The Outskirts (ITZY Shin Ryujin)

4

"So," Lia uttered, placing plates of breakfast in front of each other the girls sitting at the table. "What was going on in Ryujin's room last night?"

Both Yeji and Ryujin glared at her, neither wanting to talk about it, especially not in front of the others.

"Oh come on, you act as if we all didn't hear him. What the flip was Tinsel in your room for?" Yuna asked, stuffing her face with toast.

"I'd prefer we leave the conversation for later. Let's just eat breakfast and talk about our plans for the day like usual," Yeji mentioned sternly.

"Yeah, not going to happen," Chaeryeong shrugged. "We all know 'later' really means never and I'm nowhere near letting this case go. I want to know why a siren paid Ryujin a visit and didn't kill her afterwards."

"And not just any siren, for that matter, Tinsel," Yuna added. "Either he likes you, or there's something you're not telling us."

"I bet the latter," Lia mumbled as she bit into her bacon sandwich. "They are definitely hiding something."

"I swear," Yeji warned through gritted teeth. "If you guys don't shut your trap holes right now, I'll send you out to fend for yourselves in the scorch. Your choice."

The three girls glanced at each other before bursting into fits of laughter.

"What is it?" Yeji growled, stabbing her fork into the table. "What's so funny?"

"I feel the need to remind you of who we are," Chaeryeong responded, baring her teeth to display their razor sharpness as well as flicking her forked, serpent tongue out every now and then. Her beady brown eyes resembled that of a snake and she had scales kissing her skin here and there.

Yuna revealed her canine teeth and wriggled her furry, wolf ears and nose bordered with whiskers.

Lia didn't need to do anything. Yuna and Chaeryeong had already showed off enough but Lia's special power was that, since she was practically clay, she could transform herself into anything.

Yeji groaned as she pulled her fork out of the table, leaving four holes in the aging wood.

"Just... You get the point. We don't want to talk about it now," Ryujin explained.

"Still not completely certain you'll tell us but I guess we always have was to squeeze it out of you," Chaeryeong grinned. "Literally."

One advantage for her having cobra genes meant she could actually squeeze it out of them. And both humans knew that.

Yeji just shook her head as she placed her finished breakfast plate in the kitchen sink.

"Let's leave early," she stated as she turned to leave. "I want all of you apart from Lia by the door in five minutes, dressed up and ready to go."

Yuna almost spat out her orange juice.

"Excuse me?" She shrieked. "I haven't even finished my breakfast!"

"Well, maybe you should have been eating instead of trying to 'squeeze' the truth out of us," Yeji glared at them shortly before heading to her room to change into her scorch gear.

The four remaining girls glanced at each other in disbelief before quickly finishing their breakfasts, or pushing them away and quickly running to get changed.

***

"Something came up," the school's librarian told Luke. "I have to go clear things up and when I return, I trust you'll still be here. My whole library is in your hands, Luke. Don't let me down."

The teenage boy only nodded as he watched her walk out, her shoes clanking against the tiled floor with each step she took. She was old and held a crane for support. Her hair was grey and thinning, wrinkles were stitched to her ghostly face and it was evident to anyone who saw her, that she was at her final years of life.

She didn't really students with her library. It was like a child to her although it wasn't exactly hers. But Luke regularly went to the library and, despite her usual ill attitude, she was generally fond of him.

Once she had left and Luke was sure of it, he stood up and went to the section of the library he always wanted to go to. Unfortunately, being found there only meant one thing: you were planning to rebel and the school would call the police to arrest you. The section was full of old books from the forgotten history of Ferne and was practically a trap.

Luke pulled out a few of the books and skimmed through them. He used information off his A3S to fill in loopholes in the books. Since returning from the Animal Brain Industry, he had discovered many loopholes and knew there was still a whole world full of information he had to find out. But baby steps, right?

So far, all he knew was that there were many inventions before the siren. Like the stonefaces, which were by far Kingston Blue's favourite but no one really caught on to their importance until the invention of the siren was brought up. Luke also knew something went wrong while inventing the siren. What happened though, was still a mystery.

A couple of days prior, Luke got a message on the A3S that an update was available. He knew it had something to do with being at the Animal Brain Industry and knew more information would be added after the update. He could still use the device while it was updating but most features were blocked. The update took approximately five days to complete and once it finally completed, Luke immediately ran to the old industrial building. He knew he just opened up a door to the whole world of information I mentioned earlier. This was officially step one.