Chereads / subspecies / Chapter 3 - 3||Through Thick and Thin (2): Assignment

Chapter 3 - 3||Through Thick and Thin (2): Assignment

Two soft knocks. Then a gentle male voice.

"Hey, Emmett..." it said through the door, and Emmett turned to the door recognizing the voice. "Yeah? What is it? You can come in, you know." he asked, and the door opened to reveal a dark-green haired male wearing a light blue sweater, strangely keeping his eyes shut.

Ludwig Klein. Species: Undead human/"zombie". Nationality: German. Special traits: Sharp teeth, fragile skin. Age: 19 decades.

"Flash called. Said it was urgent." he said, and Emmett gave him a weird look. "What? What do you mean? How come I didn't get the transmission?" "You didn't?" Ludwig asked, tilting his head to the side, then suddenly raised his brows, remembering something. "Oh, you broke your mask, right?" Emmett blinked. "R-Right. I should check up on how Cynthia's doing with the repairs. I'll be right back." he said, getting up and teleporting away, showing up in that same room where he caught Shiori and Cynthia arm wrestling with a few other members, only this time, no one but Cynthia was there, hunched over her workbench. "How is it?" Emmett impatiently asked, and Cynthia hummed. "You should learn how to knock some time, wolf boy." she joked, and Emmett rolled his eye. "Just tell me you've fixed the transmitter at least..."

The silver-blue haired female chuckled. "You got ants in the pants? You're extra pissy today." she said, not looking up from whatever she was working on. A minute passed. And another. Then Cynthia finally got up, holding a black-and-purple wolf mask in her hands. "Here ya go, bobblehead." she teaased, and Emmett's eye twitched. "Don't call me that," he said as he took the mask from her hands, and she laughed. "Whatever you say, Em. Ask Flash if he wants to marry me for me will ya?" she joked, and Emmett turned, rolling his eyes "Bye, Cynth." Then, in a flash of purple light, he disappeared from Cynthia's quarters.

He reappeared in Flash's office, earning a glare from said blonde and matching what-the-hell looks from Shane and Shiori, Ludwig the only one who seemed unfazed by his late appearance. "So you finally decide to show up..." Flash said unenthusiastically, and Shiori cringed. "Nice move, Em." she muttered. "Sorry...?" was all the raven haired male could say, and Flash sighed. "Don't be late next time, got it?" he said, pointing his pen at Emmett, and he nodded. "Won't happen again, sir." Flash's expression saddened for a fraction of a second when he heard Emmett addressing him so formally, but he quickly hid it with a scowl, his attention shifting to the other people in the room. "Alright then. I assume you all know the reason why I called you all here?" The four nodded. "Which is?" Flash said, raising an eyebrow. Shiori rolled her eyes. "You have an assignment for us, duh." she bluntly stated, her rudeness earning her an elbow to the arm from Shane.

"Alright then." Flash said, ignoring Shiori's informality. "This woman right here," he said, slamming down a photo of a woman, probably in her late 60s, down on his desk, "made a phone call, saying that she was in trouble. Apparently she'd been sensing this strange presence in the area she lives in, and she thinks it's after her. Of course, you would think that she was being delusional, since she's quite old, but then she told us that she'd been coming home from her daily trip to the market to find that certain pieces of furniture in her home had these carvings on them." Flash placed another photograph down on his desk. It was a close up of some wooden furniture—though it was unclear what exactly—with a carving of a hollow crescent with a smaller shaded crescent that looked like it was grabbing onto the bigger crescent, and two small stars next to it. Shane gasped.

"Could it be...?" she said, looking at the carvings, and Shiori looked up at Flash. "...The Selenos?" she spoke, finishing Shane's sentence for her, and Flash looked at everyone else. "We think it might be. It's highly likely that it is." Emmett gritted clicked his tongue. "Damn. Already? I thought we had a good 6 decades before they could come back again..." he said, furrowing his brows, and Flash sighed. "I thought so too. But apparently, they're tougher than they look. At this rate, we're gonna have to kill them to fully shut them down." "Yeah, but then again, even if we do, wouldn't there be like, a person who'll start another organization to fulfil their dream or something, like in anime or movies?" Ludwig chided, putting a finger on his chin, and Shane blinked hard. "This is real life, Lu. Not an anime or a movie, but for once, you're right." Shiori nodded, "Yeah, he has a point."

Flash nodded in agreement. "So since this could be much worse than we think it is, Emmett, we're assigning your team to protect this woman at all costs. If the Selenos are after her, then that means she knows something about them that they don't want her to. And if you guys are there to keep an eye on her–" "Then we could take the information for ourselves..." Shane said, cutting the sandranthro off. "Exactly." he said, and looked at Emmett. "So, Emmett," be began, and the raven-haired male looked at him. "You better not fail me." Emmett's bright purple eyes shimmered. "Understood." Flash smirked, "Then you guys are leaving tomorrow." "Right. Team Sparrow," Emmett turned to his members, "Sir!" they exclaimed, standing straight, "Let's go!"

The following day, Emmett, Shane, Shiori and Ludwig had packed up and left on a train headed for the surprisingly remote area that the woman, Hana, lived in. There were only a few houses and they were a couple miles apart, so it was a lonely little town. "Oh, whoopie. This looks like a fun, welcoming place." Shiori said as she looked around the empty fields. Ludwig shrugged. "At least it's peaceful." he said.

They walked for a bit until they reached a large wooden mansion standing somewhere in the middle of the field, looking out of place in it's green surrounding area. Shiori rang the doorbell, and they waited patiently outside for someone to open the door. The group heard shuffling from inside the house, and a thin, frail old woman with her messy white hair in a bun opened the door and looked at them, her face lighting up when her eyes landed on Emmett. "Oh, thank goodness," she said, smiling hopefully at him, "You're finally home!"