Oh Shit. 2.0 (Students Plot Topic)

There was no way Shepard was going to allow the adults to work on it by themselves. Especially when his dad left the clues in his study so openly. It had taken Shepard less than ten minutes while his father was showering. His siblings were doing something in their rooms, making a ruckus. Satisfied, Shepard called up into the house. "I'm going to study at the Library!" There was no response, but the blond took off anyways. He wasn't lying! He was going to study...these clues.

It was another thirty minutes before the students he had gathered were there. The blond sat excitedly in the middle of the large table in the back of the library, far from the prying eyes of Chip Dalton. "Welcome to my reality. Don't ask how I got these, definitely by illegal means."

Austin looked down at her hands as she sat at the table, in the seat directly next to Shepard, to his right. Her black hair was pulled back into a small ponytail behind her head, with a few pieces that weren't quite long enough framing her face. She eyed the evidence that Shep had gathered guiltily, half of her not wanting anything to do with it if someone found out, and the other half of her dying to get a peek at it and trying to crack the mystery. She was glad that he'd told her about it, for sure, but there was always a chance... No. She'd do as she told herself she would, she'd not view things from the bad side. "Hey, Shepard. How'd you get them?" She joked, hoping to make the reality of the situation even a little bit lighter.

"Well, if you did it illegally, you'd be a hit with the ladies."

Musing with an effeminate childish voice, the petite boy appeared, like a mechanical doll propped up on strings, swaying it from its easily missed place on the shelf and automated to life in a sudden jump scare. "Handsome bad boys have it real easy, don'tcha think?" He raised his head, a blank white screen blanketed over a porcelain face, concealing any distinguishable features behind. Instead - matching the silver overcast glow of the ceiling lights that lit the edges of his thin feathery hair until they became white -, a pixelated icon projected off its screen in the form of a kaomoji: (≧▽​° ).

His small body slid into the seat across from Shepard and Austin. Wordlessly, the large duffel bag slumped onto the ground as a heap of trash would, dangling loosely off the side of his chair. A clatter of sounds muted and hushed by an invisible barrier of air. No voices would escape their dome into the intently listening ears of any suspicious library staff. Aine propped the side of his face up with his hand, expression unreadable as he focused in on the report files he snatched from Shepard's side.

The perpetrator's file and student records, a receipt with a threatening message scrawled on it, the key to an apartment room at Hidden Creeks, an image of a Glock 17, the mask, and the offending bullet.

Tossing the files back over to blondie not even two minutes later, he leaned back on his chair, stretching his arms with a muffled yawn. So this was what Shepard managed to swindle.

"Hmm~ Wouldn't it be funny if the best lead was somewhere so obvious and public that everyone overlooked it?" Aine said matter-of-factly, not a hint of remorse laced throughout his words. The faint words of the active guardians flowed through his head, with only a few key phrases easily distinguished within the static jargon that was their conversation. "Too bad we don't have enough clues to figure that out..." A feigned natural disappointment. He threw his arms back behind his head, messing with the seat's balance on its hind legs all the more.

Bri wasn't usually so quiet. Normally she was an upbeat girl, but after watching... that happen, she was having trouble sleeping. Not to be dramatic or anything, but rewatching that bullet go through the otherwise markless mask was maybe haunting her a bit. Maybe. Did they know the bullet was coming? Brianne sat down away from the mask, although not too far away from the rest of the evidence. With her left elbow propped on the table and hand cupped against her forehead, she blocked it from view. Brianne recognized some of the objects from the alley, like the handgun and the bullet, however the little piece of paper and key were foreign to her. Where'd they get that from?

She felt out of place here, even though she'd seen it happen just as Shepard had, albeit from slightly farther away. The other girl here, she was fine, but the other one made her uneasy. The overly light attitude was at complete odds with the situation. It didn't help that they too were wearing an eerie mask. Part of her didn't want any more to do with this, but another reminded her that, if she didn't play a part in this investigation, she might never know who it was that she watched die. "No gods, no kings, no masters," she muttered. It had to be important if both the protestors and the gunman himself had said it.

Word had gotten around the school very quickly of the events that had transpired during the opening ceremony to the school year. The new headmaster, Headmaster Herman, had been shot at by Norman Carter. Being under the Lupine Guard, the Summer student had seen it all. In fact, she had been part of the guard supposedly protecting the Headmaster. Albeit, she had been out in the crowd due to her status as a student. It was a scene that was definitely going to be imprinted upon her memory for the rest of her life. Not exactly in a traumatizing way - she had encountered much worse in her opinion.

Coming over to the round table at the back of the library with her arms folded behind her back in their signature manner, Maeve picked up quickly on the conversation. In a dog-like style her head tilted slightly to the left, white locks of hair falling to frame her face. "I really think you obtaining these documents by illegal means is far from the worst of our problems here." A monotone voice chimed in, an almost icy chill underlying her words. Pulling out a chair and sitting down, azure eyes scanned around the table. Not exactly any faces she recognized, although the kaomoji mask looked somewhat familiar to her.

Once the green-haired… person had sent the files flying back towards Shepard, Maeve intercepted the pass. The file was snatched for herself, thin fingers quickly going to flip through the information. A gun, a bullet, a mask, a key, a receipt. The message immediately caught her attention, resonating with the phrase of “No Gods. No Kings. No Masters.” A revolt certainly had to be in the works from the Blanks… right? Her eyes raked over the information within the file on the culprit. Just as she had suspected - it was a blank. It made an uneasy knot form in her stomach, although to the outside eye she was simply going through the files. A Benedicite graduate, too.

Listening to the comment about how "the best lead was somewhere so obvious and public that everyone overlooked it," Maeve’s head snapped up as she was still scanning through the work. ”You mean the Burger Bar, yes?” Her fingers had just stopped at the receipt, taking the time to analyze it. There was most certainly a lot of information that could be taken from this, and if they asked the right questions… they could most certainly get an answer.

Satisfied with what she had been able to go through, Maeve closed the manilla file, sliding it with care back to the head of the group. ”I could try and get some details out of my Father about this if you all would like, but what I can say is that bullet does not belong to that gun. More likely than not, that was the sniper bullet used to kill him.” Even with the scale of the images, there was still a chance such a bullet could be styled for that gun. However, Maeve knew that wasn’t the case.

Jumping back to the topic of earlier, though, her blue gaze settled in harshly on the masked student. ”What do you suggest in regards to following this best lead?” It most certainly wasn’t unlike Maeve to jump topics. With the wheels turning in her head of all the information she had at her fingertips, it was quite difficult not to be scatterbrained.

Cailin swung her head from side to side, eyes peeled for any glimpse of the librarian. "What the heck, man? How illegal?" The girl slumped in a chair across from all these strange new faces, arms folded out across the table in a makeshift pillow, just trying to process everything that was put in front of her. They had enough on their plate with all these new classes, now they were handling a Guardian investigation? From where her head rested, she could catch a few snapshots of the grisly pictures inside, and that was enough to make her wrinkle her nose in disgust... Who hadn't heard all those nasty rumors about what had happened to the gunman afterward? But it wasn't something she was sure she wanted to actually know.

The girl's cold, concise analysis had been making her dizzy, but her head shot up at the mention of the diner. Dad's place? The restaurant was her sanctum, a tiny piece of home in the middle of this wild sprawling city. She knew every cranny and grease spot of that building like she knew her own head. "We know that's not the sniper bullet, because I found the other one." Cailin cast the dented brass shell across the table like she was tossing dice. As far as she was concerned, it was a useless memento. What were they going to do with a chunk of old metal, trace it back to its owner? Like CSI? She frickin' hated puzzles. "Now what was that about Preston's Burger Bar?"

Blue light gleamed along the staples in the corner, and the relevant file went slipping out of the stack in Maeve's hand as if pinched by invisible fingers, fluttering through the air and sliding seamlessly in front of her on the table.

PRESTON'S BURGER BAR
1 L Chili Fry . . . blah blah blah
1 Croftburger . . . blah blah blah
Subtotal . . . blah blah blah
City Tax . . . blah blah blah
Tip . . . $0.00
Total . . . blah blah blah
9/10/53 3:00 PM . . . Cashier: 2

Cashier Two?! A failed Croftburger Challenge on September 10th... But those connections got the least of her focus. White sparks sprung out from the ends of her bangs like she'd short circuited. "Those assholes didn't tip!"

---

A young man sat pretzel-crossed nearby, snickering to himself. "And for that, they clearly deserved the death penalty." Gabriel's bright eyes peered over at the file, the slipped out picture, and the bullet tossed haplessly across the table. "And nowhere near as bad as, say, stealing evidence." But those were all minor details, right? If they were going to have gotten caught, then it would have happened already. The Guardians would've been here ten years ago.

He blinked, and he was gone, appeared again hovering over the shape of Maeve and stealing that precious file right out of her hands. Another blink. He was in front of Cailin now, taking that old receipt picture with a small wink. One more split of a second and he was back in his seat, file opened wide in his hands with the burger joint slip back in it's place.

"It's this asshole's own fault he couldn't hoark the burger down. He grabbed a side-dish on top of it all? Really?"

The blond cracked a smile toward the girl to his right. "Well you see, Austin. It required precise timing and the patience of a saint." He leaned forward, watching the others arrive. "Then I guess I don't have it easy then, do I, Aine?" He quipped, drumming his fingers on the table, moving his hand to catch the folder as it was slid toward him--to only have it taken. Slightly miffed, Shepard placed his hand down.

"Maeve, that would be a big help. Thanks." Shepard reached out once more to return the file back to him. Only to have static shock take it from its path. The blond laid his hand back down and sent Austin a despairing face. "If only I could have gotten away with making multiple copies." Blue eyes rolled ar Cailin's outcry. "Don't worry about how illegal it was. As long as none of you are snitches--we good."

His hair whisked to the side as he turned his head to watch Cailin, "Why did you pick up a bullet? I don't--" Joanna's thoughts pooled into his mind, and Shepard stopped midsentence. 'Yeah, only alive on the outside. But any time, Jo. Just let me know.' Despite having her mind linked to his for a majority of his life, it always was a nice surprise to have her voice come out of nowhere say something to him.

Shepard didn't realize he had zoned out until Gabe started talking. "I mean, I've had the thing and one person would not have gotten the Croftburger and gotten something to eat on the side. I think someone else must have been there." He took a breath, spinning a glowing orb of solar light on his finger. "What if our Croft Burger failure wasn't the shooter, but an accomplice?" He was just spitballing, but it wouldn't hurt to guess.

Brianne watched the file get passed around, willingly or not, with a bit of frustration. She half-stood and stretched a bit to get a glimpse of what was in it, but to no avail. Well, going off what the others had said, that being the receipt, seemed to be their best option at the moment. They didn't have the means to investigate anything about the gun itself or the key. With mild surprise, she moved to gently take the bullet the electric girl had thrown onto the table into her palm. She could almost feel how warm it must've been when it was first shot. "Where did you find this?" The girl rolled it around before putting it back on the table, careful not to let it fall off the table.

Thinking on the receipt instead, something about the Croftburger lingered in the back of her mind. "I've never seen anybody do the challenge. Can more than one person help eat it? And isn't there a place for the pictures of the people who fail? Like a Board of Failure or something?" If there was such a thing, she didn't need to ask whether or not the pictures were required. Also, ordering such an iconic meal and then writing a cryptic message on it seemed odd. Had they even ordered in the first place? Or did they just fish it out of the trash for some reason, as a red herring? She might be thinking too much into it.

Aine eyed the produced bullet shell. The shining surface was stained in a drain patch of brown, ruining its reflective state with pitted holes flecked across like sparkles. Pixelated squares moved in conjecture with who he focused his attention on, hovering between their faces with a bored expression flashing across the screen. A rounded half-dome atop a cylinder. "Doesn't look like this is the offending bullet that did Mr. Carter in, Sparky," he replied, instinctively snarky but with an intense concentration on the avalanche of words crashing from each part of the table's diameter. "Our resident bloodhound may have gotten it right. It'd match the sniper rifle's rounds pretty well," Aine gave a disaffected shrug, his mask mirroring the gesture with an appropriate emoticon, "Not that I would know anything about glocks specifically."

"Bold conjecture there, Whiskers." Swinging his legs back and forth as a pendulum, he rested his chin between his palms, the pale skin starkly lighter than the animated canvas of his screen. "... Ah, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not saying we shouldn't consider all possibilities... But that's kind of a stretch without any real evidence outside of a side order... Actually, that's definitely a stretch!"

"Which means, it'd be better to check out the place since... Sorry, what's your name again? You're sorta plain and boring, so--" He gave a breathy amused laugh, the sound flawlessly bubbling from his throat. "... I'm kidding, of course. I know everyone's names, including yours, Brianne." His syllables dragged out the more he spoke, morphing into a lazy sing-song, moving at their own pace without accounting for the rhythm of the others' input. "Buuuuut I'm pretty hungry and that Croftburger sounds great now, honestly. I'm guaranteed to win, but I'd have my cute face up for the masses to see either way, right by the shooter or the accomplice or whoever they are."

"Forget about the bullet. It's the Wall of Shame!" Cailin corrected the brunette hotly, planting her palms on the table and leaning in. New conviction bubbled up within her as she reconsidered the old and faded receipt. "She's right. I'm a server at Preston's on the weekends. If he paid, he failed. If he failed, we know his face." Did that put them even half a step ahead? Well, no. Really, this wasn't any of their business... They weren't the Boxcar Children. But somehow, she found herself swept into the middle of a mock attempt at a murder investigation, and even though she was kicking herself, she suddenly felt responsible for all these poor dumb reckless souls about to just charge into her father's restaurant looking for clues about a crazed gunman and possibly their accomplice—...

She wheeled on the strange boy with the serious baby-face, electric currents shorting down her arms, out through her rolled up sleeves. Dad raised her better than to judge a book by their cover (his usual motto was, "Do as I say, not as I do"), but something about the boy's mechanical movements, the haughty timbre that undertoned almost every word, that sly smile like the world was a big joke only he was in on, it put a sour taste in her mouth. Big-heads, big-mouths, bullies; those types made her blood boil. Cailin just forced the sharp breath out through her nose and kept her Christian bearing, light blue particles flashing in the air around her like falling glitter. "You could probably use a Croftburger or two. You're skinnier than I am."