novelraw Chapter 305 - 250 - Corrupt Lobbies
Chapter 305 - 250 - Corrupt Lobbies
When Rebecca and Shouri picked up Emily on the 18th of February, they hadn't expected the princess' attitude. Her annoyed taps of the van's trunk when it wasn't immediately opened, and the force at which she threw their bags in was one thing.
"Let's go," she demanded as soon as she and her duo seated themselves in the back.
Shouri and Rebecca exchanged a worried glance, but the fire Resonator in the driver's seat complied and put the vehicle in gear to get them out of the trappings of the airport.
The week since the Emily's departure had been quiet. Nothing of note happened. Everyone just kind of did their own thing. There were hunts in the evening, and by day the guild worked on their humble little property.
"How was home?" asked Shouri.
"Fine," came Emily's curt answer.
Rebecca flicked her gaze up to the rear view mirror, though it was a simple reaction; she already knew Emily was desperate to get back to the guild hall for some reason.
"Oh, you got a package," Shouri added.
"Good," another terse reply.
The boy frowned, not appreciating his second's attitude. It was so unlike her, though he decided to give her space. Trying to pull whatever was bugging the princess out of her sounded simply exhausting.
It didn't help her Resonators weren't doing anything to reel their Maestro in. They appeared to share in whatever concern was causing the princess to rush about.
Thankfully, it didn't take too long to get back home. Monday afternoon traffic was merciful since they managed to get home before rush hour. As soon as they put the vehicle in park, Emily flew out the door and rushed to her room, Albarich and Ritika in tow. The massive box that was delivered that morning sat in front of her door. Not even the chill of the winter afternoon bothered her.
Shouri walked up behind his vice-guildmaster just as she tore into the box. From the very top of the massive package, the princess drew out a thick manila envelope. Before he could ask what was going on, she turned to him.
"You probably want to see this too," she said.
The grim, yet determined glare on her face told him the seriousness of whatever was contained within. He motioned to the Resonators surrounding them.
"Yeah," she agreed to the implicit ask.
Emily sat behind the desk in the main office of the guildhall. She undid the clasp on the envelope and drew out a massive stack of papers.
"Remember before how I tried to get information about the guys on Luna deporting non-lunars? The ones who attacked me and Al?" Emily asked.
"Yeah, they gave you the runaround, if I remember correctly," replied Shouri.
"Right, a few days ago, Seat Ṣaṣṭha approached us and told me he slipped this into the box I was already having shipped here. He was really secretive about it; so whatever is in here is probably big." As she explained this, she started separating the report into its different sections.
With the report broken up into chunks, the gathered seven tore into it.
"Eugh, this is dry," Rebecca grimaced as she tried to understand the political documents.
"Yeah, sorry," Emily replied, her eyes never leaving her share of the paperwork.
Shouri shook his head and took a brief reprieve from the assault of ink on paper. "Ems, should we even be reading these?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" asked the princess, her gaze darting back and forth as she skimmed the page she was on.
"Well, these are like state documents, right? Shit written up by the Luna government," he pointed out.
"If the sixth didn't want me to share it with you, he wouldn't have put it in a box you could easily open and find," she replied.
Shouri nodded. "Ah." He figured if the King and Queen considered pulling him from Riterra, he must be at least somewhat trusted. Either way.
Hours passed, eventually Taika, Rebecca, and Ritika dropped off, leaving Shouri, Emily, Pacifica, and Albarich to comb through the dense texts. Eventually, Pacifica's head hurt enough that she needed a jolt of etude to continue their work, and so that led to her reading her chunk sitting on Shouri's lap while he parsed his text.
"Uhg…" Emily leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes to give them a break after the marathon read. "What did you all get from it?" she asked.
Pacifica shook her head, curling up on her beloved Maestro's lap. "Sick," she groaned. "They made these really detailed."
Shouri stole a glance at his otter's section--a compilation of all the Resonator rights violations discovered. He wrapped her up and stroked her hair, muttering small apologies.
Emily felt a tinge of guilt subjecting them to this, but it needed to be read.
"Well, the details about us getting jumped were pretty fucking sparse," Albarich commented, tossing his own stack onto the table in disgust.
"Yeah, mine didn't have much useful information," Emily mimicked her Resonator, throwing her papers onto the stack.
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Shouri snorted indignantly. "Well Sahji fucking loooooves me--I got the juicy shit."
"Oh?"
The boy shifted in his seat, pivoting around while keeping hold of Pacifica. "I was fucking right--Rene is involved. Tons of money and Resonators moving from Luna down to him directly. Apparently, they were trying to keep it real hush hush, but your people actually did some real investigating and found the trail." He held up his stack for Emily who accepted it.
The princess scanned the papers herself, eyes widening the longer she read. "My stars…" she uttered. Her shock quickly descended into annoyance. "The fuck do you MEAN they can't pursue criminal litigation?!" she shrieked.
"Tldr, the transfers were above board, the money moved legitimate, all on record and with proper documentation. Someone's pockets got insanely wealthy to rubber stamp all of it. The only thing your courts can do is inform the Riterran courts. And that ain't going anywhere," Shouri groused.
"So, what the fuck can we do?" Emily grumbled, her temper worsening the more she learned.
"Well, we do have an Ethereal," Shouri began.
"Huh?" the three remaining looked to their guildmaster.
"For the moment I think we just keep doing our thing. There's going to be people who want us in their pockets. Especially if we make problems like our vampiric friend 'disappear' so to speak," he reasoned out. "Once we're too strong for them to downplay or ignore, we take over things like investigating Resonator rights violations. Then no one will be allowed to complain because we'll be the judge and jury."
Emily couldn't help but crack a smile. "Dude, you're crazy."
"Look, I'm not saying we become dictators or something stupid like that. All I want to do is stop shit like Feroce from happening."
Needless to say, after the intense reading session, Shouri and Pacifica did not feel like going out to hunt. Likewise, Emily and Albarich were in no mood either.
Shouri threw open the door to his room. "Get your shoes on."
Rebecca and Taika jumped, cuddled under the blankets. The sudden entrance of their Maestro completely unexpected, given how engrossed in their movie they had been.
While they were concerned about the sudden entrance of their Maestro and fellow Resonator. They were more worried about how exhausted the other pair were, alongside the sudden demand for action.
"Wh-what's wrong Sho?" asked Taika, trying to will her heart back to its resting rate.
"Y-yeah, what's the rush?" Rebecca added.
"We're going to CPoW, get ready," was all he gave them before he locked himself in the bathroom.
"Chuh-pow?" asked Taika.
"Continental Place of Waffles. It's like a twenty four hour breakfast place," Rebecca said, as she slid out of bed. The fire fox looked to her water counterpart. "What happened Paci?"
The otter girl slumped in their desk chair. "It was a lot. Really bad stuff."
Rebecca and Taika exchange a quick glance and nodded. The two girls went to their third and each took up a hand. They allowed their rhythm to flow freely.
"Damn… you weren't kidding. Didn't know reading could take this much out of you," Rebecca commented.
"It's okay Paci; we're here," whispered Taika.
Shouri emerged from the bathroom and quietly traded place with Pacifica. Rebecca and Taika administered the same treatment to their Maestro as they did to their fellow Resonator.
"Paci wants to eat her weight in waffles," Shouri informed the duo.
"WE NEED CPOW'S NEW CHEESECAKE WAFFLES!" Pacifica shouted from the bathroom.
"Exactly," agreed the Maestro.
Rebecca and Taika shared a look, shrugged, and returned to tending to their Maestro. At least there'd be food.
Shouri and his trio packed into the van. In a surprise twist for Taika and Rebecca, Emily and her Resonators piled into the van (sans Soot, who chose to stay home.)
It was late at night by the time all was said and done. Rebecca took the wheel given how exhausted Shouri was. The local CPoW was nice and empty, outside of the employees, of which one of the waitress Resonators was more than happy to have something to do.
They were seated around a large round table and menus handed out.
As the group decided on their orders, Shouri was on his tuner, thumbing up a text.
"What's up Sho?" asked Rebecca.
"Texting Elijah," he replied.
"Why?" wondered Emily.
Shouri set the device down and picked up his own menu. "Simple, his people couldn't find shit when they looked. Figured he should come take notes."
"You're not just gonna text him all the stuff?" asked Emily.
"Don't think its the best idea to share state secrets via text message," Shouri retorted.
"Ah, fair I guess," conceded the princess. "God I'm tired," she chuckled wearily.
"Also, I wanna see if he shows up. Maybe I'll clock him if his excuse isn't good enough," Shouri snarked.