“Well look at that, Jaid,” Phon didn’t really address the knight, but more the entire room. “You’ve only been on our side for a few days and someone’s already trying to take up your old spy job.”
Senli appeared on the lounge table in front of everyone, crouched over as she had been in the vent, clutching a ball in her arms. The caretaker sprung to her feet, and began trying to desperately explain things with panic in her voice. “Uhh, well one of the balls ended up in the tunnels. And then a keypad appeared and opened a hole that invited me in. And And And…”
“It’s fine, Senli,” Xard jumped to her defense. “Things have been quite hectic lately, so it’s only natural that you’d be a bit curious.”
“Yes, we don’t mind if she stays,” Phon shrugged, even though she was the one who incited the drama. “For now at least, until we get to more sensitive matters. These first few items will be fine for everyone to hear, because we plan on sharing them with the members anyways. Speaking of, is it too late to hold an impromptu staff meeting?” The woman checked the time.
“Nah, if anyone’s asleep yet we’ll just wake them up. And if they’re out elsewhere, we’ll call them back, or they can join on their phones.”
“Well, I imagine anyone who was watching the stream just now is probably headed back anyways,” Kada added. “That was a crazy stunt yall pulled. I knew what was going to happen, and I was still surprised.”
“We wouldn’t want our audience thinking we’ve gotten boring after all this time,” The Vixen merely huffed. “And I’ll go ahead and send out the notification. Meeting in the throne room in half an hour. While I do that, and since there’s a deadline, let’s get moving on some of these reports. Nathym, we’ll start with you.”
“Guessing you want to hear about the Gizmicros first,” The Engineer deduced. “Back in Bipriber, we were able to send out a worldwide decommissioning pulse and disabled all Gizmicros that were infecting soldiers in the various armies and the CP. They were rendered well-beyond inoperable, and all should have fully worked themselves out of their systems by now.”
“However, as an unfortunate side effect, the Fiend Gizmicros were temporarily down as well. But we were able to eventually get them back online, for all of the ones we injected, as well as any administered by the CP. What that means, though, is we’re missing about a month of tracking data. Not insignificant, but not detrimental.”
“Work on our Western headquarters is almost complete. It’s fully operational, safe, and mobile, but it still needs a few quality of life additions for comfort. As for the construction here, I wasn’t heavily involved, but I imagine most of it will come to an end since we’re no longer besieged.”
“I can clarify that,” Tize offered to explain. “Roque will be handling the reconstruction of Bisomote, and I did a preliminary sweep and cleanup with him yesterday. We were able to restore all facilities that had been severed and dispose of anything that could be considered hazardous or dangerous to the citizens.”
“In theory, some could begin moving back into their homes tomorrow, but a few houses and most of the shops will require more extensive repairs. We’d be at least a month or so out until the town could be running as it was, maybe a bit shorter depending how many outside contractors we bring in. But we can hopefully have everyone out of the tunnels by the end of the week, and we’ll have Deborah reach out to those who’ve fled elsewhere and let them know it’s safe to return if they wish.”
“And for inside the compound, since we’ll be able to bring in outside help, we should be able to finish the remaining apartment building by tomorrow. That should let us take down all temporary housing and still have a bit of spare room for the future. Other than that, we still have some refugees in our safehouses we’re trying to help find homes for—those that are uninvolved with our group in any capacity.”
“But that’s it for operational problems. We lost no members during your absence. Though Chorus did purposefully let themself be chased by Humanity for a while and get captured so that they could make a video exposing their actions. I believe that’s what’s being aired right now actually.” The group glanced over to the tv which had cut to new programming now that the debate broadcast had ended.
“However, there were two confirmed Fiends deaths: Kalter from Above who attacked the Central Peace and the Fiend with mirror-based powers whom I faced off against during Bastion. He apparently tried to hide in a mirror, and Humanity found it and threw it in the ocean. It would seem he couldn’t survive with his mirrored world underwater.”
“I’m assuming your plan is for us to reopen for business tomorrow as we were. I don’t foresee any problems with that, but it may take a few members time to adjust back into it.”
Nathym then took back over. “The issue with Mallea is also obviously resolved. So the only thing I have left to report about is-” The Engineer paused briefly, glancing over to both Jaid and Senli, then looking to Drim for confirmation that he could continue, and the king nodded his head. “-our project.”
“We’re having the same problem as we always were before your absence. However, I should be able to refocus more of my time with West and other large scale issues coming to an end. And I do have a lead that will hopefully come to fruition. If it does, I do believe we could have everything ready to go by the end of the year. If it doesn’t, we may be forced to delay indefinitely, or tweak the project and launch it either incomplete or at reduced capacity.”
“Alright, thank you for all that, both of you,” Phon nodded to the two men who had spoken. “And thank you again for your work and efforts at keeping everything running in our absence. You made it possible. Now then, Kada, do you have anything you’d like to report?”
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“Guhhh, not really,” the woman had jumped, not expecting to be called upon and put on the spot. “Err, I guess I did check in with Ledmer and everything’s fine over there. They had a few incidents with Humanity, but after buffing our security even more, and after Ten left, it stopped entirely.”
“I didn’t actually expect anything,” Phon snickered. “Just wanted to make you panic. Xard then, how is your extermination of Humanity going?”
“Steadily, I suppose,” the man wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “I’m heading southward currently since there’s been a lot more reports of criminal activity, dissolving any Humanity camps and prisons as I go. It’s honestly shocking how underprepared they are, and how they’ve been a nuisance all this time. Really, if anyone had laid any actual pressure into them long ago, they would have crumbled before it ever reached this point.”
“There was one interesting tidbit, however. Apparently we’re not the only one liberating their prisons. I keep getting confused with someone called The Rescuer. They’ve been breaking into the prison camps and setting people free, either without the guards noticing at all, or they feel suddenly compelled to release their captives. It’s mostly been on the western side of the continent, but word has spread by those who have been incarcerated more than once.”
“Hmm, how intriguing,” Phon was actually interested. “Guess we’ll need to do some digging. And just out of fairness, we’ll report what we’ve been doing as well. Obviously, we were mostly preparing for the debate you all just saw. Which involved digging up dirt on our opponents and verifying it ourselves before we acted.”
“We also briefly met with Nathym to obtain the traps for their feet, and did a quick tour of the new mobile headquarters. Not really a thorough one since we didn’t want people knowing we were there, so we’ll have to inspect it properly later.”
“And we also went and visited our uncle so as to not give him a heart attack when we pulled this stunt. He’s doing well, having retreated even further from the public eye because of everything going on, not that he minds. Apparently, some of his reconstruction projects, though, were attacked by Humanity just from having any relation to us, as were some of our low-income housing communities, but it didn’t last long.”
“Though I won’t tell you about all of them, we also made some stops to check on some happenings and people that I was keeping an eye on during our incarceration. More on that later. But we should also mention, since everyone didn’t get to see it, that we invited Callum Briz, Vice-Representitive of Regend, to be Drim’s running-mate in the upcoming election.”
“Oh really?!” Jaid jumped on that since no one else seemed to really know much about him. “Umm, he was always very kind and friendly at the Central Peace, and a genuine and earnest guy. I believe he’ll fulfill his obligations dutifully and is an excellent choice. It will be nice to see him again.”
“Speaking of, we should move on to upcoming plans,” Phon checked the time again, now clearly regretting the short time limit she’d set.
“Wait, before we continue,” Tize interrupted. “We’ll be talking about rather sensitive information I imagine. So I hope I’m not out of line in asking what she’s still doing here.” Eyes glanced around the room to those the onlookers assumed he was talking about. “And no, I don’t mean Senli. Why is Jaid still here?”
“What?!” the knight was taken aback by the affront.
“Jaid is now our client and will be rejoining the group,” Phon clarified.
“Which I understand and respect,” Tize insisted, “But are we certain that we can trust her to this degree yet?”
“The hell’s your problem, Tize?” The Paladin couldn’t take the man’s slander any longer. “In case your short term memory is failing you, I just broke the four of them out of prison, worked with Kada to liberate a Humanity camp, and climbed into Mallea’s brain to save her life!”
“And we thank you for all of that,” the man wouldn’t deny her efforts. “Genuinely, we’re grateful. Without what you… finally… chose to do, we would still be stuck in limbo without a path forward, still struggling. So I can’t thank you enough, truly.”
“But you still have a history. Though you didn’t really fool us, many believed that you’d eventually come around the last time you were here. You fit right in, were doing well, climbed the ranks, and most importantly, you appeared, to all of us, that you were genuinely enjoying your time. And you still threw it away because of someone else’s scheme. Who’s to say that this isn’t part of another Central Peace plot?”
Jaid found it hard to refute his words, but she still had an argument to make. “I haven’t explicitly explained it yet, but I have been dishonorably discharged from the Central Peace. Because I trusted him, I was open with my direct superior about my plans to set the Greaters free. And instead of locking me up, he did what he could to help, but severing all ties was the cost, especially to not catch him in the crossfire.”
“If I were to return to the CP now, they’d laugh me out of the building. Or possibly even arrest or court-martial me. Regardless, it wouldn’t end well, and there’s no going back.”
“Well thank you for being honest,” Tize appreciated her candor. “But even if you’re not aware of it, that doesn’t mean someone either in the CP or running the show behind the scenes didn’t want this outcome. However, I’ll admit that something you can’t control ultimately shouldn’t affect our trust in you. What it comes down to is sincerity.”
“Before we can reveal the biggest plans and finest details to you, we need to make absolutely sure that you’re on our side. That you won’t turn around and betray us again under the right circumstances. You’ve made great strides, Jaid, in amending your mistakes, but we’d also be fools to ignore your past. That’s where my wariness comes from.”
“And what do you want me to do about it, huh?!” Even though she couldn’t dispute what he was saying, it still pissed her off. If any of the others had the same concerns, she’d be more receptive, but it just had to be Tize. “Unless there’s some magical thing I can do that will suddenly make you trust me, I’m at a loss. Go on then, what will it take?!”
“Or you know what,” Jaid jutted out her hand. “We can synchronize again. That lets you read my mind, right? I’ll let you do it without holding back. Whatever’s needed to bury this stupid notion behind us and move on with what’s actually important.”
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” The Refuge rejected her offer. “Because I do actually have a mission in mind. And if you complete it, I swear that I will drop this and never doubt your sincerity again. You’ll have my full support and trust that you’ll do whatever it takes to see our plans through to the end.”
“Fine, what is it? I’ll go right now!” Jaid went to grab her belongings that were tucked away in a corner of the lounge. She grabbed her armor and prepared to put it on, but what Tize said next made her freeze.
“We need you to kill the king of Guzrinn.”