"Come in!" Briana looked up from the messy pile of documents she was sorting.
Rex Raptor stood in the doorway, holding his green jacket and looking sheepish. "One of my monsters ripped my jacket as we were finishing our fight yesterday. You know how to do stuff, so I was, uhh, hoping you could fix it for me?" The teenager held out his jacket hopefully.
Briana turned back to her work, "Tell you what, help me with these, and I'll teach you how to fix your jacket."
Hanging his jacket over the back of a nearby chair, Rex entered the dim, stone room and joined Briana at the table. " I can't learn a girly skill like sewing! Guys already tease me about my height."
"I won't be teaching you fancy embroidery. Just basic sewing skills you can use to repair your clothes."
"I dunno…" He scratched his head through his red knit hat.
"It's up to you." Briana scanned the page in her hand.
"Fine. What are you doing?"
"Looking for confiscated documents about the Sapphire Vision cult and the Ancient Portal. There are supposed to be some here, but the base commander didn't bother to file any of the papers he confiscated over the years, so finding them is…" Briana finished scanning the page in her hand, tossing it into a small crate she was using as a makeshift trash can.
"Aren't you concerned I might overlook something important?"
Before Briana could reply, a clattering noise out in the hallway caught her attention. Mokuba burst into the room. "Sorry! I knocked over whatever it was you had piled near the door." He placed his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. "A rider from Yugi's camp is approaching. If we hurry, we can make it to the courtyard before he arrives."
Briana tapped her fingers on the desktop. Once, twice, thrice. A clue to the way home might be in these documents, but mishandled relations between the factions might easily destroy all of them before she tracked down a portal. She blew out her lantern, throwing the room into darkness. Turning to the silhouette of Mokuba standing in the doorway, Briana pushed past Rex without a second thought. "Let's go. Your brother will need convincing to go through with the meetup."
"Exactly." Mokuba turned and dashed off, Briana close behind him.
Despite their efforts, Briana and Mokuba arrived as the rider was leaving. Jumping over a dog-sized ant sleeping in the last doorway, Briana made it into the courtyard just in time to see the back of the rider as he rode out of the base—probably Tristan, based on his coat. Standing near the door to the outside was Weevil, who held a pair of sealed letters as though he'd never seen written communications before. Briana strode across the courtyard towards the teen as he began to inspect the envelopes, "Is this a letter from the Black Dragon Squad? Why would bandits be writing to us? Don't they know we're—"
"Give me that." Briana snatched the two letters from Weevil. "And shut up. Out here in the courtyard there are an awful lot of ears that don't belong to Kaiba's forces."
"Heyyy, I'm one of General Kaiba's top Marshals, so I'm more than capable of delivering his secret messages." Weevil tried to grab the letters back, but Briana easily dodged his attempt before passing them to Mokuba.
"Well, Briana and I are here, so you don't need to deliver anything, but I'm sure you would have done okay." Mokuba spoke up.
"Of course I would have. I'm a Marshal. We're the best of the best. Now let's go deliver these letters, Mokuba." Weevil pushed up his glasses.
Briana wasn't in the mood to deal with Weevil's self-aggrandizing. "You can form a telepathic link with monsters, it doesn't mean you're good at anything."
Gripping his lapels, Weevil smirked. "Humph, Marshals are a rare and valued commodity, sought after by all factions in this world. You're as replaceable as a furnace air filter. Now bug off."
Briana fought the urge to slap Weevil. Hitting someone for saying what she didn't want to hear would only teach others to lie to her. Still, she wished she could come up with a comeback other than wacking him, but it was hard when everything in his last statement was technically true.
Mokuba stepped back from Weevil, "You better not let my brother hear you say that."
"What? Why?"
Mokuba grinned, "If I'm Seto's right hand, Briana is his left. Insulting her is like insulting him."
"Wait, I didn't mean…"
"If you're lucky, Seto would just kick you out. But there's a real possibility he might leave you as a present for the Empire when they retake this base."
"I'm sorry." Weevil sulked off, sitting down beside his ant in the doorway, and probably complaining to it about his circumstances.
"Thanks, Mokuba." Briana headed for the building complex she knew Kaiba would be in.
"I wasn't joking about my brother's response. If Weevil wants to stick with us, he'll need to learn not to insult you."
"I know you like having me around." Briana cracked her knuckles, "I know Kaiba trusts me. And I know how special that is." She shook her head, "But I still wish I was a Marshal—we both know I'd be more useful that way."
"I wish you were a Marshal too, I bet your monsters would be awesome!" Mokuba grinned, "But Seto is better able to function as both commander and Marshal with you at his side. And I don't know what we would have done without you after we fled Sygh-Varths; you're a great support player!"
"It's true, I guess I am." Briana shrugged and grinned, "At least compared to you and Kaiba. I swear you guys have no regular skills." Briana stopped abruptly in front of the door to the stables, scanning the area until she spotted one of the members of the Imperial Guard who had deserted with them. "Hey, you!" She snapped her fingers. Recognizing her, the man startled to attention. "Get one of the horses ready to go, we're likely to need a messenger soon."
"Yes sir!" The man busied himself following her order.
Once inside, Briana and Mokuba were joined by Rex, who was hesitantly holding hands with Koralis, extending his arm more than necessary to keep the kid at a distance. The little girl was asking him questions about dinosaurs, but after a minute she let go of Rex's hand to be at Briana's side instead. "What're you doing?" Koralis asked as she swung her arms forward and back in an exaggerated walking motion.
Smiling, Briana ruffled the little girl's thick, dark curls. "Delivering some messages." Against Kaiba's better judgment, she had taken in the girl after the kid hid in a batch of crates confiscated from the Black Dragons—as far as Briana could tell, the girl's only living relative was her older brother, and he was imprisoned for being a bandit. Surprisingly, the kid seemed willing enough to stay with Briana, even after Kaiba explained she and him were responsible for her brother's imprisonment; perhaps the child felt she had no better options.
The group found the messages' recipient in the previous base commander's office, which Kaiba had taken for his own. At the moment, he was working out while one of the low ranking men in his forces read reports aloud. Seeing Mokuba enter the room, Kaiba booted the man from the room without ceremony and seated himself behind the desk. "You have Yugi's response?"
Briana nodded, "And Joey's as well."
"Hmph," Kaiba insouciantly reached out to take the letters from Mokuba.
"I had one of the men prepare a horse, so we can send out your response as quickly as possible."
Kaiba nodded as he opened the first letter. Currently, all three of the Empire's most wanted factions were in close proximity to one another in the Anker-Hill region, but none of them were allied with each other. Three separate forces without a plan or communication would be easy pickings if Emperor Haysheen chose to send the brunt of his Marshals after them. Regardless of whether alliances were forged, it was smart to conduct the business quickly. Yugi and the Pharaoh would be cooperative, but she worried about Joey and the Black Dragon Squad. Based on reports, Briana knew her younger sister Valerie was still with Joey; hopefully she would convince him to agree to a team-up, but Briana also knew it would be a hard sell. Almost as hard as convincing Kaiba to accept whatever offer was no doubt extended in the letter from the Black Dragons—Briana knew she and Mokuba would both try their best to convince Kaiba, but the result was up in the air.