“Crap.” I said, noticing a penguin with a sword in one hand, but the key in the other, “How the hell did it get the key!?”

I noticed that both of my hands were empty. The penguin ran off and headed outside.

“After that damn penguin!” I commanded.

I ran outside the building with everyone else following me. I made one of my cat-swords appear and struck and hit a penguin – not the penguin we were after: just a penguin. There were hundreds of penguins outside.

“Well,” I said, “today is a good day to die!”

I ran and started swinging my sword all over the place. I noticed Isaac jumping on penguins, forcing them into a bucket, and it seemed like there was infinite space inside of it. I also saw Simon using his katana and Mikaela using her scythe. Matthias suddenly had a knife and he ran by a row of penguins, slicing all of their heads off.

The penguins tried to fight back, some pulling out guns. I ran toward one of them, but got distracted by it getting shot in the side and falling over. The bullet that hit it was from Charles, who was shooting all over, with a gun in each hand. Next, I saw something interesting.

I saw Stuart, on the back of a large green dragon, which started breathing fire on the penguins! As I continued to do my thing with my cat-sword, I noticed a few pieces of blank white paper float through the air. I was surprised that they actually sliced through a few penguins! I then noticed James surrounded by floating pieces of paper. He moved his hands forward and they shot out that direction, slicing even more penguins.

Then I watched as he folded pieces of paper into weapons and used them. As we continued fighting, more and more blood spilled. We struck at the penguins, but they kept striking back. While thinking of my next attack, I noticed Catherine, who was facing Lucas. A few seconds later, I realized she was literally controlling him!

At that moment, some of the penguins jumped up and actually started flying! With what they had done previously, this really didn’t surprise us. Catherine had him run after them, so I made a cat-trampoline appear in front of him and he jumped on it and bounced into the air, giving him a chance to slice the flying penguins with his magic sword.

All of us kept attacking and attacking and attacking hoping that it would soon end, but we were fighting for quite a while. Suddenly, I sent out a tornado of cats which pulled a ton of penguins into it. It also sucked in fire from Stuart’s fire dragon, which spread. Soon, all we saw was fire. Suddenly, it was splashed with a lot of water, form Isaac’s bucket. Then, all that remained was the key.

“What was- why!?” I exclaimed.

“Likely a trap set in place,” said Matthias, “these keys are a special kind that can’t really be destroyed, so they were hidden.”

“Right,” I said, “now we know someone out there doesn’t want us to find them.”

“Anyways,” said Lucas, “shall we all head to Dovacath?”

“Hold on,” I said, “Charles, are you coming?”

“Yeah, why not?” he said.

“How about Iris?” I asked.

“No,” said Charles, “I can’t have her do anything dangerous!”

“Didn’t stop her from being involved the previous two times.” I said.

“Why do you even care?” asked Charles.

“Because I believe you’re hiding something!” I answered.

It was at that the atmosphere around the two of us had changed. I could tell that Charles didn't like the way I was starting at him.

“Well,” I said, “time to get one hundred percent more serious.”

“What are you up to?” asked Charles.

“Okay, he plans on keeping a bit of information from us,” I said to myself, “but I’ll force it out of him!”

“Quit talking to yourself!” he demanded.

“Where to strike first?” I muttered, “Perhaps I should just ask about Iris…?”

Charles stood still, seeming uncomfortable.

“Okay,” I said, “where is Iris?”

“Working.” answered Charles.

“On what?” I asked.

“A case.” responded Charles.

“What kind of case?” I asked.

“Murder.”

“What does she even do?”

“Was what I said not enough?”

“I just want to hear it from you.”

“She’s a lawyer here now.”

“…How is she?”

“Fine… where are you going with this?”

“I don’t really know…”

“If you think I’m just going to tell you something interesting, you’re mistaken.”

“I’ll remember this,” I thought, “now to change the topic.”

“…Is that all?” asked Charles.

“You’re hiding something,” I said, “aren’t you”?”

He appeared to be sweating all of a sudden.

“What would I be hiding?” asked Charles.

“You know SOMETHING interesting that we don’t know about, don’t you?” I responded.

“What kind of interesting thing?” said Charles.

“I think it’s something that even she doesn’t know.” I suggested.

He looked even more nervous.

“You’re hiding something from MOST of us,” I said, “and I have an idea of what it could be.”

“What?” asked Charles.

“Iris has a power.” I answered.

The look on Charles' face implied that I was on the right track.

“Now,” I said, “I know where to strike next.”

“Stop trying.” insisted Charles.

“No,” I said, “what is her power?”

“She doesn’t have one.” Charles lied.

“You’re lying,” I said, “I know that she does.”

“Can you prove that?”

“Do you know who I am?”

“…Ron?”

“I know somebody who says she does have a power.”

“Stop lying.”

“No, YOU’RE the one who’s lying.”

“…Whatever.”

“Your brother says she does.”

“So Matthias lied to you?” responded Charles, appearing tense.

“It wasn’t a lie,” I said, “he knows she does.”

“…You’re wrong.”

“Why are you so upset?”

“…Stop.”

“This what you’re been trying to hide,” I said, “your daughter has actually had powers this whole time and you never told anyone.”

He went silent, but I could tell I was making him even more nervous.

“Okay.” I said, “one more round.”

“Aren’t there other things you could be doing?” asked Charles.

“I’m not finished yet,” I said, “anyway, why do you not want Iris to come with us? It’s not like she hasn’t come with us before.”

“It’s… too dangerous.”

“And somehow you talked her out of it, only this time?”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job!”

“It’s okay… because we now know something.”

“You know-”

“Iris has powers.”

“Why are you so sure of that?”

“Because you have powers too.”

Charles had started to sweat some more.

“You can make any kind of gun appear when you need one, can’t you?” I said.

“Who told you that?” asked Charles.

“Matthias.” I answered, “Now, tell the truth… please?”

“…Why do you even care?”

“Because I can. Now, Matthias says she doesn’t know what her power is… yet. But do YOU know what it is?”

Then, he finally relaxed and after that, the atmosphere returned to normal.

“Okay,” I said, “what is it?”

“It’s… similar to mine.” said Charles, “She can make any kind of blade appear. I know this because I’ve seen her do it before, but I don’t know if she’s even aware of this…”

“How does that even work?” asked James.

“I don’t know,” responded Charles, “but I never told her about it because I didn’t want her to get involved in anything or get hurt.”

“Okay,” I said, “now that we have that out of the way, we can move on.”