Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Second Stringers ❯ A New Arrival ( Chapter 1 )

SECOND STRINGERS

 

 

Chapter One: A New Arrival

 

 

//mental conversations//

`mental thoughts'

 

 

"Second stringers, I'm afraid I don't quite understand." Nagi replied in his calm matter. Schuldich on the other hand was interested to a point he hadn't been in some time.

"Ain't that some kinda sports term, right." He guessed, well guessed to the point that a mind reader can without crossing that ever so thin line and simply knowing. He flopped down at the table, closest to Nagi and farthest from Brad. Sitting to close to Brad made him think thoughts that were very far from what he was normally supposed to think at these stupid meetings.

"Yes, a football term I believe." Crawford told his onlookers politely catering to their level. Nagi was deeply enveloped in one of the folders, studying it more than necessary. Schuldich was mindlessly flipping through the other, probably looking for the colored illustrations if Brad had to wager a guess. He knew from experience that Schu would not read a single word of the papers in that folder. Simply memorize anything bright and flashy in it and take whatever info he needed later out of someone's head. An annoying habit, but for the most part it worked.

"What exactly does that have to do with us, or Farfarello's little murdering spree?" Nagi actually voiced, emotion, with that question. 'Wow, his interest must be very peaked at this.' Schu thought to himself.

"When the first set of players is getting tired, or the coach thinks they need to liven things up some more to get the results they want, winning in other words, they bring in the second stringers. Those who weren't good enough the first time around, but in desperate cases become good enough." Crawford explained. The three blank looks that received him was enough to convince him that sometimes he felt like he was already dealing with the second stringers.

"And this is involved with us how?" Nagi asked, looking back down to the folder in his hands. A girl with wild green hair, shinning silver eyes and a devil may care smile looked up at him. She was barley 8 by the looks of it, but then again the picture was dated 10 years ago. Something about her just didn't make sense though.

"Crawford, according to this, this girl was powerful, why is she only being brought in as a `second stringer`?" he asked their oh too smug leader.

"Same goes for this pretty thing." Schuldich sneered as he threw down his folder. A cute little girl with bushy hair and sharp eyes framed by thin glasses looked up from the page. She had no expression. Details were hard to gather from the photo, it was black and white, and very old from the look of it. At his comment though Schu received one of the dirtiest looks the world could imagine from Crawford. He pissed him off again, nothing new, so Schuldich ignored it as always.

"Schwarz was originally to have seven members. The four of us, these two girls, and one other. The other three were dismissed for their own reasons, but mostly because they could not control their powers. It would be pointless for Esstet at the time to train them completely when there was no hope of them ever truly joining. Now they have decided its worth the risk, and they want us to bring in these two." Crawford said, but didn't really revel in his own voice like he normally did. He was distracted by the look of the girl staring up at him from the photo on the table.

"And the third member?" Nagi questioned him, this could get very interesting if new people starting popping up everywhere. And lately this place needed some excitement other then when Farfarello forgot to take his meds, Nagi thought to himself.

//Why Nags we could always make our own excitement.// Schu remarked in Nagi's head.

//Stay out of my head and pay attention to Crawford for once.// Nagi shot back at him. His mental voice held less expression then his real voice did.

"Still off limits, doesn't matter, with these two, nothing will be beyond us." Still his eyes didn't move from the photo. He hadn't even noticed the mental conversion between his other teammates, normally that was something he would bitch at them about. He hadn't even blinked hardly. Not until he noticed that the knife licking psychopath from the corner had moved closer to the table.

"What's this gotta do with me?" the gruff voice asked, breaking the momentary silence.

"Well the one girl," Brad started but was suddenly cut off as a piercing scream came from the hallway outside the far door. All four pairs of eyes shifted to the doorway. Then with a burst of squealed excitement a small flash of green came tumbling through and jumped, no, leapt is the more appropriate term, in to Farfarello's arms. The blur was quickly identified as a girl, small and thin yet very capable from the look of it. Her legs were wound around the maniac's waist and her arms wrapped tightly to his neck. Her bright green hair bobbed out in a long ponytail and her jeans were ripped and the thin tank she was wearing was stained with Gods know what. She looked like typical street trash.

Schu and Nagi waited for the carnage to begin, Brad just gave the situation an annoyed glare, and looked back at the picture on the table.

If a normal piece of street trash came running in to the room and flung themselves on the resident lunatic, it would not have been a pretty site. Farfarello raised his arms, one of which was still holding his knife, and began to bring them behind the girl's back. `This is it, she's dead.' Thought Schu. But instead of a bloody knife through her back, he, well, embraced her. He was hugging her. This was something new. The maniac was hugging a bouncing girl that had wrapped herself around him.

"Been a long time." he said as he suddenly pulled back to the point that he could look in to her eyes. "Wanna go play blender with me?" He suddenly asked in a voice much to giddy and happy to be his own. The girl lightly cocked her head to the side in what looked like it might be a condescending look.

"Farfie, does it have a puree setting?" she asked him in a voice that sounded stern yet excited and full of wonder all together, and almost shameful too.

"Of course!" the manic replied. Then with a sudden shift of emotions the girl leapt down, flashed the room a smile that could make even Schuldich jealous and grabbed Farfarello's hand and pulled him out the door she had burst in, shouting at him, "I'll race you there!" all the while.

"Well. That was different." Nagi said still staring after the two, now listening to the faint sounds of homicidal giggling and the whirling of the blender's motor. Even his jaw was still several inches from being closed. Schuldich managed to turn his head from the door to stare, with something a keen to horror on his face, at Crawford. Who had not even blinked twice at the whole scene that had just developed in front of him. Schu tried more then once to check her mind, somewhat scared of what he might find. Instead he was shocked to his core at what he did find. A brick wall. He didn't understand it. Brad had shields of course, but just a wall, a stopper. She, she had walls everywhere. Built high and far, covering everything, every little surface thought even. There was no way for him to read her. It was as blank as if she had no mind. Just a patch of empty space. Which by her actions was a possibility, but still. That was it, he couldn't stand still and quiet any longer. He had to know what the hell was going on.

"What-the-HELL-was-that!" finally came spilling out of his mouth. Brad glanced over at him, making the ever slightest amount of eye contact before he went back to looking at the folder that Schu had abandoned.

"That was Tinkerbell." Was all Brad said to the matter.

"Tinkerbell, that's the code name of her," Nagi informed the other two, as he pointed at the folder he dropped when the first scream was heard. He was acting as if he was the only person who could have ever known it, a trait that Crawford had managed to bestow in him. "Ekaterina, Dasha. Originally from Russia. One of the 'second stringers'.” he said in a matter of fact tone. “How did she find us after being left in, what was it, Ireland or Germany, nearly 6 years ago?" Forget all previous mentions to him being calm, at this point, after finishing his little speech, this kid was now completely unaware that there was such a thing as self-restraint and was about to let his curiosity explode from him.

"Yes, and it was Germany, and only 5 years, and it was quite easy for her to find us once she picked up Farfarello's mind pattern." Crawford told the shocked men sitting around him as if he was commenting on a chance of rain latter today. Nagi looked ready to curl up and cry with the fact that he was not getting a single one of his questions answered in any way that actually helped him. Schu looked ready to jump Brad, for more then his obvious reasons this time though.

//GIVE ME A GOD DAMN STRAIGHT ANSWER BRAD!!!// Schuldich screamed in to the other mans mind. He was rewarded with a simple look and a heavy sigh.

"Fine. Tinkerbell, and please only call her that, it gets, messy, when her former name is used, has the gift of mind absorbing. Or as she would call it, soul snatching, draining. She can read a persons entire soul and absorb every detail of it. She becomes part of that person for a while. If she holds too long she will become that person for sometime. Also she will have established a link with them that will allow her to trace them anywhere." Brad told the two.

"Oh, that explains the name." Schu said simply, reading Brads mind.

"Nani?" questioned Nagi, part of his calm personality returning.

"She fancied her self like one of those bells a cat wears. So you'll always know where they are. That's what she felt like, a tinkerbell." Schu explained.

"Yes, but the down side to her powers is the after effect. She can't shake certain parts of the persons being from her mind. She will always be able to follow them, it will decrease with time, but if they are anywhere within any proximity to her and still alive, she will find them. And of course some of the more, shall we say unusual, traits tend to stick permanently." With his last words Brad both coughed and motioned to the doorway in which the blender could be heard coming from.

"You're kidding me?" Schu asked, again startled by Brad's mind. "This is a hell of a lot calmer then when she was first forced to test her abilities out against Farfarello." He told Nagi, before the teenager was forced to ask what yet again.

"She never was the problem. The problem will be," Brad paused, almost as if he couldn't think of the correct name, and finally giving up. "this one." He tossed the file down again, next to Nagi this time, who actually would put it to its intended purpose, reading it. Unlike Schuldich. "She will be harder to find, and to bring in. She broke ties with Esstet many years ago, after leaving mid-mission and destroying years of work at infiltrating Kritiker." Brad explained.

"Why wasn't she killed then?" Schuldich voiced the question that was running though both his and Nagi's head.

"Simply because Esstet thought that this day would come, when she would be needed again. And now it has." Crawford told them as he got up and begun to head to the door. They could handle the rest from here without him. And he figured he had better stop the two in the kitchen before they did something they, or he, would regret.

"Oh, I see, this will be quite interesting." Nagi voiced his growing curiosity as he read over the folder in his hands. Yes this would be quite interesting, never before did the men of Schwarz have something like this fall in to their laps.