Juanito, with the guidance of Jeremy, found himself opening the door that led him inside the meeting room. What welcomed him was the heavy air mixed with the smell of blood, cucumber, and sweat that almost made him squirm. It urged him to step forth to face the dark brown table that paved the way for him to steal a glance at the other reapers who sat on the other side and kept MC company with their arms crossed. He followed the path that was traveled by everyone else with his head still down and after a few odd seconds in the middle of this room that had permeating silence that made his ears rot, he found his place beside Rick.
"I believe that's everyone…" MC muttered as soon as Junaito pushed his chair into the table. She looked at him with her eyes that were reddened and swollen and after taking a deep breath, as she stepped away from the huge whiteboard from her back and faced the others, she continued, "So yeah, we're declaring war."
Hearing this made Juanito's heart skip a beat in panic. It made him lift his gaze and looked at the one-eyed Viela and his Sir Miggy who rested his bandaged left hand on the table. That's when he realized that they shared the same silence and dark smile as a response to her words. He failed to keep himself from looking at Jeremy, who stood in his place with his eyes closed, also with that mischievous grin. The only thing that had a different reaction other than him was Rick, who matched her announcement with a dreaded look as he tightened his jaws.
"I'm assuming that…" Jeremy chuckled with his eyes still closed as he hugged the black cloak draped around him. "Fine, I'll be the one who shall address the elephant in the room." He then leaned forward, looked straight into her eyes, and with a high-pitched sarcastic tone like a little girl, he asked, "Do we already have enough intel, or do we already know where their main base is?"
Miggy nodded at his words before he turned to MC. "I would be asking the same thing too."
"Same," Viela added, pulling the collars of what looked like a dark green bathrobe closer to the middle of her chest and making Rick and Juanito instinctively look away. "But I am on-board with the idea, so ma'am, please go on."
"Thanks, Viela," MC replied after taking another heavy breath. "We don't have an idea where it is or where to look but we do have a few leads and on the war thing, I just got a go signal from Death himself. We will be dividing the Motherbird into two departments as soon as possible with one that would be held by Rachel to purge your common reaper hunters and us, who would be free from our weekly tasks and focus our efforts to fuck those Blues up their asses."
"Motherbird?" Jeremy responded before falling into silence and breaking out into a laugh a moment later. Then, with the words coming out of his mouth slowly with a mocking tone, he continued, "Oh right, that's our name. Damn, I can't really believe that I forgot about that… have I mentioned already that it lacks flair? It lacks that oomph, it's terrible… have I mentioned that it's terrible? IT'S TERRIBLE!"
"We're not gonna call ourselves Avengers, Jeremy," MC replied almost immediately that made him drop his smile.
"That's oddly specific," Jeremy whispered as he looked away.
"Yeah, fucking X-men, Justice League, the Wakanda Walkers, the Watchmen, Anteiku, MC pirates, Reaping Corps, Team Seven, Espada, Shohoku and the like… we're having none of that," MC ranted. "This isn't the first time we've thought up names, and I have a list of what you told us, you fucking weeb."
Jeremy scoffed before his eyes fell to the table after meeting Viela's gaze. "At least the Reaping Corps sounds cool."
"Oh please, don't," Rick commented.
"No, it doesn't, you're making us sound like boy scouts getting into farming," Miggy snorted before heaving out a belch of a laugh for himself.
"Oh yeah, and do pray tell, what kind of reason would you have to defend our current name when it sounded like, what... makes us like some fuckin' little birds leaving the nest before we go make friends with the reaper hunters?" Jeremy continued, placing both his hands and onto the surface of the table and looking at Miggy as though he was ready to bite the skin off of his face.
"I wasn't here when it was implemented and was forced to accept it," Miggy replied and smiled back.
Jeremy tilted his face in and widened his eyes. "Oh, who the fuck—"
"Rachel," MC interrupted her, clenching her jaws to prevent her lips from curving into a smile.
"Oh, I'm going to fuck her up!" Jeremy stood from his seat roaring that went on until he met Viela's sweet smile. He froze and fell back to his comfortable spot and after a few awkward moments of him just cupping his chin as he looked around, he looked back at MC and said, "Yeah, what were you saying about those leads?"
MC chuckled as she took another step forward. "Thank you, Viela."
"My pleasure, ma'am," she replied as she tilted her head before gazing back at Jeremy with her broken face that reeked of bloodlust.
"Yeah, the names aside," MC followed, pushing a part of her bangs behind her ear. "Again, we won't have weekly assignments now but all of our efforts would be directed to finishing the Blues off and killing them. Now that's over, I'd like to remind you again that as of this moment, we don't know shit to where their base is and where to look, but we do have a few leads." MC flipped the whiteboard, showing three pictures of three establishments accompanied by a few sets of files written on them. "We have the convent of Sta. Maria, a nunnery of some sort that was said to be the place where their peons gather. We also have the Embracing Heart Orphanage, which is in the center of the child predatory cases we're getting and the last one, the Carmy-Michael Farms."
"Oh, so we had about three already? Neat," Jeremy replied, he was about to add more but he retreated back into his seat at the moment Viela tapped a rhythm with her fingers on the table.
"What's up with the farms?" Miggy asked.
"There were a lot of cases in the towns around that area where people were straight-up screaming and dying in their sleep, the number of truckers dying as they passed through the road in that area makes it so fishy too." MC gave Miggy a serious gaze before she turned to Jeremy, saying, "The cases that we've worked on were so all over the place that we would consider it lucky if we were to be able to at least make some progress on these leads, however, we now all have the time in the world to work with. So, I'm bringing this up now to hear your thoughts on what we should check first."
"That's it?" Jeremy asked as he raised both his brows before cowering into Rick's shoulders to save himself from Viela's view.
"What do you mean?" MC tilted her head and stepped towards Jeremy.
"Nothing, it's just, I thought we were declaring war so I thought we would have some propaganda and all that shit," Jeremy replied with his voice trembling. "But that doesn't sound like my problem anymore since I'm just basically tagging along so If you'll excuse me—"
"You're already under me, again," MC interrupted him with an indifferent tone before she patted his head. She then turned her head towards Juanito, who returned her gaze of his own in panic. "And so are you, I would like to formally welcome you to—"
"Avengers… Earth's Mightiest—"
"—Whatever this is..." MC continued and as though she just remembered something, she faced her team once more and declared, "Also, in line with this, we would hold another selection to increase our numbers. However, since we don't have the time to have a new tournament arc anymore, I would like to ask you to recommend a single person you know and trust. I fully know that you guys are competent and would give me some competent reapers as well, so I'll trust your judgment."
"What about M—" Juanito tried to speak up but he ended up biting his tongue in fear.
"What is it?" MC asked with an endearing tone. "Tell me."
"I was going to ask about… Miss… Mary..." Juanito continued as he forced himself to voice out his words even with his loosening jaws.
"The new guy is asking about what's going to happen to her," Rick added as he crossed his arms.
"Yeah, I heard what he said, Rick," MC continued, still with an indifferent tone as she looked at the both of them as though nothing was wrong. "What about her?"
"Nothing…" Juanito whispered.
MC gave them a nod and after a moment of silence, she stepped back, saying, "Okay, moving on about the first mission—"
"Oh, hell no! We're not going to do that yet!" Jeremy shouted with his eyes seemingly deep in thought and burning with passion. "We're declaring war right, let me have a crack at it."
"Sure… I mean… no biggie…" MC clicked her tongue as she felt confused about what was happening.
"You don't even have the plans do you?" Jeremy gazed at her as if he was looking at a criminal. "You uncultured bitch."
"Oh, fuck off, Jeremy!' MC shouted.
"No, no, no, no, no, nononono, nononononono, you managed… A propaganda is something that we could not half-ass about," Jeremy declared with his words following the rhythm of a poet presenting his piece. "We must declare war in a way that strikes passion and fear in our enemies… that's the way to go. It's a matter of fucking presentation."
"Your point being?" MC continued as the others continued to watch them in silence.
"My point is that since I would be in this trash of a team, I would not let you dumbassses…" He said, before shrinking back as Viela stood from her seat as well. "Except for her, of course, to produce a piece of trash. This is why I'm going to propose that we should attack all of them at once."
"I can see how the fear and passion would fit in," Rick commented with a chuckle.
"I could see where this is going but sure, let me ask, what for?" Miggy added with a disinterested tone.
Jeremy smiled proudly and there, as everyone held their breaths to listen to his answer, he announced, "We're going to make a music video."