"This isn't a Grand National. It's a Regal Turbo-T," Layla muttered, standing before a Darth Vader-black Buick. Glancing at its license plate, she shook her head in frustration, her lips tightening. Her friend could've at least corrected the model information after pulling up the car's registration and before sending her here.
Sighing, she took out her latest model cursed smartphone and began scanning the Buick for traces of curse energy. The results came back clean. Not a single trace. Layla frowned, her confidence wavering. Was the intel wrong after all? She chewed her lip, conflicted. Knowing her friend's innate curse tool's abilities, she trusted the info and felt something wasn't adding up. Perhaps the curse user she was tracking was highly skilled at covering their tracks.
The sharp alarm of her cursed smartphone broke her train of thought. Her heart skipped a beat as the screen flashed a warning—there was a curseling or curse user in the vicinity. Layla instinctively tensed, ready to act. But before she could react, a sudden zap coursed through her body, and darkness consumed her as she crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
Hovering nearby, Dame Wasp dove silently into action. The tiny toy summons slipped into the USB port of the cursed smartphone, bypassing its defenses. She disabled the alarm and shut down all emergency protocols that would have been triggered if Layla didn't respond in time. Once assured that Layla wasn't carrying any additional cursed gadgets that could pose a threat, Dame Wasp reported back via the status screen: [All clear.]
With Dame Wasp's job complete, the invisible Emi stepped into the shed, her presence undetectable. She effortlessly lifted Layla's unconscious body and began carrying her toward the basement of the solar power plant's control room.
Meanwhile, Ace remained seated in his bedroom, his fingers idly drumming against the armrest. Letting his toy summons handle the dirty work, he turned his attention to the Doctor Druid action figure Danny had given him. Reaching for it, he fed the action figure to his cursed toybox along with a changeling's curse core. Moments later, the toybox reported back what Ace had already deduced using his innate status screen curse art.
> Curse core: Changeling form
> Recommendation: The success rate of animating the toy 'Doctor Druid' with the curse core 'Changeling form' is determined to be very high.]
With a satisfied nod, Ace retrieved the action figure from his cursed toybox, his fingers brushing over its surface as he turned it over thoughtfully. He leaned back in his chair, his gaze shifting to the glowing status screen, waiting for Dame Wasp's report on what she had uncovered from hacking into Layla's cursed smartphone.
Ace exhaled slowly, his brows knitting together. He had always hoped to keep his presence hidden from the world for as long as possible. Yet, for reasons still unknown to him, the C.I.B. had already learned about him—and worse, they had managed to infiltrate his home. If he didn't act now, he feared it would soon be too late.
As his jaw tightened in resolve, Dame Wasp finally reached out via the status screen and began her report,
Dame Wasp: Master, the smartphone is quite advanced for this planet's technology, but it posed no challenge to me.
Dame Wasp: I've gone through Layla's chat groups and gathered more intel about the C.I.B. than we previously knew. However, her clearance level is fairly low, so the information is limited.
Ace: We can deal with that later. First, tell me—why is she here?
Dame Wasp: Our initial guess was correct. She's here to track a curse user—specifically, the one who used Danny's Buick to visit the Curse Mall a few days ago.
Ace: What? How did they know about that? Was it the curse store? Are they searching for Emi?
Dame Wasp: No, it wasn't the curse store. The C.I.B. is surveilling toll booths around cities with Curse Malls and a lot of curse activity. They're conducting a top-secret operation to identify potential curse users traveling to or from these areas.
Dame Wasp: Fortunately, we unknowingly circumvented their protocols. However, the C.I.B. personnel monitoring the toll booth we passed has a special innate curse tool. Using this tool, she flagged the Buick's license plate as suspicious, suspecting it was driven by a curse user.
Dame Wasp: It's not just us. She flagged multiple plates using this method.
Ace: Then why aren't they swarming the house already?
Dame Wasp: The flagged plates were dismissed because they didn't strictly fall within the operation's parameters. After all, the C.I.B. has limited resources and is cautious about the operation's secrecy. If their activities were exposed to the 'World of Curses,' the repercussions could be severe.
Dame Wasp: However, that particular C.I.B. agent wasn't willing to let it go. She's been running the flagged plates through the DMV database on her own initiative. Layla is helping her by visiting the registered addresses to locate potential curse users and then anonymously reporting them to the C.I.B.
Ace: So, basically, what we have here is a couple of C.I.B. agents taking matters into their own hands?
Dame Wasp: Precisely, Master. Also, on an unrelated note, it turns out that Crimson Eyes was the one who spotted us back when you were in the gymnasium. As you suspected, he was the one who kidnapped Lola.
Dame Wasp: Layla doesn't know why he did that, but she did help arrange a meeting between Lola and her parents. From what I've gathered, Lola seems to be doing well. There's a chance the C.I.B. might even help her safely awaken as an Innate Cursemaster.
Ace: That's good to hear.
Dame Wasp: What should we do now, Master?
Ace: Now? Now we teach these overly enthusiastic C.I.B. agents the consequences of overstepping their bounds.
Ace: Emi, how good is your acting skills?
Emi: Good, but the Apex earring's effects should make it good enough.]