Several minutes have passed ever since everyone started running away from their hideout after Celeste shouted for everyone to run, and now that everyone has escaped far enough to assume that they weren't being followed, everyone quickly regrouped in an empty building somewhere in a desolate part of the city and began catching their breath.
"Haah... Haah... Pretty sure I just broke the sound barrier back there with how quickly I just ran... what about you guys?" The male figure wearing the bear mask tried lightening up the mood by cracking a joke to everyone present.
Seeing as how none of the other 2 masked figures present responded to the man however and just depressingly held their heads down as they panted roughly, he immediately stopped trying to force a smile upon the entire group and sighed.
Usually, everyone would play along with his jokes, or at the very least acknowledge it and make fun of him which is what they often did, but he understood that now wasn't the time to do so.
After all, they had all run away with their tails tucked between their legs and left Celeste to fend entirely by herself, even though she had been willing to stay behind to begin with.
Of course the mood would be grim.
But still, he believed it had been the right thing to do, as horrible as that sounded.
Celeste was undoubtedly the best and strongest among them after all, and as such could do things no one else in the group could do like spy on and relay information to almost anyone extremely far away as long as she has been to that area before.
Furthermore, she excelled at close range combat, was faster than everyone in their group, and has always managed to stay composed even during the most dire moments.
If everyone here went up against her right now, she wouldn't have that much trouble defeating them.
That was why when she told everyone to prepare themselves to fight to the death before suddenly changing her mind and telling everyone to run instead right after the intruder was teleported to the middle of their headquarters, everyone obeyed her immediately even though they had no hierarchy amongst themselves.
"I hope she'll be okay, at least. She's saved my ass so many times already in the past…" The bear masked figure muttered soft underneath his mask before turning to the owl masked figure and said, "Verek, you went to the corridors alone even though Celeste explicitly told you to stay put because you wanted to see how strong the intruder was. Well? Are you satisfied now? I'm almost certain that Celeste only agreed to let you teleport back with the intruder because she didn't want you to leave you dying out there."
"...Leave me alone Zed, I don't want to talk about it." Verek briefly lifted his head and replied coldly.
If he had known how dire of a situation he was walking into beforehand, he would've taken Celeste's warning a lot more seriously.
Unfortunately he had gotten somewhat cocky lately as a result of not encountering enemies stronger than him, and it was too late to regret anything now.
"Leaving that aside for now, Reina, what do you think we should do with Aria? I don't think it's a good idea dragging a normal person along with us while we're hiding like this." Verek turned to the female deer masked figure and questioned.
"I agree, we should drop her off somewhere first." Zed chimmed in.
Reina thought about it for a second and glanced at Aria, who was no longer glowing but still remained silent, before saying, "I think we should use her as a bargaining chip."
"What? Are you insane? You know that we don't harm innocent civilians like that! We'd be no better than those bad guys out there if we do that!" Zed instantly objected.
"Who mentioned anything about hurting her though? We could just give the illusion that we'll do something to her if he doesn't comply, and hope for the best." Reina replied indifferently.
"No, we definitely can't do that, that might put her in danger if something goes wrong. Also, she's the sole survivor of that tragic event that Celeste was responsible for. Hasn't she gone through enough already?" Zed rebutted harshly.
"It's precisely because she is the sole survivor of that incident that we could use her. Think about it, why would Eric bring her in the first place if he could've gone alone instead? He must have a use for her that requires her to be alive and present." Reina didn't yield and kept pushing harder.
"...I agree with Reina here, if it gives us even a slightly better odd of eventually overcoming this predicament that we're in, then she should risk it. No offense to her or anything, but our own safety takes priority here since we're the ones actively ensuring the safety of countless other people." Verek concurred with Reina's words and took her side.
"Then what's the point of protecting the people if we sacrifice innocent lives along the way just to do so?!" Zed hollered angrily.
Then before anyone else could say anything else, he got in between Aria and the rest of the others and pulled out the two black guns that he had on his waist.
"If you're going to go ahead with your fucked up plan and sell an innocent person out to buy your lives back, then you'll have to at least send me to hell first before doing so!" Zed snarled and pointed his gun both at Verek and Reina.
Both Reina and Verek stiffened up and also pulled out their weapons instantly upon seeing that Zed was clearly serious.
"Step away Zed, it doesn't have to go this way." Verek advised as he felt Reina beginning to channel her magical energy to cast a spell and he prepared to get into close combat the moment that happened.
Zed could also feel Reina's intentions as well and the purple symbols on the base of his gun started to glow faintly.
Tension was rising at an increasingly rapid pace, and it was only a matter of time before things got ugly.
However, before either side had a chance to launch a preemptive strike on the other though...
"Pfft. Are you guys usually like this?" Aria couldn't help but let out a small chuckle as she tried holding back her laughter from what she was witnessing.
Perhaps it was because she found this whole interaction so absurd and illogical, or maybe it was because she had spent quite some time with the cold and almost completely emotionless Eric for the past couple of days now, but Aria found this scene to be somewhat refreshing and hilarious.
Of course, she had also said those words deliberately right afterwards to cut the tension short and hopefully avoid the ordeal altogether.
And as expected, the moment the trio heard her voice and turned their heads over to look at her, she could feel that the tension in the room started reducing significantly.
"No... but that's because I was just trying to protect you!" Zed was the first to speak and turned his back to Verek and Reina as he spoke.
"In what way? By having a standoff with your friends and catching me in the crossfire?" Aria shot back before turning to the other two masked figures and continued, "Tell me, do you guys think I would be a useful bargaining chip to you guys if I were dead."
"...No." Both Verek and Reina answered sheepishly.
"Right? For that reason, you guys stop trying to antagonize one another and work together to figure out what the next steps are. Wouldn't that be easier?" Aria adviced.
Hearing this, the 3 masks figures all exchanged looks with one another and glanced awkwardly before eventually lowering their weapons and putting them away.
"...You're right. Thank you." Zed nodded in appreciation and the other two also mirrored his actions, albeit a bit reluctantly.
"That said, are you willing to cooperate with us? It might get dangerous, and we can't guarantee your safety, but it's the best choice you have. Eric is just using you to accomplish his own goals, and he'll most likely get rid of you once he's achieved them… whatever those goals might be." Reina looked at Aria and sincerely cautioned while Zed stayed silent this time.
Admittedly, he believed that this was the best solution to this dilemma that they're all in, and while he still felt extremely bad and wrong about it, he wasn't going to object to it anymore as long as the person in question was willing to do so.
"I don't mind if it gets to that... but aren't you guys completely misunderstanding something here? He doesn't have any ulterior motives at all. He only came here with me because I asked him to in the first place." Aria furrowed her brows.
"That's impossible. Someone like that isn't capable of helping others, and I firmly believe that even more after seeing what he's truly capable of." Reina retorted with conviction.
"But you heard what he said to me in the corridor to calm me down, right? He might not look like it, but that alone should give you a glimpse of the kind of person he is. In fact, I'm more skeptical of you… Don't think I've forgotten what you tried to do earlier, Mr. Owl Masked Man." Aria pointed to Verek and stated in a disgusted tone.
"...I only attacked when you weren't behind him any-"
"I don't want to hear about it." Aria covered her ears and interrupted him.
"Just leave it be Verek. What's done is done." Reina stated to Verek before turning back to Aria and said, "We don't have the ability to listen far away, but one of our friend does, and she was able to give us a general gist of what was being told. But don't you think it's odd that he knows so much about you? Almost like he had been stalking you for a long time now."
"Not really. If that was the case, then he wouldn't know about the things I've never told anyone before." Aria left it at that and didn't go any deeper.
After all, she still didn't know how Eric could tell her things he had no way of knowing at all, and even if she did, she would've kept it a secret anyways out of respect for him.
"..." The trio all became stumped after hearing what Aria said and they didn't respond back immediately.
Aria honestly made it sound like Eric was like some sort of omniscient entity, and they honestly wanted to argue against it.
While they did believe in gods and deities and whatnot, and there were definitely miracles that have been witnessed before without any logical explanation whatsoever, they honestly didn't think that Eric was one.
However, they couldn't find any reasonable rebuttals to argue against it.
In the first place, Eric was the only person they ever came across from that knew about their hideouts and even knew the exact method of reaching them despite the precautions they take to prevent anyone from doing so.
Not to mention the incident that Celeste caused almost two decades ago that no one has spoken about since, and of which Aria remains the sole witness of the entire thing.
There just has to be something else at play here that they were missing.
Just as everyone in the room began were gradually entangled by their own thoughts however, a sudden burst of wind out of nowhere gently blew by the trio's ears, and they all couldn't help but excitedly cheer in their hearts.
This clearly meant that Celeste was still very much alive at this time, and she even had enough time to spare to locate where they were and send them a message.
However, after hearing what the actually was, they couldn't help but all blink in disbelief underneath their masks.
"What happened? Aria, sensing their sudden shift in body language, asked curiously.
Nobody answered right away though and just looked to one another for confirmation.
Then after staring at each other silently for a few more seconds, Zed took a step closer to Aria and began speaking.
"...We were instructed to teleport you back to the place where we took you from..."
"And then after that, we are to..."
Zed's voice grew strangely tight as he carefully uttered the next words.
"...Surrender to him. Peacefully."