dummy! We're here for treasure, obviously! Ballet Twins may have been sunk in a Hollow for years, but this place used to be where all the social elites gathered. There could be all kinds of valuables left behind!"
As she spoke, Nicole's eyes turned into Dennies signs and her grin climbed higher and higher, as if she were already dreaming of the fabulously wealthy future ahead of her.
"That's Nicole for you."
Anby delivered the jab silently. Say what you would about her, this was the Nicole she knew.
[Warning: unidentified biological reading outside the door, suspected high-risk Ethereal. Remain on alert!]
In the middle of their chatter, Fairy cut in with a warning about the anomaly beyond the door.
The words had barely landed before the three Cunning Hares reacted, every weapon swinging toward the door they'd come in by.
Eous, taking discretion as the better part of valor, tucked herself behind a nearby pillar and peeked cautiously around the edge at the entrance.
About a minute passed. The room went completely still, and just as Nicole and the others decided the Ethereal outside had merely been passing through and began to ease off, a thunderous crash hit their ears.
"FBI! Open the door! Hands in the air, all of you!"
The door flew inward under someone's boot, and the familiar voice from the hallway made every one of them jump.
____
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