WARRIORS HIGH
ISLAND OF THE LOST
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BRIEFING
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?"
The quiet murmurs in the black-draped auditorium hushed to silence, until Sky, who was standing at the microphone on the stage while flanked by five men, all of them in their blackout suits, was the only one heard.
"Thank you all for coming," she began, "I understand that as new recruits of the Assassins of the Rising Sun, this community and process can be a bit...daunting, but rest assured we will be doing everything in our power to make you feel as comfortable as you can be with your obligations within our organization. We are grateful to all of you who signed up willingly, and hope that your contributions can pay off ten-fold."
The audience nodded.
"However, though I know some of you are quite eager to begin your work, there are a couple of...formalities each and every one of you must go through. The first is a mandatory physical and self-defense examination. I expect all of you to pass, but some of the jobs we have in store are quite 'physically taxing…'"
Sky caught some nervous glances among the crowd.
"But there's no need to be concerned. Your placement within our ranks is not at risk. If you are not seen to be fit within our front lines, your assistance will most certainly be needed elsewhere."
The tense aura made Sky roll her eyes. This next part was definitely gonna shake them.
"There are also some ground rules that we need to establish. Your assignment and placement within ARS is not to be taken lightly, so to establish that you all are in working order, there are some liberties we're going to take.
"When the physical and self-defense exams are complete, you'll be receiving a slew of essentials necessary for not just completion of your tasks and assignments, but the establishment of complete anonymity while doing so. You will be receiving your own blackout suit and mask, as well as an organization-issued smartphone and a self-defense weapon of your choice if you pass. Since we are bestowing this amount of firepower to this amount of people, we have crafted our arsenal to notify us immediately if the safety of your guns are disabled, when you send a text and if the tracking device on your suit is tampered with or disabled."
Sky noted that the crowd was now on edge.
"But you wouldn't have come here without a good reason. You all have good reason to be here.
"As we have promised, we have come into possession of funding capable of paying minimum wage to all workers in Forrestlake for twelve work weeks with twenty hours overtime. We have since decided, as ARS as a whole, to convert that into assured economic stability for as long as you remain within our organization.
"As long as your loyalty stands, your rent, your mortgage, your wage, all of it is covered. Assured safety and health of your families. We have money to burn, so why not spend it on the benefit of our contributers."
The audience dropped the nervous act, nodding with approval and eagarness. Sky smiled. It never took that much to win the general population over.
"Now then, I'm on a little bit of a tight schedule so I'll leave you to it. Feel free to ask anyone in a black suit any questions, hors d'oeuvres are in the back and you'll be notified when the tests are ready. Thank you, once again, for your decision to cooperate. Good day."
She stepped away from the mic as the audience stood and dispersed and walked off stage right, where she met Garrison and two others.
"Not bad for your first speech."
Sky rolled her eyes. "The quicker Rust gets his voice back, the higher our numbers go."
Sky's headpiece beeped with an incoming call.
"Sky here."
"He's waiting in your office now, ma'am."
"Thank you. I'll be there in three."
The cluster of four walked through the tunnel connecting the auditorium in a scarcely-used community center a couple miles from Riven to their underground warehouse-esque base, called Base One. In truth, they had seven places of operation, but this was where they spent most of their time with negotiations and battle plans.
"I've been thinking…" started Garrison.
"Good. Means you still work for me."
"...what if Rock's already called our bluff? We lose our edge and makes us look desperate for leverage?"
"Oh, he probably has."
"Say what?"
Sky rolled back her soldiers as they began the journey up the four flights of stairs to the meeting room. "He sent an olive branch. The symbol of peace. The fact that he'd go to all that trouble to bestow symbolism upon us shows he's confident in something. All we have to do is plant enough doubt in his mind that he doesn't know for sure, and then he keeps us around."
"You're playing a dangerous game to get your hands on a nuclear bomb we're not even gonna use."
"What can I say, commander?" said Sky, flashing an unseen smirk, "Life is a dangerous game. You just have to trust that whatever happens is all part of the master plan."
They arrived at the meeting room and, after ordering Garrison to guard, she walked in. A man in a black suit sat across from a teacher's desk, like a delinquent in the principal's office.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Crow."
Crow just nodded.
Sky took a seat and stared him down for a few moments.
"Take off your mask."
Crow didn't move.
"I'm sorry, what?" he said after a couple of moments.
"Take off your mask."
Crow hesitated a few moments more before undoing his mask, showing his shaggy black hair contrasting his tanned face. He showed no distinct emotions, his face plastered into a permanent glower.
"So?" said Crow expectantly.
Sky removed her mask and set it aside, staring the man down.
"Icecloud has escaped. She was broken out this morning."
Alarmed fury flashed in his eyes until he stuffed it away.
"Why are you telling me?"
"We need a strike team. A retrieval operation. And you're going to lead one."
Crow didn't hide his surprise now.
"Me?"
"You'll have six of our best at your disposal," she said, pulling out a freshly-bought file folder containing pictures, maps and scribbled notes, "Use them as you wish, don't get reckless and bring back the girl alive. Kill the agent if you must, but she is your number one priority."
"Wait wait wait wait wait...I'm sorry, why me? There are certainly more qualified people to lead this team. Why me?"
Sky leaned forward, smirking.
"To put it simply, Mr. Crow, you're the one person who would be the most dedicated."
She could see the ice cold realization flash through Crow's eyes.
"W-What do you mean?"
"It's quite simple, sir. You've been having an affair with Fir for...seven, eight months?"
Crow was now very, very nervous. Sky almost felt bad for how he squirmed in his chair.
"T-That's not-"
"Don't try to lie your way out of this. We've known since you tried to station yourself in her line of work."
Crow's eyes suddenly hardened. "So what is this? A test? Are you threatening to kill her if I don't get back the girl?"
"Absolutely not," said Sky, straightening, "That'll happen anyway if she gets found out. The bargaining chip I'm proposing to you…"
Sky pulled out her phone and opened an old HTML website with six numbers.
"...is something much more."
Crow's eyes widened.
They were lottery numbers.
"How much?"
"137 million."
The man fell back into his chair.
"If you succeed, it's yours. Spend it how you want. Get a house, get a car, get a wedding reservation, whatever you want. Just bring her back and make sure nothing happens to her identity."
Sky watched the gears turn. He was obviously conflicted and she had failed to win him over previously, but this time, she knew that she had the stakes stacked so high against him that he couldn't refuse.
Everyone could be convinced. You just needed to prove you had their ace in the hole under your sleeve.
"Fine."
Sky smiled. Just as she had planned.
They shook hands and the captain swiftly departed, putting her mask on and grabbing what looked to be an olive branch off the shelf to the right of the door.
"Where are you going?"
"You go brief your team," she said, closing the door behind her, "I have a party to attend."
"So?" said Garrison.
"He's in. Wasn't that hard."
"Of course," said the commander, "Hey, uh, cosmetics phoned in earlier. What foundation do you want."
"Darken my skin a bit," said Sky immediately, "Makes everyone worried they might be racist."
"Heh," said the commander, scribbling the note onto his clipboard, "Only you would have the guts to pull that off."
The captain shrugged. "Why should I care? I've got the blood of tens of thousands on my hands."
Never again would Dusty do anything with his roommates.
Never again.
He had been drilling Caravan over and over, planning to pull an all-nighter to perfect it, in the walk-in closet-now-recording studio of his penthouse, when a very drunk Berrynose pulled him into a messy game of truth or dare. Considering everyone else, including Jaywhisker, was on the brink of being wasted, he was very confused on why he accepted, or rather why he didn't lock the door.
He walked out after round three. By then Jayfeather was already shirtless and Lionblaze was fireman carrying three people.
But it didn't end there. Noooooooooo, he just HAD to be pulled into a joyride. It had apparently been a dare from Jayfeather to pack everyone in a car, drive to a bar and take five shots of whiskey. And he just HAD to accept because 'he was bored.'
Six hours later he was walking down an empty sidewalk by the riverside bordering Forrestlake alone. While the others spent the night in a cramped holding cell, Dusty and Jaywhisker, being the only ones under 18 and found to be "non-compliants", were let go with a warning and a call to their parents, which Jaywhisker faked by using his own number and sending the call straight to voicemail. He offered to get him a bus ticket home, but at that point Dusty just wanted to stay away from all people, especially the ones who got him in jail.
He usually wasn't this uncomfortable. Hell, he probably would have had fun with this under different circumstances. But…
Something felt off with how he thought. Maybe it was just anxiety caused from the pressures of band. Maybe it was the pressures of Coalstrike, Ashtooth and Mallowleaf, who had just gotten more and more riled up since Foxleap got them on a job.
But neither of those were it.
It was because Axis had disappeared.
It was the second straight day that he had been gone from school. Normally, he wouldn't be worried, and he wasn't, thinking that he had gotten the flu that Icecloud had come down with, until he saw the 11 o'clock rewind, when he found out that the bar that Axis had worked in was just experiencing a bar fight gone deadly.
He at least had his number, and he had sent a test text to get Dusty into his contacts, but Dusty had texted him twenty times over the last forty-eight hours just to see if he was okay.
Nothing.
Odds were that he didn't get killed, since that would have shown up the following morning, but the vanishing worried him. He couldn't find him anywhere.
He hoped he was okay.
After about an hour of walking, Dusty sat down underneath an interstate bridge crossing the river. It was now about four in the morning and he was exhausted. The streets were quiet, and Dusty saw a small congregation of homeless people in sleeping bags and under cardboard boxes.
He didn't know how long he was sitting there for, but he started when he saw someone in a sleeping bag shift and turn so that his face was facing him. He was about ready to move when he stopped.
Had he seen that face before?
He snuck over to halfway across the road.
Oh God.
He thought he was going to throw up.
It was Axis.
Sleeping on the street.
Before he could hear that someone was near and wake up, Dusty had already taken off. And by the time he woke up a couple hours later, he was long gone.
Happy late Easter, everyone!
I know that I get to sit at home and chill while checking in for attendance five days a week at home, but watching a telecast of Easter mass was...really depressing. The coolest thing that happened was when our archbishop led a procession of three out the sanctuary to the balcony of the church, where it was snowing outside, and blessed the entire city. That was so cool.
If you see that later, that's why.
But Jay just released a "filler" chapter. That means two things.
One, the chapter inadvertently inspired three character arcs, maybe four.
Two, he's announced he's taking a break for a week.
Now's my chance.
Just kidding.
Sort of.
Next chapter, Icecloud and Jack make a pit stop, Jaywhisker makes an innovational breakthrough and ARS makes their next move.
Stay tuned.
Best,
~Res