All four members of the Burgess Branch were sat in their usual meeting place. Nigel had received a message from Jason for them to all ready to receive information. It was Friday afternoon, Good Friday to be precise.
There was little banter as Jason's face popped up on Skype.
"Good evening Burgess Branch. Are we all present and correct?"
"Yes sir." Replied Nigel, tapping his knee with nervous energy.
"Excellent. My message is short and to the point, but first, did you all see the Northern Lights yesterday?"
Tina nodded. "Yes we did." She looked to her fellow Branch members for confirmation and they all nodded.
"Good. We all know what the lights mean, but as of yet we do not know why. My message is simply this; be on guard. We do not know what may happen."
Billy looked a little disappointed that it wasn't much else, but decided now was not the time to speak up.
"Do you have anything to get in touch with us in an emergency?" Asked Jason.
"We do." Replied Nigel. "I have been working on a set of radio earpieces, they are untested though."
"It's better than nothing. Chances are nothing will happen with you, but be careful."
"Yes sir."
"Jason out."
The call cut and Billy looked at Nigel.
"Radio earpieces? You can pick those up from the store!"
Nigel folded his arms and looked the Descendant of Bunnymund. "They are designed to pick up a signal from the other side of the world if necessary. Like I said, they're untested."
"Can't we just use cell phones?"
"Too slow." Said Sally.
"And too expensive." Added Tina.
"Exactly." Agreed Nigel. In truth he hadn't considered these reasons, he had just made them for the sake of making them.
Billy through his hands up in the air. "Okay! I get it! Nigel's amazing and Billy's an idiot, can we move on?"
"Someone's got a low ego today." Commented Tina and Billy glared at her, but one looked from Sally and Nigel stopped them from taking it any further.
"Anyway, before you two start ripping each other's throats out, how about we work out what we're going to do about Jason's warning?"
"Patrol?" Suggested Sally.
"The whole of Burgess?" Asked Tina. "There's only four of us!"
"Not to mention Tanglewood." Said Billy, which was his home town.
"Tanglewood's close enough for us to be able to see from here if something's wrong." Mused Sally.
"Patrolling isn't a bad idea." Said Nigel, his hand on his chin as he thought. "We can use the radio earpieces to help us cover the town."
"In that case, if we stick to the roofs we should be alright." Said Billy, although it could just be him getting back at Tina.
"Excellent. Shall we meet back here in an hour to hand out the ear pieces and decide which part of Burgess we're covering?"
The others nodded in agreement, although Tina still didn't look happy.
"Alright then, see you back here in an hour!"
Billy was jogging back with his boomerangs in a bag, having sprinted most of the way. It had gotten dark by this point, but he could still see perfectly fine. That came with being a Descendant of Bunnymund.
He easily had the furthest to go, given that Tanglewood was the next town over. He took it as an opportunity to warm up.
He jumped out of his skin as a car alarm sounded on the street over and he saw something dark darting across the far end of the street. It was too large to a dog, it was easily the size of person, but it had been running on all fours like a dog.
Or a seven foot tall lagomorph.
"No bleedin' way." He breathed, had he just seen his ancestor running past?
There was a trail of frost appearing parallel to Billy and where Bunnymund had run from, which should have been expected, it had been snowing for a large chunk of the day. Despite Easter being just around the corner.
Billy shook his head and kept walking, if Bunnymund was out and about then he should just stay out of the way.
"Alright, what have we all got?" Asked Billy as he entered the meeting place. Both Tina and Nigel had brought bags while Sally was empty handed.
Nigel dug around in his bag and brought out 4 ear pieces and two gold coloured cylinders.
"Everyone grab an ear piece, the gold things are mine."
"What are they?" Asked Tina as she picked up an ear piece and fitted it into her ear.
"Swords. I haven't practiced with them for a while, but you never know when you'll need them."
"Er, Nigel old buddy old pal." Said Billy as he fitted his ear piece. "They're kinda missing something. Like, I don't know, the blade!"
Nigel gave Billy a knowing smile as he double checked his ear piece. Wordlessly he picked up the gold cylinders and held them in his hands. His thumbs twitched and a pair of slightly curved blades shot out.
In a lightning quick response Billy pulled out his boomerangs and Tina pulled out a thin long sword.
"Good to know you two are prepared." Said Nigel dryly as he observed the pair's weapons and stances.
Billy was carrying two different types of boomerangs. The more traditional looking boomerang was a very solid looking piece of polished wood, clearly for braining someone from quite a distance away. The weapon wasn't greatly decorated, with a slightly faded black, green and blue ringed egg on either end and a grey rabbit in the centre.
The second was straighter, but still curved and made of the same dark wood. It had the same decoration as the other one with a few flower like carvings, but one side was jagged. This one was for close range clubbing.
Billy had a very solid stance that was clearly well practiced, with his throwing boomerang above his head to throw and the clubbing one out front to defend. The Osbourne line was known for producing excellent fighters whether or not they had flora or geo kinesis.
Tina had small sword, which was similar to fencing sword. The blade was thin, clearly more for thrusting and with Tina's speed in the air it was certainly suitable for her. The black hilt was decorated with a pair of feathered wings that curved upwards to form the guard and the pommel was shaped like a hawk's head. Across the blade the name of the sword was written, the Baza.
Tina was standing in a loose fencing stance, which Nigel understood to be the limit of Tina's fighting experience. She had excellent theoretical weapon knowledge, which would have to take the place of actual practice.
Nigel drew back his blades and the other two relaxed, Billy putting his boomerangs down to put on holsters around his waist. Tina pulled out a scabbard and sheathed her sword before attaching the blue and purple scabbard to her belt.
"Sally, do you have anything?" Nigel asked the Descendant of Sandman, a little concerned by her lack of weapon. He doubted they would be attacked, but it didn't hurt to be prepared.
Sally merely smiled and formed a gladius out of Dream Sand and went into a lower stance, holding the short sword out in front of her.
"Good good." Nigel pulled out a map of Burgess from his bag and spread it out on the table he'd pulled out from the equipment cupboard.
"We can assume that if we are attacked that it will occur at night or early in the morning, when there are fewer people around. We shall split up around the four cardinal points of the town."
Nigel pulled out a pen and began cordoning off parts of the town.
"Tina, you've the east side, Sally you have the west." He gestured their areas with his pen. "Billy you've got the south side and I'll take the north. We'll stop once the sun's up and be back patrolling once the sun goes down, since attacking during the day is unlikely. Any questions?"
"Yeah, if these things don't work," Billy tapped his ear piece, "how are we going to get help?"
"In your case, yell as loud as you can and run." Said Nigel "Anything else?"
Tina and Sally shook their heads.
"Alright then, let's go!"
In Claire's house the Head's had set up base. They had various laptops and computers keeping an eye on world news and updates from various Branches. On the coffee table stood a radio receiver and four microphones and headsets to get in contact with the Branches using radio.
With everything set up the Head's sat back and waited.
All across the world Branches had the same idea as the Burgess Branch, so they sat on top of roofs and tree tops to scan their area. Descendants of Toothiana and Sandman hovered in the air while Descendants of North and Bunnymund scanned and patrolled the streets.
HOG was ready and waiting.