Violet showed up at the dock with Lena just a while after the sun had gone down. They had agreed to meet higher up the dock from Funzo's to regroup. Not much time had passed when Louie, Dewey, and Webby came to meet them. Violet raised an eyebrow at them, as they were all wearing black hoodies, and Webby in particular had smudged back mascara on her cheeks.

"What?" Louie handed them two more black hoodies. "It's called espionage, so join the hoodie club."

Violet and Lena exchanged a look. Finally Violet shrugged and slipped the hoodie over her small figure. She pulled the hood low over her face. "Boyd and Gosalyn should be here soon. Gosalyn said she's having trouble getting past their dads. By Boyd's dad, I assume she means Gyro."

"Here!" As if talking about the redhead had summoned her, Gos and Boyd emerged from the bushes. She had her crossbow in hand. Gosalyn panted while glaring at Boyd. "Would've been here sooner if someone wasn't a terrible liar!"

"Who's that?" Boyd asked innocently.

Gosalyn rubbed the bridge of her beak and sighed.

Webby handed them hoodies while Louie began laying out the plan. "Okay, we'll sneak in there and divide and conquer. A team will go after the journal while B team finds Huey." He drew their plan in the dirt and stared at it determinedly.

"And Katie?" Gosalyn rubbed her arm and gave Louie a half smile. Violet looked down, feeling partially guilty for pushing the red head away. She nodded. She needed to apologize too.

"Fine. And Katie. But she's not one of our priorities." He didn't need to say it because Violet knew what he was going to. Huey is. The disappearance of the red triplet had impacted them so much. But now was it. They would either come home victorious, putting an end to FOWL once and for all, or go home, broken and more likely dead.

Violet shuddered at that thought. Lena rested her arm on Violet's head with a smirk on her face. "No worries, we got this. Are we ready?"

Webby nodded. "Yeah, I think that's everything. Dewey, Louie, and I are on B team, and Gos, Lena, Violet, and Boyd are on A team. Ready? Break!" Before anyone could stop her, Webby ran off towards Funzo's.

"I guess... We're going then." Louie turned to go after Webby, Dewey following behind.

Violet moved to stand in front of her group. "We should probably go around back and try to sneak into the office that way. I think Bradford would either keep the journal in his office or whatever room they have the machine in." She tapped a finger to her ear, pacing.

Lena folded her hands together. "Yeah, but what does this machine actually do?"

"We don't know yet. You don't think they already set it off, do you?" Boyd asked.

"Hopefully not. Come on, let's go." Violet marched ahead of the group, trying to keep her monotone expression. But deep down she was in a state of heavy panic.

...

They snuck into the employees only room and found the secret elevator using Lena's magic. The four stepped out the elevator once they reached the FOWL headquarters. Lena led the others through the halls, her senses tense. Violet had informed her about everything that had happened while she was home. It seemed like they had done quite a lot without her.

"Is there like a pamphlet with a map or something, or..." Gosalyn frowned when they reached a fork in the halls.

"Maybe we could ask for help!" Boyd started down one path where two eggheads were walking together. Lena face palmed.

"Should we help him?" Violet whispered.

Gosalyn smirked. "Nah, he's got this." Lena watched the scene from around the corner.

Boyd stuck out his hand to the eggheads, startling them. "Hi, I'm Boyd, a definitely real boy! Do you know where Bradford's office is?" The eggheads didn't answer and instead raised their guns at him. "That's not very nice." Boyd lasered the guns with his eyes, and the front halves fell to the floor with a thunk. The eggheads, eyes wide, took a step back cautiously. "Do you know where Bradford's office is?"

Gosalyn snickered. "Oh man, this is amazing."

"What the heck are you?"

"A totally real boy who just wants to know where Bradford's office is please!" Boyd grinned at them, rocking on the balls of his feet.

One egghead tried to charge at the robot boy, but Boyd easily disarmed him, twisting his arm behind his back. He cried out like a little girl, which made Lena laugh this time.

"It's just down the hall to the right!" The agent Boyd had pinned cried out.

The other one frowned. "Dude, seriously?"

Boyd let go of the egghead. "Thank you kind sir!"

Lena came from around the corner, her hands glowing with magic. "But we still can't have you following us." Lena quickly knocked them out with her powers. She shook out her hands, smirking. "Good job Boyd, let's move."

They followed the egghead's and, sure enough, they found Bradford's office. They entered cautiously. Lena scanned over the room for any other life forms. She let out a breath in relief. "Clear. Let's find that journal."

Lena shuffled through the desk drawers, looking for anything that resembled the journal. She stopped when she found Huey's hat. She pulled it out of the desk and examined it. "Hey, look."

Everyone turned their attention to her. "Is that...?" Gosalyn began.

Violet nodded. "Last we heard, Huey was working for FOWL, but maybe... maybe he's on our side again! Why else would Bradford have his hat?" She smiled, and for the first time in a long time they felt hopeful.

"What do you think is gonna happen when we find them?" Gosalyn readjusted her grip on her crossbow.

"Them?"

"Er, Huey and Katie? So much has happened. Multiple apologies are probably in order, not to mention, Katie probably has nowhere to go. And things will be touchy with Huey for a while. And that's just assuming we win." Gosalyn tilted her head with a frown.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Boyd said, setting a hand on her shoulder.

A click came from the door. Their eyes widened. The knob turned as someone started to enter. They all moved quickly to hide. Lena found her spot underneath the desk and held her breath. The sound of shoes came, approaching the desk. Lena tensed. She allowed herself a peek at their shoes. From the boots she could tell it was an egghead.

The egghead clicked their walkie talkie. "Bradford , the journal is on your desk, as you requested." A staticky response came on the other end, presumably from the vulture. Footsteps exited, and the air was still.

Lena was skeptical. Surely it wasn't that easy, right? A moment of silence passed before she decided it was safe. She ventured above the desk. And sitting right there, as the egghead had said, was the journal. Violet and Boyd revealed themselves from their hiding spaces and stepped to where Lena was.

"No way! They're just gonna deliver the journal right to us?" Lena examined the book, in case it was fake.

"Is it a trap?"

"I don't think so..." Boyd scanned over the journal. "This is the real journal of Isabella Finch."

"Wow, okay. We should probably get out of here before whatever bad thing is gonna happen happens." Lena took the book back from Boyd and her hand hovered over the cover. "Should we look at the code?"

Violet stopped her. "No, or else Bradford might use it against us if things go bad. We have to find a way to get rid of it." Lena and Boyd nodded in unison.

Boyd stopped and looked around for a second. "Weren't there four of us? Where's Gosalyn?"

Lena sighed. "And cue bad thing."

Violet spun around to where she remembered Gos to be last. In her place was a note stuck to the wall with an arrow. Violet took it, squinted at the words. "I'll be right back. Gos." Violet gave the group a deadpan expression.

Lena threw her hands up. "Because this mission wasn't hard enough!"

Boyd smiled nervously. "I'm sure she had a good reason. Let's go try to find her and the others."

"Alright, fine." Lena took a deep breath and followed the other two out of the room.

Wherever Gosalyn was better be something important.

Hey guys! We're reaching the end of this fic soon in just a few chapters (Five or six I think), so I'd like to say thank you. Thank you for supporting this story. Looking back on the earlier chapters of this fic, it's a lot of cringe and poor writing. So much plant without payoff, the perspectives are all over the place, don't get me started on the formatting and that "Duck Norris" deus ex machina. The more recent chapters have just been me fumbling to make this story work with what I've already written. Truth and Lie needs a heavy rewrite, though I probably won't do that. And it's not a bad thing that a lot of this is just poor writing. It's a learning experience. In only just a year (Yes, this story is around a year old now!), I can look back and see where I've messed up. And I'm proud of it. I can look back and see how much I've grown as a writer, learning what actually makes a good story.

And so I thank you guys for putting up with the me that was still learning. And in fact, I'm still continuing to learn. My writing even a few months from now won't be the same as it is now. I've reached a point where I actually feel good about myself. I feel like I can make it in life. Not because I'm perfect, but because when I mess up, I know that with time and practice I'll get better. I'm not going to rewrite this once I'm done, admittedly because I just don't want to. It was a lot of work just to write the first draft. If someone else wants to do a rewrite of this, I'd be glad to read it and even help out or something, but I don't want to rewrite it myself. I might use Katie in the future, since she is probably the best thing to come out of this story. And I still have another story that I'm really proud of and isn't done yet. If you like this, maybe you'll like NegaTales, my main fic as of rn. Pop on by and see if you like it. So, again, thank you guys for liking this story and helping me grow by supporting it.

-Giddy