No.

Travolta had told them to meet him in the Arcade after school. He apparently wanted to take care of some other business first. Well, John didn’t care much. There was no way the enemy would attack him twice in one with a Trap Barrier. From what he heard from Rave these things were expensive to set up.

John already had found out that at least one of hunches was (most likely) wrong. In a private chat in Discord he had exchanged some harsh words with his stalker.

Jeehan: Did you set up another abduction attempt on me?!

SecretBlonde: Lol, no. Thanks for the free intel though. Also, I would have never tried the first time around if I had known what kind of cash you would attract even without getting you into some Mana Factory.

Jeehan: You mean that selling information about me is just more profitable than selling ME?

SecretBlonde: No, I mean that it is less risky. Hey, would you abduct the guy that fucking Romulus is interested in?

That was convincing enough for John. Sure, that guy shouldn’t be trusted completely but the reasoning at the very least was sound.

Rave and John entered the Arcade. To his surprise John actually saw Victoria there. She suffered from some wounds that looked like knife cuts. Travolta on the other hand looked fine but heavily disgruntled. His eyes darted over as his fingers repeatedly tapped on the wood of the conference table. “There you fucking are.” He cursed, “Sit down!!”

“Jesus, calm down, Baldy.” Rave said but they did as they were told. “So, each of us were attacked today.” Travolta said and kept tapping on the table. “I was coming back from looking after Jimmie, you two were at school, right?” They nodded. “Where were you Victoria.” “Cemetery.” Wow, that was far away. What was she even doing there?

Travolta had the same thought, “Why?” “I don’t have to tell you, I thought that was agreement in your club.” Travolta stopped tapping and slammed the table. The wood jumped under his enormous strength. “Shut the fuck up and out with it! This is not a normal situation!” He shouted. “Tell – me – why – you – were – there.”

All eyes rested on Victoria who stared back at Travolta. “I don’t have to answer shit.” She finally said and stood up. “You leave now and you can forget coming back.” “Fine.” Victoria shrugged and grabbed her guitar case. Once she had left Rave sighed.

“Well, great now you alienated one of us.” “She is not one us.” Travolta growled. “Unlike your boyfriend over there she never even tried to get along with us. No idea what she wanted here but I doubt that she is innocent.” “Travolta!” “WHAT, JANE?! You have a better idea? Her timing is just too good!”

John cleared his throat. “Sorry, Jane but I have to agree with Travolta on this one.” “What?” Rave looked at him with a betrayed expression, “I’m not saying that she blew up Jimmie or something like that.” He was hasty to add, “But she definitely looks suspicious.” “Ya two are stupid.” Rave crossed her arms. “Well, who would you think investigate?” “Moira.” Rave instantly said. Travolta just laughed at her, “You serious?” “She never liked us and the Golden Rose always warned us to stop doing what we like to do.” Rave defended her case. “And they also never went violent. They dislike HOW we do things not necessarily WHAT we do. Why would they attack us now that we are protected?” Travolta countered outright.

Rave threw her arms in the air, “Well, I don’t know but who else is it going to be? You are seriously going to distrust Victoria over this?” “Yes.” Travolta said and crossed his arms, “I am going to distrust the person that never shows up, never tells anyone anything nor is willing to cooperate.” “She got hurt too!” “Then she had better tell us who and why. As it stands I see three possibilities here.”

Travolta listed off the ideas he had by counting them on his fingers. “Either she is involved directly and is betraying us, or she is the target and we are now getting hit by proxy or some third party just hates us for some reason. Either way we can’t prove the third thing so we might as well look into her.”

Rave opened her mouth again but John put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “He is right Jane.” He said. Rave pressed her lips together and looked at both of them. “You seriously annoy me right now.” She said and left the table. “Where are you going?” Travolta demanded to know, “What? Ya gonna throw me out the guild too?” She asked with a poisonous glance over her shoulder before turning again and mumbling “I will be outside.”

The door closed behind her with a bang. “She is getting way to fucking emotional over this whole thing.” Travolta complained. “I can’t really blame her.” John said and turned away from the door. He would be lying if the thought that Victoria was guilty was pleasant to him, but they had no other leads right now. It didn’t help that Victoria acted suspicious as hell and he had been attacked by a sniper earlier today. There was also the fact that the attacker had vanished the second he had shown up. It could easily be attributed to fleeing because the plan had failed but John couldn’t shake of the feeling that the attacker didn’t want to get Observed.

“Well, whatever…I will prepare myself for the next attack with just us two here there won’t be any more progress.” Travolta grumbled and went up the stairs after commenting, “You should look after Rave.” “I know.” John sighed, after a short breathing period where he sorted his thoughts he went outside.

Rave was standing outside with crossed arms. She looked at him with angry eyes when he walked towards her. “Travolta closed the meeting.” He explained, “Okay.” Rave answered shortly. She tapped her fingers against her in a quick beat. “Rave listen I…” “What? You are going to stalk Victoria?” She intervened immediately. “I don’t want to hear it. She fought with us didn’t she? She even slept with us on a few occasions, sure she is not the nicest person around but to immediately throw her under the bus…” She kicked a pebble over the patchy grass, “Unbelievable.”

“Yeah but you think of Moira just because you dislike her.” John was getting a little annoyed as well, it was one thing to understand that he could be wrong but Rave was overly protective when their life was on the line. “At the very least Moira is actually an enemy!” “Well I don’t know what Victoria is!” John shouted back at her. “For all I know she could be a spy, she never told us anything!”

“Oh great! You go and look into Victoria then while I confront Moira!” Rave was ready to go but John grabbed her by the wrist. “Wait, Jane, listen to me for a second!” He demanded. Rave pulled her arm free but waited with an angry, betrayed expression. John took a deep breath, “I am going with you.” Rave looked at him with confusion, “What, but you said…” “Yes, I know. I don’t think that Moira has anything to do with this. Neither she nor the Golden Rose look the type.” John rubbed his forehead, “but I am willing to trust you on this. HOWEVER!” He raised a finger, “If it turns out you are wrong we are looking into Victoria, understood?”

Rave raised her hands and teared her hair in a motion. “Urgh, this sucks. Why can’t we still have last week.” She lamented and threw her head back to shout in annoyance. “Okay, whatevs, yes, Ja, okay, fuck it.” She finally agreed, “But if I am right you kiss my feet and buy me something fancy.” John smiled as their first fight found a somewhat happy ending. “I can live with that. Let’s go to my place we can’t do more until tomorrow.”