SPPA Chronicles (Sarre & Nix)

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"The one detained for murdering the Lycan?" Cass seemed a little bit confused but she almost immediately went white and dashed down the hall.

Kira chuckled at the sight before turning back to Kat. "You did not get Ash yelled it. Anyone that did not locate you would have been. I will address that, you have my word on that."

Ash appeared walking silently down the same hall, Cass had disappeared down. "..Hello..." She stepped up next to Kira, as Xyne opened the door and closed it behind him.

He sighed, just once. "Morning..." He shook his head a couple of times. "She's angry, and acting on it, fair warning Katelyn."
 
"Yeah, and someone acquiring rare chemicals," Eleanor said. She thought she had said something wrong when Cass disappeared, but she took Kira's lighthearted laugh as a sign that it was fine.

"Thank you, Kira," Katelyn said politely.

She nodded to Xyne when he appeared, and smiled at his warning. "What a morning," she said. "Eleanor, hate to drag you back in there, but I need to drag you back in there. That was your case, right?"

She could feel the colour draining from her skin, but Katelyn patted her on the shoulder again and headed for the door, and she could feel herself standing up. It was almost embarrassing - feeling as if she were being ordered around, even though Katelyn had no right. But she couldn't just sit down after standing, and reluctantly, followed Katelyn inside.

"I suppose you're wanting a-"

"Where the hell were you."

"Out of town."

"What's she doing here."

"I thought it would benefit her to hear my report."

"You're giving me a lot of fucking sass right now, Katelyn. You're not even gifted."

"You had such a nicer attitude towards my lack of ability when you were interviewing me for-"

"Don't backtalk your superiors!"

Katelyn didn't say anything after that. Eleanor had been looking at the ground, but the silence provoked her to cautiously look up, and her breath caught in her throat with terror. Katelyn looked confident - confident as all hell. She was almost smirking at the Commander, who was boiling over in anger.

"So, would you like my recounting of last night?" she said. "Or would you prefer kicking me out of your office. One of these would be more productive than the other." She even cracked a smile. Katelyn had cracked a smile.

"After this report," the Commander said, standing and walking around her desk to stand face-to-face with her, "You are no longer working for the SPPA. Just a witness."

"Then I wish you the best of luck without me," Katelyn said, the sides of her mouth rising into a sneer.

Eleanor looked at Katelyn in disbelief. Discreetly, she touched the other woman on the arm, in an effort to tell her to tone it down, but Katelyn brushed her off and continued. "Between half of your officers in the hospital, and another third still in various locations abroad, I'm sure just one more gone won't make a differen-"

She was interrupted by a fist at her face.

Eleanor darted a step back as Katelyn was thrown onto the ground. She landed on her hands and knees, but shakily hoisted herself back to her feet using the desk. There was a trickle of blood oozing out from her temple. Eleanor attributed this to the decorative ring on the Commander's forefinger.

She seemed dizzy, but Katelyn managed to stand upright, taking Eleanor's hand when she offered it. Instead of leaving, though, she looked the furious commander in the face,smiled, and softly said, "Hit me again." I dare you.

And this time, the commander grabbed her by the front of her shirt and threw her against the wall. There was a loud clattering as she fell against a side-table and knocked it to the ground, taking a ceramic vase and a lamp down with her.

When she got to her feet again, the injury on her temple seemed worse, and she also had a bit of a split lip. It occured to Eleanor that despite being thrown around, Katelyn had known how to avoid worse injuries. As Eleanor helped her to her feet again, she noticed her still sneering at the Commander, as if she'd won something. Instead of standing straight up again, she took Eleanor's arm. Terrified of what either of them might decide to do, she turned tail and raced Katelyn out the door.

"You guys have got a serious problem. She's throwing out unprovoked attacks now," Katelyn muttered to the group. Eleanor glanced at her. Suddenly, she wasn't sneering anymore, but wincing. "And also she just fired me, so I guess I'll be going. Good luck with your investigation."

"Unprovoked my ass," the commander snarled, storming after them. "You practically asked for it, you goddamn bitch."

Eleanor felt Katelyn squeeze her arm gently. She looked at Katelyn's eyes, round and expectant - suddenly like puppy eyes, then at the furious Commander's. Her voice barely rose above a whisper when she said, "No, Katelyn's right. It was completely unprovoked."
 
Kira was getting a serious headache. Eleanor's hint of fear was completely overwhelmed by the commander's anger, which really only fueled his own. "Deserved it, you say?" His voice was soft, but demanded attention. "Much like the yelling you gave Ash? I didn't see anyone yelling at you when you were late last night..."

Hands curled into fists, and her mouth turned down into a scowl. "How dare you. I was dealing with the local police..."

"Which you could have done just as easily from here." Kira crossed his arms, voice still low. "I understand that this is a difficult situation.. and I highly suggest that you not interrupt me right now." A pause. "Mistakes will be made, by everyone, even you."

"Not to mention, Katelyn was in the explosion." Xyne's voice was louder than Kira's but just as serious. "It is natural for anyone to need some time to think about that, especially since she isn't out and in danger all the time." He didn't know for certain what Kat was doing, but firing her was a stupid idea, just like cancelling all the patrols.

"So what? I should just let her stay after provoking me? And Baker? For abandoning her post, like you did?"

Kira took a step back, pulling Ash and Eleanor with him.

"Abandoning..." For a moment Xyne just stared before he scowled. "I think you need to pull your head out from wherever the hell you stick it and think for a damn minute. Where was I last night? What was it that I was doing?" When the commander didn't answer, he continued, voice low and furious. "Oh, that's right, I was tracking near the river, and I was insuring that Adrian would send out his own patrols so the rogues didn't attack us while we were cleaning up. Plus, I had Kira do the same for the Covens, and the few packs of Lycan's that aren't against us. Plus, there was the attack by Avrost that you had no idea about that I handled. That's right, I was doing your job."

"....This is stupid." Ash's voice could barely be heard. "Yelling and blaming doesn't help figure anything out." She placed her hand on Kira's arm and he took over the talking, those that have been around them before knowing the words were Ash's and not his own.

"Right now, what we need a a united front. No matter what anyone thinks about each other, we have to fake it. Reassign Katelyn if that makes you feel better, let Cassandra handle the offices and work on using our allies for our benefit. Deal with everything else after this is finished."

Ash offered Katelyn a small smile.
 
"Provoked?" Katelyn scoffed quietly. Nobody responded to her, but she could feel her perceived innocence fueling their words as they became darker and angrier.

Being a shadow on the wall had its perks. Yes, she made people uncomfortable, but she walked the line between colleague and stranger. She was effectively as new and inexperienced as this Eleanor Baker was. Fresh blood that needed help with the class bully.

She watched as the group, spearheaded by a darkened Kira, beat down the commander until she was a pool of barely-lidded anger. Before they had completely finished, she had turned and whirled back into the office.

"Wow," she murmured. "That was quite a grilling." She dabbed at her injuries - very slight ones - with an antiseptic-dabbed cotton ball that Eleanor had procured from the pockets of her uniform. That girl was a lovely doormat. "Thank you for the support," she continued, and, unable to contain her joy, allowed herself a smile. "So, should I consider myself re-hired?" she asked, with the soft voice of anyone cracking a tense silence with a joke.
 
Ash shook her head. "...Not really...." She turned slightly away, shy once more.

"Believe me, there were a lot worse things I could have said." Xyne stated simply. "For now... just report to Cass okay? Where is she anyway?"

"Bathroom." Kira offered, once again back to being friendly. "She was feeling rather sick."

Nodding, as it made perfect sense, Xyne was pretty familiar with the effects of Lil's cooking. "Well, Lets go Baker. I didn't get much looking done around the river last night."

"Be careful...."

"Thanks Ash."
 
Eleanor was more than happy to get the hell out of that office. It was becoming a nightmarish place. Before, just paperwork, but now bombs and anger and subtle political warfare. She wasn't an idiot. She knew she'd been played - like a goddamn xylophone too.

Yes, getting away from the Commander was good, it was great, but it was Katelyn that she was most wary of now. She hadn't even said anything about Yela. Did she even plan to? Was her presence nothing more than proof to attack her with?

"Katelyn was surprisingly strong in there. She didn't flinch," she said, carefully asking Captain Tristis for an explanation. "Until she got hit, of course, but- well, she did a lot better than I did."
 
Xyne wasn't really sure what to think about the situation. He was tired, sore, as he was convinced now that his arm had been jarred in the alley fight, and then the idiocy of office politics. This was why he stayed out of the office as much as possible and refused to give update reports.

"Well... Katelyn has a difficult job. She has to deal with the commander more than anyone except for Cass really. I remember once, when Katelyn was very new, the commander stood in a nearby room and directed Katelyn move for move so that all interrogations were done her way." Personally, Xyne preferred to not think about it. It wasn't really his area of expertise.

"I'm just glad, Kira was there to back me up." Xyne offered, quietly. "He's quick on knowing what to say."
 
Eleanor chuckled. "With all due respect, it looked like you were backing him up," she said. She wanted to pester him more, but he seemed loyal to Katelyn - in fact, it seemed they all did. Kira and Ash were new, though, and Xyne was a senior officer.

She wondered how long Cass had been there, and what she thought. She wondered how many of the officers even really knew who she was. This, she thought it was safe to ask.

"How well does everyone know Katelyn? I know it's strange of me to ask, but she just seems like a ghost to me - maybe because I hadn't seen her at all after being on both shifts for practically a week. She's been there for a while, you implied?"
 
"Ah, you have to remember some of what Kira says is actually Ash. But, you make a good point, lets call it a tag team and settle it there." He smiled, mouth pinched at the ends.

"I forget, you haven't been here that long. It was six of us to start with, a couple did training while the rest of us worked the streets solo. There just wasn't enough of us to go around. The first set of recruits produced Katelyn. She started as a sniper, back up for us when we were in confrontations." He really didn't have the words to describe how it felt to run solo for so long knowing it was really only them and a bullet against everyone.

"Our first office other than here was in Scotland, and one of our founders stayed to run it in exchange for Kira and Ash. As for knowing everyone well, I don't. I know Kira better than Katelyn and say Shena, but not as well as I know Cass. She's been here almost five years."

He paused, taking a moment to rub his arm and sigh. "Used to be, the Commander wasn't so...what's a good word... bipolar. She used to have solid ideas, now though, most of us do things our way and get the work done without jumping through all the stupid hoops." He had never been very conventional, but now it was more obvious.
 
"Wow, I'm an idiot." Eleanor huffed, "I thought she was a common guard, or something like that - but if she's been here for that long, well... she has rank, doesn't she?"

She sighed. Somehow, she wasn't too surprised. Perhaps that's where her confidence had come from - it was the same confidence that Tristis wielded. They were all close to equal, these people that she had suddenly been thrust with. All of them - founding members or close to it, and then her, scrabbling around in their footsteps. For all she knew, she was supposed to call Katelyn by title...

"What do you mean, what Kira says is Ash, though? I mean, they seemed remarkably synchronised... Is it an ability they have with each other?"
 
Xyne made a motion with his hands. "Sort of. We respect her because she sticks it out despite not having any talent like the rest of us... but technically she's an officer, like you." His smile was less strained this time, and he discreetly dry swallowed a pill. He either needed to take some time off or stop getting slammed into walls. Odds were good neither of those would happen.

"Well..." For a moment, he looked around a bit, then lowered his voice. "Kira is a telepath, a pretty strong one too, and he can read Ash like they were thinking the same thoughts. I have no idea why that is. But when you see Ash holding on to Kira, he's usually talking for her.

"As for Ash... She's never talked much, but there are a lot of people that are scared of her. Her Telekenic gift isn't the same as Cass'. Her's are always ghostly figures that look like people. Kira said once they talked to her. I don't really understand it, but I don't get how you can fry a vampire and not even singe yourself."
 
"Seriously?" Eleanor said. "If she's been here for that long, how can she still be an officer? I'd imagine if she held her ground, as you said, she'd be good enough to rise through the ranks." Her curiosity about this woman was getting more desperate the more she learned. Who was this shadowy terror? Was she just overthinking it? There were apparently rumours about her. She hadn't heard any, but was she playing right into one? And if so, why would Katelyn send out such a mysterious image of herself?

She tried to think about Kira and Ash too, and while she heard the words, she had trouble focusing on them, however spectacular she thought their bond was. Ash's silence was maybe creepy, but Kira was a joy to be around - and thoughts never wandered to comfort when there seemed to be such a dangerous mystery to unravel.

"Ghostly figures... I wonder how much fun she had on Halloween as a child," Eleanor smiled, forcing herself to say something about the two. She glanced up from the ground - this time she was actually pretending to look for prints, not avoiding eye contact - and in the receding fog and tender sunlight, noticed the bags and bruises littered across her partner's features.

"I get the feeling we're not gonna find anything," she said, knowing full well that the shifter had made an excellent escape - and with her help. Damn it. She'd been so good at blocking that from her head. "Maybe you should get some rest until some sort of new lead is found."
 
"Honestly? I have no idea." He stopped for a minute thinking it over. "I don't know that much about Katelyn." It didn't matter to Xyne the way it seemed to matter to Eleanor, he respected her for doing her job.

"Probably. Kira could tell you more about it, Or maybe Ash, since she seems to like you." He'd know those two a little better, what with Kira's friendly personality and the fact that Cass sometimes treated the two like siblings of hers.

"I wish I could. But, I'm supposed to find whomever did this. It's my punishment for disappearing last night." Eyes rolled, and his head moved back and forth. "But, she did agree to reinstate some of the patrols in the Shifter and Lycan districts. so There is that I suppose..." He paused, glancing over and smiling, similar to the one he gave Lil. "Thanks for worrying, Baker."
 
Eleanor smiled back, but her gaze sank to the ground again. "How can she expect just you to find him? Besides, wouldn't he be back in the shifter district by now? The patrols there are already way ahead. We're just trailing after scraps, aren't we?"

She forced her thoughts back onto Katelyn and Commander Ersin - that one scene that could banish the polite shifter and the image of such a broken person out of her head. She could replay that scene for days, and not be satisfied with the answers she created herself - they always fell too close to rumour.
 
"Probably, and I am not exactly welcome there, but honestly?" He stared at the top of her head for a moment. "It's either me or the commander. There isn't anyone else high enough to actually investigate this without insulting whomever we end up going after." Respect was huge for the Lycans and Shifters, Officers were rarely allowed to patrol those areas because both groups tended to take it as a slight. That they were not good enough for a proper agent.

He was quiet for a bit, poking around near the river before asking. "So, what's with you today? You're acting kind of weird. Did Lil's food make you sick too?"
 
"No, Allister took care of that," Eleanor said, laughing sheepishly. "It's probably just because of everything that happened. First the bomb, and then getting yelled at by a commander. I mean my relationship with superiors is always about trying to impress them - and I was damn good at that, and I don't think I've had such a close call with danger like that. I'm kind of surprised how normal you're acting, besides being weary," she said.

"In any case, even if you can't go in there, isn't checking the river a bit of a waste of time? Kind of feels like it..."
 
"Not exactly a normal day, I have to admit." Xyne offered a weak chuckle. "What do you suggest then? I couldn't find any kind of trail and we can't exactly just go waltzing into the Shifter district looking for our bomber... At least not alone..."

He trailed off a bit, thinking for a minute. "We could go and collect a few others and go... I suppose..." He glanced over at Eleanor, then around the area one last time. "Yeah, that's a good idea. Lets see who's free and then after that, call it a day."
 
Eleanor blinked. That was a good idea, technically, but she really didn't want to get into that. "Do I need to get my bigger batteries?" she chuckled, "Or will a handgun suffice."

She wasn't sure she wanted either at this point. As grave as the situation was, it wouldn't feel right to shoot Nate...
 
"While I would like to tell you no, you might want to just in case. Doesn't hurt to be prepared." While he was pretty sure whomever it was was going to lay low, the Shifter District was not exactly a safe place, at least for him, and he liked knowing his partner had his back.




Despite the fact that most of the decent agents were looking for the bomber, no one had any kind of lead even after two full days. Construction was starting up at the headquarters, a place that Xyne was openly avoiding. There had been a very quiet 'discussion' between Kira and the Commander, something that neither would discuss, at least not yet. Cass was finally back in the office, and once again swearing that she would never again eat anything from Lil.
 
Katelyn didn't bother going to the office, and she was pleased to discover she wasn't alone in it. The repairmen were loud, and the Commander louder. Many of the newer officers had made an arrangement with the nearby bar to work in it in the morning, before it opened its doors at four. Another group had rented out an old dingy basement space. She suspected both these groups did less work than they said they did.

The conclusion everyone had come up with was that he had met up with a driver, but most of the city's security cameras were broken. Only some in the busiest places were active, and no idiot escapee would drive past those areas. It was a lost cause unless they came again.

She took it upon herself to keep herself as far away as possible. The commander had given her a dark lecture over the phone about the driver that had been killed, but there was a snide-ness in her tone. Katelyn translated it easily to "the entire office knows you murdered him." Whatever. Avoidance wasn't a new habit or anything, and she could find plenty of company. Different people every night.

The commander didn't even bother asking where she was. When she received a new assignment, it was Xyne that sent her the message.
 
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