The attack on the Citadel had been a disaster. They had lost Apatite and countless lesser agents to the surprise attack from the White Moon. More than that, they had lost the safety of that place, which to this point had been absolute. If they could reach them once, what was to say they couldn’t find some other way to do it again.
And what made this all so much worse? She had been warned. Scholomance had tried to warn them, and she hadn’t believed his claims, not until she had teleported into Negaspace to see a Knight at the very doors to Metallia’s chamber. The impossible had become real and she couldn’t help feeling the need to take some of the blame for it. She shouldn’t have scoffed, even privately. She should have warned the General-Sovereigns… but it was too late for that now. All she could do was move forward, and the anger she felt at herself found a new target in the form of that Squire who had tried to reach her. An idea bloomed and with it, the need for outside help. Tracking him down would take a concentrated effort… and more manpower than she had at her disposal. But there was someone who had more… and who just might agree to lend her aid.
Teleporting from the Citadel where clean up continued, Cinnabar appeared in a familiar flat, her boots hitting the cement floor with a heavy sound. A glance over the lovingly crafted and restored furniture produced no sullen captain in his house coat… Lazarus must be out on an errand for his Mistress, or… working, she guessed. She’d heard he was earning his keep at the Ballet company, though she forgot how long ago that way. It had barely been relevant information to retain, beyond the meaning that it got him out of Stroud’s house for periods of time.
“Stroud?” The half-youma called as she shoved her hands into her pockets, resisting the urge to start pacing and keeping it to a slow stroll to the kitchen area. “Pardon my dropping in… I need to talk to you.”
She fingered the crystal in her pocket, wondering if the blonde happened to be out with her pet today. Inconvenient, but not a deterrent.
To the side of the large loft, along on of the walls, were various neatly organized tool chests as well as a long workbench with vices, a lathe, band saws, jigsaws, circular saws and sanders, large jars and drums and brushes, cans and all things one might find needful for restoration, rebuilding, refinishing and refining in wood, metal, cloth, leather, canvas, glass or stone. As it were, Stroud stood at her workbench with an assortment of pieces that looked like an exploded puzzle of metal. Some were delicate shells, hammered metal that curved and seemed to form a fruit or a flower if they were put together. Others were large bolts and cranks. The antiquarians hands were busied with what could have been a toothbrush, carefully removing a buildup of brilliant orange rust from one of the bolts.
A thin black strand against the platinum hair, along with curls of black and silver along her ears revealed wireless earbuds as the reason for a noted lack in response or greeting. Once within six feet, however, Stroud paused and turned to look over shoulder. Curiosity spread out into a smile, and she lifted a hand to remove one of the buds. "General."
"Cinnabar. Business? Pleasure? Both?"
Long legs ate up the space, closing in to something more comfortable as Cinnabar left the kitchen for the work space. Despite her agitation, there was a smile on her face when Stroud left off her work to greet her. The questions pulled a chuckle from her and the gap between them closed further as the half-youma reached out to rest a hand against her lower back, leaning in for a brush of lips across the sharp angle of her cheekbone.
“If only it were ever only for pleasure that I came creeping around…” She laughed as she leaned back. She glanced down at the pieces across the bench, but they didn’t hold much interest for her when another problem occupied her mind. “I need your clever mind and the extra sets of hands and eyes you have.”
Cinnabar turned and braced her backside against the bench, crossing one ankle over the other. Despite the relaxation the pose suggested, her foot jiggled and bounced restlessly.
“You heard I lost my Lieutenant?” She said as she squinted across the large, open flat, her brows drawn together. Her tail picked up a slow flick-flick-flick behind her, brushing the bottom of her coat. “Willing recruitment was not as fruitful as I had hoped. I have been thinking I should try another method, and I have someone in mind. Finding him, however, is going to take a little more than just me.”
All things are only so effective as the motivations and propaganda that drive them. Willing or Unwilling just changes which motivations you can use to keep them. “The Rosters of Division are all updated every 48 hours of a tidbit of information. “
Stroud considered the lounge and restless motion at a wide angle of focus, rather than the customary looking a person in the eyes while speaking to them. “ Lost Person in the ‘Wilderness,’ such as it were. Fair enough a game. Tell me more about your needle in the proverbial City haystack. And your....other method. “
“And what is your timeline? If we want to set up a canvas search, using Youma or Lietenants, will take time. Or making use of Intel, if there even is any on the target. Ah, to hunt. The Most Dangerous Game.”
Her nose wrinkled, but she chose to let the subject of her former lieutenant drop, for now. She still felt sore over it… and she didn’t like how personal it felt. She needed some distance and objectivity. Not that she’d ever been good at that.
Instead, she focused on the concept of a game that Stroud proposed, finding it far more pleasing to consider it that way.
“My timeline is ‘as soon as possible’, but in the big picture, I don’t know how much difference it makes if we catch him tomorrow or three months from now. He seems willing to fight alongside our enemy, but when I talked to him, he wanted to play information broker more than soldier.” Cinnabar shifted and pulled a small, spiral bound note pad out of her pocket. She thumbed through the pages to find what she wanted, and though she had most of this memorized, it helped refresh it so nothing was left out.
“His name is Scholomance. He’s a squire level Knight of Saturn alignment. Tall… but a bit shorter than I am, so roughly between five-foot-ten and six feet. His hair was black the last time I saw him, chin length in the back with long tails in the front. Hazel eyes, pale skin. Most notable about his uniform is a lower face mask printed with a rictus grin. He often wears it up that I can tell. Long indigo coat with a black vest, bones of unnatural size decorating the sleeves and over the shoulders. Gray slacks, black and indigo boots. His weapon is an elongated femur bone, about the same length as your cane. He appears to carry and use it like one. White gloves, saturn symbols in gold hanging from the coat, on the breast, and clipped into his hair.” She lowered the note pad and shifted her eyes to the other general.
“I met him a few months ago. We talked about the Negaverse and the benefits of our organization, what we’re trying to accomplish. He seemed favorable, even agreeable, but when I offered him the chance to join us, he put me off with something equivalent to ‘maybe someday’.” She lifted a shoulder and dropped it to the rattle of chains, her nose wrinkling again. “I don’t have patience for that. If they will not join us, its better to remove the threat and I attempted to neutralize him. He escaped. Then, just before the attack on the stronghold, he called me, oddly enough…”
A frown creased her brow. “He wanted to sell me information about a possible attack. He wanted neutrality, the ability to sell us information and possible technology in the future, and our aid, if he needed protection or teleportation. He showed me a crystal he had been given that collected energy, a crystal that had not been made by the Negaverse. I will admit… I didn’t put enough stock into what he told me. I didn’t think it was possible for Order forces to break into the Citadel itself. If it was, why would they have waited so long?”
The half-youma shifted at the admission of her failing, tucking her hands and the notepad into her pockets. It was hard to hold Stroud’s eyes at that point, but she forced herself to, refusing to back down.
“The General-Queen is aware of my mistake and I’ve been reprimanded. But the point to this is that I saw him during the attack, assisting Order forces in the battle. Its why I didn’t want to leave him out of our grasp… he’s proven he can’t keep himself as neutral as he claims to be. But he has also proven he has useful information and an interest in the power we could give him, so I have decided its time to send the hounds after the fox. I would like to present him to the General-Queen with a bow attached.”
There was something just so endearing about someone who learned a new word and was so enthusiastic to use it. Did you look that one up precious? ‘Rictus’ already means a specific sort of grin. Like saying ‘ATM machine.’ But then, we weren’t all meant for book learning, even if we stand abreast in rank. We each have different strengths and here you are on one of yours as a bounty girl, for hunting up the scent of a criminal.
“New things are waking up all the time, within our enemies and within ourselves. The crystal could have been dug up on one of their worlds and it simply took this long for them to find it. Or it took this long for a cat to find the right dipstick to give a wand to. It is an answer we will want. Among all the rest that they hold for us for a little while. “ The knight sounded entertaining, at least. “If he’s playing the role of a double agent, in order to keep getting information, he would have to nominally show up to strikes and act against us. Being a part of the invasion, though, there are other excuses or jobs he could have volunteered for and still seemed helpful. I expect he’d sell information the other way as well. It can be a great survival tactic when it works out politically. “
But it assumes that the information on offer is too valuable for either party to risk filling in the well, whether more drink from it them themselves. “Does Intel have any information reported on him, other than your own? A factor of casing out locations. Moving around the entire city metropolitan area is something we can do, but it isn’t the most efficient. Unless you think you could get a hold of him. You say he ‘called’ you. Can you set up a meeting with him? I expect you’d have to have something to ‘offer’. “
“You could offer to ‘demonstrate a weapon from an old war’ that we’ve acquired for him. So that he knows how it works when it’s used in the future.’ I have just the right secret weapon in mind. And I’d love to demonstrate it.”
“If he had framed his role as that of a mole, I could understand perhaps putting on a show in order to keep up appearances, but what he asked for made me think he wanted true neutrality. Which is why I’m not pleased to see him siding with Order.” She said. “And I expect you’re right, that he’d as soon sell them our information as sell us theirs. I don’t like people who won’t chose a side...”
Which was, perhaps, a form of shooting herself in the foot… Someone with an in on the other side could be useful for gathering information, but the cloak-and-dagger sort of work had never been appealing. Cin so much preferred tackling things head on.
“There isn’t much in the database about him. He is rated as low threat and there is a note that he avoids fighting whenever possible. His magic apparently pushes people into some sort of pocket dimension, but its vague and I’ve never seen it up close to really know how it functions.”
And it wouldn’t matter much what his magic did, if he would be exchanging it for a weapon instead. She was curious what he’d have… a cane like Schörl’s? Something else?
Stroud’s offer drew Cin’s eyes to her and her brow rose in surprise and curiosity. “Do you have a new toy you haven’t told me about, Lovely? Its not a bad enticement… but I don’t know how to get in touch with him. ‘Call’ was the wrong word, I guess. He sent me a note with that magic they use, on paper, and asked me to meet him. There wasn’t a way for me to send anything back. In theory, we could catch another knight to send our own note to him, but its debatable how much effort that would save in the end.”
Sending out a net of officers to canvas the city was perhaps a bit ‘brute force’ of an approach, but it’s what she was, if she was anything at all. That was why Stroud was useful, though. Her thinking ran down other paths, ones she hadn’t considered. Together, hopefully, they could achieve a broader scope.
Stroud laughed, genial, “I get new toys all the time, though their arena of use differs from bedroom, to warfare, to sales fodder. But it's a matter of formality. Whenever negotiating, ally or enemy, you must always tell the truth. At least so long as your power is not absolute. Otherwise you can’t maneuver them where you want them because they’ll expect all things to be a double cross. If you are truthful, even if it isn’t advantageous to them, it keeps them guessing, and keeps them on the hook for if and when you might offer something advantageous. “ Stroud lifted her hands in amusement, “It also drives home that bending truths or ‘neutrality’ too far isn’t tolerated.”
“I refer to some antiques I could bring along to demonstrate. They’re all shined and ready for Morale Testing. “
“Involving a second knight carries risks of ruining his cover. Not doing so means we must wait either for him to contact you, which wastes time rather than manpower, or we set up a series of consecutive nights where we canvas patrol. With or without others. Others is time efficient, less people is more resources efficient. Motorcycles would allow us to cover ground faster than even running, powered taken into account. I’d suggest a spiral search pattern, one starting at the outer edges of the Metropolitan area, the other in the heart of it. Clockwise and Counter. That way over the course of the roughly eight hours it would take, we’ll have double checked both areas with our large aura ranges to pick out Squires specifically. In the case that he powers up after one of us has already passed. “ More people would lessen the window of missing a power up with staggered starts and slight different spiral paths.
“Preferences? Other ideas?”
The tall woman smiled as she turned her eyes towards the far side of the loft space, gaze unfocused in thought. Her teeth picked at her lower lip, but there was a stillness to the rest of her.
“Most of our resources are tied up in clean-up and recovery in the Citadel, there aren’t much in the way of lower ranked officers I can pull. All their superiors want them. I’ve only got two of my own, now.” She released her lip as she spoke. “Best bet would probably be a canvas patrol with what we can field, and I agree with your search pattern. As Captains, Jet and Chrysocolla can probably handle patrolling alone… this would even be a good experience for them.”
The half-youma angled a look at the blonde next to her and there was a small smile that curved across her mouth.
“I appreciate the help, Stroud. Let me know when you’re available? In the meantime, maybe I can find someone to work up a sketch for me so I have a likeness to give to the rest of you. I can’t draw worth s**t.” She laughed as she straightened. A flash of metal caught her eye and she reached to pick up one of the blonde’s baubles, rolling it between her fingers in idle curiosity before she put it back where she had taken it from. “I wonder if Scholomance likes antiques… but he likes to buy and sell, so maybe. Its a good suggestion and not something I would have tried.”
Things didn’t interest her so much now, if they ever had. The woman who owned the things caught far more of her attention.
“Being one’s own boss means setting one’s own hours. Don’t trouble of the help- we are many fingers to the hand of Metallia. It’s nice to have an business excuse to wrap our fingers together instead of just recreation. Not that the latter is lacking. “ The musings on the knight, however, brought a separate and too wide smile across the pale lips.
I don’t think he’ll like antiques very much soon.
“There’s some I might drum up myself to help. Ceraskia, Laz, Zircon are all possibles pending their schedules. Night shift is easier to not conflict, which is common enough with senshi and knight as well. Daily grind for daily bread. I will check with them. If you can do so with Jet and Chrysocolla?”
“Only lacking in it occurring so rarely lately.” Cin chuckled as she leaned to lay a hand on the small of Stroud’s back, her smile shifting to something warmer and inviting.
“I’ll speak with my captains and let you know their availability.” She nodded. “We can work out a schedule later.”
There was an urge then, to slide in closer and bury her mouth against the side of the blonde’s neck, but she pushed it down as she drew away, still smiling. There would be time for that later, perhaps, when there weren’t things to do and people to see.
“I’ll call you.” Cinnabar murmured before she removed her hand. She took a step away for courtesy before she teleported out with a small puff of air rushing into to reoccupy the space.
Ivynian
