I died again, my bad y'all. Trying to control that "problem". For now, though, I prepared a little something. Hope y'all can forgive the absence. The next chapter WILL be the 2nd part of When Part 1, anyway, enjoy! (P.S. wrote this before finishing the last chapter. AKA, chapter 4 so this will separate the 2nd part till I get that done. Its stumped me so far.)
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Blue. This entire damn room is precisely 76 shades of blue. No more, no less. When comparing this level of blue to the rest of the place, it overwhelms one's senses, and not in a good way. While it's a nice color, it's best I not focus on it too long. There is always much more to do besides stare at a wall.
Upon attempting to push back from my fabulous white quartz desk, I found myself being met by the buzz of the call buzzer. Begrudgingly, I pulled myself back to the desk. Swiftly, I pressed the green button next to the microphone, resulting in the call being answered. I had almost forgone this moment entirely, but alas, I was too slow to get out of my office.
"I'm on my way. Unseal the door. 4267."
A few long seconds of silence later…
"Copy. Door unsealing is in progress. Would you like to be accompanied to the meeting by an ETF guildsman?" The static sound of the speaker sounded like trash, but I was still able to understand the reply regardless. "No, I would like not to be accompanied this time."
Another long second later…
"Copy, enjoy your meeting."
I didn't bother to respond, opting for the end communications button to the right of the button I had previously pressed with my paw. After a satisfying click, I was alone one more. While I'm rarely ever alone for long, I enjoy and savor the times I am alone. You never know when someone will come to ruin your day next, and for me, it seems to be every hour.
Finally, I pushed back from the desk. With a simple jump down from the seat of my leather chair, I was on the floor. It was always a strange feeling for me. Not being tall I mean, not being on the floor. To once go from being 5 feet tall to now being 3 foot 1 can really mess with one's perception of things. Not like I ever enjoyed being taller though, it was a severe disadvantage, to say the least.
Like the desk, the floor was also beautiful. It somehow broke up and balanced the colors of the office. It did so by adding some whites and purples. One of which was the best color to ever exist. Thats just my thoughts on it though. Even the way they were arranged was beautiful. There were 4 tiles that formed the pattern, together, they all made a circle. Combined with the colors, it all came together, and added that pop to compliment the bookshelves and displays I had lining the walls.
"Enough enough enough." I shook my head. Hyperfixation would not be winning today.
I started towards the entry hall to my office. It wasn't much, but it was well made to match the scheming of my office. That was nice.
Passing the large security door at the end of the hall caused it to rise up, sealing my office from the outside. I made sure this was a feature, can't take no chances in my safety.
From here, I walked past my reception desk, it was less reception and more of a security office if anything. The waiting area was empty as to be expected. Rows upon rows of empty spruce seats. Usually, it's packed with citizens wanting money or tax breaks, but not today. Thanks to that, one can only deal with so many complaints in a day.
As per usual, I wandered my HQ. The facility was large, too large, which made navigation difficult. Maybe it was a mistake not having an assistant. After all, facility layout is literally part of task force training.
I proceeded to continue my aimless wander, bits and pieces of random thoughts passing through my mind as I wandered the bland, white, and dark gray halls. This persisted for around 15 minutes till I spotted an ETF guildsmon.
"You," I pointed at them, "Pikachu."
They turned to face me, an unsure look plastered on their face. I could tell they had to do a double-take. Naturally one doesn't think they will be running into the boss of all bosses unless something happens, so that's to be expected. Just another downside of being the leader.
"Jay Gladstone, Rank 11. At your command!" They saluted at the end of this statement. While I thought the fist-to-chest, then above-head gesture was idiotic at best. Felix insisted on making it a thing. I cringe every time someone does it still.
"At ease. I'm assigning you to guidance. Show me the way to the administration wing."
"Yes ma'am. Right this way." He, the voice made it very clear coupled with the name, lead me back the way I came. I decided to follow a few feet behind, once again retreating to my thoughts.
Which reminded me, that Felix will be leading this meeting. It's not unusual but typically ends with disapproval from the administrative committee. I think they are intentionally difficult on him, well, I know they are. They know that I can have each and every one of them killed and replaced with the stomp of my paw, but they know he can't do the same.
As long as Felix's proposal doesn't pose a risk to his life, I plan to cast him my vote. It seems biased to vote for my own sibling, and it is, but it's just us here together, we gotta look out for each other.
I was quick to drop that line of thought. Definitely not what I needed to be thinking about before a meeting.
"So. You must be new correct? I have never seen a Pikachu on the Task Force."
"Yes, actually ma'am. Lady Lyra promoted me last week as a matter of fact," he proclaimed in an energetic voice.
"You been assigned yet?" I asked.
"No ma'am. Lady Lyra said there is currently not a mission for me to go on."
That's gotta be a load of crap on Lyra's end. She knows damn well I want task force guildsmen without assignments controlling the mon of Nahi.
"Well, that's a problem I suppose. Tell Lyra that her boss told you that you're being assigned to enforcement duty in sector 19. Got it?"
"Copy, I will relay the info as soon as possible."
I gave a simple nod in return, and for the rest of the walk there, we walked in silence.
Felix
Good lord the lead-up to these meetings is a drag. There is never anything to do while you wait for everyone to show up to this crap. I may be impatient, sure, but this really tested me.
Taking a quick look around, it appeared that only six of us were there. "Joy, late," I muttered.
I slumped back in my chair, letting my eyes wander the meeting room. I had grown familiar with the room, many hours had been spent in this chair discussing and listening to the rest of the administrative committee. I glanced down at the floor, despite the fact that I sat low to the ground when I walked, I hadn't paid it much attention, but now really looking at it, it seemed grand to me. Dark and richly colored stained hardwood all over the room, quite a desirable and expensive material in this time. The alternating and seemingly randomized plank size added to it, truly simple, yet grand.
Averting my gaze to the wall left of me showed something I didn't get to see much. The city. Nahi was a palace of sorts, surrounded by walls and defenses, and a grand facility in the center that we like to call the 'cathedral'. Personally, I thought calling our HQ the cathedral was a good idea, symbolizes our power and whatnot. Also who is gonna mess with someone whose main building is literally called the Cathedral? No one, that's who.
Focusing back to the wall, it was mostly glass, broken up by large and thick obsidian pillars every 3-4 yards or so that stretched all the way to the ceiling. The pillars looked cold, like if you were to touch it it would cool you off, probably just the blackened glass giving off that vibe. Looking at the other walls showed the same pillars at the same intervals but this time instead of glass it was solid quartz bricks. The quartz walls were illuminated by the sunlight that shone through the large windows, glistening and shining brightly. Looking to the table in front of me showed the sturdy dark oak table we have had for years, yet it still looked brand new.
My train of thought was interrupted though by the mon to my left, "Sir, may we start please?"
I nodded in response.
I cleared my throat, not cause I needed to, but because I needed the attention of the room. "Quiet down all, quiet down, I have the room." I looked around to take attendance of all who were there. Closest to me on the left face of the table is a torrcat, followed by; an inkay, marshadow, and delphox. On the opposite side of the table, a lone raichu. Lastly to the right face of the table, greninja, emolga, sevyper, and smeargle. All 9 accounted for, now we were missing 1. No surprise that she would once again be late. "Since our gracious leader is once again late, I will start by asking for all to share anything important that this committee should be informed of. Starting with Irea and going around. Irea, start."
The torrcat looked from me to her audience, and stated, "Thank you, Felix, as most of you are aware, my superior command of our greater ground forces has led to a crushing victory in the Hydayin Pass. The rebel army put our forces through a tough fight, but I am happy to say there should not be any loose ends remaining as a result of that offensive. This city of Nahi will continue on."
The room erupted in clapping and appraisal, that died out after a few seconds.
I looked to the inkay, "Lyra?"
She hovered up a little higher so everyone could see her speak, "Thank you, Felix, all I have to report is that Task Force Division 12 has graduated training and is awaiting deployment to District 17 which will occur later today." She finished by lowering back down.
Another clapping session, that was cut short with the door closest to the opposite side of the table swinging open.
"You're relieved." That was all I needed to hear.
"Sister! Welcome, we've all been anticipating your arrival, glad to have you." I remarked as she pushed the door shut.
"Cut the crap, and carry on," she replied coldly. Someone wasn't in a good mood today.
The marshadow grew its shadow more to be seen better by the rest of the committee members," Thank you, sir Felix, all I have to mention is that I am organizing the plans for operation 2238, and Irea will be able to look it over within the coming days for your approval sir." He shrunk back down.
"Very good Raine, Charlie now, if you will."
The delphox stood up, "Yes, thank you, sir. In cooperation with Irea's troops, we have more subjects than ever! With this 'opportunity,' I have been allowed, I will be starting more intense research on Xenite. That is all, thank you again, and congrats on the victory miss Irea." He sat back down.
"I will speak now," Keith, the raichu opposite of me and sis stood up on his chair, "Success rates of citizen missions have gone up 12% this quarter thanks to the recent legislation you passed Miss High Command. We have also seen a 24% decrease in crime against Shard which is believed to be a direct correlation in the mission's success rates going up." He sat back down.
Everyone cheered for that, even me, this was great news to hear.
"Vincent, Elanor, and Arron, as always, you are exempted from this discussion due to your roles-." I was cut off before I could finish.
"Dave, I would like to know our current trend spending-wise," Sis said, the grouchiness very much still in her voice.
"Excellent question Miss High Command, I regret to inform you that our current spending is trending upwards to a net of +9 above even. This is by far the highest net we've hit in the history of Shard. Even with our income of 37 billion poke this year, it's just not enough with due respect ma'am."
I looked to me right, sis seemed to be deep in thought.
"Cut the bottom 5 again and look for ways to keep high-priority projects pace on track with less spending. That is all I needed to know, thank you." She concluded.
Dave gave her a nod of agreement and looked back towards me.
"Alright then, thank you everyone. If we are ready to begin the actual topic of today's meeting, then I will go ahead and initiate the standard committee meeting protocol. ETF is to seal off the room and stand post outside the entrance. If at any time you must leave the meeting for any reason, request to speak, and upon approval of your request please state your reason for needing to leave and I will approve it if necessary. Remember to not interrupt the current speaker if you have questions please save it for discussion time that will be allowed. If everyone agrees to these conditions and is ready to proceed, please say I."
In unison, all 11 of us said "I".
"Good, I will now introduce the subject of the meeting today. As you all know our goal is to spread Shard's influence to all of the sacred timeline, and this project is to help us hit what is known as the 'active' sector, more specifically sector 2023. Prior to everyone's arrival, I placed packets that include the information that will be discussed under your seats, if you could please take a moment to grab those I will continue."
I waited a minute, taking a few deep breaths. I don't know why but I always get nervous when I give these big speeches. More internally than I'll show externally, but it still affects me. I opened my packet up to the first two pages once I had calmed down a little.
"Flip open to pages one and two. Here you all have been presented with the six proposed sites for construction. For context, this project is to be a staging base with room for possible expansion if the base' location is proven to be a success. Now as for the sites themselves, they were chosen based on several factors. As we know, this continent used to be a lot smaller than it is today. Therefore less mountains and more islands, these islands six islands have been selected due to the remoteness, terrain, and general abundance of modern resources for the time. I will now open the floor to any questions pertaining to the locations before we vote on the desired location for this project."
As soon as I finished that statement about questions, Arron raised a vine, requesting to speak.
"Arron, you have the floor," I commanded.
"Thank you ssssir, assss we all heaaard earlier, our ssssspending isssssn't the besssst. How will we payyyyy for thisssss?" He questioned in the usual skeptical snake voice he possessed.
"Good question Arron, we plan to make the earlier mentioned cuts before spending a coin on this project, for those curious its estimated to cost somewhere around 702 thousand poke. Quite a low cost for now. Any more questions?"
Irea raised a paw.
"You have the floor miss Irea."
"Thank you, sir. While I think this project is a good idea strategic wise, I have questions about why a soon-to-be active volcanic island was proposed as a building site. Seeing as that volcano is now a part of the Hydayin Range won't us building a site there in sector 2023 cause the geography of our current Hydayin Range to be altered?"
I thought for a minute, she had a very good point that I had somehow completely overlooked. "Well, this appears to be an oversight I forgot to account for. I think you are correct in terms of current alteration if we went with that location for this complex. Therefore I would like to omit it from the vote. Thank you again Irea. Any other questions?"
"I have one," This time it was my own sister who spoke, "Did you account for any land movement like at all? I can see at least one other site that is now where Neo-Tang lies."
I let out a sigh, she was right, there was indeed another location that would be problematic. "Okay! We will be omitting options 2 and 5, if there are no other questions, I will be initiating the vote."
Just as I thought, there weren't any more questions.
"Perfect, ETF 109382, pass out the sheets please." My personal task force guildsman that stood next to me, a riolu, nodded and began swiftly giving each committee member, minus me, a voting sheet.
It took around 6 minutes for everyone to decide, my agent collected back up all the sheets once everyone indicated they were done, and I counted the votes.
"Thank you all for your votes, from the looks of it we will be going with option 2. Now then, please flip to page 4. On this page, you will find that we have drafted up bare-bones versions of 3 base variations for this specific site. Option one has the base entirely underground and invisible to anymon hoping to find this from the ground or from the air. The second variant is meant for the small mountains of this island. The specific design includes defensive positions all along the mountainside that will assist us in safely keeping the base protected from any attackers. The main upside to this version by far is the accessibility to other parts of the island. Lastly the jungle village variant. This variant takes advantage of the dense jungle on the east of the island and will allow easy reconfiguration and stealth in the event the 'village' would be in trouble. This would also give us the appearance of an outer outpost that lends us the ability to easily snatch up anymon that we may possibly need or want. Any questions?"
Lyra raised a hand and floated up.
"Lyra, you have the floor."
"Thank you, sir, this question pertains to option three. The aim of this layout is to be what? From what I read on the page this is supposed to intentionally draw in explorers and travelers. I found that it was quite vague on why we would want explorers there anyways, wouldn't that risk us being found out about and potentially lead to our leader being found by 'them'?"
Sis visibly shuddered at the last word. Though she had only separated from 'them' a few weeks ago in the offensive, it was still painful to her.
I swiftly responded before sis had the chance to chew her out, "Er- yeah, the goal is to draw in the explores from the continents guild, as you know they tend to find stuff well since that is their job, but I figured that by providing them places to stay and rest overnight would aid in our intel collection. They get there after a long day, have some drinks, and spew secrets, easy as cake."
"Mhm, understood," Lyra responded before floating back down.
"If that's all, I will hold another round of voting."
This round went faster than the last one, we followed the same procedure and I counted the votes like last time.
"Looks like a unanimous vote for option three. Very good. Now, this will conclude my part in this. If anybody opposes the project, and would not like it brought into reality, this is your chance to speak."
Nobody spoke, which while rare at these meetings, didn't surprise me too much.
I clapped my paws together, "Perfect, I'll have the planning mons run the layout for base three on that island and see what they come up with. Meeting dismissed!"
With that command, everyone got up at the same time and started for the door which was opened by the 2 ETF guildsmon that were inside the room with us.
I walked alongside my leafeon sister, "Everything alright? You seem moody today."
"I'm fine, just gotta figure all this money bs out. It's not a good look for us." She was still in her mood, despite what she said.
"Well if you need any help I'm your brother and number two for a reason," I lightly nudged her as we walked for the door, "after all, Mom would want us to stick together and help each other out as much as pos-."
"Shut up," was all she said for me to understand this wasn't a normal one of her 'moods'. Her tone was ice-cold and vicious. She was really upset.
I didn't bother to apologize, with her it would only have made it worse, I simply nodded, and swiftly walked ahead of her.
I knocked on the wooden door, "Irea, it's Felix, I'd like to discuss the planning of troop movement to get this new base built."
I impatiently waited a few seconds before the door opened. "Come in."
"Thank you, you have the plans I sent you an hour ago of what needs to be done correct?"
"Yes, I received them."
I hopped up onto the chair and glanced around the office. Not much had changed since I had last been in here a few weeks ago. The walls were of course the same light brown wood planks, the floor a light gray carpet, and the room decorated with trinkets and 'trophies' from Irea's many missions.
"Good," I set the roll of papers I'd been carrying with me onto her desk, which she was now sitting behind, "let's start with the troop allocation." I pulled a piece of paper from the storage tube and set it between us, "This sheet is for you to keep but I have gotten numbers from my architects on how many mon they think it will take to quickly build the village. They gave me a number of around 438~ or so for a completion and operation time of 1 month, or 30 days."
She cut me off before I could say the next sentence, "Woah woah woah… You want let's say 500 mon to build a village in what's considered mainstream time and expect nothing to go wrong? Felix thats… No, I can't allow this allocation, split it up or something because no, that's not happening."
I sighed, "Then what do you suppose we do? We have to get this done quickly to not draw too much suspicion."
She thought for a moment, "You could pre-fabricate. If there's a temporal gateway on that island then we could take pieces of partially built structures, send them through the gateway, and have your outer island village done even sooner than one month. Plus it'd come with the benefit of being able to allocate prisoner labor and low-ranking guildsmen rather than sending over Obsidian and Jade ranking mon's."
It was a unique idea, I'll give her that, but even that posed problems, "I don't know about that. How would we transport the building pieces into place without heavy equipment? That's the last thing I want is the damn 'enforcers' getting a ping off of our activities. Arceus knows what rampage my sister would be in if 'they' found us."
She dug around in her filing cabinet attached to her desk for a moment before then pulling out a map. She placed it down between us. "There is a gateway in the mountains north of the island center. The elevation as you can see is 1/4th of a mile above sea level where the gateway is. So we will have to get it down the mountain without cover for around a mile, and with the risk of them getting a hit off of our activity, I think it will be concealable, to be honest. We have Charlie who is a manipulator. Furthermore, just in case you've forgotten," her tone shifted to one of ridicule, "Miss High Command is here, not in that sector. They don't have the guts to come here, you know that as well as the rest of us."
This stuff annoys me. I don't care what rank you are, you still don't show this level of rudeness to second in command. "Irea, tone, watch it. I'll speak with Charlie later and see if he'd be willing to be of use. Not like I plan to give him the choice anyway." I shook my head, attempting to reset my thoughts, "Back on track now. Can you allocate 400 troops to this project? 200 to the island for installation, and 200 for construction here. I'll also ask Charlie for some labor camp work, that'll bring the construction crew up to around 400 which should be plenty to meet the deadline of 1 month."
She waited to respond, pulling out another paper from her filing cabinet. She looked it over and used a claw to mark several spots on the paper. "I can, but it'll be a week or two before I can get the full amount. A lot of the higher ranked mon are either on recovery leave or busy with other assignments."
I looked her in the eyes. "Make it work."
With that, I gave her a few more documents and readied myself to leave.
"And if I don't?" She asked
"You will," I reassured her.
I hopped down from the chair, document tube secured to my leather side pack. Walking to the door I glanced back at Irea who was watching me walk out the door.
"I expect you to get to work, so get to it," I said as I walked out her office door, shutting the door behind me.
This is the beginning of something truly wonderful…
I had a lot of fun writing this chapter/cut away. A lot to unpack here, but trust me, all of it will be relevant later on. I have also gone back with the release of this and updated various grammatical issues in past chapters so those make more sense. I love all y'all who are taking the time to read this story I'm writing and would like to say thank you once again!