SHHOOM
Sebastian warps inside Benedict's office, immediately parking his behind on the office chair in front of his superior's desk.
"So you don't even knock or use doors now?"
"Eh I've caught you doing worse things, what are you worried about."
"Um, privacy? Your direct SUPERIOR's privacy?"
Sebastian was just staring into the distance, covering both ears.
"What do you want. Wait, let me guess, the Sentinel Island mission," Benedict answers his own hypothesis.
"You're goddamn right, and I want in."
"Are you perhaps forgetting that you have a week-long restriction? It hasn't even been a day. Hell, it hasn't even been half a day."
"Plus the unit has already been decided. And deployed," Benedict adds.
"So squeeze me in. And who cares I can just blink in the middle of the island."
"No."
"Come on! It's a literal island full of monsters, who else can do a mission like that?" Sebastian was determined to join the mission.
"'Who else', oh, I don't know. Cade? And like, four other agents that we appointed to handle these types of things?"
"And the targets aren't monsters."
"Wait, what??" Sebastian is visibly confused.
"Are you holocaust-ing those poor cavemen?? You people are sick."
Benedict turns his head to Sebastian with a look of disdain.
"No, we're not. And they're an indigenous tribe, not cavemen, you idiot."
"Psshh. Primitive, smelly people, what's the difference."
"So what's up over there?"
"About eight hours ago, the Indian government reported that the Sentinelese started aggressively feuding and ended up killing each other. Some inner tribe conflict probably, we don't know either.
"Anyway, an hour later, they sent in some units to check in on the island. The unit was completely wiped out. The culprit was described as a 'man in a black coat, wearing a black mask' who apparently appeared and exited from a black portal."
"Crowe," says Sebastian.
"Correct. We're assuming he's planning on using the entire island as some sort of testing ground."
"Luckily, we have some pull with the Pentagon thanks to Agent Miller. The Indian government has agreed to let the 'Pentagon' handle the situation. And by the Pentagon, I mean us."
"So the targets are just a bunch of angry tribesmen?"
"By the time we were able to send down drones to get a better scope of the island, Crowe was nowhere in sight. The faction of the Sentinelese that had 'won' the feud were also laying dead. As was everyone on the island."
"Don't tell me—"
"However, not less than a half hour later and some of the corpses started getting up, eyes glowing blue, dark blue veins appearing on their skin, blue liquid dripping from their nose, ears, eyes, mouth, everywhere."
"So it's an island of zombies??"
"You could call it that, yes."
"That is cool."
"Crowe is now able to manipulate ancient energy and essence expertly and proficiently enough that he's able to resurrect an entire island with it and your takeaway is 'zombie island cool'?" Benedict looks at Sebastian with a disdained look again.
"What is wrong with you?"
"Oh, please. Like you don't think it is."
"I don't, because it's an orchestrated move by that madman Crowe. Remember Wendy the deer?"
"That thing I butchered in the forest? Yeah."
"Well it may be easy for you but if you remember, that thing also resurrected from the dead and mutated into something three times worse and nearly killed four Second-Class agents. Who's to say that this doesn't have the same effect on Crowe's zombies? If it does, couple that with the fact that Crowe is able to do this AT WILL and probably relatively easily then he can have an army of zombies overdosed with ancient energy."
"So, no. I don't think this scenario is 'cool'. If anything it scares me a little," Benedict adds.
"Yeesh, listen to little wussy wussface over here," Sebastian is completely indifferent to Benedict's concern.
"Anyway, this is just all the more reason why I should be on this," Sebastian's persuasion is seemingly never-ending.
"We have a four-man unit on this with two First-Class agents. That will suffice."
"Who?"
"Agent Vanderwood and Agent Miller."
"Aw, man. Are you replacing me with Cade??"
"Why? Are you jealous?"
"Uh, no? I'm disappointed is what I am."
"Cade is statistically the second best agent in Circle history. I don't see what the problem is."
"The problem is you're sending the second best when THE best, the one and only, is just rotting at the base."
"Sounds like 'the best' is at complete fault for being in that situation if you ask me."
"What's Cade and the government's bitch gonna do if Crowe is there?"
"What did YOU do when Crowe was there in your last mission," checkmate.
"Okay, I don't like this being brought up nearly every conversation."
"Hey, if you don't want to see skeletons, stop digging."
"Argh, fine," Sebastian gives up out of frustration.
"If these guys come back on a stretcher, just remember 'I told you so'."
"Maybe instead of waiting on your comrades' downfall, try going on missions so we can get value from what we pay you for."
"What you pay me for is to do the missions that everyone else struggles with and that's exactly what I'm gonna do."
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
"I'm jerking off, go away!" Sebastian screams at the closed door.
"Come in," the actual owner of the office lets the visitor in.
Entering the room is a large man with short, spiky, blonde hair; slowly graying, and a stubble beard in the typical black and white suit.
"Ahh, I heard that was my boy!" says the man, referring to Sebastian, excitement visible.
"Oh, god," Sebastian whispers under his breath.
The man starts to approach him, arms wide open, reaching out.
"You lay a finger on me and you're losing it, I swear to god."
The man stops and deadpans to Benedict.
"You hear how rude this kid still is?"
"Always has been," Benedict answers.
"It's good to have you back here, General," greets Benedict.
"Oh, come on. You don't have to be so formal," says the visitor, taking the seat across Sebastian.
"Yeah, just call him 'dumber Hulk'," Sebastian butts in with in an insult to which the visitor just laughs loudly at it.
"Ah, I missed this kid."
The 6'8" behemoth of a man with a bodybuilder's physique is a retired United States army four-star general who is now also the country's secretary of defense and the head of the Pentagon, Joe Miller. Having an extensive military background, Joe simultaneously handled being an army general and an agent of the Circle at the same time. The general was also one of the first batch of the transcended.
Although having significantly reduced responsibility for the Circle in the present, he still remains as a sort of 'special' agent who only partakes in exclusive and special missions unlike the rest who are constantly undertaking any missions that arise. This particular mission at hand is one such example.
Back when he was still a 'regular' agent, Joe served as the mentor for the majority of the Inner Circle agents including Sebastian and despite his reduced presence in the Circle's activities, the old general still remains a welcome presence.
"You still a picky eater?" he asks Sebastian.
"It's the only thing I learned from you," answers Sebastian.
Although there is some truth to what Sebastian said, it is not entirely the case. It was around the time Joe served as the mentor for the agents when he limited himself into only taking "special" missions. Typically S-ranks that would be extremely difficult for others but not for him. Basically what Sebastian is doing now except both had completely opposite reasons.
Sebastian once asked him about this. He told Sebastian that he could and WILL do any mission no matter the rank. But realistically, his skill would only be a waste in lower ranked missions as these missions anyone else can do and he would only end up taking opportunity for the others, the new agents to grow. Not only that but if he were to spend a lot of his time away doing the lower-ranked missions, chances are he wouldn't be available for the missions that fit and required him. And so he made the higher-ups know of the decision he made that he would only take on the important missions.
Sebastian thought that it made a lot of sense. However, he misunderstood and ultimately shaved off most of Joe's reasons. Sebastian's only takeaway from Joe's point is to only do the hard missions because the easy once were a massive waste of time and he was way too skillful to be doing those. Far from Joe's noble reason.
"I'm bailing," says Sebastian.
SHHOOM
"Thought he left?" Joe asks Benedict, referring to the presumed-retired Sebastian.
"He did, came back just four, five days ago."
"Kid can't leave. He likes this job more than anyone else here."
"Anyway, what's the situation with Crowe?"