The Collaboration Files

Help Is In The Forecast

Hey, it's Birch here. I've got exciting news. The new chapter is done! Huzzah!

Enjoy, my friends.

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I had a hood over my head for about an hour. When it was finally taken off, I could see Lizzy's house. I was sitting in a luxurious, sleek black car. And I was cuffed. Earlier, I had heard Artemis speaking over the phone to someone, telling them they had a decision to make. He listened for a moment, then I could hear a bleep meaning he had hung up. A moment later, his phone rang again, but he didn't speak when he answered it. After a minute of listening, he hung up.

Butler had opened the door, gotten Artemis and I, and now was casually strolling up the front walk to Lizzy's front door. I could only see one light on in the house, and for a moment was sure she had fled. But no, there was her silhouette in the window. I stared at her for a moment before she left the window pane.

So unlike the Butler that had smashed into my house, Butler rang the doorbell and waited for Lizzy to answer the door. Lizzy looked a bit anxious, but all I could see was her silhouette. I guess she invited us in, because in a moment Artemis was standing in her living room, flanked by Butler, and I was sitting on the couch. Despite the situation, I smiled at Lizzy. It was the first time in three days that I had seen a different face from grim Artemis and serious Butler, and Liz was a friend of mine.

"WELL?" Liz looked at Artemis and sized up Butler, never looking terrified, but retaining a calm and cool demeanor.

It took only a moment for Butler to explain the situation. All the while, I studied my cuffs to see if I couldn't break them, but it was gel-fingerprinted. That meant that the machine graphed every couture of your finger, scanned it, and if it was a match the device would open. I guessed it was probably Artemis's design, until I saw odd markings along the rim. The strange thing was, I could read them. It said:

Property of the LEPreconnaissance squad.

What could that possibly mean? I sighed and quit the examination of the device. But the letters stuck in my head. Why did they seem so familiar? As if it was designated, another memory sparked in my cranium.

We were being chased by silver creatures.... Who's bodies rippled like water. I was swimming, with Stella by my side, but suddenly I had to stop. My flesh had been torn, and blood was leaking from a wound on my leg. I could feel myself dizzying, and didn't notice Stella pulling me into a huge cavern. The silver beasts howled after us, but since Stella had pulled us onto the un-submerged part of the cavern, they couldn't reach us. I could feel the blood leaking from my wound, and blacked out.

Lizzy's voice brought me back to earth with a welcome bump.

"So what's the threat?"

"Excuse me?" Artemis was caught off guard by the question, probably expecting something like 'I'll never go alive!' or 'Who's Frond?' or even 'You're crazy. I'm calling the police!'.

"The threat," Izzy stated again. "The whole 'We're facing a threat that's very real and happening right now. We need your help'"

"We have a silver scale that was obtained after an attack on Atlantis, the People's underwater fortress. After analyzing it, we realized it was from a water serpent called the Mare Bestiam. Literally translated in Latin, it means The Sea Beast. So we need your help. Butler, if she resists, use force."

Lizzy, with a calmness and professional look, Unsheathed a sword. It was four feet long, shiny, and it was engraved with intricate symbols that looked a lot like the ones on my handcuffs. Butler took a gun out of a holster, and pointed it at her. This hardly seemed fair. A gun against a sword? It seemed the obvious choice that the gun would win. But I hadn't seen Izzy with a sword yet.