:Refer to the information on the first part for disclaimers and such:
Upon a Moonlit Night Part 14
There was a soft chink as Maria set down the teacup and saucer. She folded her hands over the small patter and sighed. Without so much as glancing in her direction, Reginald reached out, took up the cup and gently sipped the lightly flavored liquid. Licking his lips, he set it back down and flipped to another page of the report he was reading.
Maria gently cleared her throat. She waited a moment before speaking.
"Signore," the brunette said softly. The Lieutenant finally looked up from his papers. "You should rest; you've been at this for days now. Per favore."
"I know..." he replied solemnly, removing his glasses. It felt good to rest his eyes. "But I need answers. Every minute we waste…" he trailed off growing quieter. The Italian woman beamed a quaint smile as she retrieved a blanket from a chair on the other side of the table. She had just set it about the Lieutenant's shoulders when he shifted, fully alert again.
"Really, I appreciate your concerns," his tone was flat; there was no warmth to it. Reginald took a long sip from his cup, and then turned back to the papers in his hand. Disheartened, Maria took this as a dismissal and quietly excused herself.
Minutes grew as he read line after line of information. The 109th had been thorough in their collection of data, and he scrutinized it. There were no pattern to the attacks; they all occurred sporadically. Time, location, size of the ambush, size of the Order base—nothing was similar for any two occurrences. Even the Knights that had gone missing had nothing in common. Only a few figures were solid—a total of fourteen, now seventeen though, Knights had vanished over the past two years. That was as far back as the 109th's record traced, but Reginald was sure if he made inquires at the main branch, he could obtain other accounts. Of the fourteen that had disappeared, none of them had returned and, the Lieutenant prayed he wouldn't have to add any more names to that list.
Downing the last of his tea, he grabbed a fresh piece of paper and a writing utensil. Flipping through the reports again he began penning all the names, ranks and classes of the missing Knights. Reginald had a hunch there was something in common with all of them, beyond what their initial personal reports told. When he had finished all seventeen, there were six females and eleven males. The highest ranking was Commander Kiske, the others varied from Recruits to Ensigns to even a Lieutenant Commander, though the majority was not within officer ranking. There was a slightly higher number of Spell Casters than regular Soldiers, the Medical Division Leader noted with a quirk of his eyebrow. Inborn Magic abilities were not abundant, just uncommon. The majority of the world's populace possessed no skill whatsoever to control an Element, but with diligent training, could obtain to. Still, there were rare cases, where a person's inherent magic pool could be quite large, giving them immense potential. Ky Kiske was one such case.
He paused in his scribbling mid-word, his mind fixated. Reaching to another stack of papers he dug out the personal reports on Brendan Jameson and Hubert Kollwitz. The latter was a skilled fire caster; there were few who could out-manipulate his use of flame. Jameson on the other hand was primarily a swordsman, but the man did possess a latent talent for magic. Sadly though, any true aptitude never surfaced and aside from a small handful of freak accidents, the swordsman never gained any control over his magical capabilities. Reginald was perplexed; there was evidence in the reports to both support the idea he had and also to contradict it.
Unless...he mused, they're doing it on purpose. To mislead us... Brushing the papers aside he flipped through the maps that were still sprawled across the table. Fingers soon found the one he was looking for. France lay before him with all the careful notations the Commander had been making. Turning to the reports again, Reginald made a few more marks before throwing his pen down in frustration.
It just didn't make any sense.