DEVIATE X / / AN UNORDINARY FANFICTION

XLII.

My eyes skittishly roamed around the board, trying to process the picture in front of me.

So Blyke was right. Remi's antics were more than trying to get the school to be aware of EMBER's presence. Lain out before my eyes were weeks—if not a month's worth of work, accumulated through research of various sources. The relativity of her work became almost unsettling the longer I stared at it.

"This is just a compilation of all of Isen's research," Remi explained. "The locations of where all the victims were attacked, and the dates of their deaths and photos."

"Hm, nice," Isen said as he examined the board closer.

Right. It seems that Isen's stalking habits served an actual purpose this time.

"What are Arlo, Sera, and Delta doing here?" Blyke questioned as he pointed at a section on the board.

In the triad of pictures, Remi and Seraphina were in the frame, scratched up with the Turf Wars ground serving as the background. Below that, there was a blurred picture with Arlo in the middle of sneezing, with the final picture as Blyke and I sitting at the arcade together.

"Oh, I ran into Seraphina in the hallway this morning. She told me she was ambushed by a group of nameless people," Remi informed.

My eyes widened.

First the head injury incident yesterday and now she was ambushed by a group of people this morning? I had no inclination of her attack......

"....And all I know is that Arlo was injured and refused to tell me anything." She finished.

I suppressed the thoughts of yesterday's events, of the lies he had the audacity to say to me. I let my eyes wander away from his picture before anger could surge through me again, tuning in on Remi's voice to soothe the anger threatening to boil out of me.

"....Those two are just speculation though. Two Royals from Wellston were injured without explanation. It definitely raises a flag," she commented.

"Why am I up there?" I questioned.

"Because of Irel's sudden attack. He was also a former student of Wellston, and a Royal as well. I'm assuming you haven't investigated his attack?"

"....No."

"Oh."

"Hey Remi," Isen suddenly said as he jabbed his finger at Arlo's photograph, "can I have a high res version of this?"

"It's great, huh?" She snickered.

"Guys," Blyke interrupted, "Let's focus. So what else have you been working on then?"

Remi promptly turned to her desk, rummaging around a large drawer before holding up a thick two inch binder.

A strange laugh escaped my mouth. Despite Remi's delirium, she still managed to retain her orderly quirk of keeping things neat. Even I've been slacking off with organization amongst my pain with Irel.

She smacked the binder onto her desk before flipping through the thick stack of articles, alphabetized by the past few months' recent incidents and attacks relating to EMBER. Among those articles were tidbits about Rei, and the newest ones being about Irel.

I let the sentences slip by me as Blyke, Isen and I flipped through the articles, with occasional words such as Unordinary, Superhero, and Vigilante reoccurring. The information was all the same: speculations, theories, attacks on vigilantes, and heavy opinions from the media and politics.

As I sifted through the papers, I froze as a highlighted sentence caught my eye.

".....peculiar burn marks on the Superhero Kloud...."