Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ SECOND STRINGERS ❯ A New Arrival ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

//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.

"That’s some kinda sports term, right?" he guessed. Well, guessed to the point that a mind reader can without crossing that ever so thin line to simply knowing. He flopped down at the table, closest to Nagi and farthest from Brad. Sitting too close to Brad made him think thoughts that were very far from what he was supposed to think at these stupid meetings.

"Yes, a football term, I believe." Crawford spoke, catering to the level of his audience. 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. He’d simply memorize anything bright and flashy in it and take whatever info he needed later out of someone's head. It was 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 some emotion with that question. 'Wow, his interest must really be piqued by 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 he received were enough to make him feel like he was already dealing with the second stringers.

"And this involves us, how?" Nagi asked, looking back down to the folder in his hands. A girl with wild green hair, shining silver eyes and a devil-may-care smile looked up at him. She was barley 8 by the looks of it; 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 so 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’d 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 have been pointless for Esstet, at the time, to train them completely when there was no hope of them ever truly joining. Now, they have decided it’s worth the risk and they want us to bring these two in." Crawford spoke the words, but didn't really revel in them like he normally did. He was distracted by the face 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 started popping up everywhere. ‘And lately this place needs some excitement other than Farfarello forgetting 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 was less expressive than his actual voice, but he still got his point across.

"Still off limits, doesn't matter though. With these two, nothing will be beyond us." His still eyes remained fixed on the photo of the bespectacled girl though. He hadn’t even noticed the mental conversation between his other teammates; normally that was something he would bitch at them about. He barely even blinked until he noticed the knife-licking psychopath from the corner moving 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 by a piercing scream from the hallway outside the far door. All four pairs of eyes shifted to the doorway. Then, in a flurry of motion, the door burst open and a flash of green leapt into Farfarello’s arms with what sounded like a squeal of excitement. 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 clung tightly to his neck. Her bright green hair bobbed out in a long ponytail, 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 into the room and flung herself onto the resident lunatic, it would not have been a pretty sight. 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 receiving a knife through her back, she was, well, embraced. He was hugging her. This was something new. The maniac was hugging a bouncing girl who had wrapped herself around him.

"Been a long time," he said as he suddenly pulled back to the point that he could look into 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 may have been a condescending look.

"Farfie, does it have a puree setting?" Her voice sounded stern, yet excited and full of wonder all at once, it was almost shameful, too.

“Of course!” Farfarello’s voice still sounded entirely too pleased. The girl quickly slipped from his arms and turned to face the rest of the room. She flashed a grin that made even Schuldich jealous, grabbing Farfie’s hand and pulling him toward the door. “I’ll race you there!” They all heard as two sets of footsteps stomped down the hall.

"Well. That was different," Nagi said, still staring after the two. Now the faint sounds of homicidal giggling and blender’s whirling motor trickled into the room. The normally implacable teen’s jaw was several inches from being closed. Schuldich managed to turn his head from the door to stare, with something akin to horror on his face, at Crawford. The Schwartz leader had not even blinked twice at the scene that had just played out before him. Schu tried, more than once, to check her mind, somewhat scared of what he might find. Instead of the chaos he’d expected, 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, even every little surface thought. There was no way for him to read her. It was as blank as if she had no mind at all, just a patch of empty space. Which, judging by her actions, was a possibility, but still. That was it; he couldn’t be 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 only the slightest amount of eye contact before looking back to the folder that Schu had abandoned.

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

"Tinkerbell, that's her codename," Nagi informed the other two, as he pointed at the folder he’d dropped when they’d heard the scream. He was acting as if he was the only person who could have ever known it, a trait that Crawford had managed to bestow on 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 ago. 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 than just his usual reasons this time though.

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

"Fine. Tinkerbell, and please only call her that as it tends to get 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 person’s 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. One that will allow her to trace them anywhere," Brad told the two.

"Oh, that explains the name." Schu said simply, reading Brad’s mind.

"Nani?" questioned Nagi, some of his calm returning.

"She fancied herself like one of those bells cats wear 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 person’s being from her mind. She will always be able to follow them. It will decrease with time, but if they are 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 from which the blender could be heard.

"You're kidding me?" Schu asked, again startled by Brad's mind. "This is a hell of a lot calmer than 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 was never 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 the day would come when she would be needed again. And now it has." Crawford got up and headed for the door. They could handle the rest without him. He also 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 into their laps.