Alice walked down the hallway with her usual long, graceful strides toward the library, where she knew her twin brother would be; he was always there, studying up on alchemy, geography, and various other subjects that she couldn’t keep track of at this point. She rounded a corner and arrived outside of the library’s doors and then walked in to begin searching for her brother. It wasn’t long before she found him hidden near the back in a little alcove to himself, with his nose in a book and a stack to his left and right; books he had already read during his time in the library and books he intended to read before leaving the library. Alice said down across from her brother and waited for exactly twenty seconds, counting seconds in her head, before she spoke to her brother.

“Barny, the teams just got back. They’re banged up pretty bad. A lot of them had to be put in the tanks. The Gemellies were on the mission.”

Barnabas marked his place in his book mentally before looking up at his sister over his glasses and giving her his full attention. His interest was piqued when she mentioned the Gemellie. He wondered why they had been sent and what could have happened to put so many Asylums in a state bad enough to be put in the tanks. Barnabas looked back down at the book and mentally marked his place again before he got up from his chair.

“That’s all very odd… and interesting. Let’s go find out what happened. You’ll be doing the talking of course.”

“Oh, Barny! When are you going to learn to talk to people!?”

“Shhh! We are still in the library, Alice,” Barnabas whispered back, “Besides, I know how to talk to people. I just choose not to talk to very many is all.”

“Sure…”

The twins exited the library in the midst of their argument and walked back down the hallway Alice took on her way to the library.

“Where do you think the Gemellie are, Barny?”

“Hm… either at the tanks… no, the Asylums would be healed by now. Where would they go after being healed? To eat, perhaps?”

Upon his question, as if answering it, Alice’s stomach growled loudly.

“Food sounds good, Barny. Let’s go to the cafeteria anyway.”

With that, Alice led the way to the cafeteria. When they reached the door, one of the Gemellie walked out of the cafeteria, and Alice almost bumped into her. Barnabas stared at her for a fraction of a second, just long enough to go unnoticed, hopefully. The twins walked into the cafeteria to find the Asylums who were in the tanks at a table eating hungrily. With them was the Crimson Asylum. Barnabas’s interest was piqued again, but he instead made his way to an empty table while Alice went and got herself food. When she came back and sat down, Barnabas sat and thought about what could have happened to cause so many Asylums to end up in the tanks, especially if the Crimson Aslyum was involved.