Chapter Text
Audrey arrived at Blacksteeple Castle, hauling a bag of personal belongings, clad in her Xen jumpsuit, rather than her usual tropical attire. Though she still sported the same red haired ponytail, and glasses. The black brick walls of the castle towered over her. Holding the captives taken from the S.S. Oceana, and more recently Akuwa Town. The latter fact filled Audrey with a special kind of dread as she stepped off the boat. The black walls of the castle loomed above her, and the central pillar took on a panopticon-like quality, being able to look down upon each and every person in the courtyard as they scurried around. It’s occupant was not looking down on her yet, but was rather waiting at the gate, Neved. His coat flapping in the morning breeze that chilled Audrey to the bone even through her jumpsuit. She had to hold down her uniform’s cap to prevent it from blowing away.
“Audrey. It seems you’re recovering well.”
“Neved. Good to see you too.”. The two greeted each other with a short nod, and started to walk further into the castle.
“You read your briefing, correct?”
“Yeah, trouble with the sigils. Or, the thing powering them, at any rate. You want me to fix it.” Audrey vaguely gestured with her hands as she spoke.
“And did you read the rest of the briefing?”
“All that shit’s your job man. I just work with computers.”
“I see.” There was a pause in the two’s conversation. “I see you’ve decided to wear your uniform again, finally.”
“Fucking bite me, if I wasn’t wearing this I’d get put in with the assholes we kidnapped. And fucking freezing while in there.”. The pair approached the room inside Blacksteeple where Audrey had been assigned, it was a far more comfortable room than those below had been given, or most of the guards for that matter. Its opulence a little off putting for the IT gal. But, it was a castle. It only made sense. She set her bag down on the bed. “They arrived yesterday, right?”
“Correct. Take some time to get settled in, then get to work.”
“Great, thanks.”. Audrey and Neved gave each other a nod goodbye as Audrey got settled in. She re-read the documentation she’d been provided about the sigils. They were mostly magic in function, something Audrey groaned upon re-reading. As a result, she could barely understand how they worked, but interfacing them was like interfacing with a computer, and they connected to an actual computer that powered them. That was what she was brought in to fix. She decided her best course of action would be to get a look at it before doing anything else.
Audrey was inspecting the sigil in the mines. Rather than being able to inspect the power source like she’d hoped, she received an alert that a trainer named “Aspen” had been messing with the sigil. One of the arrivals last night, and a constant source of misery for Team Xen over the past month. Inspection had revealed that all that had been input was an incorrect password, and that the settings were as they should be, and that the sigil itself had no oddities. Still, Audrey couldn’t help shake the feeling that their presence heralded disaster for Team Xen despite hoping otherwise. As she descended the stairway, someone shouting caught her attention.
“Hey, get back to work!” A guard snapped at a middle aged woman, hitting his baton against the ground. The woman had sat down, her breathing was labored, and her clothes damp with sweat. She’d been working hard, and all she got for her trouble was being accosted. “You’re not going to meet your quota with that kind of attitude!”. Audrey looked over. It wasn’t her place to intervene. She was just here to play tech support. Not boss around the guards. “You hear me?! You wanna eat tonight?!”. Audrey met the eyes of the woman. They shared a look of recognition. She was from Akuwa Town.
“ Oh for the love of… Hey!” Audrey walked up to the guard, grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him to face her. “The hell do you think you’re doing?!”
“I’m giving the inmate motivation-”
“No, you’re scaring the hell out of her to feel big, that’s what you’re doing! She already knows the stakes of not doing his work well enough, right ?”, Audrey looked over to the inmate, who nodded, “Hence why she’s fucking down here in the first place!”.
“How about you worry about the computers, and I’ll worry about keeping the inmates in line.”.
“Listen asshole, if you don’t stop fucking hassling this guy, your credentials aren’t gonna work properly for the next month, got it? So decide, you wanna swing your dick around, or you wanna actually be able to use your keycard when we get back to HQ?”. The guard and Audrey locked gazes, but the guard left first, stating it wasn’t worth it. Audrey and the woman made eye contact for a second, but Audrey fled before the woman could say anything to her.
Audrey sat on her bed, ruminating over the information she learned as she re-applied her bandages. She could scarcely figure out what the issue with the control panel was. A cursory observation revealed it was tech she hadn’t seen before. It seemed both ancient and impossibly advanced at the same time. Apparently Nastasia and Madelis had conscripted one of the prisoners to help with the issue, independent of Neved calling her out to deal with it. Figures. On top of that there was a sigil on the fritz no one knew how to fix. The problems here seemed to be piling up, in a direct mirror to how everything had been going for the past month. First was the S.S. Oceana attack a month ago, bringing them far too much publicity before the Goldenleaf Woods, for a goal Audrey was never informed of. Then the Goldenleaf Woods operation itself was a disaster. It was the reason she had these damn wounds in the first place, and Zetta was MIA afterwards. Then it was Carotos Mountain, and that was years worth of investment down the drain, as well as Xen’s Mewtwo gone. That’s not to mention Geara talked such hot shit about being able to handle Goldenleaf, and now he’s missing in action too. Audrey couldn’t help but shake the feeling they were putting all their eggs in one basket with this plan, a bad idea while they were on a losing streak. Especially given what she knew of the plan. But it wasn’t her place to question orders, she was just here to follow them. She was here to survive.