The Theft of a Saleswoman [closed plot]

Wednesday of Week 5, eastern part of Vale's commercial district near Beacon Academy

"I know you have it! Give it back!"

A young woman dressed in a dark trench dress coat screamed at the top of her voice at the two security guards currently escorting her out of the corporate building, struggling in vain to free her arms from them. At the bottom of the building's steps they released with a shove, one that wasn't particularly rough but in her high heels it was enough to send her toppling over. Long brunette hair pooled around her as she only just managed to stop her head from crashing into the ground face first. One of the guards looked honestly apologetic for the fall, the other guard not so much. He couldn't care less what happened to her now, his right shin aching in pain from a well placed kick from the woman.

Behind the security guards stood an aged tall man dressed in a very expensive looking suit. His face was pale, the day's events obviously being more exciting than he would have liked. He remained at the top of the stairs, looking ready to run back into the building if any more trouble happened.

"Mrs. Jennifer Boulanger, please calm yourself!" The business man tried to sound calm and rational, but his demand had an irritated edge to it that he just couldn't help. "I assure you I have no idea what you are talking about. We did not, nor have we ever planned to steal the deed to your bakery."

"Of course you didn't, you hired Selena Garetson to do it for you!" The woman spat the retort venomously. "I saw her in my bakery and I knew it was you who sent her! Stop denying it you thieves!"

"I've told you a dozen times already, we didn't do that." The man's voice was weary at this point, having heard these exact same words over and over again today. "I suggest you bring this matter to the police instead of screaming at us like a lunatic. Now, remove yourself from these premises immediately before we call the police on you!" Without waiting for a response, the man turned around and entered the building again, the security guards backing up to stand in front of the doors in case the woman tried something again.

Jennifer Boluanger remained on the ground where she had been thrown to, taking a moment to straighten out her somewhat short skirt and check her stockings for tearing. All the while wondering if anyone around would help her out.

Raethien gave a low yawn as he sat outside of a local deli, having finished the remnants of his food already. In fact, he knew that he really should be getting back to class but… he really wasn’t interested in that today. Besides, most of what they were planning to cover was a load of what he already knew about anyway, with the Faunus racism. He’d effectively lived through it vicariously from his parents, but he just wasn’t really looking to hear another side of it.

A woman walked nearby him, and from the heels, hair and short skirt, the young man’s eyes couldn’t help but wander. He was going to say something to her, but there was veritable fire in her eyes as she stormed out, looking to be heading towards one of the corporate buildings. The man’s gaze followed her hips as she moved by, and despite the fact that he had just finished eating, he couldn’t help but to lick his lips a bit. “This is totally a bad idea. Doing it,” he murmured to himself as he stood, tossing away the remains of his meal.

Despite her heels, she moved quickly, and Raeth was almost hard-pressed to keep up with her. Well, both that and when he got close enough to say something, he found himself admiring more than anything else. However, she disappeared within a building before he did have a chance to actually see what she was doing.

“Well. She’s gotta come out sometime,” he murmured, before he looked for a place to sit down. A few moments’ search afforded him a bench, and he took a seat near a larger man who seemed to be breathing primarily through his mouth, and wiping extra perspiration every few seconds. The Faunus did his best to not be completely grossed out by this fellow as he waited. Seconds turned to minutes, which blended together for far too long than Raeth preferred.

“Guess that’s tha-“ he began, when the doors burst open and the shouting match began. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t exactly a big fan of it. That sort of treatment should be reserved for criminals, and even then, not a woman. However, before the woman straightened out her skirt, Raeth was a pretty big fan of the view. Sauntering forward, he was planning to be the knight in shining armor, when he saw another fellow kneeling nearby, offering help. “Oh for the love of…” he grunted, before putting on his smirk and coming into view of the two.

“Looks like you’ve had one hell of a morning,” he offered, looking up at the two guards that stood, eyes now watching the three of them. “It’s not like I meant to overhear the shouting, but you’re Jennifer, yeah? I’m Raethien…and I’m not quite sure who our scaly pal is,” he admitted, although Raeth was thinking that he may have seen the other around at Beacon…

“You want I should kick their asses for you?” he asked, not really bothering to get to the heart of why the woman was upset, but more looking for a chance to show off.

If his classmates back at Signal had thought Alton a techwizard before, they'd think he was practically dust incarnate, now. As far as Hunters go, Alton was a bit of a misfit - he didn't come from a long line of warriors, he wasn't the most physically honed, heck, he didn't even have a semblance to make up for it. Unless you counted gadgetry a semblance, that is.

Right now, for instance, he was hanging two hundred feet in the air off the side of a bell tower, casually eating lunch as he swayed in the breeze at the end of his tow lines. Projected in front of him, but invisible to anyone who, by some impossibility, might've been looking over his shoulder was a map of the city, spotted with circles in which multicolored dots flitted back and forth along the city streets. The dots were persons, their positions updated in real time by his tiny fleet of drones that flew over the city like birds - well, *Beacon's* drones, legally, but he'd designed them and was putting them to use.

Ostensibly, he was on patrol duty, monitoring the city for evidence of foul play - there'd been a lot of violence in the past few weeks with more unexplained scenes of destruction than the police cared to admit. Alton's job was to deploy the drones, sit back, and report anywhere there was an alert. The mapping software had been his own little touch, and in that regard he had fun watching the hustle and bustle of the city from overhead - the cluster of dots around one of the fountains where a street performer was playing some folk tune, a blur of activity at the doors to the local bank as people passed in and out of the great stone doors, and-

Oh. Interesting.

A visual feed, normally prohibited for privacy concerns, popped up at the scene of what the drone was reporting as a Priority 4a disturbance - not too concerning, just an alert that someone was roughhousing. Alton had had to disable surveillance of the local bar since every drunk that threw a punch kept triggering an alert. Zooming in, Alton saw it was just another unruly customer being thrown out of a shop...

Moving the drone in closer, he turned up the audio relay and listened in.

"...you who sent her! Stop denying it you thieves!" Civil dispute? Accusations? Technically, it was grounds for response, if only officially to keep the peace.

"Hm. Well, it beats guard duty." Alton pressed a button on his headset, dismissing the map. "Hey, Captain, this is Cadet Asteras. I'm responding to a civil dispute in the shopping district, tell Zach to mind the drone net while I'm gone."

Releasing his suspension cables, Alton let himself drop for a moment, enjoying the sensation of freefall, until survival mandated that he prevent a high-speed meeting with the ground. With a twitch of his fingers, lines of high-strength steel shot from his wrist gauntlets and hooked on to various convenient nooks and crannies of the city skyline as he swung above the crowds to the scene of the incident.

Walking was for suckers.

"It's not the first time I've been shoved down, I'll..." Jennifer paused for a split second as she looked up and at the person behind the hand she had been offered. Her eyes quickly bouncing up and down to take in the unusual look of the person before her. If he had disturbed her though she didn't show it, opting instead to let her lips melt into a soft smile.

"I'll live." Jennifer finished with a genuinely thankful sounding voice. "Thank you so much, you are a true gentleman. Unlike those brutes..." She turned to scowl at the bodyguards at the door as she stood up, the two men not so much as even flinching under her gaze. Once she was on her feet Jennifer took note of the other person who came over to help her, looking him up and down as she did the first.

"Rough is one way to put it..." Jennifer's eyes looking off into the distance as her smile vanished, her tone matching the sad expression on her face. "While I'm sure I'd feel a little better seeing those two roughed up, taking on the thugs of a company like this would hardly do anything. Really, thank you to for the help but I should be going. I fear that they might make good on their promise to call the police if I linger. I'll just...have to find a new way to fix this..." Jennifer gently pushed past the two men, walking at a steady pace to get away from this place.

The faunus gave a singular shrug as the woman seemed to want to go off and smack some heads around, but at the same time, decided it would be ultimately pointless. It wasn’t something that he was actually looking forward to doing… but it would have been an interesting aside, for his day. Just something to pick it up from the dull lull that it was threatening to become.

However, as the woman turned to leave, she mentioned finding another way to fix ‘this’ which was very likely her situation. Raethien’s mind flashed back to when he’d first seen her, and recalled that she had seemed angry well before this had happened. So it was completely possible that whatever was going on, it stemmed from that situation that he had not been made privy to, yet.

She took a few steps and Raeth seemed to be considering whether or not he should follow her… when the other boy once more took that initiative. He seemed polite and nice enough on the outside, but offering that kind of help to a complete stranger took some balls. Raethien was completely used to reaching out to random people and it had never phased him but… seeing it in action from another was actually very interesting.

However, if he didn’t act, he couldn’t get the girl.

The chains clanking got his attention more than the lizard-like faunus’ words, but Raeth was quick to follow-up. Assuming the woman stopped with the other’s words, he would come to a stop on her other side. If not, he’d follow along with her. “Yeah, what our friend here said,” he echoed, giving her a smirk. “It really looks like neither one of us wants to go to class on this Wednesday afternoon. There’s a nice little place not too far from here where I got some lunch. If you’d like to tell us what’s going on, I’m sure we’d love to help.”

He grinned over at the other helpful faunus, though it was obvious the two were regarding one another with some level of distrust, for the moment. “Right?” he asked.

Alton landed lightly on the rooftop overlooking the street. He'd made good time across the city, mostly thanks to the new Tablius Bridge providing an amazing leverage point for a long, momentum-building swing. Briefly, Alton considered the idea of mounting glider wings to DIADEM for big jumps like that; long periods of free fall with a good bit of speed could be pretty handy.

Nah. Too much weight. Maybe it'd be good for if he ever had free time.

Below, Alton was late to the party - the security guards from the shop were nowhere to be seen, probably back inside, and the woman was... chatting with two faunus, looking none too happy. First was a... lizard? Weird; didn't see too many of their type in Vale. The other...

"Cripes, Raethien, chasing skirts again? I know I've warned you about this part of town." Alton's old Signal buddy was up to his old tricks; not too surprising, given, well, Raethien, but mildly disappointing, especially since he hadn't seemed to have learned from the last time he'd been caught in a Purist neighborhood.

Hmph. Better keep an eye on whatever the three were doing, then.

Jennifer looked pensive for a moment, chewing at her bottom lip as she thought. For a moment it looked as if she would leave as she pull away and took a step backwards but eventually she turned back around and looked at the two with a mix of resignation and gratitude.

"I...thank you, Sclav and Raethien. I really shouldn't involve you two but...I suppose I don't have many more options to pursue. I guess there's no harm in at least telling you my story, then you can decide if you really do want to help me or not. Let's go ahead and grab some lunch then, shall we?"

At a swift pace, Jennifer lead the two down the street to a rather posh looking restaurant. Blemish free white frames set atop a cobblestone base held several well lit windows that revealed a polished interior filled with well dressed patrons eating expensive looking meals. A long rectangular sign above the elegant front door announced to the world in a majestic cursive font the name of the establishment: Con Brio.

The very second they entered the building, a waiter dressed as a butler was there to greet them. He smiled and bowed his head to Jennifer as he saw her first, but the professional look on his face dropped into a scowl as he saw who accompanied her. The waiter opened his mouth to say something but was cut off as Jennifer spoke first and reached into a pocket on the inside of her coat.

"Don't worry Alan, I'm paying today." With a cheerful smile and voice to match, she pulled out a fan of high value lien for the man to see and set one in the pocket of his shirt. At first there was a confused look on his face before he brought back the professional look he had before.

"Very well ma'am, let me show you all to your seats." He turned to start leading them through the restaurant. Jennifer respond again in a cheerful tone.

"Could we have one of the private rooms? We have some business to discuss."

((Nuts, you did that to force my hand, didn't you?))

Raethian was following the woman and the other faunus into a restaurant, the Com Brio. "Huh. I think Stahl mentioned eating there, once. He said that the ste-crap, what am I doing." Alton regretted that x-ray vision was beyond even his technical skill to create, but he didn't feel like awkwardly sitting outside the building for however long it took for them to eat.

Dropping from his horizontal perch on the side of a building, Alton twirled around a banner pole before landing in a roll on the street. Brushing off his jacket and ignoring the stares of the understandably surprised bystanders, he hurried into the building just in time to see Raethian's associate talking with a waiter.

"...the private rooms? We have some business to discuss."

"Uh, pardon me for interrupting your lunch date, miss. Alton Asteras, Beacon Initiate. Mind if I have a word with, er, your associate for a minute?"

OOC:

Jennifer spun around rather quickly as she was addressed in such a matter of fact way. Her eyes looked Alton up and down very quickly and a concerned look crossed her face.

"Uh...yes that would be fine." She offered with a worried tone in her voice. "Is something the matter? Raethian here has been nothing but wonderful to me, he helped me off the ground after I had a small spill."

"It's just that, uh, my friend here has, ehh..." Alton glanced over at his comrade, remembering his promise to never speak of the Red District Incident, "...iiiiiI was looking for him because his... combatives! Combatives professor. He had a message for him. Raethien. Yep. Message from the professor for Raethien."

Score.

Raeth couldn’t help but let a smirk cross his face as the woman, Jennifer, had allowed him into her fold. He glanced over at the other man, the lizard-like Faunus. The woman had said the boy’s name, which Raeth tucked away for future memory. Sclav… he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of him. Not to mention that he looked more than a little…well, less than upper-middle class, which is what Jennifer was. At least, so Raethien assumed.

She began to move quickly then, and Raeth let out a slight whistle at the speed at which she moved in her heeled shoes; most women would have fallen or at least stumbled, but she made it look as if she were walking on air. Granted, Raeth still had no trouble keeping up with her, but the fact that she had that was something that impressed him.

A moment later, he found them outside of a particular restaurant: Con Brio. He’d heard of it before; it was a rather…high-end place. And now, here they were, about to head inside. He paused, glancing at his reflection in one of the windows as he smoothed his hair back some, letting the wind-blown look fade, but just for a moment as his virtual mane of hair tumbled back down into place. “Ah well,” he spoke, before turning to follow Sclav inside.

“Damn,” he murmured under his breath, quite impressed with the interior. This was certainly something that he could get used to. The butler that approached them (Alan, as he found out in a moment) paid him a rather…distrustful look. As Jennifer offered to pay, once more, Raeth couldn’t help a low whistle- she might be upper class. “Thank you Alan, my good man,” Raeth said with a smirk, pressing his luck for certain when a familiar voice came from behind.

“Alton!” he called out with a slight cheer as he gave Jennifer a fairly…obvious lie, at least to the Faunus. Granted, he knew the tech-head from Signal. And that Alton knew some of his less-than-shining moments. Which might be why he was here. The grin he wore faded down to a smirk as he finished talking, and Raeth waved his hand in front of his own face, in a somewhat dismissive gesture.

“Well if the Prof has a message for me, I guess I’d better hear it,” he spoke, doing his best to assist Alton with the on-the-spot fib. “I’ll be just a minute or two,” he spoke, nodding at the woman as the two of them stepped to the (relative) secrecy of outside.

As soon as they were clear, Raeth chuckled. “I’m not misbehaving. At least not this time. Well, not right at this moment,” he clarified, glancing back towards the door. “She does actually need help with something, I think. After that though, I can’t make too many promises,” he added, scratching the side of his face. “But did you see that ass?” he whispered, not wanting to sound like a creeper to anyone who didn’t already know he was (i.e. Alton).

"No, I didn't see that ass," Alton hissed, "I was more focused on the daggers the waiter, the bouncers in the corner, and the three closest tables were shooting at you and your buddy, there." Alton sighed, looking around - on the street, there wasn't much of note, but Alton could see out of the corner of his vision, through the window, that the men-who-totally-weren't-security had moved to a table closer to the door.

"Alright, y'know what? I really don't think we have the time to discuss everything that's wrong with this situation. Let's go back inside, let the lady talk, and I'll try not to gouge out my eardrums when you drop some of your pickup lines."

Alton motioned to the door and stepped back inside, shooting the undercover guards a knowing look while, internally, screaming at himself for getting mixed up in more of Raethien's escapades. Last time he'd run into the faunus by chance it'd taken a week to get rid of the "I was mobbed by a horde of angry perfume saleswomen" smell.

"Sorry about that, Miss...?"

Jennifer watched as the two men left for a moment, the look on her face still showing worry and concern. She stood where she was for a few seconds before sighing and gesturing to Sclav to join her in the dining room. It was decorated in the same style as the rest of the establishment but it definitely had more of a regal edge to it. The table was long and made from a well polished dark wood, surrounded by plush chairs that looked like they came from an office rather then a restaurant. With bright chandeliers above the table and a projection screen on one end of the room, it looked more like a board room than somewhere people ate.

Before she took a seat, Jennifer turned to Sclav and offered him a kind smile. "I would like to apologize for all of this, I can tell you are a little uncomfortable here. Con Brio is somewhere my father always had important meetings, he said he liked it because he could trust that the place wasn't bugged by his rivals. I figured for what I have to say, it would be the place to do it." She paused for a moment before stepping a little closer to Sclav.

"And...I also want to thank you, personally. As soon as you saw me you didn't hesitate to help me up, and I get the feeling that you did it purely out of the kindness of your heart. Raethien is nice but I suspect that his intentions are...well, beyond just helping someone out for the sake of helping them." It looked as if Jennifer was trying to frown, but she couldn't help a small grin from forming on her lips.

"In any event, I suppose that I can't be picky when I don't have many people lining up to help me. I just wanted to thank you for doing so out of nobility." With that Jennifer leaned over and placed a small quick kiss on Sclav's forehead. She offered him one final smile before stepping over to the door as she heard the two returning.

"Boulanger, Jennifer Boulanger." She offered in response to Alton's question, smiling kindly at him. "I take it you must be one of Raethien's friends? You're welcome to join us if you'd like, I'm sure he told you a little bit about what's going on. I just ask that what you hear here you keep to yourself, for my sake please."

At that moment the waiter arrived with menus for everyone ready to take their order as soon as they had decided.

"I will take one of your house salads please." Jennifer said without looking at the menu, taking a seat at the head of the table. "With chicken, ranch dressing, tomatoes on the side. And a lemonade to drink. Gentlemen, feel free to order whatever you would like."

Alton followed the woman into a private dining room, doing his best to surreptitiously unroll his sleeves back over his gauntlets. Not that he minded being seen armed, but this was a classy establishment and it just felt wrong to waltz in with a dress shirt pushed up past the elbows.

"Boulanger, Jennifer Boulanger," the woman said as they took their seats. The waiter dropped of menus and, like a regular, Jennifer had an order ready to go. Alton glanced at the menu, not truly hungry but not willing to pass up a free meal, despite the fact that Jennifer's offhand request for secrecy had done nothing to calm his suspicions.

"New Vale Strip, medium, don't hold back on the seasonings. Uh... and a baked potato and fruit salad on the side, please. Oh, and just water will do."

“I’m not gonna throw any pickup lines her way…just yet,” Raeth murmured before they went back inside. Raeth nodded to Alan as he entered again, who returned the Faunus’ smirk with a narrow-eyed look. It was obvious that, even being a Beacon initiate, he wasn’t looked upon too fondly. That was fine, though. He’d had his share of people not exactly trusting him at first, but that was all right. He (normally) found a way to turn them around. Or they hated him by the end of it.

He and Alton found their way back to the private room that Jennifer was in, with his friend getting her name as soon as they entered. Likely he was remembering it in case something happened. Still, as they entered, Raeth couldn’t help but notice the star-struck look on Sclav’s face… and he was curious what the woman had told him, here moments ago. But that was neither here nor there as he grabbed one of the chairs and, in complete lack of societal fashion, spun it around to sit with his arms folded on the back, his tail twitching in anticipation.

At the promise of a meal, Raeth gave a slight grunt; if only he hadn’t eaten just a moment ago. “Nah I’m not hungry. I’ll take a coffee though,” he said to the waiter, already handing back the menu. “Oh, but I’ll take a dessert once we’re there,” he added a second later, trying to at least have ‘something’ to eat.

Glancing over at Sclav, he arched a brow as the boy continued to shake slightly. Raethien couldn’t tell if he were cold, due to not having a shirt, or nervous, or both. “Hey man, just chill,” he offered, giving the boy a grin. “We’re all in good company. No need to be freaking out or anything,” he spoke, before nodding back over to Jennifer.

“Not sure how this fancy business goes down,” Raeth admitted openly, not showing the slightest bit of shame in doing so. “You wanna eat first and discuss second, or while we eat?” he inquired, glancing at his fellows.

"Absolutely." Jennifer responded to Sclav with a smile before turning to the waiter. "Why don't you get him a medium rare top sirloin, with garlic butter sauce. And whatever side you feel is appropriate for it." The waiter bowed his head in understanding of everyone's order and quickly left to fill it, returning only once a few seconds later with everyone's drinks.

"It will take a few minutes for our food to arrive, so I imagine we have enough time to for me to explain everything." After answering Raethien, Jennifer reached into the same pocket as before and pulled out a folded up envelope, which she straightened out and pulled several pieces of paper from. She sighed slightly before she started to share her tale with everyone.

"You see, I own a small bakery a little while away from here. It's in a good spot, lots of foot traffic coming in and out of the place and there's a lot of other businesses nearby with lots of hungry employees come lunch time. Perhaps too good of a spot, in hindsight. Anyways, it was something my father gave to me...more or less. My father being Malcolm Sellers, I'm not sure if you know who he is but if you read the newspapers around here you might."

Jennifer reached into the papers she had with her and laid down on the table a clipping from a newspaper dated from the start of the week. It was a smaller article, clearly not a front page report, with a bright bold heading summing up the piece quite well: Highrise magazine creator to host another wild party at Eden Resort. The picture below it showed a man dressed in an expensive tuxedo smiling brightly for the camera, a wine glass in his right hand and a woman on each arm. Both of which wearing a dress that could be considered modest only in the most liberal interpretations of the word. The article itself detailing how millionaire Malcolm Sellers would be leaving for the fourth time this year to host a party that 'most people wished they could dream of'.

"He does these for publicity stunts mostly, he loves the media and the media loves him." Jennifer frowned as she spoke with a disapproving tone. "All because he created an 'adult' magazine for businessmen. As you can see he's not the kind of person who dedicates themselves to just one woman, which is why my mother and he only lasted a year together before getting divorced. just long enough to conceive me pretty much. He let my mom keep custody of me, which is why I took her last name. I would have grown up my entire life without seeing him if she didn't pass away when I was a teenager. He was pretty much forced to take responsibility for me, which for him meant shipping me off boarding school."

"He only started taking an interest in me after I graduated and became an adult. What he wants me to do is marry the son of one of his competitors in hopes that it will soften him up to be bought out. I would much rather be independent though, I want to run a business. After a lot of threats and arguing, we came to a compromise. He would give me my own business to run, which I could have for as long as it was successful. If it failed or I sold it though, I would have to settle down with someone of his choosing. So as I'm sure you understand now, that bakery is very important to me."

Jennifer paused for a moment to take a sip of her lemonade before continuing. "Now, one of his friends had had an eye on that spot of land for a while, it was something my father held on to for its worth and wasn't willing to give it away to anyone. His company has been badgering and badgering me to sell it to them for a long time now, but I couldn't let them have it or else I would have to make good on my deal with my father. So eventually, they just decided to take it for themselves. They learned about the deal I had and used that against me, they hired a skilled thief that's been running amok around here to break into the shop and steal the deed to the store! Tomorrow they plan on transferring money into my account to make it look like I sold it to them, and when my father returns at the start of next week they'll tell him all about it. With a few forged papers it'll be just my word against theirs and my father has no incentive to question them, especially since it gives them exactly what he wants."

As the story unfolded, Alton sat, unflinching, but internally was screaming.

The airship lifted off into the sky, Alton at the helm. Underway, alarms, fire everywhere - the engine exploded? How? Liferafts away, try and guide it down to save something, anything. Light, heat, tongues of flame and shattered glass, roaring wind and freezing, unyielding water. A white hospital ward, an accident report. "Defective equipment." No. It had to be the dust. Flash forward. Snow, everywhere. Blackness rushing forward in the sky, his work. A few buses and trucks rumble over the whitened road, fleeing the shadows. Metal rips and crunches as the buses pile up in the trap, Alton's ears ring as he pins the guards with gunfire from every direction. A blur of action, a pyromaniac with a crazy bike, a psycho with nitroglycerine knives. Blood dripping on the snow, barely escaping, arm's broken. Doesn't matter, I have proof.

"Why'd you do it? You killed eight people, you monster! For what?" Because I had to! "Why!" They destroyed everything! Everything I built! I'm going to prove it, I'm going to stop them, and I will kill you if you get in my way, Hunter!

Alton realized what she was asking - or what she thought she was asking and what he knew the consequences would be - and his mind collapsed on itself. "I have to do it. She's no different from me. No! I can't! I won't! But I have to. I can fix this."

Alton cleared his throat, and spoke. "And... what. Exactly. Are you suggesting we do."

Raethien leaned forward, ears perked upward and attentive as the woman regaled them with her story. Seemed like it was a pretty shitty situation, but the Faunus had no real similarity to it. He’d never had anything bad happen, not really, or ever felt alone, like she did now. Generally, most of his time as a young one was spent either with his parents, or with his siblings. It was far from rich, but it was home, and it was actually rather well-rounded for him, and he grew up getting different information about adulthood from all sides.

But this? Being essentially forced to relocate because someone had stolen something, that may have been done by the friend of your father that wanted to see you fail? Raeth could barely wrap his head around it, let alone relate to her. Still, from the looks of thoughtfulness and remembrance that were on his companions’ faces, he had no doubt that they had some level of similarity, or at least familiarity with the situation at hand.

As her story came to a close, it was Alton that spoke first, wanting to kjnow exactly what the next steps would be. It was a fair question, to be sure, but Raeth mostly ignored that for now, as Sclav then began to speak, being far more open about the fact that he felt some similarity for the woman’s situation. The chains made sense, then, if he had been a slave or something similar.

At last, it came to Raethien, and no doubt, they expected him to have some level of approval or understanding. Instead, the boy shook his head slightly, giving a smirk to her. “Well, Jen, I can call you Jen, right?” the question was barely that, and without waiting for an answer, the boy pushed right through, showing no signs of hesitation. “I can’t say that I can empathize with that situation at all; I’ve never been in anything similar. Unlike Sclav and probably Alton, I don’t really have an altruistic reason to help out.”

His smirk grew into a grin as he watched her, curious as to the reaction. “All I know is, there’s a pretty girl that needs help. I don’t know where you’re coming from, but I focus on the present. And right now, you need help.” He leaned in then, giving a slight wink. “So lay it on me, babe. What can we do for you?”

Jennifer took a deep breath before answering them, wringing her hand nervously. "Well...uh, what I was thinking possibly is that we could do is...take the deed back. I have a pretty good idea where they are keeping it and I've been inside the place before when my father brought me. I also have...well, I can get some codes to get past a few locked doors. My father received them so he could come in and visit with his friend any time he wanted."

"The only real issue is a few security guards that patrol the area. No one dangerous, we would just have to stop them from calling the police. We can't let the police know about this at all, they are on the company's payroll. If they got a hold of us we'd be in for some serious, off the books trouble."