So it begins, the second greatest heist of this story so far.
"So, when do we leave?" Orchid asked Azuhrius as they were packing their things for the coming "operation", like Azuhrius fancily liked call it. Orchid could do with only "theft".
"We will get moving when Nox arrives," Azuhrius told Orchid and Sangur. "I have reserved a bullhead transport for about an hour from now, so we can pretty much leave when he shows up."
Orchid sheathed his freshly oiled sword and looked at himself from a mirror on the wall. His pink eyes looked back at him, and he smiled. Perfection. "So tell me again why we are leaving this early," he said after turning around and nodding to the window that showed the dim dawn with but a few strands of light shining from the horizon.
"Because it is always good to reserve plenty of time for dealing with preparations," Azuhrius replied.
"It is good to move before the sun is high," Sangur said while fiddling with his chainaxes. "Nox might disintegrate due to exposure if we left when the sun was high"
As if on cue, there was a loud noise as Nox slammed the door of the room open and slumbered in.
"Ah, Nox, Just in time," Azuhrius called out with a smile.
Orchid never knew when Azuhrius was truly smiling and when he was faking it. He was exceptionally good at faking it. Orchid had known him for a long time, yet he still could not spot such things.
Nox glanced at Azuhrius with a grim look. "What day it is?" he asked.
Azuhrius frowned a little. "Monday," he informed his teammate.
"Oh fucking hell, the whole week is still ahead!" Nox cried out with a miserable voice as he proceeded to go retrieve his stuff for the gig. He also spotted the food that Azuhrius had acquired since they would miss the breakfast, and quickly devoured much of it. Then he pulled Dike Talon on his hands, flexing his now long sharp metallic claws. It formed a peculiar sight, now that all four of his limbs ended in talons.
"So, is everybody ready," Azuhirus asked after a while from the door where he was standing.
After some confirming nods, the four of them left their room and headed towards the landing site.
Kaltrina lowered the glass of soda she had been drinking purely for the sake of the fact that it would look strange if they sat on the terrace of the cafe without doing anything. She checked her scroll for time and to see if there had been any messages about a change of plans, like she had done every five minutes. There was nothing new and she folded the device away and took another sip of her very sparingly consumed drink.
Vi was sitting across from her, also taking a sip from her own drink in a mirror image of Kaltrina. Her face was as emotionless as ever, as she very rarely showed anything else than pure deadpanning. She had exactly same hairstyle as Kaltrina, with the difference that her straight neck length hair was violet in hue rather than blue like Kaltrina's. She was rather poor at faking emotions, she always had been, so she was generally kept away from tasks that required specific kinds of social interaction.
Kaltrina had been a bit surprised when when Azuhrius had informed her that he would be bringing another Hydra Network operative in for this mission. Originally he had deemed that Kaltrina would be enough to act as a delegate between him and the locally recruited assistance. She did not know what had made Azuhrius decide that further operatives were necessary, as he had not told her yet. She had, for just the tiniest of moments, entertained the awful thought that Azuhrius had deemed her unqualified, that she had somehow not fulfilled the expectations placed on her and therefor she required support from another operative. But she had quickly banished such thoughts from her head. She was the prime among the others of the Network, most trusted, most relied upon and the right hand of Azuhrius. There was no way that this was because of her.
After a couple of minutes, Vi suddenly emptied her glass completely and looked over Kaltrina's shoulder with a focus on her eyes. Kaltrina recognised the signal and gulped down her own beveridge. Vi had sighted Azuhrius and his team, and now it was time to move.
The two girls rose from their seat, picked up their stuff and proceeded to walk away from the terrace of the cafe. As soon as Kaltrina joined the sparse stream of people that drifted on the street, she spotted them walking some distance away.
Azuhrius was the leader of a group of four boys. Kaltrina thought it was good to see him again, allowing herself a quick smile. He had his normal combat attire of scavenged and customised Atlesian military uniform on him, and despite his green eyes staying steadily and deliberately directed ahead of him, she knew he had spotted her and Vi.
Kaltrina gave a nod to Vi, and the girls joined the people on the street, walking in the same direction as Azuhrius and his team. They kept their distance, not showing in any way they that they knew the group of boys walking a dozen meters ahead of them, simultaneously checking that no one was following them.
After a couple of blocks, the student team turned to a small side alley, leaving the larger street behind. As Kaltrina and Vi reached it, they also discreetly separated from the crowd and stepped after them. They walked forward, until they turned around the corner to an alley that had no line of sight to a larger street.
Azuhrius was standing there, arms folded behind him, waiting for them. Orchid was leaning against the wall on his left side, showing a rather creepy smile that Kaltrina often saw him using. She could see it in the pink eyes that he was not pleased to see her again, and frankly the alluded feeling was mutual.
And then there were the two new faces that Kaltrina was meeting for the first time. The pale one standing behind Azuhrius was without doubt Nox Deimos. There was just no mistaking him and the chrome raptor legs at the end of his feet. He was looking at Kaltrina and Vi with black eyes that expressed suspicion and distaste towards the two girls. Azuhrius had informed her that Nox was not the nicest person around, and as Kaltrina observed she could tell it.
Leaning against wall on the other side opposite to Orchid was the tallest and most muscular of the group, with an expression like he was only partially present, something Kaltrina normally associated with Orchid. This must have been Sangur Calvarie. Kaltrina could almost sense the brutality typical of the followers of the Bloody One radiate from him. He even had his God's mark on his red breastplate, and Kaltrina found such open display rather unwise in a public place, even if the people around did not know the meaning of the mark.
"Kaltrina, Vi," Azuhrius knowledge them with a nod, as well as introducing them to his teammates. "The members of Team ASON," he said while gesturing to the three boys behind him. He had obviously told his team about the two of them joining them for this mission. "You already know Orchid, but allow me to introduce to Nox-" he pointed at the pale boy. "And Sangur," he motioned at the other guy.
Kaltrina and Vi nodded respectfully to the other Legionnaires, but none of them returned the gestures, as Kaltrina had expected. To them, she and Vi were pretty much in the same category as cultists, and therefore there was no need for them to show even the barest hint of consideration.
"Why are you consorting with such wicked creatures," Nox sneered as his eyes moved between the girls. He did not seem to have much respect for girls, but not respecting others was rather common among Venatores.
Azuhrius did not acknowledge his teammates words and looked at Kaltrina. "I believe you have something for Nox," he said with a meaningful smirk.
Kaltrina nodded and stepped past Azuhrius towards Nox whose arms twitched towards his weapons. Kaltrina smiled, put her hand in the bag she was carrying over her shoulder and pulled a package of pancakes out. He offered them towards the Legionnaire of the VIIIth who quickly stanched them from her hands.
"You may stick around," he grunted before pulling aside to enjoy his newly acquired treat. Bribing always worked on that kind of a person.
"So, are we heading towards the docks then?" Orchid asked as he pushed himself from the wall.
"I do believe so," Azuhrius said while turning at Kaltrina. "How about our local associates?"
"They are waiting for me in the agreed meeting place by the docks," Kaltrina reported.
"Very well then. You go to them and we will meet you as planned later this evening," Azuhrius said as he turned. "We will rendezvous with you at the fixed hour. Let me know if anything happens. Me and my team are just going to wander around until it gets dark. You have your orders," he said dismissively and Kaltrina nodded to signify that she had understood.
Kaltrina turned on her heels, starting to walk away from Azuhrius' team and her fellow operative who had yet to be given a task. Just before disappeared around the corner, she saw Azuhrius hand Vi a vary small bag with some instructions that Kaltrina was too far away to hear. It bothered her a bit that Azuhrius had not shared what Vi was to do, but she told herself that if he did not wish to share it, she did not need to know.
They had slipped into the dock area without any problems. Which was a shame since Sangur would have loved to hit some guard with his axe. Seriously, it would not be a bother at all. But Nooo… We have to be all fucking discreet and fucking subtle and fucking not killing anything that moves on sight and offering their skulls to the Skull Throne. Fuck!
Azuhrius knew the layout of the place and guided them through the area that was filled with cargo containers and men finishing up off loading the Dust. They moved cautiously so that none of the remaining workers noticed them. They arrived in front of a small office building, one that was usually used for handling paper work and a resting place for the sailors, or that was at least what Azuhrius said. As they crowded around the door, Sangur noticed that the lock had been broken and the door was therefore open. Azuhrius grabbed the handle and pushed the door in without hesitation, and Sangur, Nox and Orchid followed. The door closed behind them, blocking off the orange tinted sunset that was coloring the sky.
As they entered the rather expansive but comfy sole room of the building, Sangur noticed there were almost two dozen people waiting for them. He also noticed most of them were visibly armed with red swords or axes, and he reached for his Skalathrax, but Azuhrius blocked it with his stretched hand.
The blue haired female that they had met previously that day stepped forward among the man wearing black suits and red sunglasses who were standing around and sitting on the few couchess in the center of the room. Azuhrius leaned in and his little female underling whispered something into his ear while motioning at one of the men in black.
Azuhrius nodded and glanced back at his team. "Just wait here. Don't do anything stupid, these are out additional manpower." He stepped to meet a man who did not look any different from all the goons hanging around them. "You must be Tony?" Azuhrius said with a friendly tone.
Azuhrius and the man he addressed stopped from arms length from one another. "Yes, I am Tony. I am in charge on behalf of Junior here." He looked at the blue haired Legionnaire over his crimson sunglasses.
Sangur thought that the glasses looked kinda nice. Maybe he should get ones like that too. The world must look nice and red from behind them.
"I assume you are the one who sent the girl and came up with this plan?" he inquired.
"Yes, that would be me," Azuhrius replied. "You may call me Alpharius."
Azuhrius and the man in charge of the thugs talked for a while, before Azuhrius returned to his teammates.
Sangur was still eyeing the red glassed thugs but turned his attention to his leader.
"Okay, now we just wait," Azuhrius said with a pellucid voice. "These guys have trucks waiting outside the dock area, who will rush in when we give a signal. When the guys behind these robberies arrive, the vehicles come in and we load couple of containers worth of Dust into them. Or rather these gentlemen will. We are here just in case, to keep the other thieves at bay if they notice us."
He checked his scroll and then turned to Nox. "Nox, I need you to get outside and work as a look-out."
Sangur could see Nox frown and sensed that he was not pleased for being ordered around. "Why me?" the pale boy asked.
"Because you are best suited for the job. Or who do you think should be sent out there?"
"Well for example…" Nox looked first at Sangur, Orchid after that, and then fell silent as he realized the alternatives.
"You can get back here fastest if something comes up and we have to scram." Azuhrius continued. "Get to some high ground and just keep an eye out for anything. Inform me when the robbers arrive. These two-" Azurius motioned with his hand for two of the black suited men to come closer. "And she-" Azuhrius nodded at the blue haired girl. "Will accompany you and help you keep contact."
"What if I don't wanna? Why should I go there while you remain here doing some random acts of mindlessness?" Nox retorted with a challenging tone.
Azuhrius glanced at the female. "Don't you have something for Nox?"
The girl pushed her hand into her bag and pulled out some valuable pancakes who were gone from her hands before she could even face Nox.
"On it," Nox said as he headed for the door, the two goons following him. Azuhrius opened his scroll and formed a message line with the female, before she too rushed after Nox.
"Now you two can just take it easy," Azuhrius said while turning to face Sangur and Orchid. "Try not to do anything to our kind helpers, we need them. Absolutely no fighting or arguing of any kind. You cannot kill any of them," Azuhrius hushed with a harsh tone, really driving his point home.
"What, we can't even kill one or two of them?" Sangur asked. "I thought that kind of thing was okay now that we are not on the Academy grounds and under Canemaster's nose."
"No, absolutely not. You don't kill your allies," Azuhirus said.
"What kind of rule is that?" Sangur sneered with a pout.
"The most basic rule of cooperation."
"And nobody ever told me that," Sangur growled. "Bloody hell."
"Don't fret," Orchid uttered. "I was also told just recently."
Sangur glanced around. "So now we are supposed just sit and wait?" he grunted.
"Yeah," Azuhrius answered with a nod. "Just stay put until I say otherwise. And remember-."
""No Killing anyone,"" Sangur and Orchid growled in sync. The two of them dispersed, Orchid striding around the room and Sangur leaning against the wall by the door.
Azuhrius checked the status report sent by Vi, his green eyes quickly but steadily scanned over the few lines. Her mission was so incredibly simple that there was not really any need for her to check in, as there was practically nothing that could go wrong, but reporting things was never a bad thing. He folded his scroll away and glanced around.
Nothing had really happened in the past hour, and the black wearing helpers were just hanging around the large room. Some of them were laying lazily on the couches in the center of the room, some leaning against the walls, others fiddling with their weapons in boredom.
Sangur was still leaning against the wall by the door, hands crossed over his breastplate, eyes closed and his facial muscles twitching from time to time.
Orchid was crouched by a large illuminated decoration aquarium that was next to a couple of office desks in the corner of the room. Azuhrius frowned, wondering what Orchid was doing, and started to stride towards his teammate across the room.
Orchid's face was almost pressed against the glass that separated him from the multitude of colorful fish swimming in the clear water. His hand was poised above the the transparent glass box, making shaking moves in short intervals.
Azuhrius stopped behind the white haired Legionnaire, leaning a bit so he could see what was going on better. "What are you doing," he inquired.
Orchid glanced at him momentarily before directing his pink eyes at the animals in the water. "What kind of fish are these?" he asked with a slightly baffled tone. He shook his hand over the aquarion again and some vivid colored pills fell out of a round container he was holding. The pills hit the water and started sinking, soon disappearing as the fish swam in and ate them before they hit the bottom. "They are just taking my drugs like they were nothing," Orchid murmured, emptying the container and discarding it next to him before pulling out a fresh one.
Azuhrius noticed there were several already emptied containers by Orchid's feet, implying he had been feeding the fish his mystery stuff for a while now. "Maybe they just don't have the same effect on fish like they have on humans," Azuhrius said, though his gaze drifted to a dozen or so fish floating upside down motionless by the surface. "They also cannot limit their eating. They are going to keep consuming anything edible they get, so they will eat themselves to death if you keep giving them your stuff."
There was almost an inaudible splash as the last pill from the container Orchid was currently holding impacted the surface of the water in a small circular wave. Orchid reached for another container, but his hand came back empty. He just stared as the small pallet of his substance fell and was gulped down by the few remaining fish, as most of them were now floating lifelessly around. There was a moment of silence as Orchid registered what had just happened. Then he opened his mouth in a small shriek. "They took all of my drugs!" he exclaimed in horror as he realized he was out.
Azuhrius was pretty sure Orchid still had plenty of combat stims stored, so he must have been talking about some other type of drugs, probably ones reserved for enjoyment use. He smirked as Orchid pressed his hands against the glass box. Being without drugs even for a while would only be good for him. He turned around as headed away while Orchid kept mumbling to himself.
"All of it, they took all of it," the progeny of the IIIrd Legion deplored. "All of it went down their mouths. All gone. They left me with nothing... Solution: eat the fish!"
There were splashing noises but Azuhrius did not turn to watch. It was at that moment that his Scroll let out a notification beep.
Kaltrina was standing on top of a metal balcony of a heavy lifting crane, looking out into the dock area darkened by the night. The weather was rather misty, a thin veil drifting from the sea to envelope the coastline of Vale. She was leaning against a rail with one hand, the other hand firmly clasping her scroll that was in readiness to contact Azuhrius. A couple of meters to her left was Nox, who was sitting in a crouch behind the rail, scanning their surroundings in boredom. The two henchmen Azuhrius had assigned with them were leaning against the crane little further back, one gazing out while the other was having a smoke he covered behind his hands, so that it's light could not give away their location.
Nothing remarkable had happened during their watch. The dock area had been clear of personnel for a good while now, the containers they were after were just sitting there unguarded.
Kaltrina found that strange. The Schnee Dust Company usually had rather extensive security arrangements for their products. She knew that they had quite an army of security drones at their disposal. Their train transportations were usually crawling with automated security robots. She knew, she had been involved in a train theft for their Dust, twice, after which they had left rather clear false evidence of White Fang involvement. So that is why all this Dust sitting unguarded made her feel uncomfortable. Do they think that being inside a Kingdom border will be enough of a protection? Had the Kingdom of Vale refused to let the Schnee robotic army on their soil?
As she was pondering this, she heard a huff from her left. She glanced at Nox who was scraping one of his weapon's claws against one of the bars of the safety rail. "Have you been to Terra recently?" he asked without looking at Kaltrina.
She was a bit surprised by Nox's sudden words after all the silence. "Not very recently, but fairly," she said without revealing anything too exact. Her hand holding the scroll moved out of Nox's line of site, and she started typing a message to Azuhrius without looking, using her practiced skill to remember the the locations of keys on the virtual screen. '-Nox is asking about Terra, what do I do?' She had turned the sound and vibration of the smart device off, so she had to peek at the screen to see when the reply would come, and it arrived only couple of moments after her own message. '-Tell him anything not involving the XXth. The more he asks the better.'
She looked back at Nox, who was gazing at the night sky and the Luna that was almost full, only showing a bit of its fracturation. He looked like he was hesitating, like he was not sure he wanted to ask further questions.
"How are the things?" Nox finally asked.
Kaltrina considered her answer for a moment. Azuhrius had told her that Nox and Sangur had taken off during the turmoil of the last breach. "I would say not too different from how it was prior to the latest time the Grimm broke in." She answered. "With fewer Legionnaires, of course."
Nox let out a sound that could have been a snicker, but he sure was not smiling. "Yes, I have been wondering about that," he said his black eyes still focused on the Luna. "Tell me, what Legion is the largest currently." He huffed. "Or more like who are the furthest away from extinction."
Kaltrina thought for a moment. She remembered how the numbers had been when she had visited the last time, though the situation could have changed during the few months she had been away. It had been a tie back then, but Azuhrius had told her not to tell about the XXth. "I think that XVIIth might be the largest at the moment, at least to my knowledge."
Nox pondered her answer for a moment. "The zealots, huh?" he muttered. "These things sure change quickly."
Suddenly Nox perked up, scanning the cool night air with his black eyes. "You might want to notify Azuhrius," he grunted as he gazed upwards. "Our visitors are here."
Wouldn't it be a nasty move if I decided to kill everybody, even characters not yet introduced, off at the end of the first volume? It would surely be a dick move... Just keeping you on your toes. But the Gods need their sacrifices, you know.
A new OC, even if she is quite minor one, introduced in this chapter. I have to update the list on my profile. There has been some time since I added in a new one.
Please leave a review, if you feel in you heart, and have a nice day.