She was in.
The mont Damian heard those words, his mind buzzed and his heartbeat quickened.
Everything up until now had been drenched in uncertainty.
He had no clue how any of this would play out- whether the plan would even work, or if anything they were doing actually mattered.
But he had successfully inserted the Cypher Root Core Key into a mainfra.
And now, Anastasia had confird access to...well, sothing. He wasn’t even sure what she’d accessed, only able to whisper the question that weighed on him the most.
"With this... will you be able to locate anything?"
He didn’t know what he was asking. Not really.
Anastasia’s voice ca through the earpiece, breathy with tension, like she was multitasking woth her fingers tapping rapidly across a screen.
"Give so ti. Right now I don’t even know what exactly to look for. What I do have is access to an authority level way higher than my usual clearance. But I need to be careful. So of these files are too sensitive for any employee to be poking around in. At most, I can forge an identity and mark myself as a hidden administrator with read-only access. That way, I’ll draw less scrutiny."
She talked fast- faster than usual. Damian could almost picture the strain on her face.
"Where are you right now, by the way?" he whispered.
"Single-use employee handicap bathroom. Let work. You figure out your exit. Wait for soone else to leave the floor and follow."
Anastasia delivered the instructions quickly, casually, like hiding in a bathroom hacking corporate secrets was just another Monday.
Damian nodded and turned to retrace his steps...until sothing caught his eye.
The Serpent Queen, Serena, was nearby.
She wasn’t just wandering aimlessly. She was looking around casually, yet with a sharpness that set off every alarm in Damian’s brain.
And then it happened.
Her serpent flicked its tail, and in that flash of motion, Damian caught sight of a small USB drive not unlike the Cypher Root Core Key.
She slipped it into another mainfra as she passed. The drive shimred once...and then lted into the hardware.
Just like his.
’What the fuck?’
Damian blinked, stunned. Was she...doing the sa thing as them?
At the sa ti? What the hell were the odds of that?
But...Serena was a Trial Guardian. A golden child of ZENTHRA. Why would she need to sneak around like this?
The questions piled fast, and so did his curiosity.
He began following her movents closely.
She glided past desks and levitating books, her steps soft, precise, indifferent. Eventually, she arrived at the far corner of the floor where a private reading room stood.
She scanned the area, then opened the door.
Damian slipped in right behind her, invisible.
HISS!
The door sealed behind them, a gentle hiss of pressurized air releasing.
Serena didn’t notice.
She moved to one of the three terminals in the small room and slid another flash drive into a computer. The room’s atmosphere felt denser now, her serpent still coiled tightly around her shoulders.
Damian watched, stone-faced.
She began typing- slightly slower than Anastasia, but with unnerving precision. She knew where to go. What to open.
She wasn’t guessing.
Her fingers danced across the interface, and Damian could tell thag this wasn’t her first ti. She was accessing files that no regular employee, or even most Beast Masters, should be able to reach.
And then she opened a folder.
[The mory Wells]
Damian’s eyes went wide as this folder was opened.
He recognized the nas imdiately. The nas of dozens of ZENTHRA’s Guardians!
He even spotted the na of the Drunken Butcher, Vex Talon, among them!
But Serena wasn’t interested in him.
She scrolled past other Guardians, her apathetic eyes scanning until, just for a second, her finger trembled.
She clicked on a file labeled.
[Valentine Bateman]
...!
Valentine?
Damian didn’t know every Guardian in Ebonreach, but that na was hard to forget.
Valentine Bateman, better known as Deadeye, was one of the most famous Beast Masters in the city- on the sa stage as the Drunken Butcher known for bonding with a rare fla-type Interstellar Beast capable of precision blasts from miles away.
To the public, he was a hero. Unshakable. Powerful. Respected.
But the files Serena accessed...told a different story.
Damian watched as page after page of redacted docunts and disturbing images filled the screen.
There were multiple folders, each tagged with a woman’s na.
Serena’s hand was trembling again as she hovered over just one:
[Woodly Jaxon]
She clicked it.
The screen populated with photos—horrific photos. A woman, bruised, swollen, beaten. Docunts labeled assault, misconduct, unfit for reporting, relative of Beast Master.
Serena stared at the screen, eyes wide and wet.
The Void Serpent gently nudged her cheek, a rare show of affection as if trying to calm her.
Damian didn’t move.
His face was unreadable, but his heart pounded with understanding. The woman in the file...looked just like Serena. Maybe younger. Maybe just before it all went wrong.
It didn’t take a genius to make the connection.
Woodly Jaxon- her mother.
Her file was nestled among dozens of others, each implicating Valentine Bateman.
This wasn’t a one-ti offense.
This was patterned abuse buried behind Guardian status, drowned in power, and protected by the institution ant to champion justice.
Valentine Bateman, the golden boy, had destroyed many lives.
And now, one of his victims’ daughters was pulling files from the dark.
The Serpent Queen, always so cold and untouchable, sat trembling as her fingers brushed tears from her eyes as she quickly backed up the files.
Damian’s gaze softened.
He hadn’t expected to find soone like him here- not in the system, but beneath it.
She cleaned up quickly, erasing traces of her access like a pro.
And just as Damian turned to leave, Anastasia’s voice cracked into his earpiece, low and trembling with fury.
"Their bodies...my sister and parents...they didn’t even let us bury them! They sent them to so lab. To a fucking lab!"
...!
Her voice trembled on the edge of a sob, laced with a rage so deep it couldn’t be contained.
And Damian?
His eyes burned.
They glowed red!
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