This is the novelisation of my visual novel of the same name. Changed some details (Emily's death is now explicitly detailed) and removed others. The main ending has been changed too, to make it more natural for a written story.
Part I: The Unlikely Agreement
Chapter 1: The Doomed Samaritan
The heat of the Sonoran Desert was a physical presence, a shimmering weight that pressed down from a bleached-white sky. It distorted the horizon, making the distant mesas tremble. Kayleigh Morgan, agent of the Phoenix Custodians, felt the sweat trickle down her spine, a cold counterpoint to the oppressive warmth. This was her first solo mission, and the intelligence was a joke, a slap in the face. "There is something going on in the Sonoran Desert, and we don't know what". A lie, of course. She knew it, and she knew her boss, Charles Mount-Acre, knew it too.
She was being sent to die. It was the only logical conclusion. She had made too many waves, even during training. While others embraced the brutal, ends-justify-the-means ethos of the Custodians, Kayleigh had held fast to her own code. She’d helped fellow trainees who were struggling, sharing rations and offering encouragement when the instructors demanded isolation and competition. She’d openly rebelled against orders she deemed morally wrong, and had even intervened in the punishment of another trainee, an act of insubordination that had sealed her fate. They had tried to get rid of her then, but a firm "no" had come down from on high. So they had found another way. A one-way trip to the desert to deal with a problem they knew was far beyond a rookie’s capabilities. A sanctimonious do-gooder, they called her. And in the world of the Phoenix Custodians, that was a death sentence.
Thousands of miles away, in a climate-controlled office somewhere in New Hampshire, Charles Mount-Acre stared at the order on his desk. Kayleigh’s name seemed to mock him from the page. He regretted it, deeply. It was an order he had followed when, perhaps, he shouldn't have. But the culture of the Custodians was a toxic, self-perpetuating machine. Outside his office, the usual misogynistic banter echoed in the halls, the casual disdain for female agents, especially the younger ones. He had tried to stop it, to instill some sense of decency, but the pushback was always the same, couched in officious language that amounted to "boys will be boys". Kayleigh was an anomaly, an unwanted problem. And this was the organization's solution.
Unaware of the existential politics dictating her fate, the source of the "something" in the desert was having her own problems. Grendel Jinx, a fourteen-year-old with more power than sense, frowned at the complex array of wiring before her. Her school project, a hundred-foot plasma tower designed to broadcast a hypnotic signal across the entire Baja California peninsula and into Arizona and California, wasn't behaving. From the millions of hypnotized people, she was going to force a select few to become her friends via a legally binding "Friendship Agreement". Her supervisor, Professor Grief, should have been watching her. Instead, oblivious to the heat in a ridiculous pink jacket, he was enjoying the delights of a female teaching assistant behind a cluster of sun-baked rocks.
Grendel shrugged and jammed another power cable into a socket that looked promising.
The result was instantaneous and catastrophic. A low hum escalated into a piercing shriek. The massive tower shuddered, arcs of raw energy lashing out like angry whips. A cascading series of explosions ripped through the structure from the base up, a chain reaction of pure, incandescent failure. A plume of fire and smoke bloomed against the desert sky, a funeral pyre for a project born of loneliness and hubris.
Chapter 2: A Contract in a Cave
The shockwave hit Kayleigh like a physical blow, staggering her. She watched the tower disintegrate, her mission objective vaporizing before her eyes. Her training took over, but it was her morality that guided her feet. Instead of retreating, she ran toward the chaos.
She found Grendel amidst the smoking wreckage, a small figure covered in soot, staring at the ruin of her grand design. The girl was in shock, despondent over her failure and stunned that an enemy agent—her intelligence briefing from Professor Grief had been surprisingly accurate about Kayleigh’s arrival—hadn't simply killed her on sight. Kayleigh saw not an enemy operative, but a child. A lost, lonely child.
"Come on," Kayleigh said, her voice gentle but firm. "We need to get clear."
She pulled the unresisting Grendel to the shelter of a shallow cave carved into the rock face. As the dust settled outside, Grendel began to talk, her voice small. She spoke of her parents, Abigail Herrera and Frederick Jinx, always away on business, leaving her fundamentally alone. She didn't mention that they were the founders and leaders of The Council, a clandestine organization bent on world domination, or that their base was, coincidentally, also in New Hampshire.
Then, in a moment of profound vulnerability, Grendel pulled a folded document from her pocket. It was a "Friendship Agreement," meticulously drafted. "Will you sign it?" she asked, her eyes pleading.
Kayleigh looked at the strange, formal document and then at the girl. She saw it not as a contract, but as a comfort object, a child's desperate attempt to forge a connection. Moved more by pity than anything else, and believing it to be a harmless fantasy, she signed her name without reading the fine print, without realizing the obsessive dedication Grendel held for its every clause.
The thumping of rotor blades broke the quiet intimacy of the moment. Council rescue helicopters were descending. "You need to hide," Grendel warned, her tone shifting back to something more commanding. "Don't leave until they're gone."
And with that, Grendel skipped out of the cave, happier than she had been in a long time. She knew she would be severely punished for destroying Council property, but it didn't matter. She had a friend. A best friend.
Chapter 3: The Homework Heist
A month later, Kayleigh's life had found a new, bizarre rhythm. Grendel's unannounced visits were now a regular feature. The "Friendship Agreement" was not a forgotten trinket; it was a governing doctrine. Grendel would poke through Kayleigh's possessions, declaring them her own as per the agreement's terms. She was left speechless for a full ten minutes upon discovering Kayleigh was a vegetarian—"Who doesn't like Kobe beef?"—and equally flabbergasted by her "uninspired and frankly boring" dress sense. The discovery of a collection of lewd female anime figurines, a misguided prank from Kayleigh's father who desperately wanted her to settle down, stunned Grendel into another ten minutes of silence. Kayleigh’s dislike for the ultra-violent anime Dr. Not-Nice Against The World was the final, baffling straw. Grendel concluded that her new best friend needed a complete makeover.
The true crisis, however, began early one morning in Grendel's lavish bedroom. With a jolt, she realized she had failed to hand in any of her seventeen homework assignments for the term, each one a 100,000-word-plus dissertation on topics ranging from detailed battle plans for urban warfare to the military strategies of past leaders—all perfectly normal for a student at The School for Gifted World Rulers. The prophecy of her mother, Abigail—"Grendel dear, you should be spending more time studying and less time playing computer games and watching anime"—loomed large.
Failure was not an option. Hacking the school's AI was out; the Engineering Department was better than she was. Sending her teacher, Miss Potts, on an impromptu vacation was tempting, but Grendel genuinely liked her. There was only one solution.
She raced to the maintenance bay, commandeering a high-powered, expensive vehicle. She strapped on her special stilt-like shoes to reach the pedals and placed a booster seat on the driver's chair—a system developed after an unfortunate incident involving a stick, the wrong pedal, and three police cruisers. Weaving through traffic with the impunity afforded to the daughter of the city's secret owners, she screeched to a halt outside Kayleigh's home.
Kayleigh, blurry-eyed from another long day, opened the door to a blabbering Grendel, saw nothing of consequence in her dozy state, and promptly shut it. Stunned, Grendel rationalized that Kayleigh must be training squirrels to re-enact the Battle of Hastings and one had shut the door anachronistically. She rang the bell again. This time, a more focused Kayleigh appeared. She patiently listened to Grendel’s self-inflicted predicament and then, with a firm but fair voice, stated that she would not be writing 1.7 million words for her. Grendel needed to organize her time better. And with that, she closed the door again.
Grendel stood gawping like a fish. Her Best Friend. Refusing to help. This was a breach of contract. This was unacceptable.
All pupils at her school were required to carry a side-arm, usually a tazer. Grendel's was hidden in a pouch under her skirt. She rang the bell again, continuously. As Kayleigh opened the door, ranting about boundaries, Grendel secretly extracted the tazer. While Kayleigh was mid-sentence, Grendel struck, rushing forward and jabbing the electrodes into her side. With Kayleigh's body jerking and arms flailing, Grendel calmly deactivated the weapon, holstered it, and let her "best friend" crumple unconscious to the floor.
Chapter 4: A Mother's Touch
With considerable difficulty, Grendel dragged the dead weight of Kayleigh's unconscious body into the back of her vehicle. She returned to The Council's sprawling base, a fortress disguised as a corporate campus. Time was of the essence. She needed Kayleigh secured before school started. Running down to the armoury, she grabbed four zip ties and a ball-gag. Panting heavily, she returned to the car and efficiently bound Kayleigh's arms and feet and shoved the gag into her mouth. Abigail would be so proud of her finesse.
The next problem was transport. She couldn't just drag an enemy agent through the halls. She approached a maintenance crewman. "Do you have any large trollies for transporting someone?" she asked.
The man shook his head. "No unfortunately. They are all being used." He then offered to help. Grendel led him to her car. The man smirked at the sight of the bound woman in the back. "Ahhh… one of these, eh? You're growing up!" he said, completely misreading the situation with a knowing innuendo that flew over Grendel's head.
"We need to go through the ventilation system," Grendel stated flatly. The crewman shrugged. He'd had weirder requests, like the time an agent wanted a stolen steamroller pimped out with non-functional jet engines and horns that could play "Bohemian Rhapsody". This was tame by comparison.
Hefting Kayleigh over his shoulder, he followed the small girl into the labyrinthine network of air ducts. They eventually emerged through a vent near Grendel's classroom. The room was empty. Grendel dragged Kayleigh inside, found a suitable locker, shoved her in, and slammed the door shut just as her teacher, Miss Potts, walked in.
"Grendel! You're here early," Miss Potts said, pleased. "I hope you've handed in all your assignments. And I'm looking forward to hearing your fictional story later to end the term."
Grendel winced. She'd forgotten the story. A rattling sound came from the locker.
"That rattling," Miss Potts said. "It seems to have come from the locker behind you."
"Really? I never heard anything!" Grendel replied cheerfully. "Perhaps you were imagining it?"
The locker rattled again. Miss Potts looked concerned, but Grendel managed to distract her by feeding the class guinea pig, Mr. Nibbles. As soon as the teacher left to prepare for class, Grendel fled the room.
She returned just as the rest of the class was filing in, a sheaf of papers in her hand. Her maid had written the story, assuring her it was "utterly PG". The locker rattled again.
"MISS! The locker over there is rattling!" a student named Candice called out.
"Let me do it for you, Miss Potts!" Grendel volunteered, rushing to the locker. She gave it a firm kick. "There! Just a loose nut squirming around!"
"Squirming?" Miss Potts asked.
"I meant rattling," Grendel corrected herself quickly.
The day proceeded until it was time for Grendel's story, titled "The Life And Times of Queen Jinx In GrenWorld." It was a self-congratulatory bore-fest, just as her classmates expected, but with a malicious twist courtesy of her disgruntled maid. The story depicted Queen Grendel as a capricious, cruel tyrant who executed jesters for being too funny and not funny enough. The tale ended abruptly with a profanity-laced tirade from a castle cleaner being forced into servitude.
Miss Potts was aghast at the language. As Grendel tried to stammer out an excuse, the locker began to shake violently.
"I thought that had been stopped," Miss Potts said, marching towards it. "Let's see what's going on." She opened the door. "WHAT… THE…!?"
The entire class screamed and fled as the bound and gagged form of Kayleigh Morgan tumbled out onto the floor.
Miss Potts stared, speechless. "I presume this is your doing, Grendel?"
"Yes, Miss Potts."
"Abduction and hostage taking classes are next year, Grendel," she sighed, reaching for her phone to call security.
"It's okay, Miss Potts," a calm voice said from the doorway. Abigail Herrera stood there, radiating an aura of absolute authority. "I'll sort this out." A terrified Miss Potts was quickly dismissed.
"Grendel?" Abigail said, her voice dangerously soft. "I presume there is a very good reason for an enemy agent to be trussed up in a locker?"
"Yes, mom!" Grendel explained. "She signed my 'Friendship Agreement'… and then she refused to help me with my homework!"
Abigail's expression softened into one of pride. "Breaking a contract is serious. I don't blame you for taking this course of action. I think you've done very well." She then turned her attention to the woman on the floor. "So, this is the infamous Kayleigh Morgan, then?"
Abigail untied Kayleigh, propping her up. She then took a needle with a red, round top from her jacket pocket. It contained a powerful cognitive enhancement drug, a new concoction from The Council's labs with the bonus side effect of leaving the user completely suggestible. "This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me," Abigail whispered, clasping a hand over Kayleigh's mouth before plunging the needle into her neck.
Chapter 5: An Unsettling Arrangement
With Kayleigh now a placid, unresisting automaton, Abigail and Grendel wheeled her on a trolley to Grendel’s opulent bedroom suite. Abigail set Kayleigh up at a state-of-the-art computer terminal, providing a sample of Grendel's handwriting for her to flawlessly replicate. As Kayleigh began robotically churning out 1.7 million words on military strategy, Abigail delivered a lecture to her daughter on the finer points of manipulation. "You can't expect her to accommodate all your requests straight away," she chided gently. "You'll get much better results if you remember how... inferior... she is. Space things out. Perhaps dangle a carrot in front of her every once in a while".
Hours later, the homework was complete. Kayleigh, drooling slightly onto the keyboard, was taken back to her own home. Abigail, having "borrowed" Kayleigh's keys during the abduction, let them in. While Kayleigh sat slumped on the sofa, Abigail conducted a thorough search of the house, noting the general mess, the state of the bathroom, and Kayleigh’s "interesting choice of underwear".
The next morning, Kayleigh awoke on her couch with a splitting headache and a hazy, incomplete memory of the previous day. The cognitive enhancement drug was designed to cause amnesia, but its side effects were still being refined. She saw her kitchen was immaculately clean, and vaguely recalled a strange conversation, attributing it to a dream or a decision made in a state of extreme fatigue.
Then, Abigail, who had been waiting patiently, entered the room, playing the part of a concerned acquaintance. She made coffee—a special raspberry-flavored blend from a company called Beanstyle Inc., which Abigail noted with a private smile was one of The Council's own subsidiaries—and expertly steered the conversation. She spoke of Grendel's loneliness, her need for guidance, and the burden of her vast wealth. She painted a picture of a troubled young girl who just needed a firm but kind hand to guide her.
Under the lingering influence of the drug and Abigail’s masterful gaslighting, Kayleigh found herself agreeing to a preposterous proposal: she would "employ" Grendel as a domestic helper. It would solve two problems, Abigail argued. It would keep Grendel occupied and teach her some responsibility, and it would get Kayleigh's house clean. As a sign of good faith, Abigail even offered to have Grendel's ridiculous patents on human movement revoked.
The conversation felt surreal, but in her groggy state, it seemed to make a strange kind of sense. The chapter, and the first act of their story, concluded the next morning when Kayleigh, nursing her headache and trying to piece together the bizarre fragments of her memory, was startled by a loud, insistent banging on her front door. It was Grendel, beaming, ready to start her new job.
Part II: The Unseen War
Chapter 6: New Faces, Old Grudges
Six months passed. The dynamic at the Phoenix Custodians had shifted. Charles Mount-Acre was gone, having resigned in a fit of conscience, and Kayleigh’s continued presence was a source of constant tension. She was a living reminder of the organization’s cynical attempt to eliminate her, and her unwavering moral stance irritated the old guard to no end.
Into this pressure cooker, two new figures arrived. The first was Emily, hired as Kayleigh’s personal secretary. The hiring process had been orchestrated from the shadows by Xavier, a high-ranking Custodian with his own agenda. Emily was sharp, efficient, and immediately began her true mission. She subtly spread a fake rumor that Kayleigh was having an affair with someone from The Council, a lie designed to further isolate her. "There's just a rumour that... you... you've been knocking off someone from there," she'd said with faux innocence, gauging Kayleigh's explosive reaction with satisfaction.
The second arrival was Lorinda Ella. Transferred from a research section at her own request, Lorinda was a bundle of zealous energy and barely concealed rage. She was assigned as Kayleigh’s partner and, due to a housing shortage, her unwanted housemate. Her deep-seated, obsessive hatred for The Council was a palpable force, creating an immediate and volatile friction. Kayleigh now found herself trapped, both at work and at home, between a secret saboteur systematically undermining her and a vengeful zealot whose fanaticism threatened to ignite at any moment. The war was no longer just with an external enemy; the front lines had moved into her office and her living room.
Chapter 7: The Journals of the Unseen
The origins of this complex war were buried in the past, in stories kept under lock and key. One afternoon, Grendel, unable to find the TV remote, was directed by her father, Frederick, to a set of old diaries. He suggested she read them, as they were considering adding them to the school curriculum.
The first was Frederick Jinx's own story. He wrote of his life as an investigative reporter and the head of his late father's global newspaper empire, an empire built on exposing the very greed and corruption that eventually turned on him and destroyed it. He recounted faking his own death alongside a young, brilliant, pink-haired burglar named Abigail Herrera. Together, drowning their sorrows in a sleazy motel, they conceived of a new plan: if you can't beat the corrupt system, replace it. They would take over the world themselves. Thus was born The Council of the Unseen, and its bizarrely successful and utterly pointless front company, Mr. Nibbles Fortune Holdings, the world's sole insurer of guinea pigs.
Abigail’s journal told a harsher story. It spoke of a childhood passed from orphanages to uncaring relatives, a life on the streets where she learned that survival was a brutal, lonely business. Her botched burglary of Frederick's penthouse was not a mistake, but her salvation. He saw a kindred spirit, and together they built first a new media empire, and then, from its ashes, The Council. Her writing revealed the cold pragmatism of a survivor, one who saw world domination not as a goal of hubris, but as the only logical solution to a broken world.
The final piece of the puzzle was a journal Grendel found hidden in Kayleigh’s house, written twelve years prior. In it, a younger, pre-Custodian Kayleigh detailed the collapse of the video game company where she worked. She described being called into her boss's office to meet two strange men, one in a black suit, the other in purple. They spoke of patriotism and danger, but she dismissed them as cranks. The next day, her city was devastated by a massive explosion, attributed to terrorists. The two men reappeared, pressuring her to join a secret organization to prevent such tragedies from happening again. Under duress, she signed the papers and became Kayleigh Morgan of the Phoenix Custodians.
Later, on a call with her mother, Grendel asked the question that burned in her mind. "Mom! We... we didn't destroy Kayleigh's city... did we?"
"No, Grendel," Abigail replied. "We never found out who did it. I've always felt that it was deliberate—something to push Kayleigh along. Why, I don't know". The three stories hung in the air, each a tale of an organization born from tragedy, each seeking to impose its own order on a world they saw as chaotic and corrupt. The lines between hero and villain, revolutionary and terrorist, were written in smoke and ash.
Chapter 8: The Frame-Up
Back in the present, Emily’s sabotage was bearing fruit. Guided by the ever-so-slightly inaccurate intelligence fed to her by Emily and Xavier, Kayleigh’s missions were failing with demoralizing regularity. A key Council defector, Dominic Holmes, slipped through her fingers during an ambush. The Council’s "Close Call" satellite system, a weapon disguised as a communications network, was successfully launched, further fueling wars in Africa. At the Custodians, the grumbling against Kayleigh grew louder; she was seen as incompetent at best, a traitor at worst.
The centerpiece of Emily’s plan was Grendel’s next school assignment: a live combat test. Grendel, with her teacher Miss Potts and two bodyguards, Grant and Victor, in tow, tricked Kayleigh into meeting her at an abandoned warehouse. Kayleigh, suspecting a trap and still feeling a protective instinct towards Grendel, deliberately held back, allowing the girl to "win" the brutal fight. She hoped this would satisfy the requirements of the assignment and de-escalate the situation.
Her compassion was a fatal miscalculation. Grendel’s bodyguards, Grant and Victor—who were secretly planning to defect to The Council—saw Kayleigh’s mercy as weakness. After Grendel and a horrified Miss Potts had left, they cornered the exhausted Kayleigh. They subjected her to a ferocious beating, leaving her broken and unconscious in a commercial waste bin.
This was the moment Emily had been waiting for. She had orchestrated the entire event, knowing the bodyguards' treacherous nature. She murdered them, using a clean weapon. She then "discovered" the barely alive Kayleigh, called an ambulance, and planted the murder weapon—a standard Custodian issue sidearm, wiped clean and then pressed into the unconscious Kayleigh's hand—at the scene. To complete the frame-up, she used propagandists from a shadowy group called the "Company of Ibauric" to create fake documents and photos, building a digital trail on Kayleigh’s phone that painted a picture of blackmail and self-defense. The trap was perfectly designed to exploit the biases of both organizations. The Custodians were primed to believe their "sanctimonious do-gooder" had finally gone rogue, and The Council was primed to believe a Custodian agent had brutally murdered two of their people.
Chapter 9: The Hospital Attack
The news of the murders and Kayleigh’s apparent guilt hit The Council like a thunderclap. Abigail was stunned, her instincts screaming that it was a lie. But Grendel, already emotionally fragile after being assaulted by a male classmate named William—an incident that resulted in Frederick having the boy and his family shipped to his secret arctic re-education camp, "Happy Glowstick"—shattered completely.
The idea that her best friend, the one person she had finally connected with, could betray her so monstrously, was too much to bear. Her grief curdled into pure, unadulterated rage. Ignoring her mother’s desperate pleas to wait, to think, she grabbed her Electro-Knife—a blade that could deliver a powerful shock—and stormed out of the base.
She found Kayleigh in a private room at Heartland Community Hospital, weak, bandaged, and recovering from the brutal beating. Grendel’s demands for an explanation were met with confused denials, which only fueled her fury. She launched herself at the bedridden Kayleigh, the Electro-Knife flashing. Kayleigh, in her condition, was helpless.
Just as Grendel raised the knife for a fatal blow, the door burst open. Pauline, The Council's formidable head of security, was there. With swift, brutal efficiency, she disarmed and incapacitated the hysterical Grendel. "Frederick will be visiting," she whispered to the barely conscious Kayleigh, a cryptic warning lost in the haze of pain. Then, hitting the emergency alarm, she threw the sedated Grendel over her shoulder and vanished into the ensuing chaos of doctors and nurses. The friendship, it seemed, was over, severed by a blade of manipulated rage.
Chapter 10: The Unraveling
With Grendel confined to her room under heavy sedation, Abigail mobilized The Council’s full resources. She refused to accept Kayleigh's guilt. She tasked SableMind, their proprietary AI, and the entire IT department with a single mission: forensically dissect every piece of evidence and find the flaw she knew was there.
Simultaneously, within the walls of the Phoenix Custodians, Esme Weeks—known to Kayleigh as her friend Chloe—was conducting her own covert investigation. She had been suspicious of Emily from the start. Now, she intensified her efforts, digging into Emily and Xavier’s backgrounds. She was met with ferocious digital resistance. Sophisticated viruses, backed by immense resources, attacked her systems, confirming she was not just dealing with a rogue agent, but a third, unknown organization. The Council's own IT department, backing up Esme's home systems, was baffled by the skill of their unseen adversary.
The first crack in the frame-up came from Abigail's team. After weeks of painstaking analysis, they found it: in one of the incriminating photographs, a single pixel was 0.0039% darker than its eight neighbors. It was a minuscule, almost imperceptible flaw, but it was definitive proof of digital alteration. The photograph was a fake.
At almost the same moment, Esme had her own breakthrough. Deflecting a cryptographic virus back at its source, she watched Emily arrive at work the next day visibly annoyed. Following the digital breadcrumbs, she finally found the connection she was looking for, linking both Emily and Xavier to a name she had never heard before: the Company of Ibauric.
She immediately placed a secure call to Abigail, relaying the explosive news. "Permission to reveal everything to Kayleigh," she requested. "And that I work for you."
"Granted," Abigail said, her mind racing. It was to be their last conversation.
Part III: The Bitter End
Chapter 11: The Trap is Sprung
Knowing she was exposed, Emily moved with chilling speed. Esme, racing to Kayleigh’s house with the truth that could avert a war, never made it. Emily, monitoring her movements, remotely took control of Esme’s car. The brakes failed, the locks engaged, and the vehicle swerved into the path of an oncoming articulated truck. The resulting explosion was devastating, a fiery end to a loyal agent and the secrets she carried.
With one threat eliminated, Emily moved on to the next. She found Kayleigh at home, still recovering, and neutralized her with a tranquilizer dart. She drove the unconscious Kayleigh back to the scene of her earlier "victory": the abandoned warehouse. She tied her to a chair, hooded her, and then took out Kayleigh’s phone.
For weeks, Grendel had been a ghost, listlessly staring at the ceiling in her room, the joy gone from her life. The light from her phone, blinking with a new message, was an irritation. She picked it up. The message was from "Kayleigh," a taunting, vicious screed that mocked Grendel's weakness and gloated over the murders.
The effect was electric. The listless girl vanished, replaced in an instant by the vengeful fury from the hospital. The carefully constructed lies played on her deepest insecurities and grief, reigniting her rage. Grabbing her weapons, she stormed out, ready for a final, bloody confrontation with the friend who had so utterly betrayed her.
Chapter 12: The Warehouse Confrontation
Grendel burst into the warehouse, screaming Kayleigh’s name, ready for battle. But the scene that met her was wrong. Instead of a taunting adversary, she found a bound, hooded figure slumped in a chair. Her rage faltered, replaced by a cold knot of confusion and fear. As she hesitated, a slow clap echoed from the shadows.
Emily emerged, a smug smile on her face. "I was waiting for you," she said.
She then laid it all bare, a confession delivered with sadistic glee. She explained how she had worked for Grendel for free just to gain her trust, how she had murdered the bodyguards, how she had meticulously framed Kayleigh, and how her true loyalty was to the Company of Iburic. She revealed the grand plan: to trick The Council and the Custodians into a devastating war, allowing Iburic to mop up the remains. "I must thank you for all the help you gave me," she cooed. "I was going to give you a box of chocolates... but as you won't have long left, I decided to eat them myself".
The weight of it all—her gullibility, her complicity in the murders, her brutal attack on an innocent friend—crashed down on Grendel. She sank to her knees, curling into a ball, her body wracked with gut-wrenching sobs. Emily simply knelt and plunged a sedative-filled needle into her neck.
Grendel awoke disoriented, gagged and hooded, tied to a chair. She heard a muffled struggle nearby, a shriek, a crash. Then her hood was ripped off. Kayleigh stood before her, free. Grendel’s eyes were wide with terror. This was it. The end. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the final blow.
Instead, her gag was removed. "Don't kill me please!" she squeaked.
"I'm not going to, Grendel," Kayleigh replied softly.
Grendel didn't believe her. It had to be a trap. But then Kayleigh’s arms were around her, untying the ropes. As soon as she was free, Grendel scrambled to a corner, pulling her knees to her chest.
Kayleigh approached her slowly. "We're friends, aren't we? Best friends?" she said, her voice steady. "And doesn't Section 27, Sub-section 18, Part II state that: 'Party (A) and Party (B) once this document is signed are friends for life and will help each other out until the bitter end'?"
Grendel’s eyes shot open. Kayleigh was quoting the Friendship Agreement. She was quoting regulations back to her. In Grendel's world, this was the ultimate validation. It meant Kayleigh still believed. She was still her friend. Overcome with a tidal wave of guilt and relief, Grendel launched herself at Kayleigh, wrapping her arms around her, crying again. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
"I know you are, Grendel," Kayleigh said, stroking her hair. "It wasn't your fault. But we're in a lot of trouble now. Do you think you can be brave for me?"
Grendel nodded, her face buried in Kayleigh's shoulder. Their friendship, forged in pity, tested by violence, and shattered by deceit, was reforged in the fires of a shared betrayal.
Chapter 13: The Chase and the Crash
"Oh, very nice indeed," a voice sneered. Emily was staggering towards them, bruised but not broken. "But if you think your little stunt is going to stop me, then you've got another think coming". She revealed her final gambit: communiques had already been sent to both organizations, reporting the murder of the other's agent. The war was coming, whether they were alive or dead.
The fight was vicious. Kayleigh and Grendel, now working as a team, fought with a desperate synergy. Just as heavily armored Iburic soldiers breached the warehouse wall, Kayleigh made a command decision. "Grendel, you get after her. I'll deal with these people!"
Grendel didn't hesitate. This was what she wanted: Kayleigh, her best friend, giving her a vital role in a plan for victory. She sprinted out of the warehouse, Kayleigh's voice urging her on.
The chase led through the city to a greasy fish and chip shop, "Slimy Sid's Fish Emporium." Grendel cornered Emily inside. But as they fought, a black SUV pulled up across the street—Xavier, Emily’s extraction. Emily grabbed Grendel, using her as a human shield as she backed out of the shop. Kayleigh arrived just in time to see them emerge.
And then, the world dissolved into chaos. A speeding car, driven by a man eight times over the legal alcohol limit, swerved erratically. It slammed into Emily with sickening force. In her rush to escape, she hadn't seen it coming. The impact was horrific, decapitating her instantly. Her headless body fell to the pavement as the car, now completely out of control, careened towards the spot where Grendel stood, frozen in shock at the grisly scene.
Kayleigh moved without thinking. She lunged, grabbing Grendel's phone off the ground before scooping the catatonic girl into her arms and diving out of the way just as the car plowed through the front of Slimy Sid’s. The black SUV, its passenger window silently closing, drove away, its driver vowing revenge.
Chapter 14: The Desperate Call
Sirens wailed in the distance. A crowd was forming, murmuring about the fight, pointing at Kayleigh and Grendel. Believing them to be the culprits, a mob began to give chase. Kayleigh ran, carrying the dead weight of Grendel, her friend's mind shattered by the horror she had witnessed. She found refuge in a darkened doorway, the shouts of the mob echoing as they rushed past.
Grendel was unresponsive, her breathing shallow. She needed help, immediately. Kayleigh took out Grendel's phone, but was met with a PIN lock screen. Panic set in. She tried Grendel's birthday, 0918. Incorrect. 0000. Incorrect. 9999. Incorrect. Two tries left before the phone, undoubtedly booby-trapped by Council engineers, would wipe itself.
Her eyes fell on a corner of the Friendship Agreement sticking out of Grendel’s jacket pocket. She pulled it out. The top sheet was Section 27. The helping part. Sub-section 18. It was a long shot. She typed in 2718.
The phone unlocked. Kayleigh gasped in relief.
The address book was heartbreakingly sparse: "Mother," "Father," and "Mr. Nibbles Fortune Holdings." Why would a guinea pig insurance company be a primary contact? She dialed the number.
"Mr. Nibbles Fortune Holdings. How can I help you today?" the cheerful receptionist chirped.
"Could I speak to… Abigail Herrera there, please?" Kayleigh asked.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but we don't have anyone by that name working here".
Kayleigh hung up, her hope sinking. But her call had been flagged by SableMind. A minute later, the phone rang. It was an unmasked number.
"Kayleigh? Is that you?" It was Abigail.
"Mrs. Jinx? What are you doing calling from Mr. Nibbles Fortune Holdings?"
There was a pause. Then, in a moment of absolute, world-altering trust, Abigail made her choice. "Kayleigh, dear," she said, her voice heavy with the weight of the secret. "Mr. Nibbles is The Council".
Kayleigh was speechless. The rumors, the whispers—they were true. "Grendel's here with me," she finally managed to say. "She's in a very bad way."
"I'm sending a couple of my people to your location immediately," Abigail said, her voice all business. "They will be there in five minutes. Please do what they say. Your life is as important as Grendel's. I'll see you soon". As the sound of approaching Council operatives reached her, Kayleigh slid down the wall, cradling her friend. "You're safe, Grendel," she whispered, collapsing from exhaustion.
Chapter 15: Aftermath and New Threats
Six months later, the dust had settled, but the landscape was irrevocably changed. Kayleigh had been debriefed by both sides. The Custodians, in a masterclass of bureaucratic self-preservation, essentially blamed her for the entire affair, starting with her decision to rescue Grendel in the desert. The Council's debrief, conducted by Abigail and a psychiatrist, was surprisingly pleasant. In a bizarre, uninvited visit to Kayleigh's home, Abigail had even encouraged her to stay with the Custodians, to continue their "game" from the other side.
The Phoenix Custodian's base was slowly being rebuilt from the explosion Xavier had set as a parting gift. Kayleigh, by default, found herself supervising much of the work. Her request for a better office was denied; her old broom cupboard, lacking the standard security reinforcements, had acted as a vent, saving the building from catastrophic structural failure. Her one small victory was a memorial to Esme in the indoor arboretum, a tribute largely ignored by her colleagues.
The power vacuum left by Xavier was filled by a man who insisted on being called "The Boss," a caricature of the organization's worst tendencies. His first act was to announce that all female members would be required to wear a new uniform of his own design, and that he would be taking their measurements personally in his office. Kayleigh's official complaint was met with a terse dismissal. The chronic sexism of the Custodians was not going away.
To make matters worse, she was now partnered with and living with Lorinda Ella. Lorinda’s obsessive hatred for The Council was a constant, simmering threat, especially with Grendel's unwanted but now-regular visits resuming. Grendel herself had recovered, her old mannerisms returning, but now tempered with a flicker of foresight.
The Council, for its part, was deeply worried by Lorinda's presence. A meeting between Abigail and her top lieutenants—the "Three Wise Men"—revealed the truth. Fifteen years ago, when Abigail was a teacher, two of her students, Abrianna and her sister Pauline (now The Council's head of security), had botched an assignment, accidentally killing Lorinda's father at a ski resort. They had tried to eliminate the young Lorinda as a witness, but an avalanche buried them all. Lorinda was the sole survivor. The Council had lost track of her for years, but they now believed she was responsible for a string of disappearances of their top agents that had mysteriously stopped just before she joined the Custodians. The sins of the past had come home to roost, and Kayleigh was living with them.
Epilogue: A Late-Night Visitor
The war, for now, had subsided into a cold, tense stalemate. Kayleigh found herself in an impossible position, battling The Council, trying to manage Grendel, and navigating the treacherous internal politics of her own organization, all while living with a woman who would kill her houseguest without a second thought.
Late one night, a ladder scraped against Kayleigh's bedroom window. Grendel, on a mission, slipped inside. She crept towards the bed in the darkness. "Kayleigh?" she whispered. Reaching out, her hand found something large and soft. Her eyes widened. It seemed Kayleigh had been blessed with significant growth in the chest department. "Why do some people get all the luck?" she muttered to herself.
"Grendel! What the hell are you doing?" a sharp whisper came from the doorway. It was Kayleigh. "That's Lorinda's room!"
Grendel froze. "Huh?" She let go of the "pillows" she'd been caressing.
"We switched rooms," Kayleigh hissed. "Now get out of there, otherwise you won't live beyond tonight."
In the relative safety of the sitting room, Grendel explained the reason for her visit. She pulled a manga from her jacket. "I confiscated this from some schoolboys," she announced. "But I don't understand what's going on with the story".
Kayleigh sighed, recognizing the work of a notoriously banned mangaka. She flicked through the lurid pages, her face turning the color of a beetroot. "What is happening," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose, "is that the two girls trapped in the wardrobe needed to keep warm, so they are... making sure their circulation keeps going until someone finds them". It was a wildly creative interpretation.
"So, a wilderness survival guide, then?" Grendel asked, nodding thoughtfully.
Kayleigh just stared at her. "Yeah… why not…"
As Grendel left, she mentioned her next homework assignment. "Field stripping an AK-47. I want to get it completed in under a minute. You were around several hundred years ago, about when these were made, so perhaps you would have some insight?"
Kayleigh was left alone in the quiet house, staring into the darkness. She didn't know if Grendel was insulting her or if her knowledge of history was just that atrocious. No-one could be so ignorant.
Right!?
