Sorry about all of the ongoing delays, page 10 is still 100% going to be up at Noon PST tomorrow.

Poppy slid the ticket for her new clothes into her breast pocket and took a slight detour over to the Shiboutique’s unmanned front desk. Her spell phone’s battery died while she had been running around the city a few hours before, and one of Shiba’s Boys had been polite enough to offer the use of a charging marble while she was upstairs discussing business. Her bulky block of a phone was softly chirping from the tabletop, denoting it was fully recharged.

[Images 1+2+3]

Poppy wasn’t too surprised to see Hallia had left dozens of new messages while she was unavailable, they had been keeping in constant correspondence after her first text, and she was proving to be a surprisingly valuable asset. Since that afternoon, Hallia had warned her of Chicadino’s intentions, let her know of Friedrich’s capture, and given her advice on how to keep Lily safe until things blew over. Poppy scrolled through the messages left after her phone died, and the texts became less relevant and more like those of a bored roommate, detailing updates on her current activities and growing less concerned with spelling errors. At that point, it seemed Hallia was just sending messages to assure that nothing bad had happened on her end, which Poppy couldn’t help but appreciate.

As she went to reply to the last text in her box, she hesitated, soaking in the words on screen.

Got home, safe to talk on my end; imprtnt info, will leave voicemails if you can’t answer. -HH

Only then did it occur to Poppy that she hadn’t thought to tell Hallia about Little Birdy, and a pit began forming in her guts. She prayed that Hallia would think to avoid saying anything too incriminating out loud as she played the first of several voicemails.

“Hey, it’s me, I have some important stuff to tell you if you’re thinking of going up against Chicadino.”

[Image 4]

OH COME ON, Poppy thought.

“I don’t know if you’re still getting this,” Hallia’s voicemail continued, “but there’s some stuff I think it’s time I came clean on. For a long time, I’ve been content to sit on the sidelines, pretending like people haven’t been getting hurt, but I’m not sure I can stand having that on my conscience anymore. I have evidence linking Mr. Chicadino to suspicious criminal activities for some years now, evidence that I’ve been too cowardly to come forward with because, I… used to work for him.”

*BEEP*

The phone chirped loudly as the first mail ended, and Poppy wondered if she was supposed to be surprised at Hallia’s revelation. She was pretty sure it was on her résumé and everything. She moved on from those thoughts and clicked through to the next message.

“So, back then I was known as Milo Canny, a member of Chicadino’s accounting team. For a little while, I was one of the guys who would partner up with Valente to make sure payments were all in order. Yeah, I know, you’re probably thinking I got in too deep and had to change my name for protection, but uh, that was actually an unrelated thing. A little while before I lost that job, I had realized I was kind of unsatisfied with my identity, er, specifically, I wanted to be seen as a woman.”

[Image 5]

Poppy wasn’t sure she really needed to know about this part.

“You know, it’s actually kind of a funny story how I figured it out. You mammals tend to have a lot of trouble telling us birds apart, and there was this waitress at a diner Valente and I used to get lunch at who would always call me ‘Miss,’ on account of my voice and my cute face and all. I think she thought Valente and I were dating or something, ha ha!” There was a long pause, and Poppy heard shifting around and the sound of liquid pouring. “…Well, heh hehhh, I guess Chipper and I were kinda sorta engaging in a workplace inappropriate relationship for a little while.”

[Image 6]

THIS WOMAN IS DRUNK

“He had this whole ‘purity of a man’s spirit’ thing going on, though. No girls allowed in Valente’s treehouse, if you know what I mean. So, uh, he didn’t take it very well when I told him I was getting my name changed. He told me I was compromised and that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be seen near me anymore. Which is pretty big talk for a guy who likes to-”

*BEEP*

Poppy panicked at the tone, tossing her phone forty yards straight up.