as written by Saarai and Krysis
The machinery was loud, but not loud enough to wake up Lars as he slept in the supervisor's office of the factory he hid in. The supervisor had left not long before, Lars taking the time to hijack his office until the next one came in for the morning shift.
Footsteps inched closer and closer to the office, the door slowly opening up. Lars snapped awake, pistol in hand and aimed at the intruder, "Oh. You." He said, lowering his weapon.
"Yeah. Me." A man said, closing the door. "Sergeant Grier, Terran Armed Forces. Marine." The man said to Lars, "Nice to officially meet you." Lars said to the man, "Is it done?" He asked.
Grier nodded, "Yeah. She's safe." He answered, "Now, about business?"
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Safe. What a relative term that is. Minerva thought, almost invisible where she laid on the roof of the factory Lars was in. Her tracking glob on his sleeve had lead her there, and she had rested while Lars slept. A little hole in the ceiling of the office, plugged with crystalline quartz vibrated the sound of the machines up to her where she laid with her ear to the stone she had made so that she could hear him if he got to work or had a meeting. It also kept the lights from outside from shining into the office and calling attention to her modification.
There was a faint hissing sound as she went from 'resting state' of a vague human shaped pile of sand, to her more common and more thoroughly human looking 'active state', but with the sound of the machines, she was pretty sure the two men wouldn't hear it.
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"The Aschen are on-planet. My sister called me while I was leaving the hospital." Lars told Grier, "Are you sure?" He asked, "I heard the Aschen weapon going off before I got out. They're making moves." Lars said, Grier taking a seat across from him.
"You're not telling me out of the kindness of your heart. You're not trying to save any lives." Grier said to Lars, leaning back in his seat. "I want them to pay. One of them, I think, approached my sister. Threatened her with a bomb." Lars informed Grier, "This is revenge?" Grier asked.
Lars nodded, folding his arms over his chest.
"Why tell me?" Grier asked the man, "I need all the help I can get. My employer has resources I can use as well." Lars said, "I'm still MIA, and soon to be a known terrorist. I won't be much help." Grier admitted.
"You have contacts. Use them."
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"Minerva..." A familiar voice whispered to the sand witch, "Minerva..." It whispered again, "Sabine needs you. Sabine will seek you out. Enjoy your stay in Van Leugen. No need to chase him anymore." Sabine's voice told Minnie.
"Change. The situation has changed."
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"I sleep." Minerva answered Sabine, then sailed away from the factory roof as a cloud of dirt on the wind.
Somewhere, probably in a park, there would be a new statue later that day. Sandstone, apparently cut by the wind into a swirled shape, just placed neatly on a grassy plot, while Minerva let her mind fully disengage.
____
"Here we are." Godfrey said, nudging Lalita to wake her up as he pulled into the factory's parking lot. Workers were gathered outside as well as a few police cars. Something had happened. Chemo didn't tell him much on the phone, just that things had to be kept quiet.
"Yeah..." Godfrey muttered, "Here we are..."
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Lalita had slept as long as Godfrey let her. Swaying in the embrace of the seat belt with every turn and looking very young without the faint, worried line between her eyebrows, she had given herself up to oblivion without a second thought.
It wasn't like he could hurt her, after all. Even if he did manage to wreck, which she thought was terribly unlikely, Lali would be just fine. Probably would wind up rescuing anyone else in trouble in that case.
Her shoulder was hot under Godfrey's hand, as if she had a slight fever... or was just hotter than the average girl. She woke silently, looking up at Godfrey, then stretching and looking outside of the hearse at the scene before them. "What--? Sorry. No questions. Let's find Chemo, eh?"
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"This might be something to ask about..." Godfrey told Lalita as he climbed out of the hearse. "Gonna need you to move your car, sir." A police officer told Godfrey, "I'm supposed to be here." He told him, digging his ID out of a pocket to show the cop.
"Invictus? Okay, head in. They're in the supervisor's office, not hard to find." The officer told Godfrey, "Come on." Godfrey said to Lalita, gesturing for her to follow as he made his way towards the factory entrance.
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Lalita obediently followed, but she kept her ears and eyes open on the way to the supervisor's office. A body? Well, not much she could do about that. If it had been a fire, or someone stuck in a dangerous place, rescuing was well within her abilities.
Once they were already dead... Well, she specifically Didn't want to have anything to do with souls. Just in case it turned out she had a taste for it or something.
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Police officers pointed the two to where they needed to be, and the supervisor's office eventually coming into view over the factory floor. Godfrey headed up the staircase that led up to it, pausing at the top to remind Lalita of one thing.
"No questions." He told her before continuing to the office.
Chemo stood inside over the body of the dead supervisor, looking up at Godfrey once he made it. "Sorry we had to meet like this." He said to the older man.
Chemo was a fit Hispanic man, despite inching closer to his 30s he was still very youthful in appearance. His hair was cut down close to his skull, but left enough that it wasn't quite shaven.
Near him stood Sabine, a strange looking woman who wore a dirty black trenchcoat and black makeup over her eyes like a mask. She was out of place with her stoic expression and literally dirty blonde hair.
She was their specialist in this case.
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Lalita nodded at the reminder, folding her arms against her middle and her wings tight to her back so she wouldn't brush up against anything and get yelled at. She gave Godfrey an uncertain smile though, not wanting to seem too happy about being at a crime scene.
The tiefling couldn't help a gasp of recognition when she saw Sabine, though her hand leaped to cover her mouth rather than comment. It was a shock to again lay eyes on the strange woman that had walked in front of her truck back in Westeria. She was the reason Lalita stopped so abruptly back then, and ended up following the convoy in the first place.
Even such a happy-go-lucky girl could not discount the feel of design to the situation. The design of the strange woman with mask-like make-up? Or... something much much worse? The fire-touched girl shuddered then, as if an ice cube slide down her spine.
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"What... happened?" Godfrey asked, averting his eyes away from the corpse. "Sabine lead us to that kid. The one you-know-who employs. We got here after he, or someone else, was discovered by the supervisor. They killed him." Chemo told Godfrey.
"The tainted soldier." Sabine said, "What?" Chemo asked, "Sabine will find him. Don't worry." She answered, walking off towards the supervisor's desk. She stared down at it, almost as if looking for something.
Chemo turned his attention to Lalita, "What is it you can do?" He asked her, "I mean, what skills do you have? We can train you, but I like people who can bring their own skillset and make this easier on me." He told her, kneeling down beside the body.
"Sabine will send a friend."
"Ignore her." Chemo said to Lalita.
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"Umm. I've got a more physical skill set, I guess?" Lalita answered as she squatted near Chemo. "I mean, in this situation, I'm probably not much help, unless you need me to walk through a furnace or pick up something heavy." She didn't want to mention her talents with firearms while the cops were still close enough to overhear. That was also something unlikely to be useful in that situation.
She gave Sabine a wary look before she shrugged and added quietly, "I can sometimes tell if the deceased was a bad person or not, but it usually isn't useful. And sometimes a person will carry guilt that is not their own, which makes such a reading inaccurate.". Lali tilted her hat down a bit to shadow her face with that, hunching her shoulders and her little wings as if she found such an admission very uncomfortable. It was just another sign of how not-human she was, though she tried very hard to not let it bother her most of the time.
"I can glide, if there is something high up that you need fetched quickly. Or tell you anything you want to know about agriculture, crops, livestock, or combustion engine repair." That was more comfortable though, and admitting she was a farmer seemed to relax the strange girl, just a little.
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"A farmer's daughter?" Chemo asked, Maybe I should put you on some hippy assignment down in Arthegia. Teach some locals how to grow food that some banana republic is going to come steal anyways." He continued, "That was a little cynical, I had a long few days."The Canadian mercenary said, "Looks like we'll need to train you. Stick with Godfrey until I finish this and get some paperwork to you."
"Sabine can use this one. Expose the liar." Sabine said to Chemo, "No paperwork. Just work." She continued. Chemo raised an eyebrow, contemplating something from what Sabine said.
He looked to Lalita, "Undercover. She wants to send you undercover. I think it's a good idea, but not for you. It's dangerous." Chemo told Lali, "Robert, don't." Godfrey said.
"It's her choice, Sam. How do you feel about danger, Lalita?
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"I'm pretty indestructible" Lalita admitted as she gave Sabine a curious look. If fate's hand was resting this heavily, perhaps it was better to not struggle against it. Standing up then, she turned to face the dirty blonde.
"But I'm also not so clever, and kinda obvious. And memorable." Lalita pointed out, stretching out her little wings to their full five foot span from wingtip to wingtip. The dark rust and black feathers shivered and rustled before she refolded them close to her back after only a few seconds of having them stretched out.
"You're sure I'm the one to send?"
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"Far from it, but my own people will be seen from a mile away. The only connection you have to us is all of us in this room." Chemo informed Lalita, "Robert, seriously, you can find someone else. Don't throw this girl to the wolves, I'm not joking." Godfrey interjected. Things were getting tense, Chemo clearly had a mission that needed to be completed and was willing to use any means. Godfrey was the bleeding heart in the room, he was a wizard, an adventurer.
Espionage, conspiracies and gun battles weren't his thing and he wasn't willing to let Lalita be sucked into it.
"Sabine will guide the little sheep. Make her a wolf." Sabine said, her way of reassuring Lalita.
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"It's okay, Godfrey. Really. I'd rather do this than teach people how to grow crops in a desert. Farming is boring and frustrating work, and I've never met a farmer that didn't look at me askance just because how I look. Besides, if this guy is as dangerous as you think I kinda am the right person to send. He can empty a clip into me and it might knock me down, if he is lucky." Lalita reached out to pat the wizard's shoulder reassuringly and carefully, barely touching him. She knew her own strength, but it was better not to press her luck.
Then she turned to Sabine and Chemo again, "SO how do I start. You wanna chase me out of here, just in case he is keeping an eye on this crime scene? My truck is still back by the obelisk thingie, so I'd end up walking back that way."
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"No need, our target is running from us. Unfortunately for him we have Sabine." Chemo told Lalita, "She's a sage." Godfrey explained, "One of the more powerful ones ever documented. She can see the past, future and present. All of them." He continued.
"And she sees the tainted soldier." Sabine said, "He is the key." Sabine imitated the sound of a door unlocking, her onomatopoeia confusing Chemo. "Anyways, I need you to take her to the LB's clubhouse, Sam. I'll be there to brief soon." Chemo said to Godfrey, "Make sure you change into something more criminal. The LBs will help."
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"LB?" Lalita asked curiously, then clapped her hand over her mouth, "Sorry! No questions. I forgot."
She pulled off her wide-brimmed leather hat then and offered it to Sabine. "Give it a good home with someone in case I don't come back this way, okay? Stupid and sentimental, but it belonged to Pops and I don't want to loose it where some dirtbag will pick it up. It belongs with an honorable person."
In her torn t-shirt, the back a series of slots so she had a place to stick her wings and the front not exactly pristine, and the ragged old jeans with fresh stains, Lalita probably did already look disreputable enough to suit as a criminal, or at least as a refugee that might be forced to criminal behavior. So she didn't think that instruction was meant for her. Without the hat, she didn't look as 'country' as she had, either.
