The new team
[[ACMI2: Everyday of Forgetting]]
The meeting continued, though the girl in a dress had needed to take a short break to make a phone call. While she was gone, GV learned about who he was working with.
First was a boy with light brown hair in a bowl cut. He looked generally grumpy about being here and was carrying a crutch under one arm. He was also wearing a fluffy jacket. Surely that would be a bit warm. It wasn't really that cold yet.
Next was a girl with a fairly plain appearance. She looked around the room warily as if she wasn't sure about the others around her. She was standing with a tall and well toned woman, likely an ally from her old team? Also with them was a bear-like man with a crew cut. Three survivors from the same team meant they were quite fortunate in a way.
Lastly in the back there were two schoolgirls. They looked like the same kind of outside as GV. They might not have actually been part of any former teams. That's why GV decided to try to talk with them first.
He nodded to them and walked over.
"Who are you then?" The girl with long brown hair asked.
"I go by GV generally." He noted "You two?"
"Call me Kakiko." The girl noted as she looked to her friend "This is… what did you want to go with again?"
The girl quickly flashed her hands, performing sign language that GV barely managed to read. Kakiko translated for him though anyway and introduced her "This is Neko, she's non-vocal, a consequence of an old experiment gone wrong."
GV glanced to the side "Too many do."
"So what happened to you then?" Kakiko jumped on that comment "If you tell us your story, we'll tell you ours?"
GV thought about it for a moment "I'm going to skip things to keep certain secrets but if you're okay with that…?"
Kakiko nodded and GV told a very abridged version of his history "There was an initiative to turn Espers into a power source for a power plant. They developed my power to try and create the highest output possible."
"An electromaster then?" Kakiko paused thoughtfully "Did they use data from the Third ranked?"
GV shook his head "No, it was a separate project."
He was trying to be as truthful as possible, even as he lied.
"A strange one, I wonder what the scientists behind it thought?" Kakiko noted.
GV nodded, not expanding but instead throwing the question back "And you two?"
"Do you know what the parameter list is?" Kakiko asked.
GV hesitated "It's something about training Espers, right?"
The girl nodded "It's a document that goes over how difficult it would be to raise an Esper to a given level. For example an Esper might be listed on the document as Level 2, because that's the highest level they can reach without a massive use of dedicated resources. However, some scientists figured out how to theoretically mass produce level 4s."
GV sighed "Let me guess, the side effects included madness and death?"
"Exactly." Kakiko nodded "Neko and I are two of the luckier members. I was sane enough to go through therapy and Neko only lost her verbal skills while keeping her mind intact."
Neko mimed cat paws and smiled.
"Our ability is called Military Oil." Kakiko noted "A Level 4 Psychokinetic ability to control petroleum based products and to turn them into weapons."
Kakiko waved her hand at a bottle at her belt that was full of a dark liquid. Neko had one much the same.
As their conversation went on, it seemed to break the tension a bit. Kakiko and GV went around the room, greeting each member one by one as the girl in a dress returned and ordered them out.
There was an armoured truck ready to take all of them to the building where Spark Signal was hiding.
The remnants of Hound Dog were missing, probably sent ahead of the team or something like that.
[[ACSRS: Quiet Stratagem]]
As the team boarded the truck and it began driving, the plain girl from earlier (Who's name was apparently Tetsumou, an Ex-BLOCK member) asked the girl in a dress what their team name was going to be now.
The girl in a dress shrugged.
"The name's still to be decided, but I think they're probably going to go with PIECE, SCRAP, or something like that."
"SCRAP sounds needlessly belittling." Kakiko remarked, "Some of us haven't been scrapped yet."
"Then pick your own letter word." The girl noted with a sigh, "Let's make a game of it. A bonding activity. Bonus points if it's five letters long."
The boy with a bowl cut offered "BLACK?"
"Do you really want to yell out 'We're BLACK' when on missions?" The older woman with Tetsumou remarked "How about ECHOS?"
"Are the names meant to mean anything?" GV asked.
"It's a statement of intent." The bear-like man noted "BLOCK kept an eye on friendly institutions outside of the city, BLOCKing any attempt they may make to turn traitor."
"Didn't work when you guys turned." Bowl-cut noted.
The older man continued though "MEMBER was a team created for a single member of the board wasn't it?"
"It was." The girl in a dress nodded, looking at the Bowl-cut boy "The General Superintendent, Hound Dog was loyal to him too, but worked separately."
The bear man was thoughtful after that as he glanced at the girl in a dress "I don't really know what SCHOOL was meant to do, mind telling us?"
"We took on a variety of missions for the School board." The girl shrugged "And to add on for the member who walked out, ITEM was used to keep the peace between the city's upper echelons."
There was a few moments where they continued thinking about names before they arrived.
Night had fallen and there were sounds of explosions and gunfire coming from a building nearby. The girl in a dress scowled.
"I'm going to bet GROUP beat us to the punch." She didn't sound accusatory, her face relaxed and she sighed as she took out her phone "I'll need to make another call."
As she stepped away, the rest of the team just watched a building in the midst of was also some sound of gunfire nearby and GV turned to see a large hole get shot into a car and a girl fleeing from the car towards an stairway that led underground.
Wait, he knew that girl!
"Look, it's Kinuhata."
The team watched as their AWOL member fled some sort of assassin that was going after her.
After a moment, the girl in a dress returned with some members of Hound Dog "Okay, new orders."
Flames were beginning to flare out of the underground and GV had seen some people try to make their way down there. Probably an evacuation team or something like that.
The girl in a dress held up a phone showing a man with pointy blond hair.
"We've got orders from the board and the General Superintendent, this is a picture of a POI named Hamazura Shiage. Ex-Skill out, Ex-ITEM."
The girl gave a shrug "Apparently, he's outlived his welcome. The orders are to kill him."
End of chapter.
Kakiko is Aizono Mio, she's from one of the Toaru video games. The analysis I've read of this arc notes that there are two girls in the background of the meeting that they couldn't identify so I just looked through the list of dark side characters for ones that kind of fit. Her backstory is likely a bit different in this telling since I haven't played the game but it was still interesting to include her. Neko is somewhat an OC but I got the idea from the name "Catherine Hardclass" which I saw on the list of people that underwent the same process as Aizono. Catherine Cat Neko, you see? It's just a nickname.