I'm back from vacation! I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but I'm glad to be back. And if this chapter and the one before it kinda suck, just bear with me okay? I'm still setting up.
Anyway you know the drill: I don't own this blah blah blah. Well except for my OCs.
"A job?" Pit said uncertainty. He knew he needed money, and it wasn't hard for him to figure out that a job probably meant money. "Do I get money?"
"Uh duh, that's what a job is." Magnus said irritated.
"What kind of job is it?"
"Come with us and we will explain everything." Gaol said.
VAV
A few minutes later, they had made their way to an abandoned street. "What are we doing here?" Pit said, looking around. "I don't see anything."
"That's the way it's supposed to be." Gaol said, only confusing Pit more.
"I don't get it."
Magnus walked to the middle of to street, grabbing a trash can lid on the way. He lifted the lid above his head then dropped it on the ground. Then he stomped into the ground (which looked surprisingly easy and only took one stomp) and twisted the lids handle. Then a crack started from below the lid and then road opened upward (think cardboard box lid) and revealed a well lit stairwell.
"Oh" Pit said "It's a secret passage?"
"Yeah." said Magnus
They walked into the passage and then Gaol pressed a button that shut it behind them. They continued down the steps and Pit watched their reflections in the steel. After a while they came to the bottom and were met by a door made of the same shiny steel.
Pit got a slight feeling of foreboding as Magnus opened the door. Inside the door was a large room. There was a massive computer screen on one wall of the room and under that screen were several more, smaller ones. Large masses of cords lay all around the room, making Pit think of an octopus. In the center of the room there was a large steel table surrounded by steel chairs. Five men and one woman stood in a group whispering to one another near the table.
As the threesome walked in the whispering stopped and everyone turned to face them. The biggest man was a bald black man who wore a white tank top, jeans and tenni shoes. "Who's the kid Magnus?" his voice was as deep as you would expect.
"He looks like a wimp." said a smaller man with shoulder length blond hair.
"No more than you Ray." said the woman, who had long red hair.
"Shut up Lera!" shouted the blond haired man, now named Ray.
"Put a sock in it you two or they will never explain." Said a man with red hair a T shirt and jeans.
"We're a serious business here, but you guys always act like kids!" said a man with short black hair and a wiry build.
The last man who also had black hair didn't say anything but only stared at Pit in such a way that sent shivers down his spine.
"Anyway like Rock said before, what's up with the kid?"
"The kid took down one of those monsters that have been popping up out of the sewers lately." said Gaol.
"So what? He probably cheated somehow." said Ray.
"Cheated? Really Ray?" the red haired man said, lifting an eyebrow.
Ray rolled his eyes "You know what I mean."
"No, he didn't "cheat" as Ray put it, we saw the whole thing." Gaol said.
"So you automatically thought "This kids got great potential, we shouldn't let it be wasted" did you?" said the man with short black hair.
"Yes Joren I suppose so." Gaol said sounding annoyed.
"Great!" Ray said throwing his hands in the air, his long beaded necklace bouncing up and down on his chest as he did so. He then stomped towards Pit and put his face an inch away, seeming to examine him.
This is when Pit noticed he couldn't be more than eighteen or nineteen. He also seemed to be a handsome man with his shoulder length honey blond hair and bangs and nicely shaped face. His red vest showed off his muscles and also showed his midriff. He had black pants and black boots, and carried two guns. He seemed to have a thing for leather too since all of his clothes were made of it.
When he had finished his own examination of Ray he glanced up and straight into the young man's eyes. They were very intense, piercing, blue eyes. He gulped and said with a nervous smile "H-Hi I'm Pit."
Rays glance shifted up to Magnus "Are you sure it was this kid who took down that monster?"
"Hey!" Pit said, forgetting his nervousness temporarily.
"What?" Ray said shifting his eyes back to Pits.
"I may not look like much to you, but I'm way tough! Besides you don't look like much of a fighter yourself."
Rays eyes widened and he made a growling sound angrily as Lera snickered.
Just as Ray opened his mouth to say something else, a hand landed on his shoulder and pulled him back a bit. Looking past Ray, Pit saw it was the red haired man. Putting out the hand that wasn't on Rays shoulder the man introduced himself "Hi Pit, I'm Vash, and that girl with the red hair over there is my little sister Lera."
Pit looked over at the girl, who smiled and gave him a small wave. She looked nice enough, but there seemed to be a hint of mischief behind her smile.
"You've already met Magnus and Gaol, the guy with the short black hair is Joren, and the guy with the long black hair is Dyune. The big guy is Rock, and the loud mouth here is Ray."
They all smiled and/or nodded (except of course Ray who was now busy pouting) except Dyune who just continued to stare icily.
"Look Pit," Gaol said suddenly "I'm going to cut to the chase."
Pit nodded.
"We brought you here to see if you would like to join our group."
"What do you mean? I thought you said this was about a job."
"It is. We're a band of mercenaries. We would like you to join us."
Pit thought about it for a minute 'Mercenaries huh?' He looked over them once more 'They don't seem too bad, at least not for the kind of stuff they do. I need money food and a place to stay, and as long as I don't have to hurt any humans it'll be fine.' "Um sure, I guess I'll join you." Then he smiled, relieved that his problems were solved now.
"Oh good!" Gaol exclaimed, sounding pleased. 'I hope this isn't a mistake.'
"Do you have somewhere to stay?" Lera asked.
"Uh… well… No actually I don't."
"Well since you're part of the team now, you can live here. All of us do. I mean there really isn't much point in having a house and stuff if you don't have a family. Besides this place has some pretty sweet shacks! I mean, uh, apartments!"
"Thanks. Do you have any food here?"
"Yeah! Come on I'll show you you're room then the kitchen. Do you have any luggage?"
"No." He felt a bit ashamed for that.
"Well follow me!"
Really did this woman know how to do anything but yell?
Lera walked to one of the three doors and opened it. Pit walked in behind her followed by seven pairs of eyes. He was glad when the metallic door clanged shut behind him, cutting off their line of sight.
The door led to a hallway. The hallway was also shiny, metallic, and well lit, like everything else in this place. There were ten metal doors lining the hallway, each one piqued his curiosity. Most had something on it. One had a pink paint spot, as if someone had lazily swung a paintbrush with pink paint across it, and it had the name Lera painted in black. Another had a plaque on it that read in bold letters: DO NOT ENTER, PROPERTY OF JOREN!
Lera came to one of the doors and stopped, pulling out a key and unlocking the door. She walked in and flipped a switch, instantly lighting the room. Pit walked in and looked around. The room was fairly spacious but that was the best thing about it. The only thing in the entire room was a bed with a plain course looking blanket. At least the blanket wasn't metal like everything else in the room. There was also a small metal bathroom connected to the room, as well as a small closet.
"I know it's not much" Lera said, noticing Pits dismay "but once you get some money, you can do whatever you want in here!"
Pit nodded and smiled "I'm just glad to have a place to stay."
"Here give me your backpack and I'll put it in the closet" she said starting to pull Pit's backpack off.
"NO!" he shouted, feeling a few of his feathers slide out of the backpack. Lera instantly let go and looked at him strangely.
"I mean… um…"
"That's okay." She interrupted him. "Come on I'll show you the kitchen. Oh and here's the key." She handed him the key she had used and they left the room.
After making their way back through the hallway and into the room Pit had first seen, they went into another door.
This one didn't have doors, just openings. They passed one room, and from a glance inside it seemed to be some sort of game room, with a poker table, pool table, ping pong table, and pool table. He wanted to take a closer look and see what all was in there but Lera didn't seem interested. They passed another room that had a giant screen in it, and four bean bag chairs, before entering what seemed to be a kitchen made completely of metal (surprise surprise).
"Just a warning, any food put in the kitchen is fair game K?"
"Okay." He said moving quickly to the refrigerator to see what was inside. The first thing he saw was a half eaten pizza. 'Yes! Score!'
Pulling out the pizza he sat at the table with Lera and quickly devoured it. He felt much better after doing so.
"Wow you sure can eat a lot."
"I guess. So, um, Vash said you are siblings?"
"Yeah Vash is my big bro."
"So how did you two get in this… business?"
"Well it's kind of a long story, but I'll tell you a little. Ten years ago, our parents died in a house fire. Naturally we were sent to an orphanage, but by the time a year had passed we'd decided that we didn't like orphanages. A year later we escaped from our foster parents and started living on the streets of this city. Another year passed and we we're beginning to starve. We had to do something, so I took up stealing. I found that I am very, very, good at it too. I began studying security systems, and soon my stealing became more elaborate. It was then that I realized that my brother was a technological genius and he had been studying technology for as long as I had been stealing. After a while Magnus and Rock caught us and we joined up. That's basically it."
"Oh. Cool."
"Sooooo… what did you do to defeat one of those awesome monsters?" she asked slamming her hands on the table and leaning over so that she was close to him.
"I, um"
"Heeyyyyyy! What's up?"
"Hi Joren, you come to stuff your face?"
"That's not nice." The black haired man complained.
"You'll get over it."
"So" Pit said hoping to use this opportunity to get attention away from himself "Joren, what do you do, and how did you start doing it?"
"Me? Well let's see, I'm what you'd call a con-man. I'm the best there is! I could talk the queen of England into givin me her country! Of course it's in my blood. My dad was a con-man, and my mom was an actress, so that gives me the ultimate con-man lineage!" He went on ranting for a while, before Ray and Rock came in.
"Hey guys." Ray said marching over to a bowl of raspberries that was sitting on a metallic counter, and beginning to eat them.
"Pit right?" Rock's deep voice asked.
"Yeah, that's me!"
"Well Gaol was lookin for ya; she's in the control room."
'That must be that big room.' "Okay"
"So what are you waiting for?" Ray said "Go."
"Um alright." Pit made his way out into the hallway and shivers ran up his spine. Despite the hallways being well lit, he felt as if it was completely dark. Maybe it was the lack of windows. In Skyworld there was always light, real light, from either the sun or the moon. They didn't use artificial lights in any of their buildings, not because they couldn't but because they preferred not to, besides there was no steady source of electricity in the clouds. Their buildings were made with many windows, and there were lamps for night.
He shook his head. He needed to stop thinking about Skyworld; he was beginning to get homesick. He wondered if his absence had been noticed, or if anyone even cared.
Entering the control room he saw Gaol standing there, reading something on one of the screens. When she heard him enter she turned and looked at him "I have a mission for you."
I've been back for a week now actually, but someone *coughIubirecough* made me a Death Note fan, so this last week I've been watching that a lot. And if you're wondering my character Ray is based off of Mello, and has pretty much the exact same appearance.
Now on to review replies
Jimmy: Maybe
Kurt: That's your opinion so I won't fight with you.
Dark Lord Gaol: I don't plan on stopping, thank you, and since this story hasn't got past introductory faze and I don't even have all my characters set up yet, you don't have to worry, it'll be explained in time.