Flipside: Assessement and Revelations

A few hours went by after the explosion on the Leviathan, and the eventual end of the battle, but the fleet was still stuck in place. An expected development considering the situation it was. And since they were stuck there, the most Karim could manage was to force her way to a communication device and message her aunt about the situation.

The only bright side was that they managed to find Minako without a problem. Fainted and stranded in a lifeboat that only reached them by luck. She was yet to wake up and her body was on the verge of collapsing but was alive and stable for now.

She wasn't the biggest problem the petit cop had though since Annabeth was still missing.

After her arrival and the explosion she caused during the fight, the red-haired inquisitor vanished as if she was never there. In most cases, it wouldn't be worrisome since she was prone to moving alone sometimes, but it was too sudden. The first moment her eye was pressuring the whole battlefield, and then it was gone in the next, so there must be something else there.

Even considering her to be dead would be reasonable at this point, especially with the fifty meters long hole she left behind.

Neither Karim nor Colette believed in that, of course. Seeing how Annabeth was fighting wouldn't allow them to believe she could ever be killed, and Karim didn’t even understand the why for such. And considering how Colette looked, she was the same.

Both of them were in too bad of a shape to go search for their missing companion though.

Fighting the hero head-on and then staying close to the full brunt of the Demon Eater was too much even with the fake ley lines helping her. Recovering from that would take the blonde some more time, and that was without considering that Colette was still wounded.

Even if they had another good healer around, which was rare considering how many wounded the remaining ships also had, they needed rest. All they could do for now was go back to the Beehive and wait until they were in a better state.

Which was when they finally remembered that they had someone to interrogate hidden in there. And, even if he was pretty much the only person on the ship, he was only noticed after calling the two girls himself.

“I see you both survived.” Michael called the moment the bridge’s door opened, leaving his hiding spot that was once used by Colette. As expected though, his sudden appearance caused reactions that weren’t very positive.

“Whoa! Where the fuck did you come from, brat?” The brawler inquisitor exclaimed while dropping the guard she raised to fight the sudden call. “I almost punched your head off!”

“You should train your eyes better then. I wasn’t even that well hidden…” The angel answered with bored eyes but soon changed gears. “But anyways, who was the dumb mage that failed so hard at using a spell back there? Even I would not survive something of that level when I had my wings.”

“That was Annabeth if I’m not wrong, but I’m quite sure both she and the person she was fighting against survived that.” Karim also dropped her forced fighting stance and went to the closest seat on the control consoles. “I’m not even sure of what happened though... Heavens! I’m still not even sure of what happened back there at all.”

“The red-haired girl was here? And here I was thinking she was unprepared to assault a whole battleship… Having something to teleport around in that bag of hers was very smart.”

“I don’t think Anna has something of this level, brat.” Colette cut in, with her knowledge of the situation snipping right on time. “She packs way more shit on that bag of hers than anyone would think of, but I never heard of such a convenient tool.”

“Was it sorcery then? It would explain how she vanished too but makes me wonder why she never used it before...” The petit cop thought aloud. “Was it because she lacked the energy until now?”

“If she could do it, then the Church could fucking do it with enough people, you know? There wouldn’t be an Archipelago or even a Demon Realm anymore if it was possible.” A slit-eyed brunette answered curly and then her expression closed. “But worse than that, we wouldn’t be a country at all if we had people that can teleport that easily. If we could fucking do it, then spirits could too, and probably more often. How often can you find someone with this kind of skill?”

"Not very often for sure... I can't even think of someone that could manage it." Karim wasn’t a specialist no matter what, but very few, if any, spirits had skills that went to this level. Even something that connected two places like the doors Annabeth and Minako used at her house wasn’t very common in the Archipelago. Anything beyond this was in the realm of the most powerful spirits in existence, and only a few races could even manage this much. Nominally, some dragons, ancient witches, rare colors of fairies, primordial golems, and, if the rumors were right, eight and nine-tailed kitsunes. Or in other words, the kinds of spirits humans could rarely, if ever, get on the same level without the use of numbers.

"And you, angel? Any ideas?"

“Well, people could fly in my time, and very fast too, so we had the ‘moving around’ thing figured out enough as is. So I can only wonder if warp was something we could manage...” Michael added in from his own point of view. “We could maybe manage it with some preparations too, but if trying to do it in a hurry...”

“See? Imagine what we inquisitors would do if we could fucking teleport inside and outside your cities, even if it was a single saint doing it.”

This idea was very scary indeed. Which only kept the problem of understanding the situation.

“So, if she didn’t do it and if Minako can’t do it, then how in the heavens did she appear and then vanish?”

“I’d say the girl only died in the explosion and that was how she vanished, but the appearing is a little beyond me.” The wingless angel gave up as he lacked a good explanation that didn’t rely on Annabeth being dead. “What about flying away then or swimming very fast?”

“Anna’s unable to fly by herself and is a fucking terrible swimmer. Even though she can keep on moving forever, her speed sucks so hard she would never reach a moving ship.”

“I can see that...” Karim agreed as she tried to get any explanation she could. “She either had something to teleport here or got some vehicle to use, but neither she nor Minako show signs of such… Wait… We got it wrong!.”

“What do you mean, Shorty?”

“That’s easy and I should’ve thought about it before…” The cop started with her theory as it was the only other option, and due to that, what should be right. “If they can’t do it and can’t manage without it, then something else had to. That's the only reasonable answer, so it has to be right... And if that’s the case then it means that someone else interfered.

Which I'm sure is the hidden contact Annabeth was talking with.”