Chapter 4

A Surprise

An hour later and it's already midnight, then the squad leader just finishes the report, then tells the man that they are leaving. The mercenaries get on their jeeps and head back into the city to the adventurers guild. As they get to the city they pass through the gates without suspicion by the guards then one of the younger guards looks at the mercenaries with caution then Lex quickly looks back at the young guard, then she nods back, then he nods back nervously. As the mercenaries got to the adventurers guild they parked in the back again with the same two mercenaries guarding the jeeps.

As the mercenaries were about to go into the guild building one of the recruit mercs grabbed the squad leader's shoulder then the leader looked back at the recruit to see that they had a necklace made of porcelain adventurers tags in their hands. The squad leader grabs it and grips it in his hands, then they head into the building. As they opened the door and entered. Some of the adventurers in there look at the door to see one of the mercenaries go towards the front desk while the others go to a nearby table. A beast girl waitress go to the table that the mercenaries were at then she asked them if they wanted something,

"Welcome, do you want anything to drink?"

The mercenaries looked at each other wondering what they just said then,

"We'd all take a water please," said 4-2 as

she took off her helmet

"Okay! Coming right up!" the beast girl said

"So, you know their language?" asked one of the recruits

"Yeah I do, I learned it back then," 4-2 responds back

"How far back?" the same recruit asked

"Probably… three years ago," she responds back

"And you still remember that?! That's impressive" another recruit says

"Is it?" she asked

"Yeah! You have really good memories! Who taught you?" said another recruit

"Who?" 4-2 started to think, then responds,

"I think her name was Alice"

"Alice?"

"Alice who?" one of the recruits asked

"I think it was the one from 3rd corp; 2nd division; 6th Brigade; 13th Battalion; 3rd company; 45th Platoon; 45th squad, and I think it was named Zulu team,"

"That's oddly specific and a little scary that you could remember all that,"

Then one of the experienced mercenaries jump up from their chair then they said,

"ZULU?!"

The entire guild looks over at the table where the mercenaries sat. Then he looked around, then sat back down slowly.

"So Zulu squad, what about them?" said one of the other mercenaries

"What's wrong with Zulu squad?" asked 4-2

"It's nothing much, but you know about what happened to them, right?" asked the experienced merc

"No, I don't know what happened, why is it important?" asked 4-2

Then the waitress comes back with their water then she places it down on the table and asked if they want anything else,

"Anything else that would you like?"

"No we're good, thank you," 4-2 replies

Then the waitress nods, and she heads off into the kitchen. The experienced merc looks at 4-2 then says,

'"Do you want to hear what happened?"

"Yes I do," 4-2 responds back

"So what happened to Zulu is that they… let's say they went off the grid,"

"Is that it?" 4-2 asked

"No, it's just that it's heavily classified to what happened to them, only speculation can get us so far,"

"So, what do you think happened?" asked 4-2

"What do I think happened? Well for starters they went to do a mission a few months ago, I think two or three months not sure. But the thing is once they finished the mission, they never came back to HQ again."

"Surely they were taking a break right?" 4-2 questions

"That's what we thought as well. Until they went to their homes," the merc said skeptically, "at Jacob's house, his sister said from the reports that I've seen, is that she hasn't seen him for weeks, another thing is that the other places they were mostly empty and only furniture and other personal things,"

"That's certainly odd, I just saw them before we went on this mission," 4-2 said with confusion

"WHAT! YOU SAW THEM!" the merc yelled again then the guild looked over at them.

"Can you keep your voice down!?" said the squad leader coming back to them.

The merc that 4-2 was talking to sits up and then walks up to the squad leader. He whispers something to him, the squad leader's face went from relaxed to a surprised-serious look then he walks toward 4-2,

"You've seen Jacob's team? If so, where and when?" the squad leader said with an assertion

4-2 looks around anxiously and clenches her fist, "I'm not supposed to tell you but I saw them before this mission,"

"Where before this mission?" the squad leader asked

"Near the market back at base,"

"Why didn't you tell command about them?"

"Well at the time I didn't know about this, or what happened Zulu team,"

"That's bullshit, everyone back at HQ knows that Zulu team went off grid, so it impossible for you to not know" the squad leader sighs "you know forget it, we completed what we needed to do here so let's head back,"

The mercs get off the table and finish their drinks, then they put down their money which was a silver coin when their waters were five copper coins. They exited the guild hall and went to the back of the guild to their jeep and they saw the armored man talking to the two mercs.

"Yeah, this baby can kill a target over a kilometer but our standard engagements are roughly 650 meters so we have the range advantage," said one of the mercenaries

"So what about your ammo? Where do you get it?" asked the armored man

"Our ammo? Well we are usually stock up before we head out in these types of ops but there was one time where we had a huge operation where it had at least 5 battalions,"

"I see, but you didn't tell me how you get more ammo,"

"Oh sorry, so basically if we have run out of ammo or supplies, we call our HQ to send over supplies or ammo or both, kinda depends I guess, but that's the gist of it,"

"I see," then the armored man walked away towards the front of the building passing the others.

"Alright everyone ready?" Asked the squad leader

Everyone responds with a yes, so they take out their wrist devices and put in coordinates,

"Everyone on the count of three" said the squad commander "One. Two. Three,"

Then at a single moment every single merc including the jeep disappears into thin air leaving nothing behind except for the quest they turned in.