[https://i.imgur.com/qh4F7M1.jpg]
In the conference room, somewhere in the base.
Syd Barrett was folding his arms around the chest, listening to the girl, Jody Johanson as she requested for a private conversation with him.
“.....”
[https://i.imgur.com/TKbqHUH.jpg]
“ You're clarified now?”
The boy opened the conversation.
“ Yes.”
Jody Johanson had admitted that It was terrifying yet insane for one who has obtained such as destructive ability like this.
She finally understood the motivate of that enemy who came at them at the airport and the reason why they avoided facing him directly.
Is because of this.
If the fire has made it to approach them, it would be all over.
Not only them. The innocents outside, the people who had no idea about this mission would be affected, moreover, their life would have come to an end without even know why.
“ What did my man, Vega, tell you?”
“ You know what he told me.”
Jody cut the crap. She knew he tried to bring her to the other topic. After saying that with an extremely cold gaze, she followed by lifting her hand, showing him her phone with the news on social media.
Headline: The severe fire accident occurs at Red-Carpet, Chinese after the ceremony has been opened for an hour.
“ You don't want to go through details, do you?”
Needless to click into the article, they already knew what happened after Syd used his power there.
“ Couldn't help... It is the only way to kill that thing.”
“.......”
Though she's displeased, Jody agreed with his point. There's no way to kill the immortal clone but to send it back to where it came.
Or else the clone will just burn down the entire place, but with the less destructive firepower.
However, the outcome still the same.
“ And you have Heat censoring.”
“ Yes... Just like your hearing ability.”
He said, “ When my clone appeared, I grasped the terrifying amount of heat coming from the building...and I knew that some shit was going on...so I jumped out the van.”
“.......”
Jody was completely silent, but the chilling part was that she still kept her cold, scary unblinking eyes staring at him.
Syd decided to move on the topic, well, at least he tried his best.
“ Uh..Oh...Yeah...uh...about uh... The fact that you're also the elementalist...it shocks me too! ... I mean I had a strong feeling that it was you...but I'm not sure... It's luckier than winning the lottery tho. I think I could use this excuse to get promoted.”
“ Are you done with your jokes?”
That question pressured down his chest. The suspense was created between them, especially the boy himself.
Her eyes showed no fun.
Only... a cold gazing.
“........”
“ May I continue?”
Asked Jody.
“.........”
His neck dropped.
“ Yes.”
“ If that enemy wouldn't have shown up, How long would you keep it from me? ”
Asked Jody.
“.....”
Syd Barrett gazed his eyes away to prepare to come up with his answer, however...
“Look at me.”
“.......”
He gazed back when Jody said that.
“ ....... ”
“ As long as possible.”
He replied.
“ And why's that? ”
“........”
“.............”
“ Why is that?”
She repeated.
“................”
But the boy said nothing.
“ Is it has anything to do with your past?”
” !? ”
The boy startled, he gazed up to Jody.
His face was telling her, How did she know? Although he's still holding his arm, he has lost lots of confidence.
“ Seems like my guess is right.”
Jody continues,
“ Whatever it is, you think I shouldn't know about it?”
“ No...” He quickly declined, “ It's not like that... It's just... I'm not ready for it yet.”
“ Then why don't you tell me directly? What am I to you? Another of your tools?”
“ No... Jody...It's not like that.”
“ Here... Let me tell you something, Syd.”
Jody walked closer to him, standing face to face. She fully stared right into his eyes.
“ If you want someone to cooperate with you. You should have frankness towards them. So that we can flawlessly work together. I trust you. I go out there with you, risk my life, We all most died a countless time. But you know something? Despite your arrogance, I always feel relief whenever we're together... You know why?”
“.... Why?”
“ Because you're straightforward. Even though you're cocky, I always respect the part that you were always being straightforward to me. But now, Syd... Right now, I'm starting to think... that maybe... MAYBE... You are not that straightforward at all. ”
“.......”
“ Jody... You know... Being too honest isn't so witty in society... It'll only lead us to a disaster in the future.”
Suddenly, both sides of his face were slapped by Jody's hands and pulled closer.
“ SYD.”
She said,
“ I'm not talking about society. I have nothing against that argument. But I'm talking about us. I'm not such that ambiguous. I think you're misunderstanding me... Let me ask this, What were you thinking that day I asked you? What outcome had you imagined would happen if you told me that you're an ability user? ”
Jody slipped her hands down to his shoulder level…staring into his soul.
“........”
“............”
“................”
“ Speak it, Syd.”
“..........”
“ That you will... Keep... Uh....”
Sighing, the boy paused before spoke it again.
“ I'm afraid that you'll lose your focus on the mission... Okay? Are you satisfied? Because you're being above others for your whole life. So I better tell you that I didn't have any ability... So that It wouldn't be troublesome... I wouldn't be so stupid to say the word ‘fuck off’ to my colleagues, right?! ”
“ You're saying that If you tell me the truth, I'll be obsessed with it so much that I won't do anything? ”
Asked Jody.
“..........”
“...”
He didn't reply, which Jody considered it as ‘Yes’.
“ Even we are both The Elementalists?”
Jody repeated, “ Even we, 2 of the only 4 people on earth have the same kind of ability? ”
“... Well... That time I didn't know you are...”
“ Syd... We both were from the opposite side of the world and right now we're here...Do you think I was that kind of person?”
“........”
“ I see... You're misunderstanding me.”
Jody breathes in.
She let go of her hand.
“.... I see the point now... You were thinking that my curiosity was unstoppable.”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
She sighs, before speaks.
“ Syd... This wouldn't happen If you just properly ‘Explain’ it to me. Alright? Just say it. Don't be afraid. If you're not willing to tell me the actual reason, just tell me that you don't want to. I'm not a forceful person. I believe in you. And I strongly believe that every decision you made was well-thought. I respect that point. But please... Not this time. Do anything... Just don't lie to me... You understand? We're all grown-up, Syd. We should talk to each other with a logical reason, shouldn't we?”
“......”
He was stunned.
The outcome was subverted.
Jody didn't go screaming or slapping his face as he had imagined.
Because before she dragged him out to talk, Syd already swapped the property of his face with the steely ammo box laying under his knee.
He looks at her without blinking, he was contemplated.
Jody Johanson, her presence reminded him of someone in his life who is very important to him.
Someone who made him be able to stand on this point.
The boy quickly shook that away from his head before replied.
“... Okay...”
“ Not just ‘Okay’. Tell me you understand.”
“........”
“ I understand.”
“ Will it happen again?”
“...What?”
“ Will it happen again? Will you lie again?? ”
Jody repeated.
“NO.”
He immediately replied.
“.....”
“ Is there anything else you haven't told me yet?”
“?!”
“.......”
Maybe a simple question and sounded so random, however, the intention behind it was on the other hand.
Because Jody knew he had, even he didn't show anything.
The one and the only topic she had been through and never encountered it before until she met him.
The truth about the Red hair woman.
That woman who appears around Jody for 2 or 3 times.
(...He had something he sure is hiding ...)
Jody thought.
“....uh....”
“ This is your last chance. If you tell me now, I will forgive you.”
“............”
“ You still have it, yes?”
Normally, one would have lost their shit over this.
But with a soothing voice of hers, It wasn't sound like she was forcing him.
“......”
“ It doesn't have anything to do with you.”
“......”
He gazed back, The girl let go of him.
“ Alright.” She said, “ You don't want to tell me about it. that's okay.”
At least she knew he had another one thing he didn't want her to know, but if he insists that it has nothing to do with her and refuse to tell, Jody will respect that point.
The gap between both of them remains, but smaller than before.
It was time to move on.
.
.
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.
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“Already made up your mind, Elementalist? ”
Asked the British, Sera. As she and the group noticed Jody and Syd were heading back to regroup with them again.
“ Don't make a sneering.”
Jody said to her, grinning.
Which is a good sign that it ends well between both of them.
“ Syd... Honestly, I did believe that you don't have any ability until Jody came up to me... But this is too much for my curiosity.”
Said Sera.
There's slightly a bit different. Sera also upset with him, however, if compared to Jody... That person is a lot more intense than her.
Jody pulled Syd by his arm next to her side, before slapping on his back.
“ Just finished talking with him. This bad boy just went on his own, thinking that we'll both obsessed with his ability so much that we won't do anything.”
briefly explained, Jody turns at them.
“ Who do you think we are?”
Asked Sera.
“ No..No, He just thought of that based on where we came from.”
“.... What? Our school? Did you think that we're that lustful for power because we're on the top?”
Sera twitched her eyebrows.
“ Yeah.”
Short replied from the boy.
Sera was displeased but couldn't come up with any defenses.
Mickey Mannix saw that, so he justified.
“ Anybody would think like that. I mean... you're on top, you're all perfection self, seeking for more power. With Jody, No offense, I thought she's some kind of... ‘My life knows no chill’ person...”
He paused, looking at Jody with respect.
“ But it comes to my surprise... You're more laid back than I thought.”
“ She knows no chill back before we met you guys.”
Sera, the only person there who knew Jody the most, disagreed with Mickey.
“ Yeah, that may be right, but you know what I thought of you when we first met?”
“........”
Sera's sense was tinkling, she felt that Mickey was coming up with another of sarcasm but she couldn't tell.
Sera couldn't tell when he was being serious or just fooling around.
He had told her that before, but that time they're alone.
Sera knows well what he would say.
“ You've told me that-”
“ I thought you were a haughty bitch.”
He spoke his opinion calmly and she ain't even finished her sentence.
💢
“I was. but now-”
“ Still a haughty bitch”
He interrupted again. Sera so mad she grabbed him by his collar.
[https://i.imgur.com/o7x0hz7.jpg]
🤬🤬🤬🤬💢💢💢💢
“ THIS FUCKER!”
“ See? ” Mickey says while he's about to get a fist from Sera,
“Sera...Sera, chill. But I professionally admit that you play a heavy role in our team. If we don't have you healing our injuries, we'd get worse for real.”
“........”
Sera hesitated for a moment.
“ And there's something heavier than that too.”
“.......”
“ What is it?”
“ The makeup on your face.”
Mickey immediately gets punched in the face after he said that. It hurts, but worth it.
“ Based opinion.”
Said Toshi.
“ Totally Based.”
Syd added.
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Jumping back into a serious topic once again, Jade came up in the middle with the mission detailed.
The next objective has been officially approved.
“ When will it start?”
Asked Syd.
“ In the next 3 days.”
Jade replied.
“ How about them?”
Roxxy asked about Pete and Daisy.
“ The husband was quite hard to squeeze out the info. But the wife was on the other hand. Here...”
Jade opened the interrogation footage.
The video shows Pete Wetton refusing to confess for the entire hours, moreover, he did spit on the interrogator.
So they have no choice but to bring in his wife, Daisy Raine before they began to inject them with some liquid.
“ What is that in the syringe?”
Asked Jody.
“ It's something that will make the interrogation easier.”
“ Really?”
Jody was astonished.
Then, in the footage, there's a man walking in the interrogation room to both Pete and Daisy.
“ That is our interrogator. He has the ability called ‘Memory Recall’. In case you're curious.”
“..... This is far beyond the CIA...”
Said Jody.
“ We're not wasting our time arguing with them.”
“ Then why asking them in the first place?”
“ To check if they're lying or not. No matter what they told us, we inject them in the end. If they lied, they're no longer allowed to live.”
Said Jade.
“......”
Maybe this is another reason Jody thought why they had to escort Pete and Daisy here.
Because these two are the big head of the organization selling the ability pill.
They won't talk.
“ After our method in interrogating Pete and Daisy. Seems like these couples have it hide under their rug more than we expected.”
Suddenly, a picture of the place appears on the screen. It looks like some military camp with a very high wall.
It was shot from the sky, sure that they had used something like google map but better to locate it.
It doesn't give a vibe of prison or a locked-up place at all, in contradict, it looks very standard and ordinary.
“ This is where they claimed to be the Lab. The place where they experiment with their pills on minors they abducted from many borderlands and war areas like Iran, Syria...Lebanon...or India. ”
The lab.
This is the same place where Sally Salmacis had been put through.
“ Frontiers... No one will care if they are missing. So they can blame it on the war.”
Said Toshi.
“ Where's this place?”
Asked Syd.
“ Norway.”
Jade replied.
“Businessmen like them couldn't do all this on their own. There must be someone...or some group of people supporting them...”
Roxxy suggested her thoughts.
“ Pete and Daisy only took care of the lab stuff. There sure must be the escorting going on in that camp. The next mission for you guys is to go in there and find out what they have. Collect every single evidence. And let the authority handle the rest.”
“ Authority? What do you mean? ”
Asked Sera.
“ The Norway police operators.”
Jade explains the operation,
“ We have our members inside the authorities. By leaking the information about the abduction we just got, The Norway police forces will start operating in 3 days. Our job is to blend in as one of them and do our mission. The police operators will not even know about your existence, Our main focus was the ability pill and ‘The disc’ not the abducting. Norway's government will gain nothing from this operation except exposing one of Monter's network.”
“ Blend in as one of the swat operators?”
“ The people who have to get in there will be three of you.”
Jade means Syd, Mickey, and Toshi.
“ What about me? ”
Asked Roxxy.
“ Maybe you're too short for the police operator.”
Roxxy angrily turns to Toshi Ishii.
“ Just kidding. Please don't get angry at me.”
Toshi approached her, but Roxxy stopped him from doing.
“ Seraphina Gilmour would be waiting outside. She's the key to this mission. You can only rip out a slightly part of the document and she can duplicate the copy of it later.”
“ Then what about me?”
Asked Jody.
“ You need to stay here with us.”
Said Jade.
“ ... Why?”
“ You need to be awakened.”
“ Awakened? what?”
“ Your Ability, Jody Johanson. ‘The Wind’. It is more overpowered than you think. And we'll work on it while they're in Norway.”
“... You're saying that my ability can get developed?”
“ Based on what He- ”
Jade points to Syd Barrett,
“ - has been through. Your ability has not yet entered the developed stage. There's info in The Egyptian record of the 30 B.C. Elementalist, ‘The water’ about this too. Honestly, people in the past know a lot more about the origin of abilities than we do nowadays but... They did not study it through scientific research like us.”
Jody felt someone was grabbing her from the shoulder, it was Roxxy Barrett.
“ Lend them hands, Jody. It's for your good.”
The girl said,
“ You are a lot more comfortable than my brother. Back when we knew nothing about the Elementalist and only had to study through the ancient records, it's a lot difficult.”
“.........”
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“ Is this Norway's operator outfit? It looks so tight.”
Sera commented on the boys.
They're trying out the operator's outfit in the gymnasium. Well, it's not a fully a gymnasium it's more like a practicing section because they have it all. Free-running range, the shooting Range, boxing ring ( used for CQC practicing) with various weapons, and more.
“ It is.”
Toshi raised, he's the first who finished putting on the outfit. The boy keeps jumping up and down to get used to the movement. Then he did the stretch.
“ And it'd be a lot heavier. I've not even put on the ammo supplied 'round the chest yet.”
He said.
Then Mickey Mannix tossed him a gas mask.
Sera looked at them curiously.
“A gas mask? Why?”
That question was answered by Toshi.
“ They'll let in the sleeping gas through the air vents. So that no obstruction will be running around while we're shooting. We don't wanna see a child got shot while they're losing their shit, do we?”
Syd Barrett raises next to him.
“ At least this shit is lighter than Ukraine's. Those motherfuckers a lot heavier than this.”
“ Yeah, True.”
Replied Toshi.
“ You guys have done this before?”
Asked Sera.
“ Yeah.”
Syd Barrett put on the earpiece follow by covering his face with a black facemask and then the gas one.
“ Can you breathe?”
Jody asked in worried.
( Syd voice in the mask)
“ Easier than when you stared at us like that.”
Jody chuckled.
“ It's not that tense? Don't be exaggerating.”
She said.
“ Oh. It IS that tense.”
Mickey said, “ Next time you did it, I'll take a pic.”
Jody chuckles again.
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20 minutes later, the boys are practicing running around with the Swat outfit.
Sera just went to the toilet, leaving Jody and Roxxy in the shooting range.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
5 bullets. All went to the head and chest.
“ How long have you trained to be this accurate?”
Asked Jody.
“ years.”
Roxxy replied shortly, putting the small pistol down.
“ This little one is easier to use. Don't you wanna try?”
“ I'm fine with this.”
Jody lifts her fingers, shows her air-bullets.
“ Oh...yeah... You don't need them.”
She picked up the bigger gun and aimed at the target.
“ You have the Ice ability. But why they signed you up for this?”
“?”
Roxxy turned back, looking at Jody.
“ You mean why am I in the techno part? ”
“ Yeah. You better go out on the frontline. Your ability is made for combat.”
Said Jody.
“ So that I'll often get injured and hospitalized like you guys? ”
“ hm?”
“Just kidding.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Roxxy puts the gun down. The bullets still fully hit the target's head.
“ I was in the frontline before.”
“ Then why left?”
“ I didn't leave.” Roxxy says, “ Syd begs me to.”
!?
Jody twisted her eyebrows, she saw a blue in Roxxy's eyes.
“ I see... He doesn't want you to get yourself hurt.”
“.....”
Roxxy didn't reply but she nods.
“He's always like this. He said if anything happens to him, At least there's still the lead of Barrett's family.”
“........”
“ Vega told you didn't he? That my brother may not make it through his 30s.”
“ Wait... But Vega said 40? ”
“ that is the luckiest case.”
“.......”
Jody was completely shocked.
“... For someone that has an energy-consuming rate the same as thermal station...I don't want to take it... But it's the most reasonable thing we could do now.”
Said Roxxy.
“ Counting from here...that means Syd only has around 10 years to live?”
“ 10 years... If he survived every mission like he used to.”
Roxxy said,
“ Actually, before we met you...we've discussed whether this should be our last mission before we leave Thrak or not... But because of you.”
Roxxy gazed at Jody.
“.... I apologize.”
Jody replied.
“ No... I didn't mean accuse you.”
“? ”
“ Because of you... Maybe, it would make him and his boys more clarified about their decision.”
“ What?”
“ You haven't noticed, have you? “
Roxxy asked, turning to her.
“ The fact that why he never impulsively argues you back.”
“ What's wrong with that? You gonna say he doesn't normally do that?”
“........”
The question was answered clearly by Roxxy's glance.
Jody's eyes widened.
“ You know what. I heard Sera told me. And I've been spying on both of you from the security camera for a while. It is true. Syd never let someone lay their hands on his head if he didn't favor them.”
“.......”
“... He's a dog or something?”
Roxxy laughs at that.
“ Probably. He once sent local punks to the hospital because they just tapped on his head. You know...people like him...”
To his personality, it makes sense and is believable, plus it's coming out from his sister.
“ He accepts you, Jody. Not because you are the Elementalist like him, but you are like both of us.”
That was a month since she first patted his head like a dog.
Jody only did it because she wanted to play around with his frustration.
but turns out that it left a shocking impact more than she imagined.
“ How? ”
“ I don't want to agree with those morons, but you should have seen yourself when we told you he is the fire.”
“ What? What did I do?”
“ You remind us of ...”
Roxxy paused for a second.
“ Our mother.”