Fantasy TUBWUB AU

[DergTheDergon]

Hunters HQ in London, England, 2 years after the Demonic Invasions ceased

In the penthouse of the newly renovated and expanded Guild Headquarters, Headmistress Elizabeth Crowne found herself refilling her coffee mug for the fourth time already, before sighing and sitting down at her desk.

“Ugh, too old for this, I tell you,” she said, stretching out her fingers and rolling her shoulders before setting about typing yet another email, this time addressed to a Half-dragon of all things. She never thought in all her years that she’d be opening a department within her guild designated to supernaturals, but times were changing more drastically now than ever before in all the woman’s years.

The dragoness in question, name of Xaira, seemed to be eager and ernest, and to certainly have the qualifications necessary for a position on the up-and-coming Search and Rescue division, so she was going to be one of the first supernaturals ever to be hired on. Part of Elizabeth felt guilty that she was even doing this in the first place, as many of her top employees worked so hard because of deep-seated and well-founded grudges and/or fears of beings such as Dragons. She found herself particularly worried about her top team of Hunters, several members therein which would likely take the new employees the hardest.

She’d have to take precautions to ensure they were all kept as far away from Chase as humanly possible, of course, and for the well-being of Fifer in particular, she’d have to rearrange a few things with the coming of Xaira. Groaning as her migraine only became worse, the woman took another sip of her coffee, finishing her email and, after a few seconds of hesitation, sent the email and officially let a goddamned dragon join her organization. Slumping into her chair for a few moments, she reminded herself of the opportunities and possible gains from all of this, as well as the applications of her abilities that humans themselves could never pull off, things she had to remind herself of every time she even thought about all of this, before she continued on working.

Meanwhile, in a bedroom rather precariously stocked with guns a little ways across town, Fifer had hit the snooze on her alarm for the third time, regretting how hard she’d hit the booze last night before subsequently blacking out. The changes to the guild, and the city as a whole recently, not just the supernaturals moving in but other things as well, had certainly been overwhelming her recently. ‘Another day in fuckin’ paradise,” she quipped half-sleepily, yawning as she gave in, sat up and forcefully slammed her fist down onto the snooze button one last time. ‘Much as I just wanna stay here all day, still got a job to do.” Just like every other morning, the moment she reached that conclusion, she was able to fluidly, yet sleepily, go through the motions of her morning routine.

After reaching the kitchen downstairs and filling a massive mug full of coffee, waiting it to cool off just enough and then all but gulping down that first life-giving sip of the day, her half-lidded good eye opened and focused a little. Thankfully, the drastic changes in society recently hadn’t seemed to slow the flow of supernaturals wanting to cause trouble for it. She’d worried about her job security a little bit, but thankfully it wasn’t her concern. What was her concern, though, is the near-constant dull headache she had from the constant assault of supernatural energies on her god-forsaken sixth sense.

Still feeling as though drifting from sleep into wakefulness and back, she settled into the rest of her routine whilst downing mug after mug of coffee the entire time.

Driving to the guild always felt like the best wakeup call of the day, but maybe that was because on the way, she always stopped at a nearby cafe to get their strongest variety of coffee in the largest size, which always seemed to do more for her than anything she could just buy in the store and brew at home.

Pulling into HQ, Fifer sighed, ensuring the scarred side of her face was as covered with her hair as it was going to get in case she met any new faces today who might end up staring, and ensured her concealed pistol was in her left boot as always before heading in.

As she made her way through the new main hall, FIfer began to hear a thumping sound from a nearby closed door down the hall a little ways that added to her headache a little. Sighing, she took out her comm device and texted Rhea, the new gun developer. Well, she worked on other things too but, the weapons were the only thing Fifer really worried about herself. Just the other day, Rhea had asked her to test-fire these bullets she’d developed that should be able to make it more difficult to cast any sort of magic due to them containing some sort of metal alloy used in anti-magic rituals, or something like that. They seemed to fire well, and so Rhea took it upon herself to finalize the idea for manufacturing. She certainly was extremely bright for only being barely 21, Fifer had learned, and she had a feeling the girl would be paramount in fighting any new threats that arose as the supernatural world spread more and more throughout the earth in every way. She just hoped Rhea would learn to control her volume a little better; techno seemed to give her an instant headache for some damn reason. She found herself smiling in relief as she heard the volume lowering until she couldn’t even hear it out here, along with an apology texted back.

She sent Rhea another text saying it’s fine, and that if she needed any more help testing munitions, she was definitely game. What she received in response was a smiley face, which made her chuckle and shakes her head a bit. “Kids these, days, I swear,” she muttered, before thinking about the fact that she was less than a decade older than Rhea and she already felt pretty damn old. Refocusing on the prospect of organizing hunts to keep her mind off of that fact, Fifer then headed toward the commons. She wasn’t sure exactly what she felt about all the new blood that’s joined recently just yet, but they certainly added their own… something to the guild. It felt more lively than before, and part of her liked that. Another part of her longed for the days when it was just her, Chase and Amel, and the other hunters all usually did their own thing.

Shaking her head to help her get out of that state of reverie for a moment, Fifer decided to go see who was around the lounge where most hunters tended to hang around now since it was built. Maybe she’d be able to talk to Xen, see what the guild’s got him up to now. Besides, the place had great coffee, and she just so happened to have run out of her current cup already, throwing the paper cup into a nearby trashcan before sauntering off to join the craziness that was probably happening in the lounge.

As for Rhea herself, she was currently hard at work in the R&D lab she’d thus far turned into her own workshop and had rarely left, sometimes pulling an all nighter or two in there since she’d taken the position. Her passion, drive and varied know-how as an engineer ensured she’d already produced a couple of items for the guild that were in wide use. She was currently hard at work on developing a prototype for a magic shield to go along with the anti-mage bullets she’d developed, which while they’re not very good at doing straight damage to things, they have been confirmed by the hunters who’d already used them to disrupt the flow of magic in a magic-using individual. Depending on their raw mana pool, it seems to either make it impossible to cast magic or makes their spells less potent than they seemed to be intending. Either way, they’ve saved a few lives already, and thus Rhea was riding high on the accomplishment by testing a theory she had that if she produced a device that would project frequencies similar to that emitted by the anti-magic alloy she’d produced, she would be able to create a magic shield of sorts. Perhaps next she’d see if she can make blades out of the stuff; daggers for chase and a big old sword for Amel, though she’d need to enlist the help of a bladesmith the same way she’d done so with an ammo manufacturer, which would likely be a bit more difficult to get a hold of nowadays.

When she was taking ‘breaks’, or at least what passed as breaks for her, she often found herself doing little things to spruce up the R&D lab, which Director Crowne had tentatively allowed her to do as long as she kept her redecorating within her lab. As a result, There were game and music artist posters everywhere along with figurines and other memorabilia,her own personal espresso machine (which Fifer asked nicely enough to use from time to time, if RHea had any coffee left due to her own caffeine addiction which was even more dire than Fifers. If that was even possible) and even a sleeping bag in the corner for those times when she found herself crashing after pulling several all nighters in a row. Elizabeth meant to come down and talk with her about her health, but she was bogged down with so much other work at this point that Rhea was only getting less and less sleep, and was currently running solely on caffeine and inspiration, though to her credit it was working rather well for her right now. The brightly-haired girl danced around her mess of a worktable while she fiddled around with various electronic parts, schematics and reference material of both a scientific and supernatural nature, the latter procured as a result of a shaky agreement to share information with the guild for the protection of all law abiding citizens from the supernaturals who would disrupt their lives. By now, the whole guild would know that she was always glad for company, though depending on what she was working on at the time, she might have difficulty talking about anything but the project itself.
Rustic Aukanai

 

[Rustic]

Another day. Khal stretched her limbs out carefully and let out a contented sigh as the warm morning light hit her eyes once again. The room was pleasantly cool, but warm and half-splayed out along her chest was Verona, who Khal could hear slowly, quietly breathing. That, and the distant scuffling of feet somewhere out in the hallway beyond, were the only things she could hear. Everything felt kind of peaceful. It was delicate and rare enough in the dormitories that Khal almost didn’t want to break it up. However, she knew they had a day ahead of them, one that wouldn’t be waiting. So, after a moment or two, she softly murmured out Verona’s name. Once, twice… after the third time she did so, she saw Verona’s eyes gradually start to open, sleepily meeting Khal’s own. It couldn’t help but make Khal smile, a gesture Verona met with a smaller, gentler one of her own.

“Are you feeling okay this morning?” Verona asked, reaching up a hand to start to rub the sleep from her eyes. Khal chuckled a bit, the question not exactly unfamiliar to her. Except, it wasn't from drinking and overindulging. ...This time. Instead, she’d been training kind of hard lately, as she'd felt in especially top shape. Not for much of a reason in particular; things had just been going really well for her. She was like, a parent now. And a wife. She felt like she had a lot of people she needed to be at her best for. And, well, if she was going to do that, it meant getting a little sore.

“Ah, yeah...” Khal said a little sheepishly, lifting herself up as the two of them started to rise from bed. “Kinda sore, but hey, nothing a little aspirin can’t cure.” As a matter of fact, she kept some by her bedside, so she scooped up the bottle as she got to her feet and started to shake some out as she got to business.

“I’m glad,” Verona replied warmly.

And with that, the two of them went about their usual routine, making good time on getting dressed, and getting their gear ready, and commenting about the day ahead. All in all, none of it took too long at this point, at least; it was down to a science. A messy, imprecise science that often forgot a wallet or the keys, but a science, nonetheless. Anyway, Khal could see Verona fiddling with her hair ribbon as the two of them were nearly finished up, so Khal moved over to help her out, all while continuing their conversation in her usual peppy way.

“So, are you ready for another exciting day of being the coolest moms ever?” Khal asked, grinning wide as she held the ribbon with her mouth for a moment as she helped to tie Verona’s hair properly in place. Verona nodded, holding her hand to her mouth for a moment as she politely laughed.

“Mmhmm!” she said back. Khal was just finishing up with Verona’s hair, too, so Verona took a moment to turn back to her. “If you are.”

“Just about!” Khal looked down at herself for a moment, making a last minute appraisal and adjustment to her outfit. “And…” After a little fiddling and touching up, tucking in and loosening things up and all that, she gave herself one last nod.

“Yep! Looks like we’re all ready to go!” Khal put her fists on her hips for a moment triumphantly; a gesture that made Verona’s eyes light up for a moment, too, and which she responded to by raising up a hand to Khal’s cheek giving a quick kiss. The suddenness of the gesture made Khal’s eyes widen for a moment, and, as usual, made her cheeks tinge a little with a blush, but after a moment, Khal couldn’t help but smile and sort of laugh, one of her own hand’s momentarily reaching up to Verona’s shoulder so that she could reciprocate the kiss before the moment passed. It all served to make a sense delight electric between them, and by the time they parted again, Khal was absolutely brimming with energy.

“You’re sure?” Verona asked, somewhat playfully. Only somewhat, as Khal could admit she was probably a bit too goofy. Sometimes she needed an extra second after these sort of things. But this time, Khal just gave an even more emphatic nod.

“Hell yeah,” she said, taking in a large breath. And that was that. Once she’d exhaled it all, she suddenly started on her way, picking up her feet and starting her march forward out of their shared dormitory and into the Guild halls, Verona falling gracefully in line beside her.

They didn’t always stay at the Guild. Some people did, and that seemed fine, but in their case, they had already been sharing a living space before Khal had joined up, and it hadn’t made sense at the time to give it up. Especially since Verona didn’t join at the same time. No, Khal had always been doing some sort of fighting or physical work since she was a kid, so she was almost already qualified to be a hunter when she’d found out about the Guild. And of course Khal had wanted to do it; she’d always wanted to help people. But Verona started training after the fact, and she’d been doing it diligently ever since. And honestly, Khal still didn’t think she could be happier or more impressed with how far Verona had come. Verona had even been working here for sometime herself, and it was nothing short of a dream. There was really nobody else Khal wanted to work with now, to have fight at her side. She’d finally gotten to kick Amel out of that spot. Hallelujah.

But anyway, regardless of all that, there was another good reason to have another residence. Instead of heading straight toward where the morning activity would be, Khal and Verona made a quick detour to another hall of bedrooms, where they knew two boys would be. Kenai and Vafi, their two adopted sons. Neither boy had been living with them for too long now - a few years at most, about the amount of time Khal and Verona had been married - but the two of them were already near and dear to Khal and Verona’s hearts, and if there was something Khal looked forward to more than working with Verona every day, it was coming home to see them, and whatever it was they were getting up to.

Verona gave a few quick knock on Vafi’s door as she passed by, and Khal her own to Kenai, but there wasn’t much luck. Either they were both still sound asleep or out and about, doing who knows what somewhere around the extensive building. Khal knew it wasn’t wise to leave them unattended for long if that was the case, but she knew they couldn’t have been up and about for too long, and in that case, they’d probably be fine on their own for just a little bit. They were about thirteen and fifteen now respectively; it only seemed right to give them a little more room to roam. How they would use it... still remained to be seen.

Still, there would be a time for checking in and rounding them both up soon. Since it was something they didn’t have to be concerned with now, they headed further down the halls toward the exit, where the dormitory met with the new main hall. Unwittingly arriving sometime before a certain hungover huntress, Khal could distinctly feel the beat of some funky song being blared just a few feet away, down some separate hallway and behind a heavy door. There were a bunch of quirky people residing here, she’d found. Khal being the jovial sort, she knew most everyone around, so she knew the girl playing the music was named Rhea, but much else about her had alluded Khal thus far. Their paths didn’t cross much, what with Rhea being the organization’s resident techie, and Khal being… very much not that.

Still, often observing Rhea’s antics from afar, like she was doing at the moment, Khal couldn’t help but the difference and the similarity between them. Of course, they didn’t seem to have much of anything in common, regarding interests, but as human beings? One and the same. After all, who didn’t like a nice, pounding beat? It was a sure indicator of a fun time. However, Khal had no real experience with techno, or any type of electronica really, so as they walked by, Khal turned her head toward Verona and playfully cupped her fingers around her chin in an inquisitive gesture.

“So, Vee,” Khal asked, stopping for a moment to take it all in. Verona stopped as well, her interest grabbed.

“Mmmhm? What is it?”

“How would you dance to something like this?” Khal placed the emphasis in the sentence on ‘you’, jokingly implying Khal knew anything resembling dancing. She didn’t. She just knew the little Verona had been able to teach her, anyway. Stuff that wasn’t too hard for someone with Khal’s... inexperience to screw up. Regardless, Verona played along, even repeating Khal’s little inquisitive gesture herself. She did take a moment to actually think about it though, tapping her foot to the beat a time or two.

“Oh, like this...” Once her ears finally up the rest of the muffled song, Verona broke into step. The stop had just been, of course, an excuse for Khal to see Verona’s usual finesse at her craft, and it certainly paid off. Khal watched with fascination as Verona went at it, shuffling her feet and her legs in a casual way that easily matched the beat. She gave Verona time just to do her thing, and Khal looked on with intense interest, but seeing the fun the energetic little dance seemed to be, Khal tried it for herself, even knowing the inevitable result.

Of course as soon as Khal starts it’s goofy and inelegant, but Khal goes along with it anyway. Which, when Verona saw, she couldn’t help but stop to laugh. Khal tries to keep a straight-face anyway, but she’s soon she’s bested by a bit of her own embarrassment, and the two of them are left just joyfully giggling amongst themselves again. Khal reached up to rub the back of her head.

“It’s a work in progress, anyway,” she joked, before finally conceding the bit and continuing on with Verona forward.

And thankfully the lounge isn’t too far away. Khal sort of at least expects to see Kenai as she’s walking in, but no dice. Seemed like she might have to call them soon. For now, since they were here, as they usually sometimes did, Khal and Verona took a moment to just relax together, Verona sitting down on one of the lounge’s single chairs and Khal energetically standing to talk and occasionally gesture. Which was what Khal was doing when Fifer stepped in, in fact. As Khal was busy re-emphasizing that she was totally the smoothest dancer around, showing off impeccable footwork, she saw Fifer step in, and stopped for a moment to acknowledge her, their fearless leader, moseying along.

“Hey, Fifer!” Khal called softly. Khal was usually a force of nature, but she knew well enough at this point who was and wasn’t a morning person. In particular, it seemed better to let Fifer be, especially knowing the woman probably wasn’t feeling badly for no reason. Still, Khal tried to be just as upbeat as ever. “Making the rounds, eh?”

DergTheDergon Aukanai​

 

[Aukanai]

Everything was in shambles. So much had been destroyed by the demon invasion, and trying to fix it all now was just one big mess. Xen himself was one big mess, too. He was always working hard, but never this much. Not so much that he was losing sleep over it, but he had plenty of work to do with the guild.

After losing contact with several branches of the guild, concerns were growing that they had been obliterated. So, during the day, Xen was out scouting, and during the night he barely slept after trying to find any signs of the missing branches. They had him taking planes in and out of the state, but he just supposed this was a part of being one of the first rate hunters under Elizabeth’s order.

There were some days where he was on standby for other missions, and on those days he at least managed to get a nap. But, never enough and lately he’s been looking like shit.

At the very least, he had arrived back in London the other day, and had a day or two to rest before he had to report back to Elizabeth. The rest he desperately needed. So much so, that he never made it to a bed, instead he’d just passed out in the doorway of his dorm room.

It was only after hearing a door slam that Xen woke up. Someone must have seen him laying on the floor and chosen to close his door shut just a little to loudly. Not that it was a problem, Xen knew he probably slept long enough. After arriving home in the dark, now he was greeted by the morning glare coming through his window. So, he was pushing himself to his feet with a groan and throwing his suitcase on the bed to unpack.

In the end, he never finished unpacking, he ultimately decided he’d have something to eat first and leave the rest to later.

With a sigh, he fixed up his clothes - also deciding to change out of his current attire later as well - and headed for the kitchen. During the morning, there weren’t many hunters up and around yet, and none that really knew him or had known he had been gone for some time. Regardless, Xen didn’t seem to lift his head to greet anyone, he just kept eyes on the floor all the way to the kitchen. Then, he would finally look up, his tired eyes naturally squinting at the bright lights. It was to be expected that someone would already be here in the kitchen, but it was two of the people who didn’t seem to think he sucked. At least today was looking up.

“Oh...morning. What are you both making?” Xen paused in the doorway, leaning against the frame as he rubbed his eye.

In response, the two blondes looked up, Kenai greeting Xen with a cheery wave and Sam with her usual friendly smile. “We’re making pancakes,” Sam held up the small bottle of pre-mix. “It’s not exactly the best, but it’s the most I can do without Chase here.”

By the time Sam had but the bottle down, Xen had made his way towards them, before turning to put the kettle on. It took him some time as he got a mug out and some coffee beans for him to remember who Sam was talking about. It’s not like he’d been formally introduced to the Hauer’s anyway. Sometimes, with old age, you forget things. Even though Xen has yet to even hit his fifties, it’s not much of an excuse.

“Ah right, the master chef keeping this place together,” Xen had a soft chuckle, in which Sam seemed to giggle in amusement too.

“I told Vafi we were making pancakes, but I guess he found something better to do,” already trying to gather up the ingredients, Kenai mumbled from the fridge, before looking back at Xen, “want any milk?”

“Nah, thanks,” Xen had already decided he needed a hard hit of coffee right now. Especially since his phone was just now buzzing with the arrival of a text message. It took him a second or two to put his mug back down on the counter to pull his phone out his pocket. “Well...looks like I’ve got more work ahead of me.” There came a deep sigh. What was he supposed to do to get a day to himself?

“I’m guessing you’re not staying around for pancakes?”

“Doesn’t seem like it, I’ll catch you two later.,” flicking his phone back in his pocket, he paused for a second, "do let fifer know I'm back...I don't think I ever told her I was going to be away...I can't have my favourite student think I've hit the bucket yet," then Xen was off again, mug in hand and heading back down the way he had came from.

“Well, I’ll go find out who wants some,” with that statement, Kenai turned the corner of the kitchen and into the common room. We had found a few hunters he didn’t recognise, then the two greatest women he seemed to adore so much that he greeted them as he always did, running up to them and giving them a big smile. Truly the best parents he could ever ask for.

“Goood morning! I don’t know where Vafi is, but Sam and I are making pancakes, did you want some?” It all seemed to come out in one big excitable ramble that Verona and Khal barely got time to answer.

As Kenai looked up and past them, he could see Fifer walk towards their little group, and so he stepped forward to greet her, “hey fif-” it was almost in the same energetic tone he had greeted his mums in, but he quickly settled down when he felt khal’s hand settle on his shoulder, as if to remind him to tone it down a bit. “Oh..um..did you want any pancakes too? Xen was here just now, I'm sure you can have his share.”

 

[DergTheDergon]

As she started toward the commons area in her usual dead-woman-walking, too-goddamn-early, slow-as-molasses manner, she caught sight of Khal and Verona in usual form for the two of them. Khal seemed to be energetically poking fun in some way or another, while Vee, of course, seemed to love it. It brought a bit of lightness into the redhead's heavy mood, which was of course very welcome. Those two sometimes managed to make Fifer's day with their sheer chemistry and playfulness with one another, though her hard-shelled personality made it difficult for her to articulate that to them. However, some days, she instead ended up feeling sad, angry or the like for her own lack of a connection like theirs, through no fault of her own nor theirs, she realized, just lonliness. Thankfully, a well-executed mission, a training session or a couple of beers was usually all she needed to get back on track.

“Morning,’ Khalida, Verona.” She carefully avoided using their nicknames, and used as ‘professional’ a tone as she could with them, a habit of necessity due to most thinking of her as a bigshot around here, especially in recent months. Fifer simply saw herself as equal with every other hunter because at the end of the day, they all risked their lives to protect humanity. She was just doing as much of her part as she could and accepted no less of herself. Still, keeping an air of authority about her was a net positive endeavor in her experience, not that she never cut loose a little outside the HQ.

“Yep, making the rounds. As always, make sure you’re both prepared for a mission just in case, but otherwise, carry on and enjoy your morning.” ‘God, I’m starting to sound like Queen Bitch Crowne,’ Fifer thought to herself. Her position might’ve been going to her head a little now that she’d had a direct hand in guiding and leading quite a few newer hunters on the field in recent months, she admitted to herself.

“Oh and, if you see Xen anywhere, let me know.” She’d been imploring the couple, as well as others (that she could trust for clear answers, anyway, unlike Crowne and her "he's handling a sensitive issue for me, he'll be fine"), to let her know anything they glean about his whereabouts for a couple of weeks in a row now. So far, in all that time no one she'd asked had seen enough of him to give her even a ghost of a hint for all the away time he's had from HQ lately. Deep down, she was worried about him, but she tried her best to seem as though it only annoyed her, part of how she maintained the ‘strong leader’ image she felt pressured at all times to uphold.

“I’ll let you two be for the time being, anyway. See ya 'round, ya damn lovebirds.” There was a genuine friendliness to her tone that she only tended to use with people who deserve that from her as far as she was concerned. Khal and Verona both would have noticed her going more out of her way to be amiable like this toward them as she got more used to the two of them being around. In fact, she’d just spoken far more than she normally said to either of them or any guild member for that matter, before midmorning or so (and a gallon or so of coffee, of course). Khal and Verona were both loyal to the guild, and responsible (in the ways that really mattered to her, at least, from what she'd seen of them in the short time they've been here.), so they got the most amount of social effort from her. Handling people that way tended to keep her sanity intact the most, which was vital for her and everyone who happened to be around her at any given moment, she'd realized.

Continuing her half-asleep morning patrol of the guild (which led her by Chase and Amel's room in the dorms, one she quickly passed for fear of what she may hear had she passed at her previous zombie-esque pace), she spotted Kenai and Sam in the kitchen area. Accompanying the pair was the lingering smell of freshly baked pancakes. Her stomach rumbled then, only then realizing just how hungry she was this morning. She sort of hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, and only just now remembered. Work had certainly been busy and stressful in spades lately.

The huntress’s eyes widened as Kenai suddenly mentioned Xen, before she sighed. “Ugh, he’s really good about disappearing conveniently before I get my already rare chances to check up on him. If you see him again, tell him I’m glad he didn’t die and he better not this time either. Anyway, thanks for letting me know, Kenai. In the meantime, I could definitely go for some pancakes. Thanks.” For Kenai, she decided to smile a bit; mostly because she’d ensured to brush her hair back over the scarred side of her face after running into his moms a few moments ago, but also because she felt he deserved it for allowing her to actually get some food into her system as opposed to just caffeine before she found herself busy in one way or another for the rest of the day. She found herself thinking she might want to bring some food back to Rhea while she's at it, but she knew Miss Engineer wouldn't drop her work for a second to so much as touch it because it wouldn't have been the first time the Huntress tried.

With that, she sat at the nearest empty table and began all but devouring the pancakes right after spreading the butter and syrup over them and taking the very first bite, all the while sporting a curt thumbs-up with her free hand in Kenai’s general direction. They certainly were pretty darn good in her book, especially for being made by a boy as old as Kenai. Give him a few years and he’d certainly be a better cook than her, she figured, not that it was a difficult feat by any means.

After bringing her dished back to the kitchen, Fifer smiled at Kenai before ruffling his hair playfully and giving him a short and careful hug. This wouldn’t have been the first due to Fifer’s soft spot for Kenai and the other younger members of the guild, with one exception: Vafi. She felt sorry for the other three members of his family for having to take the brunt of his shenanigans and secretly wanted to slap the shit out of him every time she heard about or witness one of his many escapades, only to take it out on unfortunate monsters or Amel instead.

“It was great, Kenai. Keep up the good work.” Behind the bluntness of her trained-in tone lay a very genuine compliment, if the way she damn near devoured them wasn’t enough. Granted, they weren’t the best she’d ever had and she likely enjoyed them so much because she was goddamned starving, she realized, but she certainly wasn’t lying in that she saw potential in the boy as a cook. With a gentle clap on the shoulder, she then waved goodbye to the boy, refilled her coffee at the nearby coffee machine she always joked was the reason she was able to function at all before noon (though in actuality she was only ever half-joking), and sat down to work.

She began to piece together the other things she needed to check on, get done, or prepare just in case, normal morning routine types of tasks for most guildies, especially those designated Team Leader like herself. It didn’t exactly help that her team was Director Crowne’s first choice for the most urgent (and therefore, almost always most dangerous) missions. All that being said, she'd never trade this job for the world and knew that she'd either die doing it or of old age.

It wasn’t very long into her list of mundane tasks, starting with some paperwork regarding recent missions, that her phone chimed a very particular alarm-esque sound that only came with what Elizabeth called “Urgent Task Alerts”, the only things hunters on HQ grounds at the time were absolutely obligated to drop the rest of their work for. She sighed, resigning to her fate of having to do some homework after hours tonight, again, as she read the message. Every hunter that had clocked in earlier in the morning and wasn't confirmed out on business would’ve gotten the same one. It read as follows:

Agents, we have quite a situation on our hands.

A mob has begun to form just outside HQ Grounds on the other side of the street. It’s not too disruptive yet and in most situations I would just let them spout their nonsense and go home. However, from what my guards are telling me, they’re gathering more and more humans from all around the city and they plan to resort to violence if we don't immediately cancel our plans for the new branch which I am far past my ability to do even if I thought it wise. Frankly, I should've seen this coming; you're all aware of the controversial nature of the requirements of the job. Worst of all, a news outlet has already parked a van nearby and is broadcasting the entire thing on live television as we speak. I am certain that if we don't do something diplomatic about this, the publicity will be devastating. I know that likely none of you are happy with hiring supernaturals here, and niether am I, but those of you who’ve been here for a while will know that I would not have made a decision such as this if it wasn’t downright necessary.

All that being said, I need hunters to act as mediators with the people, as many of you that feel you'd be able to face them both sternly and understandingly. Most of you are heroes in their books, fighters on the front lines even before even one military power across the globe become at all involved with the War for Earth. The most religious among them would probably think you veterans out there were favored by God, too. Our guards and even the police are trying and failing to calm them down, but maybe some of you can. Activate the Amplify Mode on your Communicators and try to suppress the situation, as if you were dealing with mass civilian panic in those city battles most of you participated in at least one of. Everyone that manages to help simmer down the situation will get a raise, but if you don’t think you can do it without using force or intimidation tactics, don’t even step outside or I'll cut your pay without a thought.

Hurry. Please.

-Director Elizabeth Crowne

Fifer found herself taken aback at first by the email, but the more she read it the more anger well up in her. What the fuck did those people think? That the hunters were just going to sit back and allow supernaturals to take over after risking their lives day after day to stop Hell from doing the same damn thing? Like they were going soft just because they let one supernatural join their cause after them proved themselves useful by being, arguably, as much as she’d be loathe to admit it, one of the ultimate factors that resulted in Earth not being razed in its entirety!? Each question that swirled in her mind made her stew more and more.

“Who the hell do they think they are? ...Give them a piece of my mind… goddamn idiots...”

Now storming toward the front door with earpiece in hand, Fifer was continually mumbling an angry rant, causing a scene that most in or around the hall would be alerted to. Most hunters that were anywhere near her backed away, as they normally did when she got like this, which was honestly rather often lately with her being put through the ringer work-wise along with the rest of her team, not to mention poor old Xen who was probably off risking his life alone, again.

Those who knew fifer well enough, like Khal and Verona, for example, would know that she was likely about to give that crowd a faceful of the truth, no sugar coating at all. It had the potential to escalate the crowd as much as sate them, but it was clear from her body language alone that she didn’t care right now.

Aukanai Rustic

 

[Aukanai]

Everyone knew full well, just as much as he did, that he would have slept till noon at the least. But, lately, he’d been woken up. If anyone else, Amel would have greeted them with a raging glare, but this was Chase. His everything now, and Amel’s usual morning grumpiness was just soothed away by that cute face.

“What time is it?” Amel probably groaned out as he shifted in the bed. Chase’s cute face might have eased his mood but it didn’t ease the usual morning stiffness.

Chase was laying right beside him, arms loosely wrapped around Amel’s torso. They always woke up like this, with the morning alarm always being those sweet kisses that pulled Amel out of his sleep. And, Amel really wouldn’t want their morning routine to change at all. Even knowing full well, that Chase most definitely watched him sleep for a few hours. To him at least, it was endearing as hell. But, even though Amel would ask him what time it was, Chase seemed to wake him up at the same time everyday, around ten.

They’d been together like this for awhile now, basically living together despite it just being a dorm within the guild. But, they’ve become familiar with each other’s little habits and quirks. As Amel might have witnessed on the rare occasions when he’s pulled all nighter - that Chase often woke up really early and tended to enjoy doing a ritual of unusual stretches that only Chase could pull off. And, Chase had become familiar with the very obvious fact that Amel was not a morning person, and usually needed a two or so hours to muster enough energy for a mission.

Despite it being only a few months since the demon invasion, Amel and Chase have already settled back into their usual selves. And, one way or another, Amel has become more committed in staying with Chase, and having more faith that this relationship really will last. With the mere fact that they both - along with their relationship - survived a war and attempted invasion.

Regardless of the horrors they went through together, they both seemed fine. Aside from the supernaturals that they were always ordered to kill off, were now running around on the surface among humans. Amel didn’t like it as much as Chase did, but Chase seemed to be one of the hunters that were really vocal about his displeasure.

And, with this last month being the time that a supernatural or two had been recruited as guild members, Amel had dropped all solo work to just be with Chase. He felt the same on the issue, but Amel knew his place in the guild and knew it wasn’t his decision to make. He’d stay right by Chase’s side to be there to calm him down and stop him from snapping at anyone.

At least, so far, Amel’s done well to keep the stress away for both of them. He’s sure the director knows the risks and has found ways to ensure that Chase wouldn’t have to cross paths with any of the new supernatural recruits. It all just meant, that Amel will have to be more observant when they step off guild grounds.

But, right now, Amel is as happy as he’s ever been. Spending more time with Chase is the best case, and he’s really love it. Amel really just can’t get enough of him.

Especially now, just looking up at him and seeing that adorable smile, as Chase had slyly moved to sit atop of Amel. And, despite how much Amel was ready and willing for the dirty deeds Chase was surely thinking about, he knew exactly how this would end - with the both of them staying in bed all day and neglecting their missions. It was with great effort, especially with the way Chase leaned forward when Amel sat up, and pulled him into a long kiss. But, Amel was shuffled them both, and when his arm wrapped around Chase to lift him up with him, Chase legs seemed to instictly hook around Amel’s waist.

There was a hum of sort as Amel tried to pull out of the kiss, and after a few moments of Chase being stubborn, they finally parted.

“Not now..”

“Not now?” Chase only repeated, but in his eyes, Amel saw his own lust. However, it’s one of those moments of Chase trying to seduce him. Most times, Chase would win and have his way with him, but the other times - especially in the morning - Amel would hold back for it at a later time in the day (with a great struggle to find willpower within Amel).

It might have taken a moment of Chase staring into Amel’s eyes to know how set on it he was. And, Chase slowly unhooked his legs around Amel, arms gripping onto Amel’s shoulders as he lowered himself onto his feet.

With one last quick kiss, the two of them went about with getting change for the day ahead. Well..at least able did. As Amel was buckling up his belt, he would have looked over at Chase to see him just sitting on the bed with a joyful smile, still wearing his very oversized pajama shirt (which was mostly certainly one of Amel’s everyday casual shirts).

“Wearing that out?” Amel’s question had Chase remembering what he was actually wearing and let him know that he was suppose to be changing too.

Not that it was a problem, but with Chase’s usual boundless energy, everyone would probably get an accidental glimpse of something they weren’t ready to see. Pants...were probably a good idea.

“Oh..right!” At that, Chase giggled in a sort of amusement and changed into his usual attire with such effortless speed - at least, as Chase seemed to make it look.

They were just about to leave their room, but Amel had to do his usual reminding to Chase to bring his phone, and after a wild look around, Chase would finally get it from its hiding spot in the blanket. Then they were off, down the hallway and towards the common room.

The two of them might have walked hand in hand, but when they turned the corner to get into the kitchen, the first thing on Amel’s mind was coffee. However, he was bet to the electric kettle. Chase, knew exactly and had left Amel’s side and gracefully leapt towards the corner where the guild’s little coffee station was. And, despite Chase’s struggles of remembering things, he’d come to memorize just how Amel liked his coffee - the espresso blend of coffee beans, no sugar and a dash a milk. If Amel had pulled an all nighter, it would have three shots of the espresso pods into a mug, no sugar and no milk. For sure, Amel enjoyed the bitter taste.

While, Chase was dealing with the coffee, Amel took a glance around the room. No one was here with them right now, but there were plates in the sink and a bottle of half-use pancake premix sitting on the countertop. Which meant someone was still lingering around here.

And, right on cue, Sam came walking in with another plate in hand. She might have jumped a little in surprise to see someone standing there, but she didn’t exactly ease up after a few moments.

“O-oh..hello Amel,” it was a courteous and formal greeting, and with a polite smile, Sam shuffled towards the sink. A flick of the the tap and a squirt of detergent, Sam dipped her hands into the warm water beginning to fill the square space and began to wash the dishes left in there. There weren’t many, but Sam didn’t like to leave dirty dishes around.

There was a moment when Sam looked back around, to see if Amel was alone or with Chase, but in that moment, Chase had noticed her arrival and chosen to excitedly run up for a hug. It was a big shock, for sure, but Sam was just as joyful as Chase was - regardless of the dishwater having been flicked around.

“Ah, Chase! Good morning!” The two of them hugged tightly for a long moment, until Chase decide it was about time to let go. “I made pancakes for everyone, but..” Sam gestured toward the pre-mix, “not exactly the best,” she shrugged a little. “Let’s make them together next time?”

“Yeah!” Chase would have eagerly nodded in agreement. And, at that same moment, the kettle flicked off and Chase was jumping back to the little corner to get coffee for Amel. While, Chase occupied, Amel looked back towards Sam, who had gone back to rising off the plates and putting them drying rack.

“Know where everyone is?” With the fact that he hadn’t run into the other yet, met that something was going on. Sam might not know all, but it was worth asking her, since the other often talked to her.

"Oh,” there was a pause as Sam thought about it for a second, “I think Fifer mentioned something about the director putting up a urgent mission.”

At that, Amel pulled his phone out to log into the hunter’s app, and surely there was a mission being assigned to any and all hunters willing and able. A mediation? Definitely not Amel’s strong point nor within his interest to try. Chase neither, regardless of how he eagerly he grabbed Amel’s phone to read it (more like, skim it and miss all the important details) - and with how he hastily put the coffee mug down and almost spill it.

“Ooooh, a mission!”

“Chase, it’s not a mission we should do.”

“But-”

Amel would have shook his head again to try to stop him, but a certain frustrated woman was stomping her way down the hallway, muttering some supposed blood curse.

“...Fifer.” but it barely surprised Amel.

 

[Rustic]

Khal laughed a little, hearing Fifer call her by her full name. Khal always laughed, if she didn’t just make a point of assuring Fifer just ‘Khal’ was fine instead. But Fifer, without fail, had always opted for ‘Khalida’ anyway, and so it Khalida it was. Khal had just never got used to the sense of formality it held. She certainly found it novel, though. Much like Fifer’s rather responsible response. Khal certainly would stay ready. Or she’d try, anyway.

In any event, Khal gave a dutifully firm nod to Fifer regarding Xen. “Will do!” She always said that in response, but it didn’t stop her from always meaning it. Even if the only place her and Xen’s paths seemed cross naturally much was in a bar, she’d still keep an eye out. Khal realized that to be about the extent of Fifer’s business with her and Verona, though, so as Fifer made her way out, Khal gave her a wide smile as she went.

“Take it easy!” she called back to her, knowing full well Fifer probably wouldn’t. All the same.

Anyway, Khal was thinking about returning to another topic of conversation with Verona, but sure enough in such an eventful place, not much sooner than Fifer walked out than someone else had walked in. But of course, Khal’s lit up just as soon as she saw who it was.

“Kenai!” Khal cheerfully greeted as she saw him enter. Of course, he greeted the two of them in turn, too, in an excitable ramble, and Khal couldn’t help but fondly take him by the shoulder as he spoke. Once he had finished, she wasted no time in making a response.

“Of course I do!” Khal said, raising her hand from Kenai’s shoulder to pat him on the head. Khal already couldn’t really say no to a good breakfast, but especially not one made so thoughtfully by her own family. And man, did her heart really swell, thinking about how good a kid Kenai was. But in any beat she thought about Kenai, a thought about Vafi came not too long afterward, and at this very moment, it occurred to her that, before anything else, she should probably confirm someone knew what he was doing.

“Just, uh…” she hesitated for a second, looking down at herself as if trying to get her bearings. “Think it’s gonna need just a minute.”

Where was her phone again…? She dove her hand into her pocket for a second before her wandering eyes spotted it on the table. Right. She wasted no time in getting it into her hands and looking for her contacts. Vafi was bound to be around here somewhere. It was really only a question of if he’d answer. Khal hoped he knew by now that it was a far better alternative for him to do so, lest he be stuck to someone’s side for safe keeping the rest of the day. She didn’t want him to feel inhibited living with them by any means, but jeez, she had to do something to make sure he was staying safe, right? She’d come to love that kid, just as much as Kenai. Even if Vafi was sometimes… misguided.

It was going to take a bit of time, but she intended to figure out where he was. Through a series of text messages that took her way more time than most people for her to craft (considering Vafi was the only person she didn’t just outright call, out of respect for his hobbies - which strangely, and very legitimately, included birdwatching, which Khal had learned to appreciate herself) her back and forth ended up figuring out what she needed to know. Even if he wouldn’t be joining them at breakfast, Vafi was at least going to be seeing them very soon. That was what he’d promised, anyway. He said he wanted to finish up.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt that that explanation was innocuous enough, she’d see him soon. And with that matter finally taken care of, Khal was more than happy to finally get on with the day and have a nice breakfast with-

Work. A nice work-filled breakfast. She could hear her phone chiming. Damn! Khal looked back down toward the phone she’d just put away. She knew from the distinct sound that it was something she couldn’t ignore. Just as well, she saw Verona reach for her phone, too. And so Khal read the mission briefing, which was just as alarming as the alarm had been, if for a very different reason.

“This is wild. They’re asking us?” she commented to Verona incredulously. The ‘us’ she was referring to were the hunters as a whole, as in, ‘they’re really expecting us to take care of it’? Certainly not the two of them specifically. She didn’t think either of them had really been there long enough to try to speak for everyone there. Even as much as she might’ve liked to have taken the burden from anyone else, she wasn’t actually very good at acting ‘formal’ or ‘official’, anyway. But even then, who would be qualified to say something to all of those people, she wondered? It really seemed like something that should’ve been left up to someone specific in Khal’s eyes, but then, Khal could read the urgency in the briefing. She knew it’d probably been a real spur of the moment thing. Still…

Still, Khal’s teeth gritted as she considered the people in the Guild who might be interested in taking up this offer. She’d become acquainted with a lot of the people here. Some of them, maybe, might be qualified, but she just as also easily imagined a good few who might be a little fired up at their supposed need. Specifically, one fiery redhead who she could already imagine was one step out the door…

“Okay, Vee! I’m gonna... make sure nothing’s exploding, real quick,” Khal suddenly said, already bounding off. She didn’t like to make quick exits, but if she was going to catch up with Fifer now, who she would assume would still be near the kitchen eating, she’d need to hurry, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

While Khal was doing that, in the kitchen, Amel had made mention of a familiar name, so Chase’s eyes darted toward where he thought Amel’s were looking.

“Fifer!?” Chase called out excitedly when he saw the woman in the hall. He might’ve made a point to run and see her and generally see how and what she was doing, but before he could, Khal hastily rounded the corner. However, with the same strongly cheerful energy she usually carried, she managed to look almost entirely casual as she came to an abrupt stop beside Fifer and rested a firm hand on her shoulder to stop the huntress’ grumbly trek.

“Woah, ‘kay,” Khal said, “Hello, everybody!” Though she had a light, personal grip on Fifer, her voice was raised in address, and as she looked around at the others in the hall, and the people she could see in the kitchen particularly, she thought she had something that might be useful for everyone to chew on. “Know it’s a little early, but I’m gonna bend your ears a bit...” Anyone was free to leave, sure, but Khal was making sure anyone around was going to listen up. To that point, some of the others in the hall kept moving along, but a few stayed to watch as she made her point.

“If any of us,” Khal said, carefully and diplomatically, “are thinking about taking up that mission, let’s just take it slow, yeah? The reward’s enticing and all, but blood runs a little hot around here-”

“Isn’t blood always hot?” Chase interjected curiously, his hand raised. While that happened, Sam took a moment to move a little closer to him to more discreetly address his query.

“Not in reptiles,” Sam replied, quietly but amiably. “Or amphibians.” It was subtle, but her shift in tone was enough to cause Chase’s eyes to widen slightly, as it reminded him that he was interrupting something. He was also just kind of surprised to hear her answer, though, so instead of immediately falling silent, his eyes started to sparkle as he looked at her with a hint of inquisitiveness.

“Really?” he asked, as quietly as he could. Sam simply nodded enthusiastically in return, and pointed him toward where he usually kept his phone. Exchanges like this happened often enough between them that he already knew what she was suggesting he could do. He slipped his phone out and started to look it up.

“...and it’s not the best idea to let it boil over on any of these civilians, y’know?” Khal finished. “No reason to lose our drinking money.” she added, finally looking back toward Fifer with a playful but warm look. Khal knew she hadn't chosen the safest thing to say, but she did like to think that, for the time they’d known each other, Fifer would be able to understand Khal was just joking, and not trying to be judgmental. After all, God only knew that Khal liked to have some drinking money herself.

While Khal had been speaking, though, Chase had gone to look it up, but had been distracted by one of the news stories on the search engine he was using. Once his phone had finished loading the news site he had impulsively clicked on, he realized he'd actually read the headline right. It was coverage of the ruckus going on outside. The page had a thumbnail of the live broadcast going on right then, with the Guild headquarters in the background and everything. Chase stared down at the screen in awe.

“Wow, we’re on TV!” he exclaimed. He’d mostly directed his thought to Sam and Amel - the two people who were closest to him - but upon his announcement, he could see many of the other people around perk up. Including Khal, who blinked.

“No kidding?” Khal, despite her question, was obviously not especially surprised, as she’d actually read the mission request. The declaration of someone in the room of the newscast had just made the situation feel more real to her - and slightly more pressing. Such seemed to be true for others too, as she saw some of the hunters who were still lingering in the hall shift uncomfortably. Chase simply nodded.

“Yeah. It’s so weird…” he said, still staring down curiously. His gaze lingered unsurely on the screen for a few more moments before he unceremoniously returned his phone to his pocket and started to look around. For what, even he wasn’t immediately sure, but he did have a goal in mind.

“I wanna see…” He might have been drawn to a window if he’d seen one, but his gaze landed on Amel first, and so Chase moved in closer to him instead, casually wrapping his arms around Amel’s neck and moving to sit on Amel’s lap. It was clear from the eager look in Chase’s eyes that he was implying a desire to go out together, but inevitably, unless he got an answer either way, he’d probably just get distracted by Amel’s general presence. Which was probably a good thing. At that moment, he still wasn’t quite sure what all of this was about.

Meanwhile, Khal simply sighed, and scratched her head at the whole thing.

Aukanai DergTheDergon​

 

[DergTheDergon]

Nodding to Khalida’s greeting, she found herself calling back a very-much-like-her “I wish I could take it easy, Khal”, finding herself a little proud of actually being somewhat sociable before noonish for once. Not very much time had passed between that nice little conversation and the moment that the incoming mission notice turned her insofar quiet and pleasant morning into anything but, however.

The way Amel muttered her name caused Fifer to glare at him, for only a moment, before turning back toward the door and continuing to essentially march into a battle of her own design, only the “opposition” wanted answers and appeasement instead of a fight. Fifer had never been one to give these kinds of people what they wanted, and up to this moment at least, she was still dead-set on giving them a piece of her mind instead. A very angry and fed-up piece, specifically.

Upon hearing Chase call to her, oblivious to her current emotional state in true Chase fashion, she froze for a moment. ‘U-uh, hi Chase, I, ah, I’m going to go take care of this mission, we’ll talk later,” she said, her tone as casual and friendly as she was able to make it at the current moment.

Thankfully though, Chase having gotten through to Fifer over her currently chaos-filled mind made the Huntress pause for a moment, a small part of her then ironically aware, considering who she was speaking to, that she was being reckless in a delicate situation. She almost managed to take it down a few notches, in fact, but not quite.

Just as she was about to give into her overwhelming frustration again, another chronically cheerful member of the guild in the form of Khal came running straight for her. Khal’s intent to calm her down slowly reached the huntress over a period of a few moments. Her concerned tone when she spoke to the fuming red head and the firm grip the other Huntress had on her shoulder all worked together to get her to stop in her mental tracks. A mind-reboot of sorts then took place, Fifer finally looking Khal in the eyes as it happened. The look was miffed at first, the emotional part of Fifer’s mind annoyed at Khal for interrupting what she ‘had to do,’ though while taking a few deep breaths, the expression gradually softened into a lucid, regretful one while her fists gradually unclenched.

As Khal spoke to the others, she continued to slowly but surely release the built-up tension in her body through more deep breaths. “God…. what the fuck am I doing?” She muttered once she was in a decidedly calmer state, rubbing her temples exasperatedly with a hand that was rather sore from having been balled up so tightly, a fact she only noticed that very moment. “Damn.... I guess with all this stress lately, that really got to me…”

Frankly, now that she was thinking more clearly, Fifer wondered what the hell Elizabeth was thinking when she left the job wide open like this. Surely she must’ve expected something like her outburst, right? It was only thanks to Khal that the protestors and all the surely millions of people watching all over the globe didn’t get the brunt of her attitude. She still felt like she needed to say something, though, and everyone else seemed more hesitant. If she was calmer, more articulate, she could still say what she needed to say with minimal chance of things going awry, she figured. Though what was to keep her temper from flaring up again regardless in the face of all those angry people?

Listening to Khal’s mini-speech as it continued gave Fifer hope in the form of an idea, though. Khal’s personable aura, as well as perhaps the unique qualities of some of the others now gathered before her, might be just the balance Fifer needed to her blunt nature to hopefully make things go off without a hitch out there. Though… was it worth risking blowing up again? Should she even go out there at all? She lowered her head in thought before Khal turned to her.

The woman’s remark about drinking money was actually rather mood-lightening to the Huntress, although it did bring with it a stinging thought that she’d definitely been spending more time than she felt was appropriate drinking at work, especially with so many new recruits around to set an example for. Looking down for a moment in thought, Fifer sighed and listened to every word Khal said as best she could in an effort to drown out the voices in her head that screamed at her to do nothing because she’d screw it up. Action was always how she best dealt with anything, she mentally reminded herself, and part of her was confident that she did have something to

After Chase reminded her in his own, cutely oblivious way through his overheard-by-probably-everyone (and pretty damn endearing, if Fifer had been in a better mood anyway) conversation with Sam that everything she might’ve said would’ve made it on national television, she was now visibly much calmer. Fifer also made a mental note in this moment to have a chat with Sam later and thank her for her part in making the delicious Pancakes she’d enjoyed earlier. She’d just realized as she watched Sam try to explain a multitude of things to Chase so patiently and succinctly as always that she’d never said a word to the girl in her rush. She’d definitely rectify that as soon as she could, but right now there was a very pressing issue looming just outside the building that affected them all.

Fifer then found herself looking to Khal once more as she finished up her rallying words and giving there look of deep gratitude and an accompanying nod, a much calmer air about her now, before activating her own mic to further address the concerns of the rest of the now-gathered Hunters, most of whom were probably worried about the possibility of her causing the situation to worsen with a message to the crowd that could be summed up by the words ‘fuck you’. Granted, that was exactly what she had about to do mere moments before, but she had her comrades to thank for saving her ass there, just like any other mission.

“Alright everyone, now that Khal’s beat it into my head in her own way that what most of you probably realized I was about to do was beyond batshit, I propose a plan of action. Right now, a way calmer me, I promise, accompanied by as many of you that honestly feel up to the task, go out there and them understand from the perspective of people that fear just what they fear, and hell, are trying to prevent it all. I’ll make sure myself that Miss Director doesn’t end up stingy with the pay no matter how many of you join me. Either way, the job ain’t done until they all calm down and go home.”

Sighing, she continued. She had to face all of this, inside herself as well as out there among the growing mob, and represent the guild. She found herself turning to Khal and speaking directly to her, hand cupping the Mic. “So, like I said, I can‘t just say nothing to these people, but I think I’ll be able to keep it together better out there this way. I’ll be fine. I just need my team with me, I guess, just like any other mission.” There was a certain vulnerability to her tone on showing on her face, but it was also tinged with a hint of confidence, more in her comrades being able to act as a centering point to remind her of what’s important out in front of the crowd than in herself. With that, she turned back to the others, voice loud and proud again. “So, if any of you are as ready as possible like me, let’s do this. I promise you all, I won’t fuck this up.”

With that, she turned about and began heading out, no longer angry yet clearly wracked with nerves by the way she shook just a little as she stepped out the door and turned the volume up on her mic, as well as carrying the same kind of determination the other hunters would all be used to seeing from her by now right before any other mission. She was well aware that this was a different kind of foe than she was used to; in fact, it felt like a pair of foes to her: the animosity of the mob before her coupled with her own anger toward them. She’d never been in this sort of situation before, but she felt that there was nothing good to come of changing her mind on this bold plan. She was the leader of the currently most widely-acclaimed squad in the guild; if she couldn’t represent the guild in any other way than in combat, did she really deserve such a position? No was her answer to that.

Reporters rushed toward the door as Fifer and the others exited the building the crowd jeering and shouting as the hunters came closer. Thankfully, a line of armed guards had set up at the bottom of the steps leading to the Guild Headquarters, and so they weren’t able to get close to the hunters themselves. Taking a deep breath, the first word seemed to flow into an outpouring with every intent to gently help others to understand the situation. Well, as gently as Fifer could speak, anyway, given her very blunt nature.

“Listen up, everyone,” She began, taking a deep breath and glancing back toward her present teammates before she began.”It's understandable that you all, and all those watching at home, have very real concerns about all of this. However, so do we. Look, I know my boss. Director Crowne would never, ever have hired even one supernatural on until she saw the sheer magnitude of incidents that have been happening all over the world, some nothing like we’ve ever seen before. The reason for all that shit, if you ask me, is simple: before Hell forced the worst monsters on Earth out of their hidey holes down below, we didn’t have to deal with them. You know who did, though? I hate to say it, but the other supernaturals; the same ones that I have to admit played a part in kicking the Demonic Army’s asses right back to Hell where they belonged. This is our problem here: they have ways to deal with these threats we don’t yet, and may never have. Some of them have expressed a desire to help us; whether or not it’s genuine, well, we’ve decided we’ll have to take a chance on. You could even say the way we do things isn’t even changing; we’ve always done everything we could to protect all you people from threats most don’t see coming, and now, we humans are living in a world increasingly running amok with supernatural evil the like of which none of us hunters have ever fought yet. We had to improvise to keep up with the times. If all this goes south, we’ll just go back to the way we were running before. And for all of you who think we might mistreat these new employees of ours, you’re dead fuckin’ wrong. Hell, if I catch wind of anyone doing it, I’ll personally see to their punishment. Why? Because even I admit, we need the resources these supernaturals are willing to provide for us. We aren’t going to squander that, because it might mean the difference between keeping this planet we fought so hard to keep the Demons from claiming and losing it tomorrow. I promise you, we promise you… we’re going to keep our damn word. We always keep our word.”

At this point, Fifer didn’t know what else she could say any more. She’d said a quite a lot, arguably, but she couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t enough. Thankfully, that’s what she’d opened the proverbial stage to the other hunters for. Now, it was up to them to close things out in a way that would hopefully appease the crowd enough to stop causing a newsworthy ruckus so that everyone here could get on with their lives. She found herself a bit afraid for the possibility of one of them possibly making things worse, Chase being the one she most worried about, if he was among those standing near her, though she had a feeling Amel might keep him in check well enough if needed. If Chase had wanted to go, Amel would surely be here too. She decided to trust her comrades, and turned her mic off to say “That’s all I’ve got. I know at least one of you will have something to say that will help.” Her tone resonated urgency, but also trust, and hope.

 

[Rustic]

Khal found herself rather pleased as Fifer’s attitude gradually turned around. She had expected nothing less, though; it seemed to her like Fifer’s heart was usually in the right place. That was why Khal liked working with her. Khal’s attention had stayed focused on her until Chase had mentioned the broadcast, after which Khal had sighed. It had seemed to her like the situation had been handled on one front, but that had only left it wide open on another. The best case scenario was that someone was going to do the address, and all they could do was wait until they found out who would dare.

Or at least, that’s what it seemed like, until Fifer decided to speak up. Khal perked up, looking slightly surprised, especially when Fifer spoke to her directly. It seemed like Fifer still wanted to do it, then. Khal kept her judgement reserved until Fifer was finished, but when she was, Khal started to smile. After a moment, it wasn’t just a smile, but a toothy grin. Khal didn’t just like it; she was pumped. Fifer wanted to handle this? Taking charge! Of course Khal was on board.

“You know we’ve got your back,” Khal affirmed before the huntress started off for the outside. In the kitchen, Chase was noticeably enthused, too. He’d mostly been paying attention, but especially now that everyone was rallying behind Fifer, he looked at her and Khal both with wide, starry eyes.

“Yeah! We do!” he shouted in agreement, pumping a fist in the air. Khal looked a pleased with his response, too, forgetting herself why it probably wasn’t a good thing. She could get a little carried away. However, Fifer was already on the move, so Khal was more than ready to go with her. Chase naturally wanted to move to follow them, too, but when he started to, he could feel Amel’s hand cover the hand he still had pressed against Amel’s chest.

“We shouldn’t,” Amel said again gently. His lidded eyes seemed serious, in a way that finally grabbed Chase’s attention. And... Amel’s other hand slowly and smoothly started to make it’s way down Chase’s thigh in a way that also grabbed his attention. And it was… really… compelling. Chase could feel his face start to warm as he felt the stirringly intimate motion run across him. But...

“But…” Chase’s eyes broke contact with Amel’s for a moment, looking down hesitantly. Chase knew Amel was probably right - he obviously knew more about it, having read the briefing the whole way through - but even still, it didn’t seem to Chase like they could not go. They had to support Fifer, right? ...Right?

“Umm…” Thankfully, Sam finally broke the small silence that had formed, her eyes a little reluctantly looking at the both of them before focusing in on Chase with a small, shy smile.

“We could watch it together from here?” she delicately suggested, waving her phone in her hand demonstratively. “So we aren’t crowding her?”

“Oh, good point!” Between Khal and the guards that were outside, Chase knew the steps would probably get a little overfilled. And the last thing he wanted to be was sandwiched in between a bunch of different people. Just the idea of it was enough to make his skin crawl. He thought he could at least try if he needed to - Amel and Sam were with him, after all - but it seemed like Sam had the right idea anyway, in that it was probably better for both him and Fifer if they left the situation to Khal. Just the relief of not having to be stuck for however long freed him from all of his remaining doubt, and so he smiled widely to Sam once again.

“We can just congratulate her when she comes back!” Chase suggested. To that idea, Sam seemed a little relieved, too, returning his overjoyed expression.

“Yeah...!” There might’ve been a small hint of ambivalence to her voice, likely from knowing what Chase was going to glean from this speech, and how he would inevitably feel about it, but regardless, it was already impossible to prevent. Chase had already set his mind to seeing what Fifer had to say. His reaction would happen; it was just a matter of when.

And with that knowledge looming over everyone’s heads but his own, Chase obviously lifted his phone up from off the table and got to his feet to watch the broadcast. He liked watching things with Sam, so he naturally offered her to look with him. He offered the same thing to Amel, too, of course, but Amel didn’t even bother to attempt to look at the screen, instead opting to sip his coffee and listen instead. He always needed the energy anyway, but maybe today, a little sooner than usual.

At the very least, things started okay. The idea that they were hiring on supernaturals, at least, wasn’t new to him - it was a crisis that had already been addressed a week or two ago. With some property damage and some new scars along Amel’s abdomen, but it had been addressed. However, hearing it brought up again felt almost akin to opening a wound. And as Fifer continued to talk, he could only feel it further and further irritated. Chase’s expression had become something akin to confused disappointment, slowly degrading into disconcertment.

The sentiments she expressed didn’t really get through to him. All he really heard was a general idea: that she was there to tacitly convince everyone that, oh yeah, supernaturals are fine, actually! Or something. Whatever. He didn’t want to think that what was what it could be boiled down to, so he continued to listen and hope for some deeper clarity, but nothing in the rest of what he heard made him feel any better. The opposite, actually. Every word built up and ate away at his patience until he suddenly felt as though he just couldn’t bear to listen to them anymore. Even the efforts Sam or Amel might have made to try and mitigate his stress weren’t enough, and eventually, he very suddenly and violently threw his phone at the wall.

“Aurggh!” His accompanying frustrated yell wasn’t especially loud, but the forceful clattering of the phone against the floor was enough to make one or two of the hunters in the hall jump, and to make one of them even skitter away. Anybody else around might’ve, after briefly looking up, quickly looked back down toward their phones. Most were used to this occasional sort of noise, and mostly were just interested in staying out of Chase's way. So, nobody else really moved as Chase continued to shout.

“That’s what this was about!” he stepped forward to get a small distance to himself and let his fists fly out at his sides. It just really, really irritating! A thought along those lines repeated itself in his head as he started to stomp over toward his phone. At least his anger wasn’t as intense as it could be right now, but he could still feel it welling up inside him. As it was, right now, he was still just irritated, and he tried to keep focus on that sort of thinking that as he walked, if only because it was better than letting himself get worse. Still.

"It isn’t even enough that supernaturals have to be here; no, now they’re making Fifer lie for them and act like we’re all fine with it!” He gesticulated his emphasis to ‘fine’ by throwing his arms up wildly in the air. His oversized sleeves might’ve lessened the dramatic impact, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.

“They - they don’t even have to deal with supernaturals!” he said, turning back toward them for a moment as he made his point. “They don’t even know what it’s like!”

That was probably the worst part of it for him, too. That was the part that made his blood really start to boil. He felt the memories he’d had engraved on him as he’d said those words, and he held his elbows for a second, trying hard not to let his throat tighten as he jerked his thoughts away from wandering back to when he was younger. He’d been taught why the world needed hunters the hard way. Why couldn't they have just taken his word for it? Why did they insist on ignoring him and letting things get this far? Why did they always just ignore him? Why...?

He suddenly turned away from the both of him on his foot and buried his face forcefully in his arms. It felt like he was drowning in thoughts, but some part of himself wanted to say he would be fine, that if he just took a moment like this, he could totally get it together. It was embarrassing to him, to know he was still able to get so worked up in such a short span of time, but he wanted to feel like he could fix himself, just this once. He just... needed a second.

...As if. As it was, he was loudly huffing every breath. He was clearly about to lose it.

At least outside, things were going way better. At least, in Khal’s opinion. It hadn’t even really occurred to her what might happen in her absence, so she was blissfully unaware of anything that was happening inside. So, in short, things were looking nice and taken care of. The speech had been calm and thoughtful, and nobody had stepped in to stop it, so she chalked it up as a win! Fifer had looked back to her and had hoped for one last word, however, so Khal nodded sagaciously.

“I got ya.” That was all she said before she started attempting to fiddle with her communicator. It probably took her a minute or two, and a bit of help from Fifer, much to the confusion of onlooking crowd, but once she finally got it working, Khal stepped a little closer, took her time, cleared her throat, and spoke.

“Hell yeah!”

With that, she promptly turned her microphone back off and stepped back toward Fifer, grabbing her (probably a little too roughly) by the shoulder, and laughing heartily.

“Short and sweet! Just like my wife!” Khal howled, probably almost loud enough for the crowd to hear. In a more personal and serious fashion, however, she let go of her tight grip on Fifer and simply nodded at her side.

“You did great,” she said warmly. Khal didn’t know how anyone would take it, but hey, boo-hoo; if the boss lady wasn’t happy, she should’ve came out herself, in Khal’s opinion. Fifer did just fine. Probably.

Aukanai DergTheDergon​

 

[Aukanai]

At least, breakfast had been relaxing and peaceful. But for a mission to happen so soon in the morning was usually unheard of. But, then again...it’s not like any of them were planning for anything bad to happen that would call for a mission. However, dealing with a news crew and protesters wasn’t really a part of their job description, so this was definitely a new case.

Verona might have looked up from her phone with a thought in mind, but Khal was already rushing off. She had just a slight second to see Khal disappearing around the corner, mostly likely going to go catch someone. Seems that Khal was going to go help.

“I...uh, I suppose they have it handled,” it was a hesitant mumble, and no matter how much she might have wanted to lend a hand in this mission, it was probably best she stayed out it. Verona was particularly soft when it came to dealing with people, so should those people out there react negatively to what she had to say, it’d most definitely hit her really hard. And, it was a discomforting feeling that Verona didn’t want to go through, she didn’t want to make anyone angry or upset. Thankfully, most often, Khal helped her avoid such tense situations.

“Well, in that case,” she nodded to herself as she got to her feet, with a new thought set in her head, “I should go find those boys.”

Kenai was sure to be close by, after having just finished making pancakes, not that it was too much of a worry for him to wander off. It was Vafi, that Verona needed to find, who knows what trouble that boy was up to, and it was best she found him before he caused havoc. The guild was already dealing with a problem, and there was a concern that Vafi might interfere and escalate the situation. Verona certainly loved Vafi, but he was definitely tough to deal with.

---

There had been a slight hesitation, and for a second, Amel might have thought that Chase would have just left after Fifer. But, at least Sam seemed to distract Chase from the thought. And with that, Chase was getting off his lap to go watch the live stream that was happening outside. With that, Amel shifted in the chair and reached for his coffee.

He knew this would be like a ticking bomb.

Amel’s seen it with Fifer, the way she seemed to grit her teeth when she said it was fine. It wasn’t. He knew it was only forced, but Fifer knew just as much that they all had to bear with this change. Regardless of the majority of the hunters’ wishes, the Director seemed to be doing her own thing for the guild. And it seems that the Director has had a talk with Fifer recently, as just until a week or two ago, Fifer had been just as verbal about not wanting supernaturals in the guild.
There was always the pressure of being a team leader and trying to keep up appearances. However, Amel was not at all pleased about this, and Fifer just settling into it. It wasn’t much to do about, and there was Fifer’s calm front had been rubbing off onto Chase, until now. There were the words that Amel didn’t want to hear from Fifer, he had prefered the Fifer that had been disagreeing with the Director’s actions.

But, it was definitely especially hard for Chase to hear.

That much was clear. When Amel heard the clatter of the phone being thrown onto the floor, he looked up them, coffee still in hand. He really hated seeing Chase like this, but there wasn’t much to be done. When these moments came, there wasn’t alot that could stop it. It still stung in Amel’s chest, and he wished that Chase would never have to feel like this. These times were rather difficult.

A deep inhale and Amel set his coffee back on the table as he rose to his feet. Sam had already backed off with being startled by the outburst, but he stepped back again when Amel walked forward. Chase was turned away and hid his face. The sting only worsened. To take all of Chase’s pain was what he really wanted. But all he could do was just hold him. His hand gently resting on Chase’s hips, and Amel was so close that the back of Chase’s head was resting against his chest. The touch was only enough when Amel felt Chase lean backwards into him.

“I know..” it came as a soft whisper into Chase’s ear. It was all that he knew to say, Amel was never big on talking about it. He was just trying to find a way to make it better, with not being able to say much about it. There wasn’t much Amel could do about the situation. He might have talked to the Director, yet Amel knew well that she was less likely to listen to him. Besides, she must have several people already bickering at her, and she still chose to take these actions in letting supernaturals in.

There was a moment of silence while Amel just held Chase in his arms. With the closeness still, Sam still stayed and even moved forward. She definitely knew how Amel felt about it, to some degree, because seeing Chase so upset hurt her too. She wanted to be there for her big brother too. Just to let him know that she was, she reached a hand out to tap Chase’s arm.

“We…” she might have began in a hesitant tone, but she still gave Chase a smile when he uncovered his face, “we’ll do what we can, together. We’ll get through this, right Chase?”

Rustic DergTheDergon​

 

[DergTheDergon]

Initial reactions and responses among the crowd to Fifer’s speech were varied, to say the least, and chaotic was likely the best word to describe it. Press kept trying to persuade the guards to let them through, though after receiving orders over their radios to not allow them near Fifer for any means, they only refused with greater insistence. After some time passed, they eventually gave up and redoubled efforts to get good angles of the huntresses now at center stage. Khal’s words of support, in true Khalida fashion that almost made Fifer smile despite everything, almost, both helped her to stay there for a moment as many of the people in the crowd jeered and convinced many of the less passionate of the bunch that Fifer wasn’t the only one who cared whatsoever for their opinions, even if that care was more like an annoyance in her case.

After her speech, a large number of the protesters left, many of them disappointed but a few of them actually having resonated with Fifer’s speech and feeling as though they had better things to do than push against a movement that was clearly going to continue within the guild anyway. “Oh, thank fucking God,” Fifer murmured, making damn sure she wasn’t speaking into the microphone as she gaze upon the masses of people walked back to their cars or their homes, left with a number that was thankfully a lot easier for guards and police to contain. “Nice moral support, Khal,” she said, turning to the woman as she did so, her mic still of. “Thanks.”

After she was done, the press then stayed at the scene, each different organization trying to find the most exclusive material for their stories among the most vocal members of the crowd that were all too happy to give it to them. In doing so, most of the news-people were surprised to notice that the opinions of the crowd had become more divided than they were before (and elizabeth was utterly relieved to observe the same as she watched the interviews on her computer screen); a few of them felt that they understood the reasoning, and if she could come up there and so confidently deliver those words, even though she let it be known to a degree that she didn’t really like it herself, there must be some good to come of this.None of them seemed happy about it, of course, but Elizabeth already found herself scrambling to enter the promised bonus in Fifer’s next paycheck from her office.

It was well-known that many supernaturals were partly responsible for quelling the Demon invasion, and by most accounts more effective, due to their inhuman abilities and magics, than doing so. The stigma behind them being unknown and mostly thought of as monsters had mostly strengthened now that they were in the collective spotlight of humanity to a degree utterly unprecedented. Although the simple truth that they were instrumental, if not essential, to defeating the demons, was only truly lost on the most opposed, those that stubbornly stayed for hours after the fact but were successfully kept from getting out of hand by the presence of both police and the guards on what had become their hunting grounds. Knowing that the supernaturals had aided humanity against Hell, coupled with the possibility that they may be needed in a similar capacity one day for the good of humanity as well as their own kind, seemed to resonate with a good few people that were interviewed after Fifer and Khal had excused themselves and hurried inside.

The moment Elizabeth, watching the goings on outside on her computer with mixed anxiety regarding possible backlash and relief that the response of the people wasn't as negative overall as she had feared, saw her hunters come back inside, she received a message that confirmed the arrival of a couple of new recruits, which she felt thankful were human. The Dragoness Xaira and a few other resilient flying types would be joined to form the supernatural search and rescue unit that weekend, and Elizabeth rubbed her temples and decided to see how much the buzz died down around the issue in the next few days before she put that plan into action. She would hope that a few successful missions under their belt would calm the public further as long as they did nothing to deserve slander and the false slander that would likely be flung their way in the media was stopped by guild intelligence before it spread much. She’d already provided explicit instructions to them to look out for such rumors and use their full authority if necessary to delete that info from existence, and on top of that she had made it very, very clear to Xaira and the others in the interview that they need to be very careful how they relate to the public, and to a degree they all seemed acceptant of it. Besides, they all seemed to be decent individuals, and indeed brave as hell for taking the job knowing what they were getting themselves into. However, she knew that that would likely never be enough to convince her hunters, and thus she had measures in place to keep them as separate from the non-human recruits as possible.

She was risking a lot for this, but just as she’d told too many people over and over again for her liking, she knew that this was the logical next step in protecting humanity due to the current state of the world, and right now she found her fingers crossed that the surprising amount of civilians who seemed partly satisfied by Fifer’s speech grew dramatically in a very short time. Business was all about risk-taking after all, especially when your employees risk their very lives every damn day. She knew that all too well by now.

Sighing, the boss lady then brushed her long blonde hair aside, her locks disheveled and even slightly greyed by recent stresses, and sent Fifer a notification to report to Boardroom A7 for new recruit orientation. She hated to do this to her after the Huntress’s likely rather draining speech, though she had notified Fifer beforehand that a few new human hunters would be arriving in two waves that day as well as the next, and the only other person she trusted with them that was here today, Xen, had the task of bringing them here.

Meanwhile, Fifer sat down with a sigh inside the guild, and found herself sighing again once he noticed Amel currently in the process of intensively comforting chase, just as she feared. She met Amel’s eyes for a moment, both a look of slight apology and a fierceness to them. She knew that he would know what that look meant. He was a bastard, but he wasn’t stupid; he knew just as much as she did that what she’d said out there needed to be said. She looked over at Sam, having caught the tail end of her words meant to comfort Chase, and smiled slightly in acknowledgement, nodding to her as she passed. Fifier found herself unable to meet Chase’s eyes at the moment, knowing that, understandably, he was rather upset with her. Srill, ignoring him felt just plain wrong to her, so she found herself stopping in front of the boys for a moment. “I’m sorry, Chase…” She said, sighing afterward and finding herself moving on, needing some distance from people at the moment. As she passed by Amel, she quietly said, “I know I don’t have to tell you but, take care of him, Amel.”

With that, she filled her thermos to the brim with another cup of coffee and sat down, facing the window and staring out of it to keep herself distracted as she recovered from that debacle.

Just as Fifer was sitting down and more or less chugging another cup of coffee, the huntress received a notification from the Hunter app with the tell-tale “urgent” sound effect that sounded rather like an alarm. “Oh yeah, that was today… dammit,” she mumbled, reading the notification and confirming, with a sigh, that it was indeed time to show newbies around. Finishing her coffee, she then promptly stood and made her way there. Once she thought about it for a moment, she was probably going to be grateful for this to a degree; if she had the time to sit around, she might end up passing out, caffeine or no; she felt exhausted after exposing herself to the entire world like that, not to mention seeing what she’d done to chase. Part of her was relieved glad the situation was contained now, however; it hadn’t been for nothing.

As she walked into the boardroom, she regarded Zen with a nod and looked over the two new recruits for a moment before speaking. “Alright, Xen, I’ll be taking care of these two now. Get yourself some rest, you look like you’re about to die if you don’t get any. And remind me to chew out our Boss for how much she’s been running you ragged lately; Kenai told me I just missed you at breakfast.” She was honestly glad to see the man, as her less-than-hostile-for-once demeanor toward him likely conveyed to him.

Turning her gaze to the new recruits again, she regarded them with as much authority as she could in her current state. “My name’s Fifer. I’ll be showing you around the place. Make sure you pay attention, I won't repeat anything. You have any questions, you can ask me as we go. Names?” She hadn't even really gotten a good look at them yet, but, frankly, she wanted to just get this over with right now.
Aukanai Rustic

 

[Rustic]

Chase hadn’t wanted to get angry. Really, he hadn’t.

Just… every problem he’d had lately had compounded on to this one issue, the one he had already been the most tense over. And he just didn't know what to do. He had just gotten so quickly overwhelmed that, by the time he'd realized it, he'd worked himself up too much to remember how to stop. That was how things always went, and his feelings always just grew and grew, until there was no more room inside of him to even breathe. Chase had started to feel that way, and it made him tremble lightly, under the weight of the inevitability that he’d just explode. Again.

And he was sure he would have, if it weren’t for Amel.

Because, once he felt Amel’s hands on him, everything… stopped. All of his frenzying, chaotic thoughts disappeared, and all he was left with was the realization that he wasn’t alone. Chase was a person, standing in a room with other people, and, more than anything else, he needed to substantively breathe. So… he stopped, and took one long, strained breath. Slowly in, and then all the way out.

And that helped. At least, his body finally stilled, and he felt at least a small sense of stability. But still, a lot of the emotions remained just under the surface, and they weren’t so easy to let go of. But… Chase felt like it was okay. Amel’s soft words and kind commiseration had assured Chase of what he’d needed to know. Despite this happening before, Amel was still with him. Amel still understood - or at least, understood enough. So, after a few reluctant moments, Chase finally relaxed into Amel, letting go of his own face and instead holding onto one of Amel’s arms.

Doing so brought back a lot of the same intensity from before, but it was okay. It still wasn’t easy to deal with all at once, but with Amel, it actually felt possible. So, he held onto Amel just a little tighter, bowed his head, and started to come down.

...He probably hadn’t stayed that way for too long, but it still somehow felt like he had stayed that way awhile when he heard Sam speak beside him. Chase’s face lifted up immediately in response, and his expression showed surprised as he stirred, but still he looked a little disoriented when he actually looked over at her. However, he stiffened when he did, and reluctantly responded, “Y-Yeah…”

His eyes promptly fell away from hers, though, and he looked back down again. It probably wasn’t the most convincing thing he’d ever said, but it’s confidence wasn’t helped much by Chase’s registering of Fifer nearby. Chase hadn’t even realized she’d come back into the room until she was beside them, and the apology that followed didn’t seem to do much for him, either. He just... didn’t really have anything to say about it. Or even, to feel. It wasn’t like it any of it was Fifer’s fault, anyway, after all. At least, he didn’t think it was. Her speech had just been the symptom of a bigger problem. And Chase really didn’t want everyone to be upset about it.

To that thought, Chase’s lips pursed thoughtfully, and his eyes lidded for a moment. And then, after another moment, he looked back at Sam in a suddenly more serene way.

“Yeah,” he asserted, suddenly smiling softly. There was still a bit reluctance to it, but this time Chase at least seemed to sincerely believe it himself. “Yeah!” Because Sam was right. This wasn’t just a problem Chase was having on his own. For everyone’s sake, he could help dealing with it by just trying to stay positive. He could deal with this situation for as long as he could, and then… he’d have help figuring out something else. Either way, he smiled a little wider, his heart starting to swell with immense purpose and gratitude for Sam and Amel both.

However, Chase was taken somewhat off-guard when, out the blue, someone else decided to chime in. “Hey, that’s the spirit!”

Chase blinked. He couldn’t see Khal from where he was standing, but there was no mistaking her voice. Indeed, when Chase turned to look back, he realized that Khal had probably come in some time ago, and had just decided to make it known she was sitting at the table in the back. He nodded happily to her sentiment, too, to which she responded with nodding back. She took a brief look over at the rest of the group, too, before she overlooked them entirely and turned her gaze toward the kitchen.

“And hey, now that things have calmed down…” Khal clapped her hands together. “Time to chow down!”

And with that, Khal lifted herself from the table and began her walk into the kitchen. It might’ve otherwise seemed like a complete non-sequitur, but it was, at least, purposeful to her. She was definitely aware that some people in the room hadn’t already eaten, and that it might make them feel better to do so. Because hey, that principle seemed to hold true for most people! And meals were good at breaking tension. But ah… Khal was also definitely pretty hungry.

Anyway, once Chase had finally processed what Khal had said, his eyes went a little wide.

“Oh, right…!” he exclaimed. Though, after the initial realization, his face twitched slightly in discomfort. Oh, right. He... hadn't ate. And... now it wasn't a good time.

“I think I’ll have to wait until later…” he admitted, seemingly a little disappointed with himself. He knew Sam had probably made it, but... he really couldn't eat anything so soon after getting angry. Even knowing that, it still hadn't been easy to say no, but potentially vomiting definitely seemed like the ruder thing to do. From the nerves, not Sam’s cooking. Probably. That hadn’t happened for quite awhile!

“I’ll…” Before thinking about it, though, he had started to speak again, not wanting the refusal to dip the more lighthearted mood any. “I’ll definitely have some next time, though!” he promised cheerily.

Thankfully, he it'd probably be okay. He could tell that other people had already eaten around here too, so she'd probably already gotten plenty of feedback. And, if nothing else, Chase figured Khal would probably be delighted to finish his share, anyway. Or like, the rest of them in general? Most specifically because she'd already heated some of them up and was walking back over and she had a lot of them. And Chase doubted those would be the only ones she ate.

They wouldn't be, of course, but Khal had taken her phone out to start figuring out when and where the rest of her family was, so that would take her a hot minute. She had at least figured out Vee wasn't still waiting from her brief check before coming back into the kitchen (whoops), but with any luck, she and the rest hadn't made it off too far.

Regardless, after Chase's attention fell off that matter, true to usual self, he seemed to be immediately struck with curiosity. “Um…” He looked up at Amel, who he was now facing. “We weren’t scheduled for anything… right?” he asked, pressing his body somewhat thoughtlessly up against Amel's so that their faces would be closer.

There were ways Chase could, and usually did, find that sort of thing out - scheduled missions showed up in the hunters’ app, and Chase tried to put stuff in his phone’s calendar - but Amel was quicker and more reliable and more pleasing to look at than Chase’s phone was. So, Chase looked with wide eyes, hoping to hear some good news on the subject. Frankly, anything, Amel could say on the subject would probably be good news, granted - work would be relaxing right now, and otherwise, they could do ‘other things’ - but Chase liked anticipating good news, so he did.


Ah, Drew felt lucky.

The past however long it’d been since the war had been a weird stretch for him. Well, it had been for everybody, really. But Drew was like, a young guy. And he and his family had had the good fortune of not getting assaulted or robbed or… whatever by demons. So, for awhile now, he’d been spending some time helping out some of the people who had been hurt. It seemed like the obvious thing to do, because why not, right? It certainly hadn’t been what he’d been used to doing, but it’d been interesting, and pretty fulfilling-feeling. And after a recommendation from one of the friends he’d made out of this whole mess, a call and an interview or two, bang, somehow he’d ended up here.

And boy, wasn’t this place nice? Drew had been awe of the Hunters’ Guild ever since he’d walked in. A lot of the stuff he’d passed by looked fancy and new. And there were guards outside and everything. He’d only seen those around museums and shit. Of course, he knew that was because hunters were like, controversial and everything, but still, it’d made him realize that this place was kind of important and official in the same way. He hadn’t really been thinking about that sort of thing when he’d signed up, but once that he’d had, he’d gotten this... really passionate feeling in his chest. He’d liked the idea of being able to help out some more while he was on his grind, y’know? It had made him determined to give this job his best, and to not fuck it up.

...Granted, he’d already cut it a little close. He’d gotten to the Guild a little later than he should have, ‘cause he’d started his day trying to return something someone had left at his apartment thinking he’d totally have time and she’d been totally sweet and… well, things had gotten a little out of hand in the process, the usual fuckery. But, he’d made it, which was what counted, right? Some older guy with some rad looking hair had showed him in, and now he was standing rigidly next to a pretty future coworker. So fuckin’ cool.

He didn’t have much more time to anticipate what was coming next before it rushed on through, though. It came in the form of a rather busy and tired-looking woman glaring them all down. Drew was… a bit jolted, admittedly, by how unexpectedly rough she looked (like, ow) but, more than a momentary twitch on his part, he was otherwise unaffected. Really, his first actual impression of her was that she seemed kinda hardcore. He was probably lucky to be taking orders from her, since she like she would know what was up around here. But… more than that...

“Oh, yeah…!” Apropos of nothing, once Fifer had asked for both of their names, Drew absentmindedly came to a sort of revelation. Getting completely off-topic for a moment, he pointed at Fifer with a sort of bewildered look on his face. “You’re the chick that did the broadcast just now…”

In fact, one of the reasons Drew had been almost late in getting here was because of the broadcast. One of his friends had sent it to him, going nuts and asking if Drew was actually there while she was speaking. He hadn’t been - and he hadn’t gotten a chance to hear what she’d said - but still. Wow. He folded his arms back behind his head and gave her a lackadaisical sort of smile.

“Well, hey, mam,” he greeted. Sort of awkwardly, but clearly more from the unexpected coincidence and his abysmal sense of formality more than anything else. “I’m Drew! It’s... cool to meet you.”

That might’ve seemed like the end of it, but the moment’s Drew’s eyes were off of Fifer’s, they fell on what was behind her, and he happened to catch a glimpse of something else. His chill expression brightened a little, and he waved to the back.

“Oh, and you too, kid!”

Through the window in the boardroom, Vafi Clio had been peeking in, and he stared back at Drew contemptuously.

Vafi had been filled with purpose when he’d heard that there’d be new hunters joining today, hoping to possibly get a glimpse of orientation, but to his profound disappointment, it seemed like somebody had already ruined this golden opportunity for him. To that point, when Fifer seemed react to his purported presence nearby, he quickly hid his head, just hoping that she wasn’t about to care, or worse, take the guy seriously.

Vafi had to suppress a sigh while he did, though. Like, seriously, his luck today already sucked. He couldn’t imagine this going much worse.

Aukanai DergTheDergon​

 

[Aukanai]

Another day, and a completely new experience.

Yuki was always excited for work, being a new mission every day and new opportunities. But she was especially ecstatic today. It was her first day transfering to HQ from her tiny little branch. She was looking for more work, experience, and..well some ‘family business’. She was here first to transfer, but her brother will be transferring here as well in a week or so.

When she was leaving, it seemed that he was stacked up on quite a few missions that had to be completed before his transfer. Otherwise, he would have travelled with Yuki.

Nonetheless, she had been waiting just outside the director’s office for about half a hour. She was definitely been early and the director was really busy but had informed that someone would be coming to give her a little welcome.

And, for a few more minutes, she would have swung impatiently in her chair, humming a tune loud enough to make the director rub her temples in annoyance from inside her office. This girl had no volume control.

Just like a certain Hauer.

It wasn't very long, however. Because Xen arrived pretty quickly, to the director’s relief. He was certainly still tired, especially since he had been expecting today to be his day off. But, Xen was never one to turn down Elizabeth’s requests. She was working just as hard as he was, so he could at least do this for her. She was paying him, after all. A little favour off the payroll wasn’t a big deal.

”You must be-” Xen might have began, staring down at his phone with the information of the new recruits that the director had sent through, but Yuki was eagerly jumping onto her feet.

“Yuki!”

The sudden shout was unexpected and definitely surprising enough to make Xen jump and lose his calm composure. His eyes wide, eyebrows raised and body jolting in shock. He quickly regained himself though, perhaps returning with a slight hesitance.

”R-Right,” a soft, slight cough before he glanced back at his phone,”well, Miss Noress, just this way.”

It wasn’t far down the hall to the boardroom, that Xen led Yuki toward but she still seemed to find the time to fill with a long conversation that Xen himself was barely a part of. Yuki seemed satisfied though, as she stepped inside when he opened the door.

And when the both of them took a seat at the table, on each side, Xen finally set down the two pieces of paper he had been holding when he first greeted Yuki.

”Now then, your team leader will be coming to give you the induction,” Xen slid one of the papers toward Yuki, ”you’re a transfer, so you probably already know the policies, but please read them over again.”

There were a few minutes that passed by and several question and weird comments by Yuki, before Xen’s phone buzzed again.

The other recruit had arrived at the gate, but the guards needed confirmation that the guy was legit a recruit. And, of course, Xen was situated with it. So he would have stood up and with a slight apology and left Yuki in the boardroom.


Amel’s breathing tensed when he felt Chase grab onto his arm. It was a touch in return that he had been waiting for, but this must have stung him just a bit. He wanted to be there to keep Chase calm, but feeling the tightening grip on his arm just made him bite his lip in concern.

Chase was trying really hard.

But, he was getting there and that only made Amel want to keep him closer. So, he did, his arms moving to further wrap around Chase’s hips, and Chase’s grip might have changed to slide down Amel’s arm and take a hold of his hand. It was silent among the two of them, yet the sweet, though still simple, touches was enough for them to talk.

It’s always been like that with Amel. Less talk, more action.

And, when Fifer had made it back inside and returned to the scene, just the look was enough. She didn’t need to say it. First approached with a daring gleam in her eyes, as if edging him to say something about what she had spoken of. But, when all seemed done and Fifer had made her way to the few people around, her second approach was somewhat more...gentle. Which had taken Amel by surprise. He turned his head slightly to watch her leave the room.

And god, he really did want to take care of Chase.

But, it was never just him. The way Sam had that tenderness in her eyes had seemed to help Chase too, or maybe, much more so. There was a certain warmth of comfort between Chase and Sam, that at least eased Amel’s worries. When he could not soothe Chase, the Nave’s were a family that had Chase’s back.

In his deep thoughts, Amel had stayed in his spot in silence, while Chase had spent those moments responding to Khal. If only, her presence being acknowledge by Amel’s glazed over eyes looking in her direction. He was looking, but he wasn’t exactly seeing. His head may have nodded slightly, but he felt numb.

There were too many things on his mind, that all came down to the way his chest hurt when Chase had those outbursts. He wanted to make it better. Should he bother talking to the director? Would she listen even a little bit? Should he try to push these new supernatural recruits out of the guild? Or would that only stretch the issue?

Question after question as his mind scrambled to construct some sort of plan. But, all that halted when he felt Chase’s eyes on him. Coming out of his slight daze just in time to here the small question. It was a bit delayed, but Amel glanced down at Chase just as he felt him pressed up against him.

Despite the worry he had, Chase was just bouncing back to his usual self just as fast as he had lost control of his emotions. Chase’s persistence at trying his best was one of the many things Amel admired him for. And, looking at him now, Amel felt that love washing over him all over again. It might not have been an answer, still Amel couldn’t help but crane his head and press a soft kiss onto Chase’s lips. It was only a second, and when he Amel pulled away he was wearing a small smile. A rare sight, that Chase has been seeing more often lately.

”How about we take a shower first”, Amel finally spoke, his hand moving to cup Chase’s cheek, ”and then we find a mission?”


By the time Xen got the entrance where the guards had stopped the new recruit from entering, most of the media crew and protesters had cleared - with the odd few sticking around either to try to sneak into the building or to just annoy the guards.

There was a slight murmur between Xen and one of the guards about ID, but once they had confirmed that this was the guy they’d been waiting to arrive.

Xen might have been a little more welcoming, but with knowing that Fifer was probably on her way to the boardroom to give the two recruits their inductions around the guild, he didn’t have much time to properly introduce himself as he tried to quickly get the guy there.

”Apologies for the rush, but your team leader will be here soon,” opening the door and gesturing Drew inside, he gave a polite smile as he stepped inside after. He waited a second for Drew to take a seat beside Yuki, who definitely greeted Drew with an eager wave, as if he was an old friend.

“Hi ! I’m Yuki!” She definitely twisted in her chair to face him more when he sat down, “it’s really cool here, right? He’s pretty cool too, right?” For a second Yuki gestured to Xen, and at that he only sighed slightly under his breath.

This girl was full of energy, and Xen wasn’t awake enough to deal with it. But, when he got Drew’s attention again, he handed him the remaining piece of paper on the table.

”Please thoroughly read the guild’s policies while you wait. If you have any questions, your team leader will answer them.”

With that, Xen nodded politely and left the room before Yuki could call after him.

“Oh man, he left already,” she whinged slightly, flopping her arms lazily onto the table, “anyway, what’s your name? Are you new? Like...new new? I’m a transfer actually. My brother and I are from a small branch interstate. Oh, my brother will be transferring here soon too. Do you know anyone a part of one of the guilds?”

As such, Yuki rambled on without giving much chance for Drew to actually answer her questions, but she just seemed so excited to be here. Even when she did pause to hear his response, they were only interrupted by a woman striding in.

“Oh hey!” Yuki cheered, not seeming that phased by the woman’s appearance, but more so just thrilled, because - “wow! You’re already so cool!”

She seemed really serious and it only hyped Yuki up even more.

“I’m Yuki, Miss!” She had enthusiastically leapt to her feet, stancing a terribly done salute, but she was enjoying herself, “gosh, this seems so officially and all! The other branch made us sort through folders on our first day, and we didn’t know anyone’s names until the third week, haha! This is great!”

She finally stopped speaking and sat back down when Drew spoke up. Yuki hadn’t seen the broadcast, nor had she seen the crowd outside because she’d come from one of the side entrances. Still, she seemed awed and took a glance at Fifer again.

That was just...extra cool!

Yuki only snapped out of her idolizing Fifer daze when Drew seemed to wave at someone else just outside the window. But when both her and Fifer looked in that direction, no one was there. Yuki only just laughed at that, finding it amusing.

“Is someone hiding now, or are you just seeing things?”

Rustic DergTheDergon​

 

[DergTheDergon]

Fifer eyed the two before her, leaning against the closed door coolly, nodding and noting each name. Their introductions were both… eccentric, to say the least. Fifer found herself hoping that her amiability would be enough to not make either Drew nor Yuki’s first day here a drag despite her current more-done-with-this-place-than-usual state of mind. At the very least, the worst seemed to be over since Chase had calmed down a bit. At the very least, it seemed unlikely for something as disrupting as the protest and everything around it to happen twice in one day.

When Drew had his first good her, which she saw his reaction to just barely, Fifer averted her eyes from him for a split second but otherwise didn’t really react. She knew that sort of look all too well; it was the ‘holy shit! What happened to her face?!’ look. As long as he didn’t ask outright, Fifer had more than enough practice receiving those sorts of looks from people to quickly let it go and move on with the task at hand. Besides, he seemed rather laid back, which depending on what other traits he brought to the table, might end up being a fresh air for her considering the people she dealt with most on a daily basis.

Yuki didn’t seem at all surprised by her appearance. Perhaps she was one of those people who thought scars were cool, but even then, Fifer was a bit taken aback by the seeming lack of initial reaction as she met Yuki’s eyes for the first time. After all, her scars were… quite a bit more extensive than most of the scars one would see, even on other Hunters.

Drew’s mention of the news caught her off guard, and she found herself sighing before nodding it him, rubbing her head in exasperation. That wasn’t going to be even close to the first time she was recognized for that, she could see it now. Thankfully, the girl, Yuki, though seemingly Chase levels of energetic, possibly even surpassing him in that regard.

“Y-yeah, that was me. It’s, uh, cool to meet you too, Drew. Ma’am isn’t necessary, though; call me Fifer. Only person you’re gonna need to call Ma’am around here is Ms. Crowne. Most of us are rather informal unless we’re dealing with her or some power above her.”

Yuki’s… enthusiastic remarks took Fifer aback for a moment, and it could certainly take some getting used to. However, she noticed that having Energy like Chase’s and Rhea’s around sometimes helped to lighten the monotony of her day-to-day work life and sometimes even improve her mood a little, as long as she wasn’t far too deep in her own head for such things to affect it. Yuki had extensive prior experience as well, so she was likely to be one hell of an asset.

“Err, th-thanks, Yuki, it’s, ah, nice to meet you as well. I think you’ll be happy to know that here, our procedure is to give you a tour, get your skills up to speed and get you on the field as quickly as possible. Each agent really just deals with their own paperwork after missions and that’s about it. In fact, considering your experience and connections, you’ll likely be cleared for high-risk missions pretty much the moment you’re in the system by tomorrow morning.”

Before she could move things forward, Fifer was alarmed to hear Drew addressing a ‘kid’ peering in through the window. Whirling around, Fifer just barely caught a glimpse of Vafi ducking out of sight with her one still-working. Sighing, she turned to drew with a cautionary look in her eye.

“There’s only one kid around here who’d be snooping around like that. His name’s Vafi; he’s one of two sons to a married couple who work here. I’d advise against dealing with him much, all he really does is cause trouble, not for lack of his moms trying. His brother Kenai is a great kid though, and their moms are both damn saints. One moment, gotta talk to security.”

Fifer then pressed a button on the earpiece in her left ear to radio the guards, turning back around and trying to catch sight of him again, though Vafi being Vafi, he was almost certainly far gone by now. “Fifer to security. If any of you see Vafi, try to keep him away from us, alright? I’m on orientation duty. Thanks. “ Sighing once more, the woman then turned back to her new charges.

“Alright, let’s get going you two. I’ll take questions after my little expose’. Please stick with me and pay close attention, I won’t be repeating myself if I can help it."

With that, Fifer turned and opened the door the the both of them, motioning them out. Once there, began going through the motions of showing them the common area first, since it was the closest and most important.

‘Alright so, this is where you’ll be hanging out between jobs. It’s highly recommended everyone does so so that you can quickly get a team together to head out on another that way.There’s free wifi, coffee's always freshly made right over here on this counter. Speaking of which, one second please.”

Striding over to where the coffee machines were, Fifer took out her rather massive travel mug, unscrewed the cap, and poured some more glorious black gold into the cup, no cream or sugar added, filling it to the top and taking a sip. “By the way, this machine’s basically mine, not that I’m gonna kill you if you touch it or anything. The others are likely gonna be more full most of the time since I essentially run on this stuff. Anyway, moving on.”

“Kitchen’s over there as you can see. It’s free to use, but a few common sense things to keep in mind: Don’t steal other people’s food and mark your own so some of these jackasses don’t decide it’s free game, and for fuck’s sake please wash your own damn dishes and clean up afterward.”

Continuing onward, she nodded in acknowledgement to each, knowing that she had established with everyone a policy: they could say hi and briefly introduce themselves, but holding up the tour would earn them a glare. The only exception to that rule would be Chase, who’d earn a gentle, quiet reminder, and a particularly careful one today after the breakdown he’d had earlier that morning (not that he’d likely need one since Amel would probably remind him, and he may not even be in the mood today considering). Once any introductions from surrounding people were done with, Fifer

“A few more important things of note: you’ll soon be given access to a mobile app that tracks available jobs. Yuki, you’ll probably be familiar with it, but Drew, if ya need a tutorial ask someone. It is absolutely mandatory to always register yourself on the app as having taken the job, and please pay attention to the Danger Rating. The higher it is, the more backup you’ll need Some will be red; those are above your rank and thus off limits unless ya rank up. Generally, the procedure is to join a mission and either ask around for teammates, or do what I do and just find the people around who match up with the pictures of the members who joined. Or well, that’s what I used to do before I became a Team Leader. Teams are a whole other animal, and if you’re good you’ll be asked to join them once you have a rep around here. Sometimes, if your phone GPS shows you’re in the building, you can be assigned to a job from higher up, and you’ll get an urgent notification. Showing up here is kinda like being on call that way, so make sure you’ve got your equipment on ya and are ready to go within minutes of stepping in this room. At the very least, every Hunter is required to be available for work at least three or four days out of the week unless cleared for leave by Director Crowne.”

Turning around, she pointed to a set of doors on the other side of the room with a large red cross above them. “That’s the infirmary. If you come back from a job with injuries, go in and get yourself patched up by Sam, our resident medic. If you get too beat up to come back yourself, we do have trauma teams at a nearby hospital on call at all hours but it’s generally a last resort due to how dangerous Supernaturals can be to common folk. It’s free to get patched up here so make use of it, please, for your own sake.”

If Amel was nearby, her eye would look over and glare at him as she made that comment, but she quickly returned her one-eyed gaze to transfer Yuki and new guy Drew. "Also, try not to get careless out in the field, please. A few years ago I would’ve thought it was common sense, but, well… let’s just say the right side of my face is the kind of shit that happens when you get careless out there.” She looked over both of them with a cautionary glare before continuing, a bit of regret clear in her eyes as well. One of those times where she should've listened to Zen, much as she'd never admit it. She shook it off again quickly though as she continued her spiel.

“Sam’s a freakin’ angel; she’s usually hanging out in the infirmary proper, if not around here. It's impossible not to like the gal. Plus, she’s damn good and damn passionate about her job, we're all in good hands with her." Fifer was well aware that Sam might be still in here and overhearing all of this, and honestly, she hoped she was since she meant it and she felt like she didn't give the girl enough credit when she ran into her.

"You might also run into Virgil in there. Green hair, can't miss him. He’s kind of a medical researcher but he helps Sam out with the healing from time to time too. He’s usually in the back working on medicines, magical injury treatments, stuff like that. He’s also a good kid and does some downright lifesaving work himself, but tends to get overly curious about damn near everything. Make sure you let him know when he’s getting too invasive or he won’t know to stop.” The time that Virgil naively asked Fifer to strip in order to study the Dragonfire burns on her torso came to mind, accompanied by a blush on her unburned cheek before she quickly switched gears again.

Turning around, Fifer then pointed to the other side of the common area to another set of double doors that had the words “research and development” clearly displayed over the doors in neon blue letters.

“On the other side, there, you’ve got R&D. Generally you won’t need to go in there, but you’re free to have a look every once in a while, just try not to get in people’s way and don't touch anything. There’s a few rooms for small-scale manufacturing of standard gear, but if you wanna see the bleeding edge of hunting tech, you’ll wanna pop into the lab in the back, you’ll know it by the constant music thumping out of the place. You’ll find Rhea, our resident inventor, in there pretty much all hours in a given workday. The girl’s a damn genius. Best not to strike a conversation with her though, she’s usually so caught up in her work she won’t know you’re there. If you do catch her attention though, be prepared to get your ears talked off, if they aren’t bleeding already that is. It’s cool to watch her work for a bit after a job though.”

Once again meeting their eyes and signing, Fifer straightened herself up.

“Anyway, those are the main facilities around here and everything. the rest you’ll be shown tomorrow. I’ll be showing you two to your rooms now unless you got questions. I’m all ears.”

She then waited patiently for confirmation of either questions or none to come before proceeding, taking the moment to take a nice long sip of her coffee.

 

[Rustic]

Eyes intently locked on Amel’s, Chase was more than prepared to stand a little taller to meet Amel for a kiss. Just the small gesture would’ve been enough to get Chase excited, but, seeing the smile Amel went away with from it with just made Chase giddy. He had already started happily to gripping and tug Amel’s shirt just slightly to contain his own joy, but once Amel had made his suggestion and lightly cupped his cheek, it was over. Chase was just a bundle of energetic movement; he bobbed up and down quickly on his feet and flapped his hands a little excitedly.

“Yeah! Let’s do it!” he shouted eagerly in response. There was no possibly better plan in the world and… ah!! He was so, so ready! So ready that his body almost seemed to decide for itself; in almost an instant he was leaning up toward Amel again to kiss and feel him really passionately. Every part of him just seemed to move automatically, his hands and his body pressing up and feeling just whatever he could to could sate his sudden desire to just have Amel for a moment. Even after Chase pulled back after a few moments of intensity, it was clear to see just how keen he still was. Eyes as round as dinner plates, without any hesitation, he immediately began to rush off for toward the showers.

“Bye, Sam!” Chase called back, throwing one of his hands in the air in a hasty wave goodbye. “I’ll miss you~!”

And just like that, Chase quickly disappeared, giggling all the way into and through the hall with Amel following a little more casually behind.

Today was about to get so much better.


Later on, Chase was stretching his limbs happily as he strode by himself through the halls. It had been about half an hour since he’d left with Amel. His bottomed-out mood had bounced right back to life, and now he didn’t think he could feel much better. He felt limber and at ease; all his tenseness had fallen away, and now, abuzz in the potent afterglow of... showering with Amel, he was more than ready to start the day over. More than anything though, really, Chase felt… really content. Grateful from the reminder this was of what he had now versus not too long ago. He knew that he’d have never been able to handle a situation like this as well on his own.

...In other words, he was in exactly the sort of mood he’d usually be clinging to Amel during, but for some reason Chase had decided earlier it was probably for the best to let Amel leave to go do… something else. Something that… he had definitely told Chase about, but Chase couldn’t recall what it was now. The important part was that Chase remembered it being something important but boring, but that the two of them had plans to regroup soon to do something very not boring. Namely, taking out some low-level supernaturals. The sort of depraved, decadent slaughter that would put them in the right mood for the rest of the day! And Chase couldn’t be looking more forward to it.

He just had to find something to do for right now. He knew there were plenty of things he could do, and he had plenty of things in mind. But, he didn’t mind just wandering around for a bit, to see what was up around the Guild. After all, there were usually all sorts of interesting things going on he had no idea about!

Speaking of which: not too many halls away, Vafi shifted uncomfortably where he sat.

Once he had moved away from the window, he had found himself looking back at the other wall to the hallway. He could still hear the conversation going on inside, but he didn’t think he needed to. He knew the second he’d caught Fifer’s eye what would happen next. Despite her appearance, she was just about the most boring person he’d met here. She’d just end up calling security. As Vafi moved to leave (to get a headstart) he managed to catch the last bits of what she was saying.

...Not that it was very interesting. Just her writing him off. He ground his teeth just slightly as he got to his feet and started to go. He already assumed everyone thought he wasn’t worth their time, anyway. She was just one of only ones saying it out loud. She had also compared him to Kenai in the same breath, though, which was at something he could snicker at. Beyond that, though, frustrated with the lost opportunity and more than aware it was past time for him to get gone, he mustered as smooth and as casual as a power walk as he could back down the hall. No direction in mind, just walking.

He didn’t know for how long he went, but it couldn’t have been too long. He had just been hoping to roam around the lesser used hallways long enough that nobody with security was actively looking for him. Really, he didn’t know if they even were; he just knew what they’d done before once they caught him snooping around, and Vafi really wasn’t trying to get sent back to his moms right this second. He was lost in thought, imagining what he could still be doing with the time he had today. Maybe he’d could even catch the last bit of the orientation if he stumbled onto it at the right time, even if only to have fun at certain woman’s expense.

He was still walking quickly, though, and too lost in thought to notice where he was going, his awful luck for today caused him to collide directly with the only other person walking around the hall other than him.

Vafi hissed air between his teeth as the man he’d run into yelped and jumped backward. Ouch. Thanks to the man’s kind of insane reflexes, the two did little more than brush into each other, but the loudness of the noise was rather startling. Vafi couldn’t stand loud noises. Not to mention, now was the worst time for one. The noise might’ve been the least of his problems, though. Once Vafi had stumbled back, he realized just who he’d run into: Chase Hauer.

The startled, almost disgusted look Vafi saw on his face was, admittedly, kind of scary. Not that he would admit it, but… well, he had had heard how fascinated with gore this guy was, and seen for himself just how unafraid he was to use knives on people. It seemed like common sense to at least be wary. Vafi started to stumble back, thinking maybe he should get away while he still could, but the feeling didn’t last long. After a moment, Chase obviously started to compose himself again, putting on a polite smile and even laughing lightly. Even if Vafi could still see him wincing a little.

It left Vafi kind of confused, considering how weird reaction it was to such a small thing. It was almost kind of annoying to see him mood whiplash so quickly, considering it had kind of freaked him out. But... whatever. In the end, he facepalmed, but dragged his hand down his face a little in a slightly frustrated relief.

“At least you’re not security…” Vafi muttered, taking a deep breath. He wasn’t really expecting a response, considering how quietly he’d said it, but Chase blinked.

“Security?” he asked. “Are they looking for somebody?”

Vafi just looked at Chase for a moment, just studying him. He would’ve assumed anyone else would know why he had had mentioned it, but judging by the blank expression on Chase’s face, it was easy for Vafi to guess that he didn’t. Interesting. Vafi considered it for a moment, but didn’t waste any time in changing direction with his response.

“That’s what I heard…” he said vaguely. Then, apparently, it was Chase’s turn to look at him. Vafi didn’t really know what he was thinking, but, in the end, Chase frowned.

“Well... don’t tell them I was here,” he said carefully. Kind of an unexpected response for an adult, but sweet. Vafi could work with it.

“Only if you don’t tell them I was here,” he immediately responded. It made Chase look slightly confused, which made Vafi hold his breath, wondering if his boldness had made Chase suspicious, but...

“...Okay,” Chase ultimately said with a shrug. Still definitely utterly oblivious. Vafi subtly and silently sighed in relief.

That handled - and not wanting to linger any longer than necessary after the noise Chase had made - he gave an acknowledging nod to Chase to signal his leave, and started to walk past him.

And that… should’ve probably have been the end of it. But…

Vafi glanced back in Chase’s direction as the man started to walk off. It occurred to Vafi that… that agreement had been incredibly easy to come to. Way too easy. Chase seemed pretty agreeable. If it meant enough to him that Chase had unquestioningly agreed to him already, then maybe...

“Hey,” Vafi called out.

Chase turned back around.

“...Give me something, too.”

Chase looked especially baffled now. But again, he didn’t hesitate. Vafi was almost amazed as he walked back over, because just like he’d asked, Chase had reached down into his pocket. He fumbled around a bit in there before pulling out a knife and cocking his head as he offered it up, as if to ask if it had been what Vafi had wanted. Vafi casually took it up from out of Chase’s hand and brought it close to his face to inspect it.

“Sweet,” Vafi said, gripping it tight. It was an actual combat knife; deadly sharp and detailed with decals on the side and everything. Cool. He took one last look amused look at Chase’s face, before nodding one last time and turning back again in the opposite direction.

“Later,” he said, walking off.

“Later…” Chase replied quietly, just watching Vafi as he went.

And, well… after that slightly confusing interaction, Chase found himself alone in the quiet hall once again. He didn’t totally understand what had just happened, but when did he ever? Anyway, what Vafi had said was still on his mind, too. Chase couldn’t say he was concerned, so to say, about security particularly but… now that it was on his mind, the prospect of running into certain people alone had made him kind of antsy. Security, sure - he knew a few people in security in particular that didn’t like him for a… few incidents - but administration, too… after this morning, he had some issues with certain people and he didn’t want to deal with anything else today. He’d already decided the rest of the day was going to be good! He was going make Amel happy and everything would be great!

So… Chase’s first instinct was to text Amel so he wouldn’t be alone, and he even took out his phone to start to do it, before he was like, ‘oh, duh, Amel’s busy!’. So, instead, he just wrote a small heart emoji instead. With a lot of exclamation points! Yay! He smiled wide once the message was sending itself off, feeling just a small, ecstatic rush from thinking about it.

However, after a little more thought and a few more presses of his screen, he found himself back at his contacts list. He didn’t get a chance to consider the names listed for long before he could hear more footsteps approaching from his right. Not the direction Vafi had left from. Instinctively, he hurried to put his phone away, and thought about hurrying off himself, but before he could decide, he heard the voices and saw the faces of the people who were coming by.

“Oh, hello, Chase!” Verona called toward him, her usual warm smile gently gracing her face. By her side was Kenai, who Chase was pretty sure was her other son? He seemed nice like Verona was, from what Chase had seen of him, anyway. If maybe a bit skittish? But that was fine. Chase smiled widely back at her, more than happy to see them both.

“Hi, guys!” Chase greeted, giving a small, acknowledging nod towards them both as they approached. “What’s up?”

“We’re actually on the lookout for Vafi!” Verona replied. Her expression then turned politely curious. “You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“Uh-huh!” Chase said. “I have!”

That was all he said. There were a few moments of prolonged silence as Chase simply stared at the both of them. Kenai looked toward his mom with slightly worried confusion, but Verona simply stared back at Chase, and after another moment, she elaborated.

“Would you mind showing us the way he went?”

“Sure!” Chase said.

That was, again, all Chase said. Except, this time, he promptly turned on his heel all the way around and started to leave in the direction Vafi had. Likely, again, to Kenai’s immense confusion, but one way or another, the two of them started to follow closely behind, both walking in long strides as to not lose sight of Chase in his hurried skip toward… wherever.


Vafi could only blink tiredly once he saw Chase start reapproach him, Verona and Kenai not too far behind. It had been... maybe five minutes since Vafi had left? He'd had time to get settled, had just sat down, and now was face to face with exactly what he had spent so much time avoiding anyway. A disgruntled, “Dude,” was all he could muster as Chase sauntered in. Vafi's eyes narrowed in condemnation, too, but Chase threw his hands up innocently.

“They’re not security!” Chase protested defensively. He paused, however, and turned back toward both Verona and Kenai for a moment. “You guys aren’t security, right…?”

Vafi facepalmed again.

“Whatever,” he relented, just deciding just to ignore how many ways Chase had accidentally made this worse. Instead, he straightened up where he sat a little, keeping his hands firmly in the pocket of his hoodie, holding onto his concealed, holstered knife. He hadn’t actually had time to put it away yet. Oh well. He just looked up at both Verona and Kenai stoically.

“What’s up?” he asked.

DergTheDergon Aukanai​

 

[Aukanai]

An hour or so of idle time spent in the comfort of Chase, and despite the former worries for the day ahead, at least Chase’s mood had been brightened by Amel’s sweet embrace and affection. He was happy for now but Amel wasn’t sure how long that would last, with the issue of this morning’s chaos bringing about a chatter throughout the guild. Surely, once reminded of it, Chase would most likely lose it again.

However, Amel could take it with a little less concern for now. Chase’s giddiness being just enough to assure him that Chase would be fine. At least, until Chase would see Fifer again. Things were still tense, and Amel hadn’t gotten any word in to her. At some point, he had to.

But, for now, Amel had other matters to tend to. And, at first being hesitant, Amel ultimately decided to head for the R & D Lab, leaving Chase to roam around the guild until Amel’s job was done. Not that it was much of a job, just a simple collection.

His usual, and definitely most favoured sword had been sitting in Rhea’s lab for about a week, waiting for repairs. The wait wasn’t much better than going to the Guild’s repair shop, but..Rhea did it for free. Or, at least in trade. Amel would have to bring back materials from missions for her own projects and wacky experiments.

But, this time, it would seem he would come empty handed, much to Rhea’s expected disappointment. She still always held his debt to her over his head, and eventually he would pay it off. Regardless of having nothing to give her today, Amel still headed over to the lab and pulled open the door, and ultimately unleashing the earbleeding beats into the hallway. At least, unlike some morons around here, Amel knew to close the door behind him. The volume was not a bother to him in the least, he was used to it at this point. However, Rhea was especially hard to gain the attention of when she was like this.

Nonetheless, Amel strode in, past the front workbench littered with random doors and scraps of metal, through to the back of the lab. Where larger piece of metal sat up against the wall, and a second bench had numerous sculpted blades sat unfinished. Most likely the ones that Rhea wasn’t happy with, and has just put to the side. Lately, it seems she’s been trying to develop magic infused weapons with the help of the Science Department.

Deciding to check it out, he takes the one on top of the heaps and tests in his hand. It’s got a nice weight to it and for a minute, he thinks about taking it for a test run. But that wasn’t what he was here for, nor did he think Rhea would let him use it without adding more to his debt. So, he puts in down on the bench and keeps walking to the back.

Where the source of the music is, and where it’s the most loud. He stops in his steps for a moment and glances around the space. It was a clutter back here, just as much as the rest of the lab, as if Rhea owned the entire space. Well, she was the only one who was here today, and the only one who seemed to be working every damn day of the week.

Taking a glance to his left, there was a rack where a few weapons were left. Most likely other collections, just like what he was here for. Among them, was Amel’s own sword, looking good as new. Perfect. He gave a slight hum to himself in being content as he took hold of it. That familiar sensation came back to him and he was just relieved to have his hands back on it.

It took a few seconds of him admiring the blade before he looked back up, and further across the room there was Rhea, who was way too focused on what she was doing to notice Amel was here. Not that Amel really cared, but he was maybe slightly curious as to what she was doing.

Having to hold it up off the ground with two hands, Rhea had a large cannon gun held at her hip. It looked like that, at least, but it was quite bulky, as if she has mended extra parts to it. Which was exactly the case, and as Amel watched her pressed down on a switch on the gun, he was expecting something to happen.

As such, something did happen, but something definitely not according to Rhea’s plan. Whatever she had add onto the side of the gun, just simply fell right off and crashed to the floor. At that, Rhea would defeatedly put the gun down in a bit of huff. Clearly, not to plan, and Rhea definitely seemed frustrated with it. This must have been one of those projects that would result in hundreds of attempts and test runs.

She might have gone back to inspect the gun or write in her crinkled textbook, if she hadn’t looked up and seen Amel. At first, she sighed by she straightened out her back with a bit of a stretch.

“Right..I see you’ve got your sword already,” with Amel at least, she was always straight to business, knowing that Amel wasn’t the type to appreciate her findings and theories, nor did even pretend he did. So, she wanted to make their business short and small. As such, she reached out her hand.

Amel shook his head at that, “nothing today.” Rhea scoffed at that and hit his arm.

“Again? Really?” She crossed her arms, “well, whatever. But you owe me big time! How the hell did you mess up your sword that badly?!”

He shrugged, taking a glance at his sword now, “things happen,” he shrugged, and at that, Rhea scoffed again.

“Yeah, right,” she rolled her eyes, her the look in her eyes and her posture made sure to show off her disappointment. “Next time, I’ll get the Director to take it out of your paycheck,” there was a short sigh before she began to gesture for Amel to leave.

And so, he did. Knowing Rhea’s connections to the Director, and in knowing he was the Director’s least favourite, he knew it wasn’t just a bluff. He would prefer to have his paycheck, but he put himself in this situation. It was his own fault, as per usual.


Talking to Chase was always so...unusual and confusing. Hence why Kenai tended to keep away from him, along with the various rumours of Chase’s violent outburst, which he has not seen himself. As they approached him, Kenai grasped onto Verona’s hand as that nervous feeling came back.

But, Verona never seemed to have any issue with talking to Chase. Either out of being an adult, or just her just generally liking everyone. Though, both her and Chase were friendly people, so they seemed to always get along well when they did talk.

At least, they eventually got it all sorted and Chase would help them find Vafi. Not much of a walk down the hall and around a few corners, they would find him sitting down, fiddling with..something, which he seemed to quickly hide. Verona might not have noticed, but Kenai did. He let go of Vee’s hand then a rushed ahead a little bit, looking down at Vafi and keeping his question to a whisper. He wasn’t going to dob on his brother right off the bat, but if Vafi was up to no good, he was going to call him out.

“What did you just hide?” The question was met with no answer and Vafi staring him dead in the eyes, as if to say ‘it wasn’t any of his business’.

Kenai would have been determined to find out, but Vafi was soon getting to his feet as Verona drew near, never breaking eye contact with Kenai. Until, Vee took Vafi into a hug. She was always so affectionate to both of her sons, though at times she would tone it down for Vafi being not so fond compared to Kenai. But, she hadn’t seen him since saying goodnight last night, so all he could do was roll his eyes and bear with it for the time being.

“Have you had breakfast yet?” After a minute or two, Vee step back to let Vafi out of the hug, looking at him with that same soft smile she always had. Since Vafi seemed to like to roam around on his own a lot, including early in the morning, she was never sure when he had food.

But-

“It’s almost lunchtime, mum,” Kenai had been looking down at his watch. A watch that he’d gotten for his birthday last year from Khal.

Verona seemed to hum in slight surprise at what the time was now, but she looked back to Vafi, “let’s have lunch together,then.” Then, she was looking over her shoulder back at Chase, “did you want to make lunch with us?”

However, knowing Chase well enough to know that he would cook up more than just lunch, it was definitely in the back of Vee’s mind that they’d have to go around the guild and give food to everyone. There would be just way too much for them to eat. But, Chase was alone right now, and Verona wanted to give him some company.


Now that his little business was done with, Amel was just leaving the R & D lab, holding his sword and resting it closely to his leg. At least, being mindful of not hitting anyone around him with the sword. Or, rather it just being out of a habit that Amel barely needed to think about. Because, no matter, he didn’t bother to look at the guild members walking by.

That was, until, he actually looked up from glancing at his weapon, he would spot Fifer in the company of two others. New recruits? He wouldn’t have known, he didn’t know a big majority of the guild members anyway.

Regardless of the situation, and if Fifer was in the middle of an important conversation, Amel didn’t care for whatever he would be interrupting. He would just come up and stand at Fifer’s side, turning to her and ignoring the other two.

“You seen Chase yet?” At the way Fifer bit her lip in slight concern, Amel guessed she had not, and sighed. “He’s fine, think he’s forgotten about it for now.” He shifted then, thoughtlessly moving his sword to hold his sword behind his head and the blade resting on his shoulder.

“Woooooah! You’re sword is so cool!” Yuki would have perked up, only just now seeing it from her position. Give a wide smile to Amel.

He ignored her, however. “Don’t mention it to him,” he would speak to Fifer again.

“Hi there!” Yuki would almost demand his attention by jumping into the gap between Amel and Fifer, hand waving wilding in a greeting.

But Amel’s brow furrowed, “right, and these two are?” The question was directed at Fifer, regardless if he was looking at Yuki.

Rustic DergTheDergon​

 

[Rustic]

Well, of course Drew had had to haul ass to get inside ‘on-time’, so he’d jovially waved off Xen’s pretty cordial apology with something along the lines of, ‘Oh nah, dude, it’s all cool, sorry for the trouble…’ He’d been mumbling that on his way in when he’d met Yuki, and he’d waved back to her when she’d waved. It had him pretty happy, honestly; he loved nothing more than an upbeat atmosphere. Smiling and lounging back in his chair as soon as he sat down, he’d already prepared himself to 100% dial into what she was saying… but enough that it took him a second to notice Xen’s attempt to hand him papers.

Needless to say, while he didn’t have much time to work in an apology again, Drew sounded sheepish - and as deferential as possible - as Xen hurried out. Drew kept a smile on his face, but once Xen was gone, he winced, and lightly knocked himself on the forehead with his fist a few times in embarrassment. Dumb, dumb, dumb. He’d just inconvenienced that guy twice already. Drew had to remember to apologize and thank him again, the next time they met. Whoever he’d been, he’d seemed painfully busy.

At the very least, it was easy to get back into the spirit of things when Yuki’s comments picked back up. Yet, now he felt torn mentally torn between trying to read and trying to follow along, neither of which were working so easily. Especially considering he had to squint down at the paper in his hands, for one. He knew he’d benefit from reading glasses, but those seemed like kind of a hassle to him to get a hold of. He wasn’t exactly made of time, money, or the mindfulness needed to keep them intact. Nevertheless, he made do with what he had, and picked up one of the pens on the table to underline and keep track of information as he listened.

When he finally noticed a lull in the conversation, though - as per his usual modus operandi - he started to speak. It’d been a little difficult to keep track of her different tracks of conversation in the meantime, but hey, he’d been a waiter before - and a pretty good one, at that. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

“Okay, to start…” he brought the back of the pen he was holding to the corner of his lip thoughtfully as he spoke.

“One, hell yeah, this place is the shit,” he exclaimed, gesturing to the room around them. This room, in particular, did look a bit stale, but it was meant more as a general statement than anything. “Two, uh, of course that dude’s hair was a look. Jealous.” Like, duh. “Three… Drew. That’s my name, ah, nice to meet ya,” he framed his chin and winked. “And four…” He’d been on a roll, trying to get everything out in the open before Yuki was tempted to start another roll of questions to keep track of, but he thought about her last question a moment longer.

“Err, you know a guy named Hi- ?”

Unfortunately, Drew hadn’t quite had time to finish his question before Fifer had strode into the room. But, hey, Drew didn’t really mind. It was a nice excuse to speak to this Yuki some other time. Of course… it seemed like she didn’t really need an excuse for a conversation, but still, it was nice to know he had something substantial to potentially say to her, anyway.

For the moment, though, he’d decided to listen to Fifer as intently as he could, consciously making an effort not to say or do anything transparently dumb. He’d managed relative success on that front, though of course, he hadn’t had much of a chance to screw up, noticing Vafi directly after his introduction. When Yuki expressed some doubt, he scratched his cheek unsurely.

“Mmm, pretty sure?” he said, unsurely. However, his eyes sparkled with an idea after a few seconds. “But I mean, if you like bets…”

They hadn’t quite had time for anything like that though, because, as Fifer had explained, the sighting in question had already been accounted for. Drew kind of pursed vaguely thoughtfully his lips as Fifer’s explanation, but otherwise listened along just as he had. The wording had just made him feel a little bad for the mystery kid, honestly. Not because he doubted Fifer’s description’s authenticity, but just because Drew could relate to that sort of perspective. He hadn’t exactly been the easiest kid to raise, either. He wasn’t really sure how, but maybe he’d learn a bit more about what had been up with that. If only to satisfy his own curiosity. Which he always had in abundance.

That was the end of that, though. And, with that, came actual orientation. Fifer instructed them both to follow, and Drew nodded.

“Yes mmmmmm-” Nope, nope, he wasn’t going to say ma’am... “Fifer.” Flawless. Unfortunately, he’d kind of practiced quite a bit trying to be formal, so it was probably going to take some time to get out of this self-made habit. But, mistakes into magic, he put a hand to his hip triumphantly. “See, I got it! I’m quick on my feet.”

Yep, yep. As for the actual tour, he again tried not to talk too much, because he knew it would invariably lead to a lot of confusion and difficulty getting his foot unstuck from his mouth, but his acclimation to the place and its varied cast was probably more and more obvious as the tour went by. He made a few good-humored comments along the way, including a comment of, ‘Woo, that coffee’s blacker than her coat!,’ to Yuki at Fifer downing a substantial swig of coffee. He thought that was pretty hardcore, as he drank his with a lot of creamer. (At least on that front, he wasn’t trying to impress anybody.) He also couldn’t help but parrot ‘green!’ and clap once at the mention of a Virgil with green hair. Good color!

That was about it in regards to the tour. Until a fresh face stopped by, anyway.

A tall, gorgeous guy with some luscious looking locks. And that big-ass sword? Good God. Drew shifted on his feet a little before totally straightening up his posture. Everyone here was really something, weren’t they? Beauty was one thing - anyone could look beautiful, he thought, with a little effort - but interesting was what he liked. He didn’t really know what to do with himself at that very moment, though, taken so off-guard, so he chose to avert his eyes for a few seconds away to Yuki, who he’d at least grown comfortable towards.

After a few moments, however, she came to point out the obvious, bounding over to the mysterious stranger with her (seemingly usual) unbounded curiosity. In observing her bouncing around him, it seemed to Drew like the guy was either busy or exceptionally antisocial. It seemed clear by the guy’s unwillingness to engage that it was probably the latter, but the difference didn’t matter to Drew. He still fully intended on approaching this conversation the same way.

“Hey, guy,” Drew said casually, immediately snatching up the space in the conversation that had been left for Fifer’s answer. Totally aware that he had not been looked at or even personally addressed, but that was the point. Actively ignored, he wanted to be noticed. A good impression, preferably, but he wasn’t picky - he just wanted to get his foot in the door with everyone while he had an excuse to. So, he stepped up beside Yuki carefully and waved his hand once or twice beside hers.

“The name’s Drew, and here’s my new friend, Yuki -” Drew smiled over to her as he said it, but continued, “She’s new to here, and I’m just new here, haha.” His statement had been lame, and not even really a joke, but Drew still smiled wide alongside his laugh, anyway. But he made a point to try and be quick about finishing up with a more serious look, and an outstretched hand. “But uh, it’s nice to meet you…”

He’d only been looking for a name, but… “It isn’t.” Fifer said. Drew turned his head toward her. He couldn’t exactly tell if she meant it as an indictment of his character or as a general warning that he wouldn’t respond well to this sort of approach, but either way, he took the interjection in stride, snapping his fingers instead of keeping his hand out to shake and chucking a bit.

“...Damn! Straight savage,” he said, looking back over at Amel. “Guess it’s just nice to see you, then, haha!”


Even in the midst of deadstaring Kenai, Vafi kept his usual poker face. Even in response to Verona’s question, he didn’t relent.

“Sure, I guess,” he responded quietly. If it sounded non-committal, it was only because it was as enthusiastic a response as Vafi gave to anything. It sounded fine to him, though. He still had contraband hidden in his jacket, but it wasn’t like he was that worried about it. As long as Kenai didn’t decide to narc about it, he was more than confident in his ability to keep it on the downlow. That was still a pretty big ‘if’, frankly, but considering he’d already skipped out on Khal earlier, he felt like not going along now would just call more attention to himself anyway.

Besides all that, he was hungry. So that settled that.

Meanwhile, in response to Verona’s departing question for him, Chase’s eyes widened with delight.

“Yeah, definitely!” Chase exclaimed, bringing his hands together in one happy clap. “Thanks!” Even if he hadn’t been interested (only hypothetically; he almost always loved making stuff) he still would’ve probably said yes, out of appreciation for the company and a gratitude for the invitation. But, excited on both counts, he rushed forward to catch up to where Verona was, more than happy to go with the three of them.

While they were nearer to the Guild Hall after coming to find Vafi than before, they were not quite there yet, and so it would be a short walk over before they’d arrive back near the kitchen. Vafi sped up just a bit for a moment, though, to catch Chase’s attention just a second. Normally, he would’ve done that by just tapping him on the shoulder, but… remembering their encounter earlier and thinking better than that at the last second, he’d decided to pipe up after being close enough.

Though, before Vafi had planned to, Chase had already turned to look back at him anyway, apparently already sensing he was there. It made Vafi twitch a little. It took him a delayed second to speak… even if he still decided to do it, anyway.

“You’re gonna chop some stuff up?” Vafi asked quietly.

“Mmm. Probably!” Chase answered chipperly. His eyes rolled up a bit in contemplation. “Maybe like some green onions and stuff? That’d be nice for most lunches…” He made an absent-minded cutting motion with his hands as he thought about it. “Chop, chop, chop...”

“Chop, chop,” Vafi repeated, looking back over his shoulder toward Kenai seriously, expecting Kenai’s nervous, overactive imagination to do the rest. It seemed like a sure thing, actually. Chase even kind of skeeved Vafi a little bit. Not that he was going to let that stop him from teasing Kenai.

Still, done with what he needed Chase for, Vafi more naturally started to fall behind, where Kenai happened to be walking. And, because it seemed clear to Vafi that the topic from before wasn’t going to leave Kenai’s mind, he decided to open the box of discussion again himself, so he could try and get ahead of it before it got out of hand.

“It’s not important, it’s just mine,” he said, in a hushed tone. “If I showed you, you’d just want it.”

It was a flimsy excuse - and a lie, obviously, considering what the object in question was - but Vafi imagined it having enough plausibility to at least get Kenai to leave him alone long enough for him to hide it. That probably wasn’t going to be the case, but while they were both further hashing it out, Chase was busy having a much more cordial exchange with Verona.

“How’ve you guys been?” Chase asked cheerily, his hands clasped behind his back and his happily bounced down the hallway beside her. “It feels like we’ve been really busy lately… do you feel like that?” he asked.

He’d meant it in a more general way, but as he thought more about it, his smile turned into him thoughtfully pressing his lips together, and him turning to look at her curiously. “Like everything’s… busy?” he added more vaguely.

Chase hadn’t quite specified a timeframe, only because he didn’t really have one in mind. It was just a feeling he’d had, rather than something he’d noticed in any demonstrable way. Because, with everything that was going on, that was just the overall feeling he’d been left with. Not just specifically in regards to the events of the past half of the day - which he was actively steering his thoughts away from as he considered all of this - but a lot of things, for a little while now.

Maybe it even stretched back to the end of the war. He wasn’t afraid of changes - good or bad, he was well aware that change was inevitable - but… that process for him, now, felt faster than it’d always been, and he wasn’t sure what to think of it. So, the best way he could express his thoughts were through the general idea of everything feeling busy.

DergTheDergon Aukanai​

​

 

[DergTheDergon]

The chaos of the morning had finally settled down, which now saw Director Crowne leisurely sipping coffee while typing away at her computer, left red-nailed hand dancing skillfully along the keyboard until she set down the mug with her right, the Director then resuming a faster rhythm of proper typing as she completed some reports for the higher-ups. She prided herself on her typing almost as much as she had prided herself on her skills as a huntress when she was young and spry; after all, bettering her skills was always part of the allure of this field for her. She ended up setting challenges for herself on the regular in order to keep herself invested in her frankly far more boring current position.

She was rather surprised that all that was really left this morning was busywork. It was rare that there were no conference calls to attend, no calls to make, no new missions to register with R, or anything else that was more strenuous than simple paperwork. After a while, she found herself enjoying the reprieve for a bit, especially knowing it wasn’t likely to continue for long.

The woman sighed lightly when R chimed in on her pc with alerts of high levels of supernatural activity. “Well, there goes my moment of reprieve.” Sighing, she looked at the location on-screen that R had mapped, her eyes widening. “This is… south London. Not very far from our headquarters. What’s more peculiar…. These are… singular beings?! I… I have never in all my years even heard of isolated Magical Energy readings of this magnitude outside of higher Demons, and never have they come here without our prior knowledge! R, create a high-priority alert now! I need my best available Hunters ready to roll out as soon as word of any of these creatures surfaces again!”

She got to work tirelessly working with the snarky, yet useful, rabbit-boy assistant on looking into this threat as much as she could through her intel network. Speaking of which, this reminded her that she hadn’t heard a peep from Q in a rather long time, now.
---
As Drew drew out his ‘M’ Syllable, Fifer rolled her working Jade-green eye, before she nodded as the young man corrected himself, earning a casual gloved thumbs-up, and another nod at his ‘I’ve got this’ statement. She’d have to see if he really got it in time, but the fact he was even making a effort was admirable, as well as surprising considering her first impressions of him. Besides, she was almost starting to like elements of the young man’s attitude, which almost reminded her about how Chase carried himself; Yuki was the same, perhaps even more so. At times, seeing such gung-ho, energetic individuals go at it like those two tended to lighten her up a little, though only those who knew her well would likely notice a big difference in her due to the neutral way she tended to act

. There was, however, oddly and unfortunately, a fine line between when it lightened her mood a bit and when it aggravated her; enough stressors present to her at a given moment, and the latter becomes the case instantly. She could feel the thus far mostly ignorable beginnings of a Drew-and-Yuki-induced headache coming on already, truth be told.

Fifer could already tell by overhearing Drew and Yuki’s (mostly Yuki’s) animated conversation, that the both of them were going to be quite the handful. In fact, she’d had inklings of the same in prior moments, though it seemed to truly hit home here. The two of them would be a lot of work, and surely get under her skin at times but what was new? She could say the same of most people around here. At least they’d keep things a little more interesting around here; Chase and Amel’s antics were predictable by now after all.

Overhearing Drew’s comment about the blackness of her coffee compared to her coat made her smile for a moment; Chase had given her a taste for easily-amused personalities, a trait that it was quite clear drew shared. It was true, however; she liked it extra-strong. “Gives me the kick in the ass I need to wake up in the morning. ‘Sides, it’s about as black as my soul; suits me perfectly.” This was likely the first not-entirely-serious thing the energetic pair of recruits had heard the woman utter. Her mood was actually lightening up a bit around these two, to her surprise.

As she continued her orientation speech, she found herself amused by Drew’s apparent excitement that Virgil was green-haired. He’d like chase too then, she figured; though in her experience, it was hard not to like Chase, even if he was a major stressor in his life. She had a feeling these two would be similar to him in that regard.

The moment she’d lowered her massive coffee mug from her face enough to see, Fifer was greeted with Amel, as well as Yuki’s and Drews successive and enthusiastic greetings toward him, which were, just as Fifer expected, utterly ignored in favor of asking FIfer about something he actually cared about, namely Chase, the only person, or anything really, he truly gave much of a shit about, including himself. Fuckin’ bastard. At least he was good to Chase, and to her surprise after her nervous reaction to his question, was quick to reassure her that he seemed to be doing better now. She figured he was just wondering if Chase was okay enough now to not be avoiding her anymore, which was unfortunately not the case, but regardless, Fifer was still grateful for Amel relaying Chase’s status to her. It certainly felt like a bit of weight left her shoulders the moment the words left his mouth.

“Good. Hey, thanks for telling me.” She looked away a bit after that, embarrassed that she was thanking Amel for anything.

FIfer sighed, rubbing her temples in exasperation. The new recruits tended to approach Amel, she’d noticed, which led her to wonder if his overpowering ‘don’t talk to me’ aura wasn’t as obvious to people who didn’t know him.

“New recruits. Try not to treat them like dirt under your feet at least, please.”

Turning to the newbloods each in turn, she gestured toward the man himself.

“Yuki, Drew, meet Amel. He’s a goddamn Bastard but a hell of a Hunter. As you can tell, he’s not really the talkative sort so it’s best to leave him be. Also, you’ll be seeing with another guy, Chase, who I think you both will

Her tone was equally matter-of-fact and a little cautionary as well, just like her earlier statement had been.

Fifer sighed and shook her head a bit as Drew deflected her warning before simply carrying on with trying to be a friendly to Amel. However, Drew and Yuki might’ve been able to catch a small, genuine smile curve on the intact corner of her mouth. His sheer ability to shrug it off, and his acknowledgment of her dry and blunt nature while still flying in the face of her warning was oddly refreshing. She was used to people either giving no fucks like Amel or being a bit more careful around her. Drew seemed sort of in-between, in a way. Yuki was definitely full-on spazz though, which led her to worry what sort of antics she might get up to with Chase should the two of them get along well, which they very well might. Definitely something to keep an eye on; or well, her only eye.

“Alright, you three. I’ve got a few other things to run around and do. For now you both need to download the guild app from the Email you should both have been sent, and look at the types of low-threat missions available for your trial mission; a final entry test of sorts you’ll need to undergo sometime in your first week here. You should only have access to those for now. Be sure to consult the app’s built-in bestiary in order to read up on the kinds of things you’ll be facing. It’ll be a real mission, even though I’ll be there to save your asses just in case. Use the tutorial, familiarize yourself with it. Be warned though, you might not like the virtual assistant it comes with… I wish I could punch that smartass rabbit sometimes. While you’re at it you could introduce yourself to some people here, make yourselves at home. You certainly both seem sociable enough. Just for the love of god do not stray too far from the commons for now so I can find you after lunch.”

With that out of the way, it was onto the next item on her agenda: Checking in on the Guild’s resident sweet old lady.

On her way to Liza’s room, she swore she felt a strange presence- strange only in the way magic felt. It was an eerie tingling that was accompanied by a hot, almost light-headed feeling. It always felt as if these feelings were wafting onto her, almost like a sort of breeze coming from a specific direction. When turning to the apparent source of this feeling, she saw guards surrounding a figure she couldn’t quite make out, but certainly had never seen before, and she just knew when she saw the short figure which seemed to have the appearance of a young boy that that was the source of the magic. The redhead stood dumbfounded. Her first thought was that this must be another one of Elizabeth’s ploys to get friendly with the Deepvalians, except she’d put out a notice warning the others way in advance before the last batch came in. She reluctantly continued toward her destination after a few moments, however.

Composing herself in front of Liza’s door, FIfer took a deep breath, reminding herself to be on her best behavior. If her other guildies saw how reciprocally sweet she was to this old woman, they’d probably be astounded (not to mention embarrassed; thankfully, she really only had time to talk to her during lunchtime, just as she was going to do now). After all, Ms. Liza was up there among the kindest souls she’s ever met, and while she’d never admitted it, she at times enjoyed the “grandchild” treatment Liza gave her, though at other times it made her still-intact cheek so red you’d swear it was burning up just like the other one. She never knew any of her own grandparents, and it was nice to be pampered once in a while, even though her pride often seemed adamant that she was far too old and independent for the way Liza treated her at times.

Now that she’d tuned out of her thoughts and back into her surroundings for the moment, the redhead was now aware of the sounds and smells of something surely positively delicious cooking inside as she waited for the kindly widow to answer her door. Her stomach growled, the tantalizing odor of the food inside reminding the woman just how little she’d eaten this morning. Liza was sure to leave her stuffed, which she was partly looking forward to because of the absolute treat she knew ‘Grandma’ Liza’s grub would be, and partly dreading it due to how embarrassing the 'Granddaughter' treatment was for her, though she did secretly enjoy it a little.

 

[Quark]

A high-pitched voice from the computer speaker broke the silence in Elizabeth’s office.

“Oy oy, Boss” accompanying the audio, R the rabbit AI squinted one eye in suspicion. “You’re really asking an AI to organize a team dispatch? For a high-risk mission??”

The snarky comment aside, on the screen displayed a suggested list of hunters to dispatch, and the decision to alert the medical and engineering department. The “confirm” option was right underneath the list, waiting for Elizabeth’s approval.

“Hu hu hu! Just so you know, it’s not my fault if it fails.” R laughed while scratching his ears with a paw.

As it was currently contacting the other departments to relay the order, the reports waiting to be read was re-organized and placed in the “lower importance” box. The report for an admin staff’s recent murder was moved to a lower priority. [1]

... ...

It wouldn’t take very long for the new recruits to find out what Fifer meant by “smartass rabbit”.

In the common room TV screen, the news program suddenly cut to the image of a cartoon rabbit squishing its face onto the flat plane of the monitor. A hunter relaxing nearby choked on his energy drink.

“Eeeeeeh, mic test, mic test!~”,R announced himself before moving his face back. Someone sitting nearby had to block his ears from the contrast of the sudden high-pitched voice (compared to the calming tone of the news lady from earlier). The grin on his face widened. “Slave mules from Team S!!! Surprise! You’ve got a new high priority task~”

“A scouting team is currently busy with assessing the on-site situation. Better hurry, the field site is really, really close by!! OH! OH! What’s this??” The tone of excitement escalated as the rabbit was bouncing around on the screen image.

“Look at these dangerously high magical readings in the targets! Time to panic and hurry along now! Quick, quick! Anyone who sees any Team S turtle still lottering around, punt-kick them out of the building. Ka-poo![2]” At that moment a new notification showed up on Rhea, and a few medical staff’s phones.

“Medical department! Engineer department! Be on standby if these kids end up half-dead. [3] If you’re bored waiting, this big brother R will watch with you. Though you’ll have to do the live commentary yourselves.” Animating the rabbit holding a bag of popcorn and a final cheerful laugh, the monitor in the common room cut back to the news.

... ...

Starting the morning with 40 minutes of gym.

Grocery shopping from the local supermarket.

Stopping along the way to chat with Olivia who happens to be at the bookstore.

Morning coffee at 9am, then meeting Stacy who dropped by after sending her kids to school.

Returning to headquarters with several heavy bags of groceries and snacks.

Stopping by the common kitchen to make sure that the “kids” are eating healthy food. Then urging to a young man not to just have porridge in the morning.

It was the usual eventful morning for Liza. Despite that, she didn’t feel tired in the least. She was currently humming a song while she was busy preparing the stock for soup. It was at that moment that Fifer had arrived.

“Oh, hello, Fifer!” Liza beamed towards her temporary apartment’s first visitor for the day. She beckoned the younger woman to come in, offering to take her jacket for her.

“You’re just in time! The pumpkin and spinach quiche I’m baking is almost done. I’m currently making soup. I hope you don’t mind creamy soup. Do you want cheese and bread with that? I can also whip up some eggs for good measure as well.”

Leaving the door open for Fifer to come in, she started heading back towards the kitchen again. “Is it just you today? If so, should I pack some extra for you to give to Chase?” She gestured rather proudly towards the kitchen counter, the snacks she had prepared. She knew very well how young people can have a very healthy appetite.


-------------------------------
Notes:
[1] Killian sent a message reporting about Admin Q's autopsy report just earlier that day

[2] (I'm not quite sure how to do the sound effect of kicking sound)

[3] With unknown and unseen factors from before, decisions are made around the worst case scenario as a long time to finish the mission, and/or heavy injuries. Therefore have operators ready for quick weapon replacement and first aid support.

[4] Tag: DergTheDergon Rustic Aukanai

 

[Rustic]

Drew and Yuki had both tried to be nice, but of course, Amel’s attitude didn’t change. Amel’s eyes subtly narrowed at Drew.

“Look for attention somewhere else,” he replied coldly.

Like he’d touched a hot stove, Drew shook out the hand he had extended as he pulled it back. He continued to smile, but he couldn’t help but feel a tick of annoyance at the lack of effort towards civility, especially after being warned that it was Amel’s usual behavior. One of the few things Drew had always taken issue with was this cruel sort of indifference.

In any case, Drew decided to brush it off. It was too soon to be making problems at work… and, anyway, hadn’t he told himself he wasn’t going to make issues out of insignificant stuff anymore? Geez. He mentally chastised himself as he backed up to where he’d been standing originally and looked back over to Fifer. He still had some lingering uncertainty, but as he glanced over to see Yuki seemingly unbothered by the rebuke, it quickly faded off.

Meanwhile, the event hadn't registered in Amel's mind like it had Drew’s. Once he'd decided he was finished with his brief consultation, he walked off. He didn’t have much else to attend to, but he intended to get it done before he met back up with Chase. He had promised Chase his full attention, after all. Which was exactly what he'd make sure Chase would get.


Verona nodded in understanding what Chase had expressed.

She didn’t think there were many people who could say they didn’t feel busy. Even if it felt long ago already - with the many changes that had taken place in the meantime - there was no denying just how recent the war had been. Even if the work of healing now wasn’t as direct, everyone still worked at it in their own ways.

“I think so,” she replied softly. It may have seemed a somber sentiment, yet she continued to smile. “Busyness can be a good thing. For us, I think it has been.”

In some ways, it reminded her of a forest fire. So much devastation had taken place, but now that the worst was over, beautiful things had been given a chance to blossom. She had become closer to her family, she had had the privilege of watching them grow, and she had even grown herself. The scars of the war would always be felt, but she truly believed that recovery was coming along well. Not just for herself, but for society as well.

However, thinking in the way that she was and hearing Chase’s meandering thought, she couldn’t help but over with soft eyes of concern.

“How are you?” she asked in turn. She’d have liked to take his hand, but in respect for his boundaries, she simply moved a little closer.

“It might seem like nothing,” she said slowly, “but, if there’s something on your mind…it is important to look after each other.”

At that, Chase looked over. He wasn't the most observant person when it came to social interactions, but even he could hear the consideration in her voice.

“I mean, I’m not thinking about anything really important...” he said.

“It doesn’t have to be,” she replied.

As Verona and Chase's meaningful exchange progressed, Vafi and Kenai were still having their very stupid confrontation. One that Vafi was, in his opinion, totally winning, by the way. Unfortunately, he wasn't getting much enjoyment out of that fact. There was only so much of Kenai’s nagging he could stand, after all.

“What if it’s dangerous?” Kenai asked in a hushed tone. Vafi’s eyes narrowed on him.

“What if?” he parroted dryly. "It's not your problem."

“You’re thirteen," Kenai said.

“You’re annoying,” Vafi countered.

Their minor standoff continued to escalate until reaching a breaking point of Kenai gently moving for Vafi’s hand, which Vafi met with an artful dodge... and a warning. He gave Kenai a hard stare meant to remind him the futility of pushing the issue. Yet, to his peril, Kenai crept forward a little closer.

Big mistake. Without warning, Vafi charged forward at him, which made him yelp and the two adults at the front look back in surprise. Vafi had no intention of colliding, however; he snickered as he rounded past and straight between the gap Verona and Chase had made between them.

Admittedly, he might’ve almost tripped as he came to a sudden halt in the kitchen, but because nobody saw him do it, it definitely wasn’t something that actually happened. Verona was too busy looking back at Kenai and closing the distance between them to check on him.

“Oh my,” she said as she lifted her hand to Kenai’s cheek. “Are you okay?”

Yet, Kenai wasn’t focused on her question, instead staring back at Vafi with an indignant pout.

The trio's conversation continued from there, but Chase could only watch them with wide eyes.

He didn’t really understand these types of familial conflict. He’d witnessed scenes like this among the Clio's before, and he thought it was good that they managed to come to peaceful solutions, but as for what he himself should do at times like this, he still didn't know. He had already said he'd stick around, but his instincts insisted otherwise, lest someone find a reason to be angry with him, too. Not that he would've expected them to - especially not Verona - but... he wasn't the type who could ignore his intuition.

In thinking of ways to soothe his unease, he thought of Amel. In thinking of Amel, he remembered their plans to meet back up, and in them, found a valid reason to slip out.

“I’ll be right back,” he suddenly announced.

Whether or not anyone heard him, he quickly trotted off, hoping they’d be more ready for him when he got back.


It was possible Chase and Amel would’ve met in the halls, then, were it not for R’s announcement.

Amel had been passing through the common room when it'd happened. He didn't always pay attention to those sorts of things, but he'd known the timing of the buzzing of his phone couldn't have been a coincidence. While he watched the television screen, a variety of other hunters quickly gathered - Drew being among them.

Drew's surprised noise at the appearance of the rabbit wasn’t the only one, but his was probably the only one awed. He observed the jaded looks the hunters around him had with confusion; there was something ‘off’ about the rabbit’s attitude, he could admit, but the sheer novelty of the mascot was something that he couldn’t get past. The excitement R demonstrated, while probably just for show, definitely got Drew going, and by the time the broadcast had ended, he couldn’t help but look around. Particularly for the topic of discussion: Team S.

The first to speak was a long-haired huntress reclining in one of the common room’s lounge chairs, a long spear resting off to her side. Drew might’ve assumed she was among those who had been called, but she started to fix her hair to the side with clear frustration.

“There goes my plans of getting you for our mission,” she grumbled.

Her and the group of equally prepared hunters she was sitting with looked up expectantly to the man stood behind her. When Drew looked up to see him, he couldn’t help but grind his teeth a little.

“Wouldn’t have had time,” Amel replied coolly, not noticing Drew’s gaze on him.

“Figures,” the huntress sighed back. She brushed her hair out with her fingers and drew out her words in a meaningful way as to leave something to Drew’s imagination. “You’re always in such high demand. Not even a second to spare now that you’re tied down...”

“Not for you, anyway,” Amel retorted.

She huffed and quickly readjusted her hair ornament to her bangs. Not that Amel saw it; as soon as he’d replied to her, he'd looked down to check his phone to confirm the details.

As Drew watched him and the casual nature of their exchange, he found himself somewhat perplexed. The announcement had left him full of directionless energy, and he couldn't help but wonder how the atmosphere could still be so calm. It was true that one or two people in the area hurried off, but as for the rest, they seemed to relax back into place once the news had been broken. Maybe it was because it didn’t directly concern them, but it was weird to him to think that something of this apparent level of importance could be brushed off. He wondered if it really was just that commonplace? Kinda exciting, if true.

In any event, his attention once again focused on Amel. Drew nudged the person closest to him curiously.

“Is he not going?” Drew asked, turning his head slightly in their direction while keeping his eyes on Amel. “Seems important.”

The tall hunter beside him eyes' tracked in Amel’s direction before he nodded.

“Oh yeah,” he assured as he slapped Drew casually on the back. “Just give it a second.”

With that the man casually continued his conversation with the woman to his right. It didn’t register to Drew what the two were talking about - as he was still too busy considering the possible meaning to what he'd said - but it didn’t take long for him to figure it out.

A high-pitched yell broke through the low hum of conversation in the room as a small hunter burst in in full sprint. Drew didn’t have time to mentally register any other details about them before they jumped straight at Amel.

In Drew’s head, he had expected far more impact, considering how fast the person had been going, but on Amel’s end, there had been no doubt; the moment Amel had heard the yelling, he’d looked up to effortlessly make his catch - who was, of course, Chase.

“Amel!” Chase yelled happily. “I found you!”

That shouldn’t have been a remarkable thing - considering they both had cell phones that marked each other’s locations - but that fact was irrelevant as Chase brought his face close to Amel’s for a kiss. A... very passionate kiss. Drew felt astounded as he watched it. He really never would’ve guessed, from what he’d seen so far, that Amel could muster the, uh, intensity. Especially not for someone like the boy he was with. Yet, as their lips parted, the sincerity of their affection for one another was apparent.

“Amel!” Chase repeated. As Amel set him back on the ground, Chase wrapped his arms around him. “There’s a mission! They’re requesting us!”

Amel gave a small, patient hum in acknowledgement, which Chase giggled at. To Drew, the two seemed lost in joy of each other’s presence, the watching eyes in the room unseen or uncared for. That was, until Chase’s attention was suddenly seemed pulled away by something at the corner of his eye… which just so happened to be Drew himself.

“Hey!” Chase yelled. “Are you visiting someone?”

“Eh?” Drew asked, blinking in surprise. He hadn’t expected the attention to shift so suddenly - and certainly not onto him - but here he was, he guessed. He coughed a little awkwardly but rebounded onto the question as quickly as he could.

“I’m… new here,” he replied. “I’m Drew. Nice to meet you, dude.”

Drew gave a small little wave. He meant what he said, especially as Chase beamed.

“His name’s Drew!” Chase repeated. He still stared in Drew’s direction, but the comment had obviously been meant for Amel, who Drew didn’t look over at. Drew didn't want to find out how Amel felt about Drew stealing his partner's attention, however unintentionally.

Reagrdless, Chase and Amel were already spoken for, and Amel, at least, remembered they had somewhere to be. Their short time for casual interaction spent, Amel led Chase forward and walked with him from the room. As they hurried out, Drew heard the last snippets of their conversation.

“Weapons?” Amel asked. With his sword still at his side, he was essentially ready, but he knew they needed to stop by that department for Chase’s sake.

“Uh-huh!” Chase confirmed. Then, Chase asked question Amel didn't quite expect.

“What about Fifer?”

“Probably headed that way.”

The two were hurrying, but Amel took a moment to look over at Chase. His expression was neutral - a rare sight for him.

“We can go meet her, then,” Chase said passively.

What how Chase felt was going to mean for the mission - if anything - neither of them really knew...

“Ah!! Your sword looks all new!”

…But, with how easily Chase was easily distracted, Amel wasn’t too concerned.

DergTheDergon Aukanai Quark​

 

[DergTheDergon]

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Elizabeth didn’t answer R’s initial quip. She knew very well he could be trusted with such a thing. After all, despite his cheeky warning, Director Crowne didn’t remember a time when the rascally rabbit had ever made any sort of costly mistake that she didn’t also share the rightful blame for. A testament to Q’s immaculate design work, for certain. On the other hand, though, Director Crowne frequently found herself gritting her teeth and wondering if most of his processing power was eaten up by coming up with his infamous endless tide of wisecracks. He did certainly make her job less boring though, which despite how much he irritated her at times, was a welcome boon. She’d never fully gotten used to the transition from the adrenaline rush of missions to sitting on her derriere for the vast majority of her working hours, after all.

Director Crowne stared into the screen as R displayed for her the options of available hunters. The only smart choice she could see at the moment was team S: Hunters O’hara, Grand and Hauer. Their experience and sheer skill, despite the mess the three of them were otherwise, was certainly part of the reason.

Truth be told, however, the chief deciding factor was Fifer’s Bloodsight. Identifying this unknown entity or entities was first priority after all, and with magical energy scanning tech being so new, Fifer’s sensitivity was much more accurate at being able to determine where, or more accurately who or what exactly the readings were coming from, and therefore ensure that the threat was quelled. Even more in favor of the human element, as it were, was the fact that there were quite a few civilian supernaturals mulling about and thus cluttering the scans with their non-threatening, and thus irrelevant, magical data. Fortunately, though, this problem only really applied to London, having by far the highest population of Supernaturals of any surface city at this time. Knowing such was a relief for other Guild branches the world over; after all, Bloodseers weren’t unheard of, but were very few and far between, only surfacing in the descendants of a select few old Hunter bloodlines like the O'haras.

For Fifer, on the other hand, it just meant more work and more migraines. Miss O'hara would know the moment R got her attention that this was a large part of why her team was picked, and she wouldn’t be happy about it. Elizabeth didn’t fancy the idea of giving the younger woman the splitting headache such readings were certain to give her either, but the best chance to save the most civilian lives came first; Fifer knew that and would do her duty to the fullest.

Touching the confirm button on R's Administrator display monitor, the Director then looked the smug bunny in the virtual eye and rebutted him in her by-now trademark professional tone.

“Yes yes, stuff a carrot in it, R. I know you’re trustworthy and you know I have other preparations to make; I request that you please refrain from the smartarse remarks for the moment.”

She once again realized she felt like she was talking to a flesh-and-blood being; R really was amazing, as annoying as he tended to be.

Sighing, the Director took another sip of her coffee, still scanning her screens as she did so and planning her next course of action. She needed to do her part as Director to respond to this emergency, stat. Taking a moment to stretch her hands and arms, she then got straight to work, typing away at an alert for the general public that was then sent to all mobile devices in the vicinity of the worrying magic readings, as part of a mandatory alert system for citizens in the area, similar to severe weather alerts.

The sheer lack of intel the guild had on this case bothered her, and not just because their energy readings matched nothing else. There had been no traces of these things until near moments ago, and that worried her even more than their apparent magical potency. Their readings seemed to indicate that they should have been making sensors go haywire long before they reached such a densely populated area. Every inch of the Beneath below London that wasn’t home to a non-hostile group of supernaturals was covered by the sensors for at least a year now, so it was very unlikely that they found or made a way up into the city from there. Something was very, very off about this incident, causing tightness in the Director’s stomach as she pieced together what little intel she had about all this. A thought crossed her mind that the last time something so unprecedented happened, it was the beginning of the Hellspawn invasion. This was surely a different threat, since the magical signatures carried no Demonic energy according to the scanners, only Arcane. Still, she couldn’t help but cross her fingers that this wasn’t another sign of a worldwide threat approaching, due to the unprecedented levels of magic contained there. She had faith Team S could pull this initial encounter off, but what if there were more of them? How many might there be?

Watching all her feed monitors while multitasking as best as she could, Elizabeth’s fingers began typing and clicking away to log important data and open all reference files she knew she'd need handy while monitoring the developing situation, while R handily notified all needed guild personnel for her. He also let her know that the scouting teams had successfully found the danger zone and had the police cordon it off from citizens until the threat was dealt with; standard procedure for confirmed hostiles of this caliber.

Unsurprisingly, considering the still-buzzing negative press this morning’s front-door debacle garnered the organization, reception to Elizabeth’s requests was mostly colder than usual. A good few just hung up and others outright yelled at her, but in the end, she received confirmation that all usual government and civilian organizations were mobilizing to help with the threat anyway. She wondered about their reasons, but perhaps even in the wake of these protests, they also recognized the rising need to fight fire with fire, so to speak. After all, Hell would not have fallen without the aid of the Beneath; that much had been statistically clear. It was only logical, if a bit radical, that Supernaturals needed to continue to be utilized by the guild to quell threats faster and with more certainty.

Ms. Crowne breathed a sigh of relief once she confirmed that all the right people had sprung into action as needed, even the Police, who were classic thorns in the sides of Guild branches worldwide once the Hellspawn invasion was over, due to their common distaste of Hunters often recklessly breaking all sorts of laws on missions, trespassing and vandalism being the main ones, and then being pardoned for them as long as their targets were neutralized in the process, due to governmental measures to ensure supernatural threats can be dealt with as efficiently as possible. Because of the sour taste that often left in law enforcement’s mouth, she had been afraid that the fresh outrage against the guild this morning would have caused some to not heed the standard call to cordon off the area in which the monsters were last spotted. Now that she’d calmed a bit, though, she realized that, in the end, the police were working to protect civilians just as her people were, and after the Invasion, most of the difficult officers had seemed to wisen up. Being right in the middle of what could very well have been the apocalypse had a tendency to do such things to people. She had to remind herself of this fact often, seeing as it often didn’t seem apparent from the police actions that were all over the news. .

The police would all likely be able to recognize the trio on sight thankfully, expediting the process of letting them in to do their job, albeit for rather unsavory reasons. Amel and Chase were known for their many counts of public indecency whenever the ‘mood’ struck them (which was more often than not). Fifer was known for scaring quite a few civilians by pulling her always-handy concealed pistol on anyone that did anything even slightly suspicious around her when in public alone. She was always more or less in fight mode until she was inside the walls of the guild hall or her own home ever since the invasion, after all. Besides, her paranoia had begun to set in years prior when she was burned. Her sheer hypervigilance would have gotten her concealed carry rights revoked by now if it were not for the protection of several rights for Hunters that the Parliament had passed after the war was over. Police holding up hunters on the way to their targets used to be a bigger problem than Elizabeth felt it should be, after all, since the police were supposed to have a vested interest in protecting civilians, the Director’s own highest priority in times like this.

One cursory glance at the security camera feed from the armory showed that all three members of team S were currently preparing their weapons, which was a relief and a half for the stressed Ms. Crowne. Today would have been the worst day for Agents Grand and Hauer to be up to their usual… delays. Perhaps Amel himself decided the situation was dire enough not to take his sweet time, but Elizabeth knew it was much more likely that the decision was made for Chase’s wellbeing. No matter the reason, though, she felt their timeliness was a blessing.

Sighing heavily as she finished her administrative pre-operation duties, Elizabeth then used a key combination to put R’s control interface back in focus on her computer. Her work regarding this was far from done, and she wouldn’t be able to shake her uneasiness until confirmation that this threat had been identified and dealt with. Nothing like this had happened in ages, after all.

Elizabeth sighed, muttering under her breath as she began to finally sort through her unread alerts for the first time she’d been able to amidst the morning’s chaos.

The moment she saw the title of the only urgent message she’d received, her heart went from feeling as though most of the mornings’ weight had been lifted off of it to feeling like it dropped right into her stomach. It was titled the exact way Q said it would be; a notification of her death, sent by her assistant of sorts by the name of Killian, which Elizabeth also agreed to take into the guild in this event along with all her most vital equipment so someone else could carry on her work for the guild. Elizabeth had been worried that she hadn’t heard from Q in a long time, but it still felt extremely surreal to be reading this. She was so immaculately careful not to be found… how could she have been?

Dropping everything else, Elizabeth frantically read through it, heart racing as all things but the words on that page and the dread they built up in her vanished amongst her sudden panic, a panic the likes of which she hadn’t felt very often since she’d moved up the Guild’s advancement ladder to the far less dangerous job she now held. Such feelings had years ago been reserved for her own mortal peril, but had now moved to encompass the mortal peril of all others involved with the guild, often numbed by her sheer wealth of experience in having to deal with death. This time, however, it hit her like a ton of bricks, catching her completely off guard.

“Oh God… no, no, no… please let this be another one of her poor-taste jokes..” She was shaking, and all the stress of the morning boiled over the very moment her eyes finally became unglued from the last word in Killian’s report. She felt sick to her stomach for the first time in years, not because of the details, but because of the sheer implications surrounding the nasty business of Q’s murder. An irreplaceable genius that is responsible for some of the guild’s most useful tech and most life-saving source of information was gone now, after all, and were Q less reclusive, Elizabeth was convinced they could have been close friends. She was certainly a very interesting person.

Q had been a very important behind-the-scenes force in both day-to-day operation via R and in feeding extremely crucial data to Elizabeth that has allowed the guild to take action many times in instances it would have otherwise reached her too late for her to take action to prevent a catastrophe. Add to that how worried Elizabeth had been for her safety knowing what sorts of beings she had to have pulled her info from made this sting worse. Elizabeth had warned the mysterious woman of the dangers, but Q remained determined. The cherry on top of this dread pie was knowing that it was very likely that whoever had been able to find Q likely had it out for the guild itself. Worse still, since they were able to track down Q of all people, they were a very, very dangerous foe.

Elizabeth knew Killian would also be sending himself over quite soon, due to their prior agreement regarding such an event occurring. Having another magical creature at the guild all of the sudden was going to cause quite the stir, especially since she’d purposely withheld this information in order to not cause internal conflict beforehand, and so she surely didn’t have time to grieve right now. She’d have to instruct the guards on what to do when Killian arrived and prepare to get him started, as well as what to do with Q's other belongings and where to look for the kind of absolute genius needed to carry on her work.

She took a few deep breaths and tried to stop herself from crying, but the shock of this revelation and the very stressful morning she’d already had proved to be too much. She wiped the streaming tears from her eyes and stepped into her private bathroom to have a moment after making sure that R was handling all the automated processes to set things into motion and let the tears pour forth. She had this lavatory soundproofed, and mostly for this reason. She couldn’t let her people see her like this, after all; she was adamant in maintaining a strong and in-control appearance for the sake of the guild and the public alike and that it would be inevitable if she didn’t deal with these feelings now. In her line of work, dealing with death had become almost routine, in this way.

Didn’t make it easy, of course, but she knew she’d soon put Q’s death behind her, if only because she had to for the good of the guild, the good of her family, and for the good of the civilians the guild worked to protect. The millions of people who could be affected by her every action and inaction could not afford the Director to be out of commission for any length of time. Such were the woes of a position like hers, but when this was all said and done, she knew she’d be glad and proud that she held it together for the rest of the work day, and all would be better off for it. Such a mindset had gotten her through all sorts of other days she felt she’d not make it through, after all.

She almost felt bad that she was able to center herself so well with the revelation of such a special colleague’s death, but she also knew that thinking like that was very likely to tip her right over the edge she knew she had to stay away from for now. Besides, mysterious, powerful and deadly creatures appearing right alongside Q’s death? Elizabeth smelled a correlation there, and if she could help find Q’s killers and avenge her, she could not waste another second.

Shakily, she returned to her desk to continue monitoring the situation, still wiping tears from her eyes and collecting herself. Now was not the time. She would be able to lean on her dear husband for support this evening when the looming incident was, hopefully, all over for the time being at least, but for now, she couldn’t afford to waste time.
---
“Morning, Miss Liza,” Fifer said, visibly hesitating to relinquish her coat with a bit of a downward glance, but ultimately doing so with a grateful nod. Liza was the only colleague who’d been able to convince her to remove it thus far, though it was always a surely visible struggle to take off the garment that had become, along with her long peekaboo hairstyle, a physical barrier between her and others’ understandable, but in her experience ultimately degrading, reactions to the scarring right down the left side of her body that was easier to see without it, especially on her neck and her left forearm, and the surely noticeable fact that her left breast had been lost to the fire as well. She had to admit, though, it felt rather freeing to not be in an admittedly stuffy coat during her visits with the older woman, since she otherwise wore it religiously except when sleeping, showering or exercising, except for those summer days where the heat-triggered discomfort outweighed her insecurity.

There was obvious and well-justified fatigue in the younger Huntress’s voice and on her visage as the two women talked, but Fifer found herself gradually feeling a bit better about the events of this morning due to the older woman’s potent mix of contagious chipperness and warm, grandmotherly kindness. As stressful as this job was, her guildmates had become a sort of family, especially since her father, her only blood relation that she was at all close to, had been swamped with work similarly to how she tended to be these days ever since her childhood. Liza served as a consistent reminder of how irreplaceable her guildmates were to her, despite how many of the others besides her frequently downright infuriated her, a feat she’d rather have been much harder than it tended to be.

“I saw you out and about tending to the others this morning while I was showing around some newbies. I don’t know how you do it, Liza, not to mention have the energy to entertain boring, angry old me afterwards.”

She grinned slightly and wryly, only half-joking. She truly couldn’t wrap her head around why the Naves went out of their way to spend time with her either (or, more accurately, hold her hostage at their family gatherings). She had recently begun to wonder if maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t as much of a drag to be around as she often felt she was, since all these people obviously wanted to be around her. However, she was still rather certain she was mostly known around the guild as ‘that one high-and-mighty I'm uncultured with the disfigured face’. She’d heard those exact words whispered behind her back before, and the next thing she knew she was in Elizabeth’s office being told that the man’s medical expenses were going to be deducted from her pay. Regardless of why Liza and the others treated her so well despite her reputation and attitude, she was very grateful to these people, and always tried her best to return what she felt was deserved, which she felt varied greatly by individual. Liza herself was certainly near the top of her list in that regard, a very treasured friend despite not knowing her for very long at all.

As per usual, Fifer was bombarded by as many questions about how exactly she’d like Liza’s food as she was beset by the wonderful smells thereof. She sat down, smiling a bit awkwardly, yet gratefully at her. It was very rare that Fifer felt smiling to others was worth how insecure she felt about it, but around Liza and select others, like the Naves, Sam, Chase and Virgil, she found herself letting her guard down and smiling spontaneously, even if only once in a while.

“Oh, erm, I’ll have some of the quiche for now, thanks.” Liza’s sheer hospitality was still rather overwhelming to her, and a bit embarrassing, but still definitely pleasant.

When Liza mentioned Chase, Fifer averted her good eye for a moment, her mind flashing vividly back to how he reacted to her mere presence after her unfortunately famous speech earlier that morning. She then sighed, debating for a moment before nodding, though tentatively. “I don’t know if he’ll accept anything from me after this morning, but I’ll try. I’m sure you heard about what I said out there, and understand why he’d take issue…” Rubbing the back of her neck, she sighed, before deciding to sit down and forget about her troubles for a while with the help of Miss Liza’s wonderful food. “Thank you again for this, Liza. You do so much for us.”

When she dug in, she began to calm down a little more; Liza had certainly shown Fifer a new meaning of the word ‘comfort food’ over the short time the women had known each other up to that moment.

By now the pair had chatted and caught up quite a bit, Fifer’s usual morning hunger was long gone, and as a result of those two things, Fifer realized she felt much better than before she’d stepped into Liza’s cozy little slice of home here in the guild dormitory. The moment she noticed this, causing her to smile a bit, her guard dropping a little more, Fifer’s phone, almost as if to spite her, decided to interrupt the two with urgent mission ringtone. She elicited a frustrated sigh and scowled at the pocket of her pants that contained the offending device for a moment, before taking a deep breath to re-center herself. Relishing one last delicious bite of the quiche and cleaning up after herself best she could, Fifer sighed again, her eyes once more meeting Liza’s.

“Well Ms. Liza, you know what that sound means… I’m really grateful for your hospitality but apparently duty calls. I promise I’ll have a nice long visit with you the next time work lets me. Anyway, thank you again… I ah, really needed this today, and I’m about to need it some more...”

Liza put so much time and effort into her food and into entertaining her guests, and here Fifer was having to leave suddenly almost every time she got to visit lately; she felt pretty guilty about it, as the kindly older woman could surely tell.

“Take care, Miss Liza.” Once they properly exchanged farewells, Fifer rushed back into the hallway. It definitely felt like a blessing that she was able to de-stress a little with pleasant company before having to throw herself back into the metaphorical fire. Hopefully not a literal one, but, well, things of course didn’t always work out that way.

The moment she started hearing the ever-present rabbit mascot of the guild come in over the speakers as she jogged out of the room, her subconscious ‘go-mode’ kicking in once again. Scrolling through Elizabeth’s briefing file with one hand. Sipping from her coffee cup in the other every few steps, she bulldozed down the dormitory hall and She was so used to doing this that she didn’t bump into anything, and others knew to clear out of her way. She knew she was in for a dangerous and crucial mission, and as always, she was going to do her damndest to see the three of them through it and see their foes dead before they can do any more harm.

She practically ran through the common room as she often did, passing straight by Amel for the moment. She noted that he had been here just in case he and Chase weren’t there stat. This time, she wasn’t going to tolerate them screwing around (with emphasis on the screwing, probably), when they needed to be hauling their asses into the car to deal with such a particularly worrying incident.

Then, she heard drew’s voice, adn turned to see him and Yuki. “Oh um, yeah, newbloods! I’m in Team S so, erm, Elizabeth will probably send someone else to keep showing you the ropes while I’m gone.”

Just as quickly as she halted to blurt that out in their general direction, she was speeding toward the armory again.
---
Fifer briefly dipped into her dorm room first, a room graciously given to her by Elizabeth for days she found herself constantly on call, which had been nothing short of a godsend at times since, well, she found herself in that exact situation increasingly often recently. The room was rather bare, the walls having nothing up on them and the only present furniture being a very plain twin-sized bed, a desk which still had Fifer’s laptop charging upon it, a wardrobe that housed her pajamas, and a bathroom that contained only the necessities. One of these necessities, for Fifer at least, was a cabinet filled to the brim with her special pain pills for magic-related migraines, several bottles of which she quickly deposited in one of her many spacious coat pockets before dipping right out of the room again and heading toward the armory, hoping and praying she wouldn’t have to knock down Amel’s door for such an urgent mission.

seeing as she had her own house not far from the guild, but to to her sheer in-demand nature, she had been given this room to sleep in on busy days so that she could simply gear up and dispatch from the guild in case of a call with Amel and Chase (if they weren’t too ‘busy with each other,’ at least). She had found herself sleeping here more recently, and bringing more and more of her stuff from home as a result to make it more livable. She thought things would calm down after the invasion, and they did for a while as the whole world reeled from it, but nowadays, more and more incidents occurred daily.

The Huntress all but ran to the armory, where the quartermaster behind the counter had already laid out her trusty rifle and a few fully loaded magazines of ammunition, as well as her assortment of usual attachments. Nodding gratefully to the always-hard working man behind the counter as she always did before strapping up, she then proceeded loading the weapon, ensuring safety was on, checking the scope, and making sure to bring a magazine of Rhea’s experimental magic-suppressing rounds handy to test, as she agreed she would. Besides, she had a feeling with magic readings like the ones she was about to deal with, as long as they worked, they might well be the ace in the hole the trio needed to succeed.

As he watched Fifer go through her normal preparation routines, appreciating her efficiency and her immaculate care and skill in going through it as always, he spoke up.

“A bit of a sudden mission, this one; didn’t even call you into a briefing first. What’s the hurry? Something big and deadly?”

He was never cleared for the details of briefings, so he tended to ask her what was up while she was here whenever things seemed very non-routine, like this mission certainly did.

Her sight still focused on her rifle as she prepared it for battle, back turned to the man so she could watch for Chase and Amel, Fifer nodded.

“Considering the readings it’s giving off, they’re thinking it has to be. The magic’s super condensed in a small area; levels we’ve never bloody seen before from anything that could possibly fit in a space that small, so it’s something new; we were pretty damn sure we’d catalogued all supernatural species after the Invasion, but clearly not. Worse still, it seems to have been killing people, and the only sighting has been some glowing humanoid creature that soon disappeared from sight after killing its victims. So naturally, they’re sending me to get a massive fucking headache and verify exactly what the fuck this thing is before we take its life in return for all those poor sods it killed.”

“I see… sounds bloody serious. Be careful out there.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice… this shit scares me about as much as the day the Hellspawn Invasion began.... For different reasons, though. Fear of the unknown, I suppose. If there’s more of whatever the fuck this thing is, it could be as big of a threat to humankind as Aeshma and his horde was.”

The air hung heavy in the room as they finished conversing, silence falling over the two of them except for the metallic, echoing sounds of Fifer priming and reassembling her rifle.

A few moments later, short in reality bot long to Fifer’s perception, Amel and Chase arrived, pulling her out of her routine preparations for a moment. She found her gaze flicking guiltily over to Chase, then to Amel with a more neutral expression that still belied some concern, before she simply nodded for now and kept working while she regained her composure best she could.

Looking up toward her teammates as she heard them enter, she nodded to the pair in acknowledgement, looking obviously relieved that she didn’t have to fetch them, before she found herself turning away from chase and back to her work, vivid images of how he reacted to her walking back into the guildhall jumping to the forefront of her thoughts again, before she once again pushed them back to focus on the now.

“I’m glad you two rushed over here like you did. We need that timeliness right now.” Her tone was genuinely thankful. She really wanted to add ‘for once’ to the end of that statement, directed mainly at Amel. Ultimately, though, she let it go. Amel didn’t deserve chastising this time anyway, and besides, the last thing she wanted to do was do anything that had any conceivable chance in her paranoid mind of upsetting Chase any further at the moment.

“I’ll be ready in a moment,” she said, still not facing the two of them for fear of looking Chase in the eye.

She then made sure she also had her concealed pistol in her coat’s inner holster just in case, with ammunition for both weapons lined up in special pockets on the other side of the inner lining, as per usual for heavy-duty missions like the one now looming large on the horizon.

Due to the steps and care involved in finishing prepping Fifer’s rifle before hoisting it over her back, Chase was certainly ready to go by the time she was. “Come on, we’ve got things to kill you two. Just… be warned. These things won’t be a fucking joke. All we know is they’ve got magic out the arse.” She took a moment to look them both in the eye seriously, even Chase, as she always did every time they undertook a serious mission like this; equal parts stern and concerned. A look said ‘don’t you go die on me, dammit.’ They both knew it well by now, surely, even though they both never really seemed to heed her words of caution. It was a shorter moment than usual, though, due to the events of that morning. “Let’s get going.”

With that, Fifer began leading the two to the car as an all-too familiar set of feelings gradually began creeping more and more into her Dread, excitement, and sheer determination all mixing together, increasing her heart rate and making her feel that familiar tightness in her gut. It had become an… uncomfortable comfort for her now, something so familiar that it felt a lot more bearable than any time when she found herself a loss at what to do. Oddly enough, when she was idle was when something felt wrong, not when there was an unprecedented situation like this one on her hands. That’s the way it had been for years now, since before the war but even more so since then.

She kept her gaze and her focus on the task, which was exactly what she tended to do for the mission or until Chase seemed to be less miffed with her. It was sort of what she did normally, at least, but not quite to this degree of antisocial. Having Chase upset with her was one of the few things guaranteed to be a huge emotional blow to her these days, but as per usual, she tried her damndest to act like nothing bothered her. She knew Chase and Amel would both see right through it, but it still felt necessary to her. “Alright, let’s move out you two.”

---​

She was dead silent all the way out to the armored guild car and for the ride itself, unless someone addressed her. She did her best, as always, not to pay too much attention to all the ruined and still-in-repair buildings they passed, grim reminders of the war that raged here just two years ago. The closer she headed to the scene, the more she noticed that the busy district the sightings had occurred in was very close to an area that was still mostly-abandoned rubble; she had a hunch that these creatures could have perhaps come from those ruins from the beneath. After all, the demons had made a few passages up into London through the earth itself, and the area hadn’t seen much activity since the invasion. It was very possible, she thought, that one of these passages was left completely unguarded, hidden by the rubble above it. Besides, the all-too-familiar sensations in her head seemed to be coming from that direction, just beyond the edge of this area that had returned to the bustling shopping district it had once been.

Speaking of those sensations, all of the sudden, Fifer realized she was swerving in her driving a bit, reflexively clutching at her forehead with one hand whilst her other jerked. Thankfully, since civilians had since evacuated this area, their car was the only one on this road at the moment. She ended up pulling over by the side of the road as quickly as she could, fishing for her pills.

“I’m gonna need a second,” she said with a sigh, before popping a few of her much-needed pills. “Whatever the fuck is over there, I can already feel it. I can get us there, but I don’t know how well I’m gonna be able to aim at this rate… these pills start to impair my vision at high doses, and one hell of a dose is the only way I’m going to function right now.”

Amel and Chase would likely be hard-pressed not to notice that the last time she reacted so strongly to magical energies was while the three of them were fighting alongside each other around the clock against hordes of demons.

“Listen, you two,” she continued shakily. “If I feel like we’re not gonna be able to kill them, we’re getting the fuck out for now. I haven’t felt creatures this strong since the war, so we might need backup to have a chance. Of course, I’d much rather we just kill the blighters and get the fuck out, but… just this once, please be careful, guys.”

She hoped that the unusual amount of fear that had snuck into her voice as she said this made her partners at least a little more wary for their lives, or in Amel’s case, at least for Chase’s. The briefing mentioned strong readings, but this? The only time she’d ever felt like this was from swarms of demons; this was, by all accounts, a small group of creatures. This meant that their raw magic power was likely far beyond anything she’d faced before, and that terrified her. Just what the hell were these things?

Once her head was finally clearer, which took a good bit more time, and thus of her pill supply, than she had hoped, Fifer resumed driving, focusing as best she could on the road before, finally, they’d arrived at a secluded spot to park the car, close enough that she could feel what general direction the strongest sensations were coming from.

Stepping out of the car and closing her door, she headed back around to the trunk and popped out her trusting rifle, hoisting it over her shoulder by the strap in a disciplined motion. She closed her eyes for a moment, focusing on what directing the tugging seemed to be pulling toward. She could tell direction based on where exactly in her head the sensation was strongest. It wasn’t always that simple, especially if there were a lot of supernaturals around that weren’t what she was hunting, but a silver lining to this job was that these things had such a distinct and intense sensation to the magic about them, and looking at the sensor-linked GPS app on her phone, another tool developed by Q that was by now a standard tool for all Hunters in London, she confirmed that what she was feeling had to be what she was sent to deal with. Knowing they were able to be so timely in getting here calmed her nerves just a little, since that meant that they could get to cracking down on it sooner before it killed anyone else. Of course, she could only hope that the three of them were truly equipped to do so, and with stronger and stronger magic she’s not felt the exact types of before wafting over her the further she led the boys in akin to the feeling of being hit by stronger and stronger gusts of wind with other feelings mixed in, she really wasn’t so sure they were up to killing these things themselves, hence her earlier cautionary lecture. She just hoped the seriousness of it had sunk in, since it was rare for her to feel like it was worth trying to talk sense into Amel and Chase these days.

Taking another few deep breaths to center herself, Fifer led the two into a large hole in the wall of the crumbling building. There were blood trails on the ground, seemingly where victims were dragged.

“In that building… and… down, below street level. Probably the basement, or what’s left of it. ”

She then popped a few more pills until the thrumming, pulsing, splitting pain numbed enough to where she knew she could aim. She knew exactly what to feel for by now; no involuntary shaking, and a sharp, fight-or-flight awareness at the forefront of her mind, all the odd achings and feelings in her head in the background. She wasn’t quite lucid on account of the heavy dosage of strong drug in her system, but it was enough for her to rely on her training-honed instincts, which had certainly been enough to see her through all of her past missions. During a mission like this, however, she always wondered for a moment, before she became laser-focused on finding and killing the threat, if this would finally be the one to do her in. She hoped not, of course; for the sake of everyone she held dear and all the innocents endangered by creatures of malicious intent, she hoped to live until she could fight no more. However, with many close calls in her career already, the chance seemed slim to her, and she always wrestled mentally with mortality during moments like this before she carried on, since in the end that was the only thing to do, fear or no.

Taking a deep breath and pushing these thoughts aside for now, she then, rifle now in hand, followed the boys toward the direction she pointed out as was per the trio’s usual by now.

Proceeding into the ruins of a skyscraper, its bottom few floors still standing sturdily, it was dark. Fifer lit the flashlight attachment on her rifle to give the three of them some light to work with, as per usual. At this point, she was surrounded by the sensation’s sheer strength. Nothing seemed to be in the immediate area of this ruined office building, though. However, there was then an echoing cry from their surroundings, a noise that sounded feral, pained and ethereal all at once, loud and unfettered. Whatever this thing is then spoke in a harsh-sounding ancient language neither of the three understood, but for some reason, it sounded… familiar to Fifer. Nostalgic, even. Odd, and unsettling, since she was sure she’d never heard that language before, but since it was coming from magic creatures, maybe it had something to do with this ‘bloodseer’ thing she’d found out she was years ago. This hunch came from one of her targets calling her that before taking a bullet between the eyes. Every odd, unsettling and seemingly unique sensation she’d ever felt finally had an explanation ever since she’d looked into the term Bloodseer, so this must be related as well, she figured.All she knew was that there was a very small amount of magic in her blood, and for some reason, it caused her to feel what she felt now, very strongly, because of whatever creatures were still stalking the depths of this destitute place.

She didn’t have time to ponder it further; the voice was then joined by others chanting the same crude, guttural, alien-sounding tongue. Then, footsteps were heard, and with those footsteps, the tugging in her head felt stronger. “It’s those things coming up the stairs, no doubt. Get ‘em, boys.”

She knew she didn’t have to tell them twice, or even once, but it had become a tradition of sorts for her by now, before a fight that she knew wasn’t going to be anywhere near a cakewalk, like this one. Truth be told, it was more about psyching herself up than anything.

Almost as if on queue, humanoid figures them came shambling up the stairs at the three of them, hunched over and poised for attack, and Fifer took cover behind a nearby crate while Chase and Amel got to work in their own way.

They were elves, by their ears, but something- no, everything- about them looked... Wrong. They were all naked, scarred and stitched all over their bodies as if many surgeries were conducted on them, with brightly glowing tattoos all over their skin as well, neon-esque colors that hurt her eyes to look at. Speaking of eyes, the creatures’ own peepers gleamed with the same intense glow, a rainbow of bloodshot, twitchy gazes. Magic at work, surely, but to what end? Fifer knew that such glowing runes were pure magic condensed into a physical spell with a specific purpose- no fucking wonder her sixth sense was going nuts right now. It wasn’t that they were particularly strong, to her great relief, especially since as Amel and Chase started on them, most of them went down in one hit. It was that there was clearly a LOT of magic in them, magic that visibly dissipated from their bodies as they died and became invisible as it dispersed into the air. That didn’t rule out that possibility that there were stronger elsewhere, though… Before they fell to the ground on account of a well-placed bullet or Chase and Amel’s more brutal methods, they stumbled and groaned like some sort of undead, although this certainly didn’t feel like Necromantic magic. She was glad for that, as in her experience, that felt… worse, almost like she herself were dying, getting colder. This, on the other hand, was arcane magic; she knew it by an energetic feeling, like a moving, living tension in the air that felt slightly different depending on the element of said magic, which in this case seemed to be every one you could possibly think of, each creature brimming with a specific type of magic. Just what the hell were these things?

Taking careful aim at a few outliers in the pack that began to lunge for the deadly duo she was, as always, covering for, It wasn’t hard to get them right in the head or chest, and each time they died. The magic dissipated into the air was messing up her focus, though; she could with each downed enemy feel less and less the of the tide of magic rushing up from the direction of the stairs, as the magic in the air all around her drew the sense’s attention, like a thick fog might cloud one’s vision of what’s in front of them. It also made aiming harder, but she was still able to get a good few shots in, making sure she only pulled the trigger when she knew her shot would hit an enemy, years of rigorous training and the tempering flames (literal flames in one case) of combat subconsciously spurring her into alert reflexive action.

She picked a few of them off as she watched the boys deal with the rest in whatever way they saw fit, as per usual. She was glad Chase had a few weaklings to go to town on after the events of this morning, and watching the guys work was always inspiring, in a way only a fellow hunter would appreciate, despite the disparity in her more precise and careful methods as opposed to their rather barbaric ones. At the end of the day, however, they got the job done well.

Fifer’s eyes widened as, no matter how many they killed, her currently haywire magic sense was barely affected. In fact, mere moments after a few of them were killed, she felt only more oppressed and accosted by the feeling. It felt as if the magic was seeping from their corpses into the air, like a sort of magical fog.

Thankfully, before long, the tide of glowing elves stemmed. Fifer could feel that they were absolutely saturated with magical power, but for some reason, they were far too clearly braindead to use any of it, only able to shamble and lunge at their assailants like a run-of-the-mill zombie. It was a strange revelation, but a relief. She’d expected them all to be extremely deadly.

Regardless, this job still caused her no end of anxiety, due to . It was difficult to tell how many more were left from all the magic still seeping into the air around her from the corpses now in Team S’s vicinity.

Once the pack of shambling, glowing weaklings was dead, Fifer popped a few more pukks whilst mumbling to herself. She came out from behind the chunk of fallen concrete that had acted as her cover, slinging her rifle back over her shoulder in a well-practiced motion, and knelt down to take a closer look at one once it seemed that there were no more coming for now. The scars all over their bodies and the runes etched all over them pointed to some sort of sentient altering of these creatures’ bodies, but for what purpose?

“Christ… what the fuck happened here? These things seem like some sort of… sick science experiment, but with magic.” She was simply thinking out loud, as she knew that the boys likely only cared about the slaughter to be had here. It would explain why they were nothing like anything they had encountered before, though; they were created. If someone could create things like this, it was likely that they were dealing with the most deadly sort of supernatural threat; an intelligent one. Aeshma’s hordes were mindless balls of hate; this was something with a LOT of magic at their disposal and the ability to create creatures loaded with it. Sure, these things seemed to be duds, but she still felt most of the power condensed a small distance north and down from the trio’s current location, so these things weren’t all. She a had a feeling that whatever was down there would be worse… she hated being right about predictions of that nature, but she tended to be.

Fifer took a deep breath, then stood up. “There’s more of them, guys…. I feel like it’s only one, but it will NOT be a cakewalk like these were. Stay alert.”

With that, Fifer began guiding the duo down the crumbling staircase. The way was silent, dark, and littered with rubble; the only reason she even sort of knew where she was leading the destructive duo that served as her partners was because of the very, very strong presence she felt. “It’s… further down a bit… but this looks like the bottom- wait… over there!”

Squinting, she could just barely spot some sort of light coming from a gaping hole in the concrete in the distance, then began moving faster toward it, though still looking every which way cautiously, rifle at the ready. “It’s down here.”

They advance forward, heading into the lab proper. Just then, the Success manages to free himself from deeper in, escaping from his cell with a loud bang that puts Fifer on edge before shouting an incantation that busts a hole straight through the wall, with an explosion leaving molten rock in his path and small pyres of the last thing Fifer ever wanted to see today; Fire.

Even still, she shook it off for the time being, ducked behind the horizontal ruins of a fallen concrete pillar the likes of which she was rather certain she’d never been so glad to see before, and took aim while the boys went to work.

The thing was massive, its skin charcoal-black while veins that seemed tiny rivers of lava showed on each of his massive limbs. Its eyes seemed to be made of pure fire, and despite her training, Fifre found herself shaking.

Despite being wailed on by Amel and Chase, their blades cutting deep into his abnormally hot flesh, he stands still for a moment, it seemed unfazed, simply swinging its giant, flame-laden arms at them with all its might and not even flinching from anything the two did to them, for now. Its sheer ability to shrug off the boys’ assault struck even more fear into their teammate, but she took a breath, shaking her head vigorously for a moment as if to shake the nerves right out.. Those two needed her right now, as much as Amel was unlikely to admit it.

After taking a moment to steady her aim, Fifer quickly reached into her jacket and quickly took out a magazine full of magic suppressor bullets, courtesy of Rhea. As strong as this thing was, it still seemed pretty dumb, animalistically swinging at whichever of the two just sunk their blade (or blades, as was likely the case with Chase) into it. It seemed to have the magic that must be making all that fire and tankiness going for it more than anything. If that theory was correct, a well-placed shot with these babies would hopefully lower its unnatural resilience to Amel and Chase’s assault.

Taking a moment to carefully aim so as to guarantee not hitting Amel and Chase, she found an opening and was able to successfully sink an anti-magic bullet into its meaty arm as it was going for another swing.

From the pained, guttural, ethereal roar it issued from that one bullet, it seemed that Fifer had the ticket. She lined up for another shot, but all of the sudden, the view in her scope was obscured by a large fireball, shot reflexively from one palm pointed her way.

She ducked down behind the pillar instinctively, but not quite fast enough. It grazed her hair just enough to catch it aflame, and in a panic she flung her rifle onto the ground, and then herself beside it, frantically rolling and screaming in fear.

“N-no! Not again! Dammit, not again!” Her mind was momentarily consumed by vivid recollections of the dragonfire incident: the burning pain, the smell of her searing flesh, looking at herself in the mirror in the hospital and despairing, and most haunting of all, that moment she lost consciousness after taking the gout of flame, certain she was going to die.

She was able to smother the small fame after a few moments, but the event left her reeling and shaken, unable to reenter the fight for a few moments more, the smell of her singed hair fueling her post-traumatic flashbacks further.

Meanwhile, the one shot she was able to get in had indeed weakened the beast’s constitution. Though it was still much hardier than the others, it now roared and flinched in pain with every strike Chase and Amel dealt it, and as they kept going its swings were more erratic. It certainly didn’t seem like it was going to die very soon, though.

In a fit of rage as it felt itself weakening, it spread a ring of fire around itself in an attempt to get the two of them to back off, before trying to shoot more flames at the two of them, bellowing in anger.
Aukanai Quark Rustic

 

[Rustic]

Luckily for Fifer, Chase’s mood wasn’t usually hard to gauge.

The hulking door to the well-secured armory inched open at its measuredly slow pace as Amel and Chase entered the room. Despite the grim urgency of the alert that had summoned them, the two of them were, as usual, still in the middle of something decidedly more mundane; in this instance, Chase chattering eagerly in Amel’s direction.

“So she like, totally fixed it!” he exclaimed. “Not like, any bumps or scratches or anything…! But she didn’t re-put-on that thing she did last time, um, the uh, stuff that was on the handle…”

Chase gestured emphatically toward the sword in question, which he’d spent the walk over inspecting. Currently sheathed on Amel’s back, Chase couldn’t reach the handle itself, so he hopped and pointed in its direction instead.

“No,” Amel confirmed.

“Yeah? Why?”

Amel delayed responding, knowing they wouldn’t have time to discuss the answer to Chase’s satisfaction.

That choice was rewarded by the quick flitting of Chase’s attention toward the quartermaster, (to whom Chase issued a quick, “hiiii~!”, returned by an awkward smile) and to Fifer, to whom Chase’s reception was, decidedly, not as warm.

“Hey…”

Chase’s dull eyes swept past her almost instantly.

The moment didn’t register in Chase’s mind, but Amel knew it wouldn’t be what Fifer wanted to see. There was nothing to be done about it, so his gaze also averted her own.

Back to business.

Amel didn’t need to take anything from the shelves, so he watched as Chase moved purposefully across the room. Chase’s equipment gathering never seemed to take much time; that fact was aided by Chase’s naturally swift speed and experience, but also by prior preparation. On days they were on call - which were most - Chase dressed with combat in mind; for example, Amel watched intently as Chase lifted up a leg to slot some knives into already awaiting holsters.

“Loadout?” Chase asked.

Going without a response for a few moments, Chase looked up at Amel questioningly.

“Standard*,” Amel finally answered.

Satisfied, Chase obliviously went back to work, leaving Amel to continue to admire his thighs.

Probably an unremarkable conversation to a layman, but it probably served to confirm something Fifer had probably already expected: the two of them were business as usual. Despite the operation’s high amount of unknowns, they’d lacked any air of concern since they’d entered, and their momentary exchange proved that Chase hadn’t listened when he’d been briefed - even if he’d even been briefed about the mission to begin with. Not that there had been much to say in that regard, but still… it probably contributed to the grave tone she addressed them with before leaving.

“Just… be warned. These things won’t be a fucking joke,” she told them.

Finishing by pulling up one of his socks, the comment was enough to elicit a curious look from Chase’s direction. Knowing Fifer hadn’t bothered to make such a sober warning since the war finally registered some of the gravity of their situation.

Unfortunately, understanding that only made Chase excited. After Fifer looked them both in the eye seriously and turned away, he sighed.

“Finally,” he said under his breath, holding his face with one of his hands. “More real work…!”

It wasn’t like he and Amel hadn’t been on missions since the war, but they’d been different. All hands had been needed to clean up the mess of demons that had lurked around England after the war had ended, leaving their workload something of a slog. Missions were lined up one after the other for similar demons working in packs, leaving little in terms of challenge or variety. Just days of droves of similar, mindlessly cruel opponents with no downtime in between.

Every fight was important, it was bad to underestimate their opponents, they were doing the Lord’s work, yeah yeah yada yada… but anyway, this mission seemed actually interesting! Dangerous and mysterious - like the kind they went on before all the bad stuff happened! Sure, he and Amel had been planning to take on something easy to relax… but wasn’t this even better?

Chase’s head whipped in Amel’s direction. They exchanged a series of distinct looks that communicated something that amounted to this:

‘Aren’t you excited?!’
‘Eh.’
‘What?! Be excited, then!!’

Thus, Chase tugged on Amel’s shirt insistently until Amel herded Chase’s hands up into his own.

“Let’s get going.”

At Fifer’s command, Chase’s body automatically lurched forward. Like a racehorse, he was always ready for the starting whistle, but before he could speed out from the gate, something stopped him. All too aware of Amel’s hands on his own, Chase blinked furiously to reorientate before smiling up at him.

“Let’s do our best!” he said, squeezing Amel’s hands.

He was obviously in a hurry to get out of the door and get into the action, but in a rare moment of forethought, he’d chosen to stay back with Amel and walk at his pace.

Noticing that fact, Amel gently squeezed Chase's hands in return and kissed him on the cheek. It had been something sweet that had deserved compensation, and was only made better by the small laugh Chase gave in return.

All either of the two of them wanted was to enjoy the natural momentum of the moment, but Amel knew it was something that would have to wait. After all, he knew the mission wasn't one Chase would want to miss. So, he reluctantly pulled back and led their walk toward the car... albeit, already mentally planning the things he had in mind for Chase for later.

Of course, in his own head, Chase was doing the same thing.

As usual, oblivious to much else.

(*i figure sometimes equipment recommendations would change for supernaturals with known weaknesses, which is what this exchange is alluding to)


Dilapidated buildings passed the view of the reinforced glass of the armored car.

While Fifer had decided to take her usual seat as the driver, Chase and Amel had opted to sit in the back together. As Amel leaned against the window nearer to the passenger side with Chase beside him, the two of them were comfortable. Chase wasn’t unaware of the part of town they were moving through; they had been there more times this month then he could count. Yet, nothing about the sights he mostly ignored bothered him. If anything, he was heartened by them. There were actually signs of repair encroaching into this district, which meant they were getting closer to securing it to live in again.

Considering that, he was more focused on the person beside him than the view of the street, so it came as something of a surprise to him when the car rolled to a slow stop. The car suddenly jerking - well, that kind of thing wasn’t weird, considering the messy area they were in - but the car stopping so soon was. Amel and Chase’s eyes moved to Fifer’s back.

“I’m gonna need a second…”

Fifer’s admittance was enough to garner Chase’s concern, and he slowly frowned. Fifer had mentioned earlier how magical these enemies would be earlier, but words were rarely enough to make him understood. He really understood the severity of what she had meant when faced with the sight of her furiously downing the medication in her hand. Even without her explanation, he remembered well enough just how out of it that stuff could make her… so, seeing her take so much of it without a moment’s hesitation…

“You’re gonna be okay?” he asked in a soft voice, momentarily pushing himself toward the front.

It wouldn’t be the first time FIfer had done such a thing, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t risky. While he respected Fifer’s judgment, he wanted to make sure she wasn’t pushing herself too hard. All of his reluctance from earlier was easily forgotten in that concern - at least, for the moment.

“If it’s a problem, stay here,” Amel added brusquely.

Amel knew her talking up her difficulty was making Chase worried, and considering she had just been the one lecturing them about caution, it stood to reason that she’d be the first to admit her limitations and set an example by staying back. She had an earpiece; if her concern was keeping an eye on them, so to speak, then she didn’t even have to get out of the car.

He’d already known better than to think she’d be anything other than hypocritical, though. “Like hell!” she griped. He could tell from her tone that, if Amel had been in distance, she probably would’ve punched his shoulder, too.

Well, whatever.

“...Listen, you two,” she eventually continued, her shaky voice taking a more somber tone. Unsurprisingly, she again stressed the importance of caution, pointing to the ominous circumstances that had preceded her warning.

The fear in her voice certainly didn’t go unnoticed, but as she probably expected, it didn’t have the exact intended effect. While it did manage to raise concern, it mostly just raised Chase’s concern for Fifer. If they were going into such a magically dense area, then Fifer would be troubled. Less with the pills she’d taken, but then, those caused their own problems. That said, wasn’t it important that they took care of whatever was causing the disturbance as soon as possible? For all of the people who wanted to get back to living in the district, too?

“Got it!” Chase affirmed, not realizing that FIfer had gone on to ask they be careful again. He’d accidentally stopped listening at the ‘dangerous’ part.

Amel lazily raised a hand dismissively in response to Fifer as well. He’d gotten the message the first time. However much it’d influence his decisions going forward… they’d all find out together.

In any case, once they got back on the road, it wasn’t long before they arrived at the site proper. It didn’t seem too different from the last place they’d stopped, so Chase wasn’t sure, but Amel could tell. According to the mission brief, this was in the radius of where the source had been expected. Not that the brief was always right in its assumption (the technology was still new), but combined with Fifer’s sixth sense, it was essentially a sure thing.

Made only surer by the hole in the wall she led the group to.

“In that building…”

As Fifer continued to speak with her eyes trained on the bloodstains on the ground, one of Chase’s legs managed to hop over the hole before he felt Amel’s hand on his shoulder reel him back.

Amel knew enough about Chase to know he was eager to scout ahead like he usually did for Fifer’s sake, but he subtly guided Chase’s gaze to the woman in question, who was still busy fiddling with her bag for further relief. Partly to let him know that she wasn’t ready, but also to attempt to remind him to be vigilant. ‘Careful’ wasn’t a word in either of their vocabularies when it came to fights, but it was too obvious to Amel that there were too many variables to rush in this time.

Chase slowly nodded, his eyes lingering on Fifer for a while.

When they got Fifer’s go-ahead for the descent, the three of them began their trek.

Despite the walls of the building being lined with cracked and shattered windows, most of the floor of the office was ominously dark. The minimal light from Fifer’s rifle proved vital in navigating the floor, as their path through was often obstructed by debris - mostly overturned desks or chairs. Grouped close together, Chase hopped over them first, while Amel kicked or pushed them out of the way, eventually leaving Fifer’s path clear. They moved quietly, guided by Fifer’s light, the blood on the floor, and the crying up ahead.

That crying, while it did keep them alert, didn’t have much of an effect on the two of them, otherwise. If anything, more of Chase’s mind was dedicated to the weird smell in the air - crushed bricks, dust, and blood. It made for an interesting atmosphere, but it also kinda made him wonder just how recent the victims of these supernaturals must be, and what they’d been killed for. A lot of the behaviors these things had already demonstrated didn’t really match up to patterns they’d normally expect to see… but the fact that victims had been dragged back did reliably suggest at least one thing…

Aaaaaaah…

As he'd suspected, with that sound, the mournful call became a chorus. Close enough to warrant wariness, Chase abruptly stopped, his head flitting from angle to angle. He quickly suspected that the echoing of the cries had to be completely unnatural from the many ways the building had crumbled, so he gritted his teeth in frustration, knowing it couldn’t be relied on… but the moment there were audible footsteps, his head jerked abruptly in their direction.

Near the building’s west wall, Chase could tell before Fifer pointed her rifle’s attachment over that he was right. Small amounts of natural light gleamed through to paint the figures they were facing, but most of the clarifying luminance came from the glow of the bodies themselves. Chase didn't waste much time examining them beyond form and figure - humanoid in size and shape, not carrying much muscle or fat at all. Their movements were slow, shambling, and unsteady, too, making one thing abundantly clear:

They were weak.

Chase's eyes widened. His stance tensed like a predator waiting in the bushes - subsequently, behind him, Amel’s hand raised to the handle of his sword. The light of Fifer’s rifle glinted off the white of Chase’s teeth as he grinned.

“...Get ‘em, boys.”

All of the frenetic energy in Chase’s body released at once as he pounced forward.

Through a haze of bloodlust, Chase didn’t notice much of the obvious. Not the pointed ears, or the bareness of the bodies, or the shape of the runes glowing from each limb. Chase noticed the immediate: how easy their skins were to rip into, the relative warmth of their bodies, the lack of awareness in their eyes and movements. Few things could match Chase’s reflexes, but these creatures stood no chance - they only barely managed to respond to being hit at all before Chase started another slicing motion, and in his precise, elegant motions, bodies quickly toppled to the tune of his delighted laughter.

Completely Chase’s opposite, Amel still had no problem making quick work of the group. The floor of the building was too cluttered for the wide, swinging arcs his large sword was best suited to making, so even as he’d unsheathed it, he’d done so carefully. He didn’t rely as much on immediate assessments as Chase, but he did come to the same conclusions, so as he made his approach, his method was simple - grabbing the bodies, throwing them into clusters, and silently slicing through the lot of them.

Despite Chase’s speedier method, they made it through the group at the same pace. Except, where Amel’s foes were in clean, lifeless pieces, Chase’s were sprawled out mostly intact. Purposefully, of course.

As Fifer breathed an audible sigh of relief - a definitive sign of her opinion that they were done for the moment - Chase’s cackling quieted into a pleased hum. As Fifer was busy with fiddling in her back for more medication, Chase casually knelt down by one of the ‘corpses’ and raised his knife up again.

Chase was pretty sure all of them were dead… except the one he had come to get a closer look at. The runes on the body still faintly glowed, and its chest barely moved. It wasn’t really an ideal specimen to play with, but then, none of their opponents had been. There was always a certain fun in the immediate thrill of slaughter, but once that fell away, some supernaturals still had a certain je ne sais quoi: qualities that came together that decided how fun they were to torment. Mostly that was decided by how sentient and malicious they’d been, but it also came down to stuff like texture, body temperature, how they screamed, and… stuff.

These things had none of the good stuff. It was a little disappointing, but only a little! Instead, Chase chose to optimistically focus on looking at the other stuff that intrigued him: signs of what they were fighting, exactly. He looked over the body curiously, occasionally tearing into it to satisfy his various curiosities regarding organs as Fifer expressed a similar sense of wonder.

“Whatever it is, it’s gross!” Chase replied delightedly, as his poking around demonstratively made a loud ‘squelch’ noise.

Done with his own looking around, Amel let his sword rest by his side as he came to stand beside Chase. Amel himself wasn’t that interested in anything other than securing the area, so with that done, he watched Chase as Chase worked with the modicum of natural light that filtered down to where he was kneeling. Ah, Amel never got sick of the sight of that blood-splattered face…

“There’s more of them, guys…”

Amel’s gaze reluctantly moved to where Fifer’s was to inspect the area again, but the lack of concern in FIfer’s voice meant she failed to immediately grab Chase’s attention.

“I feel like it’s only one, but it will NOT be a cakewalk like these were…”

“Cake?” Chase asked, finally looking up from his investigation.

Before Chase could make erroneous assumptions, Amel bent down to pull him up from under his arms and lift him up.

“More work,” Amel said.

Seeing Chase still pouting from being pulled away from his little project and refusing to stand on his own feet, Amel added, “This one’s stronger, apparently.”

Knowing that, Chase’s eyes immediately brightened. He stood up straight and looked at Fifer expectantly, any of his reluctance from earlier forgotten in his fervency for teamwork.

That out of the way, FIfer moved to guide them downward. Their general strategy of navigation was repeated from earlier, but with the light debris from earlier replaced by heavy rubble (literal crumbling of brick from the floor and wall, among other things) Amel ended up in front to occasionally move things out of the way. Although, notably, he didn’t have to do it too often, as the staircase was usually wide enough for the group to move past. It seemed a little strange for a basement, at least to Chase. Wide staircases suggested foot traffic, and in a building so tall, what would’ve been so important as to be put below the floor?

That question was at least somewhat immediately answered by the giving away of brick foundation to a smoother wall paneling at the bottom. It looked just as dirty as everything else, but even as dark as it was, Chase could tell it was a type of material that probably cleaned up well. He’d only really seen material like it in the Guild’s infirmary, and that really didn’t make sense for a grody, dank basement. But then, the basement they were in wasn’t dank at all - really, it didn’t have much of a smell at all besides crumbling brick and… something familiar, but too faint to place.

“It’s down here.”

Despite nothing being visible being the radius of Fifer’s attachment, Chase started to try and look around. It wasn’t very long, though, before his eyes landed upon the first independently visible sight in the basement, which caused his eyebrows to furrow. The orange-ish glow gave him a bad feeling…

Especially as, in the light of the glow, he could finally see the floor, too. It was that same, sterile material as the wall - one that constantly needed to be cleaned, or else filth would stand out on it. Except, he was pretty sure what he was seeing on the floor wasn’t typical dirt and grime, but soot and scorch marks. And then, he was suddenly sure what the smell from earlier was: smoke.

“Fife-”

Chase doesn’t have time to finish Fifer’s name before there’s a screeching of metal and a deafening bang. There was small, momentary, heart-thumping silence that followed - permeated only by a growing pounding feeling against the floor - leaving Chase and Amel only enough time to exchange glances. Whatever it was, it was huge, and it wasn’t just close; it was almost upon them. Thus, the two of them started moving the moment the incantation began, with Chase having just enough time to push Fifer back as the wall they’d been standing in front of exploded.

Once Chase had a second to make sure Fifer was alright and had cover, both he and Amel began to move.

With a quick, initial assessment, Chase knew he was at a good disadvantage. The monster that had burst into the room was a walking fire hazard, and with such short-bladed weapons, his usual preference for close combat wasn’t an immediate option. So, at least initially, he decided to stay back and throw from a distance and decide on a strategy. Three knives flung from his hand to hit strategically varied spots, but despite Chase’s excellent aim, there was no response, beyond an arm swing made in his direction.

Chase’s attack was immediately followed up with one of Amel’s own. With enough room to finally swing, Amel could put more force behind the blade, but even so... The texture as his blade sunk in was something like clay: while there wasn’t much initial resistance, it was hard to push in far. In fact, he’d been given no sensory feedback that told him he’d actually hit anything internal at all. In other words, it couldn’t have been effective.

Seeing the result, Chase’s teeth gritted. It was one thing if his attacks had done nothing, but Amel’s? He threw another knife for good measure, but when that - and another swing from Amel - failed, Chase balled his free hand up into a fist.

“Cheater!” he yelled, flinging another knife into the enemy’s stupid head purely out of frustration. In the moments it stood still, cluelessly looking around, Chase repeated it again. “Chea-ter!”

The accusation garnered another arm swing aimed in Chase’s direction, but he didn’t care. He was confident the beast was way too slow to catch up to him, anyway, as long as he paid attention. Still, that was boring! Boring!!

As Chase moved in circles, trying to taunt the beast to alleviate some of his disappointment, Amel glanced in FIfer’s direction. He’d written off her participation the second he’d seen the fire start, but it had become clear that they’d at least need her bullets. Fortunately, he could see her kneeling in a firing position behind the pillar, so she was doing better than expected. Her resilience meant a shot fired, and as Amel turned back, he saw the beast begin to flail in agony.

So, Chase and Amel simultaneously moved back to give the creature room to writhe, but what they had hoped to avoid were its arms. What they didn’t expect was the quick pulse of light that also immediately shot from the creature’s hand toward Fifer’s position.

“Fifer!” Chase shouted breathlessly.

In the next instant, the beast’s raised arms crashed down to its sides, forcing Chase and Amel to move away and the monster stumbled back toward them from the force it had exerted. Close to the beast on opposite sides, neither of them could afford to tear their eyes off its position, but Chase’s mind was somewhere else.

Especially when Fifer screamed.

“Not again! Dammit, not again!”

Fearing the worst, Chase’s feet turned on their own, and his body darted for Fifer’s direction. He knew the instant he moved that his motion would grab the monster’s attention, and once it did, the creature reflexively tried to swat him back. Still, despite only feeling the heat from its extremities behind him, he just barely managed to avoid being slapped back by the creature's fumbling limbs to hop up and over Fifer’s cover to duck behind it himself.

“Fifer…!!” Feeling his heart beating in his throat, he called her name in a combined state of panic and relief. She wasn’t doing well, with her hands covering her face, but she at least wasn’t melting like a wax doll as he’d initially feared. Still, his hands moved to touch her shoulder.

“You’re okay! …R-Right? F-Fifer?”

He wanted to reassure her, but it was hard for him to be confident with the way she was holding herself that she actually hadn’t been injured. Either way, he didn’t feel as though he could leave her as she was.

“Please…”

Meanwhile…

While one person hiding behind the pillar could’ve been ignored, two people talking behind it were asking for trouble. Amel had registered that thought the moment he’d noticed Chase moving erratically in Fifer’s direction. He’d understood Chase’s intention, and he’d known he had no time to do anything other than support it. That said, he'd immediately swung down with all his might on the creature’s side, managing to stop its arm short of knocking Chase back.

It wailed pitifully, then, the unexpected effectiveness stunning it enough to give Amel another opening to quickly slam his blade back into it. He could tell that FIfer’s shot had done its job, as when the blade sunk down into its skin again, a boiling heat poured out, his blade finishing its arc slathered in a viscous, steaming-hot, orange fluid.

They were getting somewhere. The beast was livid, its defiant roar oppressing the room with a wall of sound as thick as its massive body, but that was just fine to Amel. All he cared about were its molten eyes locked solely on his position. The two traded blows with room-shaking force, leaving Fifer enough time to collect herself.

She might’ve been surprised, when she regained her position, at just how effective Amel had been at keeping it at bay. Parts of Amel’s clothes were singed, but the monster was in far worse shape, gushing from gaping molten cuts along its side.

Yet, the overwhelming force and the desperation of the monster proved to be too much. The soles of its’ feet glowed with orange light, and in a few moments, a ring of fire exploded out from two of the its furious stomps, and in Amel’s unfocused attempt to avoid getting burnt, the monster had an opening to use its arm to slam Amel through the hole in the wall it had made upon its entrance.

The force at which he hit was sickening, with the only saving grace being that his head hadn’t impacted first. Still, the world was spinning and Fifer and Chase were yelling as Amel’s body slid down from the hit. When his feet touched the floor, his impulse was to try and move away from the wall - lest he just be flattened into it by another hit - but his legs stumbled as he did. His eyes strained from the effort of trying to force himself to see straight to assess the situation and the glowing orange fuck in front of him, but…

“Amel!” he heard Chase shout in warning.

As Amel expected, the beast was sprinting straight for him to come and finish him off. Surrounded by the rubble of the wall he fell through, he didn’t have many options for dodging past it… so, thinking his only option was taking another hit, he readied his sword to at least trade blows with the thing, but…

“Swing right!”

He had no time to think about what had been said. Trusting Chase instinctively, his sword swung wildly into empty air for about half of its rotation around his body… before piercing metal.

The force it took to break through was enough to make Amel’s teeth clatter, but whatever it was worked. Something burst forth from the tank, and the moment it hit the beast’s open wounds, Amel knew what it was. Water. He covered his face as steam rapidly started to pour out and into the room as the giant, lumbering beast panicked, staggered, and fell back in its attempts to escape.

Boom!

To add insult to injury, the monster - which had still seemed to be hardy a minute earlier - was shot down further by another bullet shot directly into its head. Through the haze of steam, neither Chase nor Amel had a visual on it, but Fifer sensed its dense magical aura perfectly fine.

Thus, no longer able to muster the strength to raise its massive body to its feet, the creature thrashed helplessly. It desperately tried to fire off a few final shots from its palms into the air, but only sparks trickled down its arms before being extinguished entirely by the water dripping down its skin. Its futile efforts slowed and slowed until its arms fell down to its side uselessly.

In the end, Fifer’s panicked breaths calmed in time to the dimming off of the creature’s magical aura. When the steam started to clear, everyone confirmed the creature was dead.

The group, sweating from the effort exerted and the heightened temperature in the room, dragged their feet through the puddles of water freshly slicking the floor to converge on the corpse. Where the room had previously been filled to bursting with sound, the only noises that were left were the hissing of the water tank Amel had opened up and their own, exhausted panting.

“Hehe…” Chase laughed, his chest heaving in a large breath of air as he reached down for some water to cool his face with. “You guys did it…!”

Casually clutching a wound on his side, Amel shook his head. “We,” he corrected.

Chase clutched his face happily.

With that, the team had emerged victorious once more…

…leaving them free to finally investigate the mystery of what had just happened to them.

Aukanai DergTheDergon