274 Clue

"Oh I see, alright then. Lead the way."

Vy and Lycster followed closely behind their guides, cautious the entire way through. It soon dawned upon them that they were indeed being misled. They were being led away from the main streets and into the shady alleyways of the city. 

As they mercentaurans turned into yet another quieter walkway, Vy stopped in her tracks and so did Lycster. 

"Are you sure this is the way?" Vy asked. 

"Yes of course. We're almost there," the one with the long black hair replied. 

Vy could not keep it in anymore. She was going to call them out. 

"Do you mind telling us exactly what you're planning to do?" Vy demanded.

The shift in her tone immediately made the two guides uncomfortable. Lycster carefully moved a little further back. He did not want to become a hostage and be used against his sister. 

He was definitely not going to let that happen. 

Feigning innocence, the mercentaurans once again tried to prove that they were indeed genuine. But Vy was not having any of it. She swam forward in a burst and drew her dagger. 

She held the female mercentauran at dagger point with a cold stare. The smile was long gone from her face. Her dark grey eyes gave nothing away. 

"Let's take it easy," the male mercentauran tried to defuse the situation. 

He thought he had Vy's distracted when he tried to reach for her dagger. But she knew exactly what he was planning to do. Aether, who had been observing everything, slithered alive on her wrist and hissed at him. 

The male mercentauran backed off a little. From his twisted expression, Vy could tell that their plan to lure them into a trap was falling apart. But without being able to scare them, she would not be able to get the information she needed. 

What could she do now? 

Standing where they were and grilling the information out of them did not seem plausible. Unless she scared them straight. She sent Aether a signal and he immediately got to work. 

Aether slithered off her wrist and took to his sea serpent form. In water, he adapted his form to incorporate fins and scales for smoother movement and greater mobility. At full size, Aether towered above all of them casting them in his shadow. 

Aether coiled himself around the male mercentauran before he could even try to escape. He constricted his coil around his prey and hissed at him. Aether unhinged his jaw to reveal the dark gaping void of his mouth as venom dripped from his fangs. 

"Would you be so kind as to tell us your plans?" Vy asked again nicely. 

"We will ne-" before the male mercentauran could finish his sentence, Lycster punched him in the face. 

Although her brother had a smaller frame, he did not lack strength. But he was not strong enough to knock out his opponent either. The dazed male mercentauran shook his head, the right side of his cheek was swollen from the punch. 

"Lycster! He was about to tell us the plan," Vy exclaimed in defeat. 

Caught off guard, Lycster blushed in embarrassment, he smiled awkwardly while apologising, "Sorry sis, forgot about that."

But the fight was not over yet, the angered mercentauran reached out. He tried to grasp onto the boy but Lycster slipped out of his reach easily. The female mercentauaran tried to wriggle out of Vy's grasp as well, but Vy was not about to let her slip away that easily. 

She tightened the hold around her prey's neck and held the dagger up close, piercing the skin on her neck a little. 

"Don't you dare move," Vy warned. 

In an attempt to stop the female mercentauran from moving, Vy summoned her ice powers once more, freezing her entire tail fin to reduce her mobility. 

"Let … let go of me!" she struggled. 

As her prey continued to struggle in her grasp, Vy swiftly hit the hilt of her dagger on the side of her neck. The mercentauran's body went limp as she was knocked unconscious. As her body slumped down, Vy released her grasp and swam over. 

Aether quickly coiled himself around the mercentauran, careful as to not let him go. As he struggled in Aether's grasp, Aether constricted his body little by little until it became suffocating. The Familiar did not control the amount of strength he used. 

Before Vy could even threaten some answers out of him, the male mercentauran passed out cold. It was an unexpected outcome. Vy let out a sigh, followed by laughter as she shook her head. 

"Now we don't have a way to find out what they were up to." she sighed, "But at the very least, we know they were up to no good."

"What should we do now?"

Vy thought about it for a while. She crouched down to the level of the slumped bodies of the mercentaurans and began to search through their bodies. She wanted to see if they might be holding anything that would give them some clues. 

Unfortunately, both of them did not carry anything of significance. When she examined their bodies, they did not have any markings that might have indicated they were part of a larger organization either. 

But Vy was not about to give up. People did not just appear out of nowhere, knowing who she was and what she carried without any backing. There must be something that tied the clues together. 

Examining both mercentaurans next to each other, Vy noticed that both of them were each wearing a single earring. 

"What did you find?" Aether asked over her shoulder as he noticed what Vy was looking at. 

She carefully removed both earrings from each of them. Not only did they look exactly identical, but they were also made of the same material. It was a simple drop earring, made out of teardrop shaped clear quartz. 

As she examined them up close, a soft sound emitting from each of the earrings caught Vy's attention immediately. 

What were these used for?