The radio crackled to life: "Target is moving back inside the school with her friends. Looks like she's recovered, over."
The Handler toggled the switch of her own radio handset. "Thanks, Agent Dusk. You can return to base, out."
She put the handset to the side, and leaned across her desk, with her fingers intertwined in front of her. Papers and photographs lay scattered in front of her in an arc that Sylvia Sherwood had been analysing for the past four weeks. The school records had been extremely difficult to obtain, but with Agent Dusk on the job, it took a huge weight off of Sylvia's shoulders.
Twilight was right. Anya Forger's early school records were abysmal, and if not for his occasional intervention (especially with the multiple threats of Tonitrus Bolts), she might have actually been expelled before she had even reached eight years old. However, her grades had been picking up since she was about fourteen, and she was now above the class average in most of her subjects.
Not quite enough to get any Stella Star's for her academics, but it turned out that most of Anya's Stella Star's came from acts of community service, good citizenship and outstanding heroism.
If Sylvia knew that it would take this long for Anya to get only six Stella Stars, she would have tried harder to find some other way of gaining an audience with Donovan Desmond.
She eyed the notes further - all the observations from Agent Dusk, plus Franky's notes from his initial investigation about Anya from when Twilight first adopted her, and transcriptions of her conversations with Twilight, her teachers, and even some of the other WISE agents who were disguised at the time. The photographs were stills from the recording Sylvia took from the kidnapping site, but there were also some screenshots of CCTV footage that was extremely difficult to track down.
And yet - and yet - even with the investigation pile in front of her, Sylvia Sherwood still had a lot of questions about Anya Forger.
The girl wasn't yet eighteen, but she showed promise. It was obvious that Anya had a strong sense of justice, a talent for independent investigation, and she had some clever instincts for combat skills. (Her rescue of the Desmond boy proved that, along with the mounting evidence of Anya's budding athleticism.)
In addition, Sylvia hadn't forgotten how horrified the lab analysts were when they tested out the substances left from Anya's "peanut bomb". After a lengthy silence, and a lot of muttering shaking of heads, one of them handed Sylvia the deduced recipe on a piece of scrap paper.
At first, she thought it was a joke. "These are kitchen ingredients," she barked at them. "You mean to tell me that this - this child, created a finely tuned-down smoke bomb on the fly, with nothing but materials from the kitchen of an abandoned factory?"
They stared at each other, and the lead investigator gulped. "Y-yes. Exactly."
It was a tense afternoon.
Sylvia put her head in her hands, and her sudden movement accidentally scattered some of the photographs in front of her.
Her missing past was a complication. Sylvia had exactly zero clue where Anya had come from before her time in the orphanage, or if she had any remaining family anywhere in Ostania. Even if Sylvia did end up recruiting her, there was no telling who would be able to recognise her from her past life.
And Anya's behaviour at the vaccination drive… That was a concern, but overall, Sylvia wasn't convinced that it correlated with weakness on Anya's part. If that was the first time that she had shown such a strong reaction to a trigger, then it was more than likely that Anya was more resilient than Sylvia gave her credit for. Still, Sylvia needed to know what kind of cards she was dealing with.
She recalled when she had assigned Agent Dusk the task of investigating Anya Forger, and getting as much information about her as possible.
Agent Dusk was, understandably, reluctant. "Isn't she… Twilight's adoptive daughter? Why don't you just ask him?"
The Handler gave him a sharp look. "Are you questioning me?"
"N-no Ma'am! I just, er…" He stuttered to a stop.
She sighed, and took pity on him. Twilight was renowned for his sharp skills, and she imagined that if he realised that she had sent a WISE agent on his own daughter, then he might react poorly.
"We'll tell Twilight eventually, but there is something that I need to clear up about her first. Just keep an eye on her, but stay at a distance. Do not disclose this operation to anyone, even other WISE agents or informants. We don't know what she's capable of, so I need you to exercise extreme caution at all times. I want a full investigative report on her abilities, her routine, her friends, everything. Is that clear?"
Agent Dusk nodded, then frowned. "But… but she's a child."
The Handler drew herself up to her full height, and took a single step forward with a sonorous click of her high-heeled boots. With a glare from under the wide brim of her hat, the Handler very succinctly reminded Agent Dusk who exactly he was speaking to.
"She is steel, ready to be forged into a weapon. And that's where we come in."
And so began Operation Bellator.
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This is for those of you who were wondering what was going on with Sylvia - so this little piece is for answering some of your burning questions before they get swept away by the plot!
(Lord knows the plot picks up pace in the next few chapters, so I wouldn't have been able to come back to this for agess...)