A/N: Not much to say, other then welcome back. Now onto the next chapter in the Twilight Brigade!
Chapter 7: Today's Trials
June 30th, X162 N.R.Y. 3:12 AM, Royal Capital of Fiore, Crocus. Ministry of Centralized Intelligence Building, Long Distance Communications Unit.
"Can I get that one more time agent? I repeat, I need you to say that one more time." The long distance lacrima operator adjusted the sensitivity of his Achieve rig and scrubbed the audio once again, "I can barely make you out over that background noises." An unsteady breath from the other side of the lacrima's readout was drawn to steady the man on the other end before he repeated the awful words a second time.
"Sir, the Grand Grotto has been destroyed; and the odds are that this was a job done by the Cabal." The scout's words chilled the operator to the core, and he shivered as he began a spell that would record the rest of the transmission and imprint it into a lacrima disc for later transport to the higher ups.
"Officer, please give me the state of affairs as clearly as you can. You are currently being recorded and this recording will be sent up the chain of command as per protocol once we have determined the state of affairs and confirmed your-" The scout's lacrima communicator suddenly cut out, which sent the operator back in Crocus into into a frenzy of curses and spilled coffee as he attempted to reconnect things from his end. The seconds that passed were pure agony, as the young man felt himself age several years as he manipulated his terminal furiously. The a heavy, rough hand fell on his shoulder and startled him enough to earn a high pitched yelp as the operator leapt from his chair like a cat.
"You are relieved of your post son, this one's above your pay grade. Besides that I doubt that you're going to get much sleep if you continue anyway." The words were spoken with a worn out cadence, and the young man took one look at the emblem on the older man's jacket, a coiled snake with a knife blade for a tail, before he took off like a rabbit. The older officer sat down at the desk and moved aside a pile of meal wrappers and mostly emptied paper coffee cups as he did so before he donned a communications headset of his own. "Scout Leader this is Viper-Nine, you are cleared to give your full report now in accordance to the Transference of Sensitive Intelligence Directives Article Seven." The man on the other end of the line cleared his throat and then spoke again through the lacrima, although this time his voice sounded very different from the first part of the recording.
"A little before 20:00 hours on June 28th a massive surge of magical energy was detected as the Three Tribes of Diserio raised the Hybrid Nature Magic-Solid State Defensive Barrier, otherwise known as the Sand Veil. Just before their communications were cut off several hours prior to this event the Ministry of Foreign Intelligence's secure communications unit received a message from the Grand Grotto's Elders, 'Under attack. Possible Compromise. Enact Treaty. Going Silent.' As we were in the middle of scrambling a scouting unit another spike of magical energy was detected, and then our eyes and ears in the region were cut off completely. Fearing the worst, we switched from status Orange to status Yellow and switched over to prepping a force recon team plus a heavy strike package… We arrived on the scene about two hours ago, and we have not encountered any hostels or even any bodies whatsoever. There are also no signs of survivors, and anything of material value has been stripped away sir." The scout went silent, and the communications officer moved to retrieve a flask he had slipped into his off hand holster. He took a long, gloomy pull of the container before he smacked his lips and opened up the comm link on his end to make his response to the haunted scout force leader.
"You men keep yourselves sharp, who knows what might happen at this point? Beyond that refer to Protocol 4, subsection twenty-one for your next actions. Thank you for your services rendered… What is your name my boy? I'd forgotten to ask for that and your rank."
The scout leader chuckled at the small oversight and then responded crisply, "Scout Leader First Class, Mitchel Bradley sir. This is my second operation since I made field operations leader sir." The lacrima visuals suddenly cleared, and the older intelligence officer was greeted with the image of a man some two decades or so younger then himself with a face already hardened by the brutalities of the missions he had already faced and the path he had followed to them. The old man offered back a salute of his own and then promptly severed the line before he sat back in the console's seat and toyed with the ends of his greying handlebar mustache. After a few moments of reflection he ejected the lacrima disc, slotted it into a disc carrier for transport and hefted himself up from his chair with a groan. Then he moved over to a blank section of the walls of the chamber and rattled off a string of words and numbers in rapid succession.
"Access code Bravo, Hotel, Mike, Lima, Oscar, Delta. Serial number 013960. Emergency Level Blue." A three foot by three foot panel in the wall depressed itself and then slid aside almost silently to reveal a clear, reinforced glass tube highlighted with red. The old man smacked the large button next to the tube and then placed the disc carrier into a rocket shaped vessel which he then loaded into the tube. He closed the tube back up and then pressed a dark green button beneath the red one with a grunt as the button offered an unexpected measure of resistance. "Get going you blasted antique!" As if the tube had heard him it rumbled, sputtered and then the rocket zipped away faster then most eyes could track it. Then the officer closed the panel back up and strode away as he whistled a tune. "Now to go and get myself some breakfast before all hell breaks loose."
6:30 A.M. Twilight Brigade Guild Hall, Guild Leader's Personal Quarters
The sun had just peeked over the edge of the horizon as Aria Weissbach exited the bathroom that adjoined her modest room on the Guild Hall's fourth underground level. She covered the distance to her medium sized dresser and flicked the towel she had wrapped around herself in the bath into the clothes basket near the foot of her bed. The twenty-five year old Guild Leader gave herself a passing glance in the mirror and sighed as she dressed herself with the swift, timed pace that her father had gently taught her as she had grown up. Her mother had passed away before she could even remember her, and her life after that had been almost entirely centered around living with her father at the Guild and when she turned 15, a short, highly decorated stint at a private academy for children of Fiore's military personnel. Aria chuckled quietly as she secured her dark blue business pants over her white underclothes and buttoned up her white dress shirt before she slipped on her plain dark blue blazer. She then tied a dark ribbon around her neck before she smoothed down the collar of her shirt.
"Are you ready to receive the auditor, Master?" The professional tone that spoke from the compact lacrima communicator on her night stand provoked another sigh from Aria, who then picked up the device and strapped it to her left wrist deftly. Then she tapped the screen and sent a command to release the locks on her door which did so with a faint hiss. On the other side with his eyes locked onto the contents of a lacrima data pad was Arwyn Karengard, who simply leaned against the walls of the tunnel system with as unreadable of a face as Aria could remember.
"Not at all, but we can't simply turn him away now can we, First Officer Karengard? I mean he did come all the way from Crocus in order to tell us several things which I'm sure are going to cause myself and my Officer's plenty of headaches and an even greater number of restless late nights over the accounting books then ever before, if I were a betting woman." Arwyn smiled faintly and offered Aria a warm, recently baked cinnamon roll and a dull silver colored cup filled with a beverage that tickled Aria's nose playfully.
"I went out earlier to grab these as an apology to First Officer Beckett for that lump on his head, as well as to perk you and Second Officer von Reines up so only one of us falls asleep during this meeting." Aria raised an eyebrow as she accepted the pastry and beverage from Arwyn's gloved hands and turned to make her way towards the elevator to the public layer of the Guild Hall with her First Officer only a beat behind her. The two continued down the corridor in silence as Aria enjoyed the sweetness of her pick-me-up, or in this case perk-me-up, and as Arwyn fiddled with the lacrima data pad in order to finish tabling several last minute edits Asher had accelerated through when he had been alerted to the presence of the financial auditor. Just as Aria finished the last of her beverage the pair reached the solid metal doors of the elevator, which caused Aria to step over to the left hand side in order to input her log key and connect her magic link to the terminal beside the imposing doors.
"White stream under daylight. Guild Leader Weissbach, Aria S.A. Plus one Officer." The flow of Aria's magical power was measured, checked and then verified with a rapid series of clicks and then with a whoosh the doors opened and granted the two magicians entrance; which meant Aria first and then Arwyn a few moments later after he had performed a similar access check, although he only needed to have his magical energy checked. After the two had situated themselves in the elevator Arwyn stepped over to the button panel and punched in their destination, the Guild Hall's second floor. As the doors of the elevator closed and the cabin began to ascend Arwyn passed the data tablet over to Aria who began to go over the figures with a fast, critical eye. As much as she trusted Asher's honesty and fairness second only to Arwyn, the man was not blessed with very good handwriting or organizational abilities. Similar to his workshop the figures on the tablet were all written with a stylus and more often then not disjointed and spread over several sections of the documents he handled.
"Something about this business with the accelerated scheduling and now the unannounced arrival of this auditor feels off Guild Master, if I do say so." Arwyn's words were honest and straightforward, and they also voiced Aria's own opinion of the whole matter. There was an order and method to audits such as the one her Guild was currently faced with, but that whole procedure had now been skipped over and disallowed. She unconsciously lifted her left hand to her temple and tapped it with her index and middle fingers, and she sighed lightly as she turned to face Arwyn with a worried look in her eyes.
"I feel the same way, Arwyn. The normal order of operations has broken down, and that alone means that there is something going on right now well above our heads…" The two fell silent as the elevator rose past the ground floor, which was noted due to a long click noise instead of a numerical readout that most systems would use. Then Arwyn shrugged his shoulders and thumped his right fist against his chest with a grin on his lips before he spoke to clear the atmosphere around himself and his worried Master.
"Whatever may come to pass, Aria, you can count on myself and the other Officers until the bitter end. Be that in running an Independent Guild or anything else you can come up with; so have confidence and do what you feel is right, Master." The simple, honest words that Arwyn spoke caused Aria to feel her insecurities melt away, and as they did she stood straighter and corrected her posture smartly as the more natural look of steely resolve that Arwyn in turn felt hearted by. 'Your daughter has grown to become a strong young woman, Sariel.' But those unspoken thoughts of Arwyn's remained unspoken within his heart and he contented himself with the knowledge that his former Guild Leader's daughter had grown into such a dependable woman; even if she needed a gentle push every now and then. Then the elevator reached its destined floor and locked into standby mode, which was announced with a series of loud, heavy clunks and a near inaudible whir as the doors of the cabin opened up and onto the floor that housed Aria's Official Office, the Guild's Public War Room and the Guild's Declassified and Common Documents Archive.
"Well, let's not keep this very important official waiting First Officer Karengard," Aria said sharply as her formal training kicked into full operation with the door to her own office in front of them. As Aria paused for a moment to collect her thoughts Arwyn stepped forward and took a hold of the door's handle and waited for his Leader to give the word. "To battle, First Officer," and thus the two of them entered the office space; with Arwyn a few beats behind Aria as he closed the door behind them.
"I am most grateful that you didn't keep me waiting for too long. The trip out to this little ramshackle unit was most dreadfully appalling, and I cannot understand how any civilized person could stand being out in a relic of a town like this in the middle of nowhere." Aria suppressed the urge to retort as the well dressed rotund man before her first insulted her unit and then the town that she considered her home. The man barely stood more than four foot and three inches tall, and was also very badly out of shape if the tightness of his clothing around his middle and neck were any indication. His greasy brown mop of hair smelled faintly fruity, which only made Aria want to gag even more then the outlandish colors and conflicting natures of the man's clothing; for while he was clothed in a proper, if badly ill fitting, green and brown uniform coat and trousers his feet were wedged into a pair high heeled, yellowish cream colored short boots that were so new they still shone brightly. Wrapped loosely around his double chinned neck was what seemed to have once been a stark white aviators scarf which was now badly off color due to what the twenty-five year old woman could only guess was plenty of use as a convenient napkin.
"Can I get you something to drink sir?" Arwyn inserted himself tactfully into the space between his Guild Leader and the auditor in order to preserve the peace as the auditor's lacking sense of danger failed to pick up on Aria's rising anger. The rotund man, who had introduced himself as Cletus Ramsey, measured Arwyn with a wary eye for a few moments before he lifted his nose with a humph and turned back to face Aria before he answered without looking at Arwyn again.
"A mild tea if you hicks can manage it, otherwise not at all Officer," the short man said as he scrunched up his face as his response left his fat lips. Unruffled Arwyn moved away from the two with a quick nod of his head as he set to prepare two cups of tea, a more mild one for the official and a stronger one for Aria whose patience had rapidly faded away over the past few minutes she was forced to interact with the motormouth equipped bean counter. "I see that you have not been able to gather any professional help in any of your non-combatant support related staff and that is quite a shame, especially considering the long history of favor that this Guild has received under the auspices of the past Mage-Kings." Aria's face tightened faintly as the auditor pulled a thick, sealed envelope from the designer made magic bag he had slung over his shoulder. With only a cursory look at the writing on the envelope he pushed the papers over the top of the table to Aria, who accepted them with a look of measured professionalism.
"I will admit that the act of hiring non-essential personnel has not been a frontal issue for our Guild, sir," Aria spoke cordially but with a sharp firmness, "but considering the other duties assigned to us in the regio-" The auditor raised a hand to cut Aria off and leaned forward as he pushed the envelope closer to her.
"I'm not really here at this ungodly hour to talk with you, Guild Leader Aria S.A. Weissbach, I am hear to inform you that as of 00:00 hours tomorrow, July 1st of the year of our King X162, that the Twilight Brigade will from here on out be officially released of its Military Guild Unit rank and Number," the little man motioned to the papers as Aria's face seemed to freeze in shock. "All of the related forms and orders are within this envelope, as well as transfer documents for the settling of any standing accounts that might be in need of repayment." Aria's figure had gone still, and after a few moments Arwyn coughed and placed the tea beside the file and indicated the packet of papers with a nod of his head.
"If I might ask Mr. Ramsey, could you please give us a short summary as to why our Guild-Unit is being shut down so suddenly? I know that our membership has gone down and that we have not been the most financially secure outfit, but at the same time all of this seems far too abrupt to my eyes as someone who has been here since the days of Master Sariel." Ramsey's murky brown eyes sharpened at the mention of Sariel's name, but he managed to keep his composure well enough with nary a sputter as he rambled into his rehearsed retort.
"Even with the prestigious accomplishments attached to this Guild-Unit's name and the particularly stellar results from Ms. Weissbach's father, in recent years this Guild has failed to reach unit member counts consistently, it has failed to keep its own coffers filled without support from the Financial Department and, most grievously of all in the eyes of the Ministry of the Interior, your Unit was the only one to fail at maintaining the required appearance of strength in the eyes of the public." Arwyn's eyes narrowed harshly, and Ramsey suddenly felt as if the temperature of the room had dropped considerably as he felt sweat break out across his forehead and on the back of his neck.
"I did not know that the Ministry of the Interior held such a level of scrutiny towards a Guild-Unit such as ours, seeing as how we were originally founded in order to protect and attempt to redevelop this region after the End War with the direct blessing of the First Mage-King himself. As to our lacking show of strength and reduced membership, I believe that a man such as yourself should be able to access the reports of the mission that put us in this position and cost us the lives of several of our more seasoned magicians and our defensive units members; if your security clearance is high enough." The edge in Arwyn's voice was as sharp as a knife against Ramsey's neck, and he gulped as the blue eyed First Officer offered him a cold smile that gave him all of the motivation he needed to bolt from his chair and dash for the door like a rabbit.
"This isn't the last that you will be hearing from the Ministry, First Officer! And this is official: the Twilight Brigade is released from the privileges and protections of the Kingdom's good graces as of midnight!" The door slammed open and then the little man was gone like a puff of smoke. Arwyn looked over to his Guild Master, who had not moved since the proclamation of her Guild's release had been given. Her crimson red eyes were almost completely dull and nearly lifeless which Arwyn instinctively knew meant that there would be very little Aria would be able to handle for a while, one of the younger woman's weaknesses lay heavily in her straightforward thought process which left her vulnerable to sudden changes to their plans; a weakness that her father had asked him to help her grow out of if he was able to.
"But we've only been released of our privileges and protections, which would imply that the loophole should still be viable if I remember correctly…" The First Officer of the Twilight Brigade's eyes had a mischievous twinkle in them as he padded over to the low table and picked up the envelope with the documents related to the currently delicate position. He quickly and methodically scanned the pages with an eagle eye, both to confirm their validity and in order to see if the small spark of an idea in the back of his head could be coaxed into something more. As he did so he moved over to the Guild Leader's desk and as he leaned up against it he brought his own communication device up to his chest and fired off a short note to the other three Officers of the Guild: 'Meeting in Aria's Officer, ASAP. Bring food and drink, and maybe a cot. We've got a Priority 1 Situation on our hands.' Then Arwyn sighed as he cast a sad look over the Guild Leader's empty, dark oak wood chair, "Sariel, I hope that your plan from that day actually works; otherwise I'm afraid that all the works you and your predecessors performed for this kingdom will be wasted while your daughter is still spreading her wings against the storm that is gathering," as Arwyn spoke to himself the door of the office opened again to revealed Myst du Neight, Asher Beckett and Karina von Reines, all three dressed and ready to move.
"I'll take care of Master Aria and start preparing the transferal of classification forms and our current stocks of medical supplies in the infirmary if you gentlemen do not mind?" Karina's word were met with a nod from her three male counter parts, and the Medical Officer then moved over to move the still dumbstruck Aria to Karina's workspace, even as the younger woman rocked slightly and seemed to be apologizing wordlessly to someone as Karina hoisted her onto her back and then grasped a hold of Aria's thighs to steady herself under the burden. Myst assisted her as she did so, while Asher accepted the papers that Arwyn handed him grimly.
"Not sure how tapping the three of us into that conversation will be taken by the higher ups, but if they've already set themselves to putting us out so suddenly I'm not going to be saying anything anytime soon, what about you Myst?" The younger man had already returned to the office after he had assisted Karina with getting Aria over to the elevator and shook his head in response to the question posed to him by Becket.
"… This place is my home, and the only other people I have other than you guys are Ressa and John…" The younger man's words were spoken softly, and his two seniors smiled kindly towards him as they turned back to the tasks that remained to be divided.
"I can handle the financial paperwork if you don't mind my chicken scratches Arwyn, and I still have that connection to the Guild Federation if you want me to see how long it'll take to get things smoothed out on their end; we don't want to go down completely without an avenue to get support and supplies in the interim period." Arwyn nodded his consent to Asher, who collected the necessary papers and then lit out of the garage where the two Officers who remained knew he would be for the next several hours. Without pause Arwyn shifted to the Second Officer and handed him the last of the papers from the envelope
"Myst, I want you to meet with Colonel Merryweather as quickly as you can and check on the status of the garrison; also see if they have received any news orders that come into effect at 00:00 hours tomorrow." The green haired mage snapped Arwyn a crisp salute before he skipped over to the north facing window of Aria's office and flung them open with a bang.
"Roger that, Arwyn," Myst said as his magical energy sprouted from his back in the form of green tipped white and gold wings of light, "I'll be back as soon as I can." Then, with a rush of air and a rustle of feathers, Myst launched his slender frame out of the window and falcon dove towards the concrete and cobblestone ground with his wings tucked close to his body. Then just before he kissed the cold grey earth hard, he unfurled his wings and was taken aloft with a series of steady, powerful beats. Arwyn sighed as the Second Officer quickly vanished out of sight as he turned back to the Guild Leader's desk and set to the task of getting the Guild-Units affairs in order.
"Now to see if we can convert this husk of a Guild-Unit into a fully functional Legal Guild before everything that isn't nailed down gets collected to cover our debt by the hands of those bean counters from Crocus."
Closing A/N: Shorter chapter once again, but I hope the quality is up to par with the others. It can feel painful to look at the mountain of work ahead, but at the same time I feel like there must be enough people waiting for this to push forward a bit faster. We will have to see what the future holds on that front, but for now thanks for reading again, and now on to some announcements.
First off character submissions are still open for the guild.
Secondly, I am going to be putting up a renewed character sheet as soon as I can, although it may take about a week from this posting to do so. After the next chapter or two there will be an opening made for villain OCs so stay tuned.
Third... Nothing else I can think of for now. I can however look into making a corner to answer questions if any are asked in comments/reviews/PMs.
Until next time, this is Azrael DarkWings signing off. *Waves goodbye before looking at the pile of paperwork that remains to be done* Oh joy...