“You don’t get to make that choice for me John! I deserve to know just as much as my mom does,” she was clearly angry, though a part of her voice quivered.

“Alice, I’m an adult, I can take care of myself. But if anything happened to you, I couldn’t forgive myself,” Hanna argued, surprising John.

“Could dad take care of himself?” Alice shot back.

“You know that he was always terrible about helping himself instead of whatever project he was dealing with at the time,” she laughed, bitterly.

“But what if something happens to you! I can’t lose two parents…” John hugged her strongly, and her shouting turned to crying and mumbling into his shoulder.

“I’ll keep her safe, I promise,” he whispered. John knew Alice wanted to respond snarkily, just like every day, but her voice drowned into the emotions flooding her. He held her for a while, as her mother started walking about the kitchen, making what looked to be hot cocoa.

In silence she put in front of Alice, then stood over her and rubbed her shoulder best as she could.

“Alice, I’ll be alright, and come back safe. More than that, I swear to you I’ll bring your dad back, I will bring Phoenix back,” she said, her daughter sniffling.

“God damn both of you, pretending like nothing is wrong when I don’t even know what kind of danger you’re putting yourself into. Do you know every single possibility that’s been running through my head? Mafia, secret government agencies, spy stuff. I even considered maybe our little town has magic after all,” she almost laughed. John just kissed her on the cheek in response.

Hannah sighed, “I think the only one who really knows here is John. And he’s as adamant about you staying out of it as I would be in any of those possibilities. So I believe him,” she shook her head. Her hair had gotten even more messy, and he could even spot a slight tear trail on her cheek.

“Fine,” Alice whispered

“Alice told me you’re going somewhere tomorrow. So I guess it’s now or never,” Hanna sat in the front seat of her car, while John was in the back. They had parked at a lot not far from the Council’s warehouse. It’s where she wanted to go, despite his warnings.

“Where do you want me to start?” he asked, his eyes staying on the front seat mirror.

She didn’t take long to think before speaking, “who owns that warehouse?”

“I don’t know that it’s a company, I’m sure you have more resources to find that out than me. But a group called the Council owns it, as far as I know,” John said, slowly but nervously.

“The Council, huh? I can tell you some shell corp with some weird name owns the building itself, but the Council isn’t mentioned anywhere in any of their public documents,” she looked towards the road leading to the warehouse.

“Well, I doubt they would put it anywhere,” John mumbled to himself, “anyways, you said it was under some name, what is it?”

“Her Majesty’s Royal Expedition, couldn’t figure out if it was actually connected to the UK royal family or not,” Hannah’s voice was flat.

“Strangely, that might be less weird than you think,” John laughed, of course the company was that old, “let’s just say the Council is both old enough and connected enough to them for it to make some sense.”

“Are you telling me they’re some kind of east india company that still exists?” she shook her head.

“Not exactly, but it’s close enough. I guess that’s enough of being cryptic myself. I’m gonna sound crazy for a bit but I can prove pretty much everything to you,” John paused and looked at his Mana, he had enough, “magic is real,” he let it sink in for a second before continuing. Hannah swung her head around the seat and leaned to look at him.

“You’re joking,” she stated.

“No,” John concentrated, creating a sphere of Mana above his hand. Then, just to prove it further, started moving it around the space of the back seat.

“THE HELL IS THAT, GET IT OUT!” it was gone as soon as she spoke, and after blinking heavily, Hannah spoke again, “fuck,” she hit the side of the carseat, “that’s real, isn’t it.”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like this, and I just showed it to you. To answer your followup questions. Yes, that means I can do magic, and also yes, the Council is involved in magic as well. Specifically, it deals in exploring other dimensions, at least that’s what I think they are. They call them Planes. Regardless of them though there’s a whole underground magical world beneath our own. Here, look at this,” John pulled up the Abyss Auction on his phone, using Bass’ insights to show Hannah item of a more magical origin.

“What is all this,” she almost grabbed his phone, looking over every single item listed on the first page, “this is nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Maybe Phoenix wasn’t even related to this…” she trailed off. John wasn’t sure he was related to the Council, but he knew he was related to the Abyss somehow.

‘Unfortunately I am sure he’s related to this. Do you remember a bracelet Alice’s dad gave to her?” John asked calmly, helping her put the pieces together as he already had.

“Yes, what of it? Didn’t she throw it away? That’s what she told me anyways,” John handed her the bracelet, which he had pulled out of his inventory.

“I can’t really show it to you but one of my magic powers lets me see the history and attributes of objects,” he paused for a second as Hannah looked at him incredulously, “yes, that’s not a normal ability, but either way that’s why I know this is magical.”

“Hold on, so you’re some kind of diviner?”

“No, my abilities are based on video games, it’s a long story. But since video game items usually have attributes and descriptions attached to them, so do all the items I obtain,” John wasn’t sure if he was making things more confusing or more clear.

Hannah shook her head and leaned back in her seat, “ok, let’s say I understand any of that. So this Council group. They explore dimensions? How do they get their funding, governments, who knows about this? Is this some kind of conspiracy?”

Now it was John’s time to feel confused, “honestly, I have no idea. I know they were founded by some fragment of the UK’s royal family. But apart from them doing some mining and gathering tech I have barely any idea what they even do.”

“Why do you know all of this but also so little? Are you a part of them?” Hannah looked more suspicious than concerned.

“Technically, yes. I'm an explorer in training. Explorers are the people in the Council responsible for finding the entrance to new dimensions, through gates of sorts.”

“God, this all sounds like some kind of bad sci-fi show,” she paused to gather her thoughts, “ok. I’m gonna find out everything I can on this end, I will look into this Abyss and Council nonsense. But in the meanwhile, you’re gonna find out if anybody knows Phoenix on that end. Do we have a deal?”

“Absolutely,” John didn’t hesitate, and they spent another hour in the car as he tried to explain everything he knew about the Abyss and its organizations in general.

Hannah insisted on following him through the Gateway, and as they both appeared in the HQ, he just hoped nobody was around to recognize him. Fortunately, there was no one in the large warehouse where the gates were situated.

“The hell was that, where are we? Everything just shattered?” Hannah was just as confused as John had been the first time.

“We’re in the first Plane, another dimension accessible only by these gates, it’s where the Council has their HQ. That’s where we are,” he almost chuckled, but knew it was insensitive.

“Alright, just make sure you find out about Phoenix. I’m going back, this is enough excitement for one day,” she sat down on a crate and shook her head for a minute before finally heading back.

John in the meanwhile, thought of who he could even ask. Finding information on his own would be difficult, until after the expedition to XR2 he wouldn’t have time to look at the library where he had first seen Abyssal documents. But perhaps Ember or Ingrid might have information, whatever that costs him.

Betting on his friend before his mentor, he headed to Ember’s office. Hoping she was still up, ’it’s eight, that’s not too late,’ he looked at his phone, only to see a message from Bass, ’wait, when did I give her my phone number?’

“Yo Boss, I took the liberty of adding myself to your contacts earlier, and noted down your phone. More importantly though, your laptop already arrived! The drone flew through into the hallway because it couldn’t find you, but I managed to convince it to leave it in my room till you get here,” the text said, and John could almost hear Bass’ voice speaking in his mind.

“Great!” he shouted without intention as he stood just a hallway from Ember’s office. Almost immediately Ember appeared from behind one of the walls, noticing him.

“John? I thought you had gone to see your girlfriend?” she genuinely seemed surprised.

“Oh, yeah, but I had forgotten some business here so I got back earlier than I thought,” he tried explaining, “anyways, how did you know about that?”

“There’s cameras in the warehouse, part of my job is to keep appraised on who goes out and in through Springfield. Even if it’s mostly just you,” she explained.

’Fuck, shit, fuck. That means Hannah is on there too,’ this was not good, he really should have thought about that.

“Umm, Ember, can I ask you for a favor?”

“Sure, anything,” she almost seemed excited to hear it.

“Well, really, it’s more like two, I’m sorry. Can you look into a man by the name of Phoenix Wright for me? And second, I showed my girlfriend the warehouse, and I don’t really want Ingrid to know about it, can you not maybe delete the footage or something?” both were a big ask, but he felt confident he had earned Ember’s trust.

She looked around for a second, “I think I can do that,” she whispered to him. And then dragged him into her office, “I’ve heard the name before, which is the only reason why I’m entertaining that. But John, never bring anyone to the warehouse again,” she warned, coldly now.

“I won’t! I promise,” he laughed and sighed, “but thank you, I really appreciate it Ember,” John genuinely was happy for the help, “where have you heard that name though? Any information you can give me would be great.”

She thought for longer than he expected, “Ingrid mentioned it. Something related to the Shadow that Graham works for, I think” Ember said.

“Wait, so Ingrid knows this Shadow guy?”

“Yeah, you’ve met him as well, he’s another member of the council. He tried debating giving you the test even when you were there, don’t you remember?” John only vaguely did, it had felt like so long ago. He did recall a round man arguing with Ingrid at the first Council meeting he had attended.

’So that was who Graham works under? Wait, but didn’t he also do something to that broodmother wolf’s mind?’ John wasn’t sure if to be more concerned.

“John, if that’s all, I should probably get to work deleting that clip, so I suggest you go,” she said.

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” he swiftly walked out, and headed to the trainee’s quarters.

A couple of minutes later he was knocking on Bass’ door, but John got no response. He waited a minute, and even texted her, but soon enough he gave up. She must have been asleep or something, he guessed.

Instead he found her inside his room, sitting there with a box.