133: Team Bait

Alara leaned over the table in the conference room and glanced at the computer plugged into the projector. She drummed her fingers against the table while giving it one more lookover. “In all honesty, it should feel like a bit of a break. We’ll have a few senior guild members present, Gideon and I included, but much of the support will be from some of our younger guild members. It’s a good mission for gaining some experience.”

Class Zero, sat in various positions in the conference room, let out a few short murmurs of agreement. Nyssa looked over her notebook. Chock-full of handwritten notes, she traced over the key points with her pencil. “So, I’m mostly just supposed to shop, but to make sure we stay within the covered areas. As a bait. Our family consists of Gideon, me, and Titus, anyone else?”

“We recently shuffled it around, and we decided on just having you three. We were experimenting with the idea of having another guild member as another parent, but found that none really worked, so, yeah, just you three,” Alara flicked back through the slides to the composition of the teams. “We’ll also be splitting the tail groups as well, as a reminder.”

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As a guild with its headquarters in the middle of the city, the Wildheart Sentinels’s training center sat underground. With high ceilings and reinforced walls, its several layers stretched underground in a monolith of the world’s most cutting-edge innovative engineering marvels.

Once the meeting to discuss the mission’s plans had come to a close, Alara sent a couple calls out as she, and the rest of Class Zero took an elevator to the very lowest training floor. As the doors opened to reveal a training room with a ceiling high enough to fly under, she motioned for everyone to leave the elevator before pulling out her phone.

Leaving the students to make some light conversation among themselves, she stood off to the side waiting. She sent off a couple messages, signed a couple documents on her phone, and read through some project proposals still needing administrative review.

As the minutes ticked by though, guild members trickled in, and when a timer on her phone went off signifying ten minutes had passed, she looked up and took a quick count. “Everyone’s here... Alright! Everyone, let’s quiet down!”

Her eyebrows raised as the entire training field fell quiet. She waved for people to step a little closer before swiping through her phone to pull up a list. “At this point, we’re going to split up into several different groups. The bait group, on the ground monitors, and hidden monitoring groups.”

Nyssa, looking around, smiled as she saw Gideon. Grabbing onto Titus’s arm, she dragged him over as their group walked to claim their own open space. “Okay, we have the easiest group and easiest job. What should we even practice?”

“Shopping techniques?” Titus smiled, shifting on his feet as he slipped his hands into his pockets. “We really don’t have to do much do we? I mean we should coordinate some stuff. Nyssa and I already have a good amount of coordination, beaten into us from Kaiser and Angelica, but what about you, Gideon? I don’t know much about your abilities.”

“Likewise, and I’m happy to learn more,” Gideon chuckled while stretching his arms. “I have a similar powerset to Nyssa, just much more limited. My transformations are all bear-related, but over the years, it has expanded to include a range of transformations that some may call too far, but... bears are a mindset, not a species.”

“Like BEAR HUG!” Nyssa pumped her arms. “Though, not right now, but it's a good example.”

“Interesting...? I don’t quite understand, but you can show me in a second,” Titus tapped his foot. A smile danced across his lips as he fidgeted with his hands. “My powers are very flame-based. I can do most basic flame manipulation, but I was also blessed with accessing what my ancestors deemed, the flame armory. Usually, everyone is chosen by one weapon, and for their entire life, they’ll have an extremely strong connection with said weapon. I, however, can pretty much use any weapon, but I don’t have a particularly strong connection with any. I can’t, for example, talk to any of the weapon spirits.”

“What an interesting concept,” Gideon stroked his chin as he looked around. “I feel like I’ve run across many people who fall into similar categories as the rest of your siblings, but not you.”

“Yeah, its why I’m in Class Zero. I used to not be able to control it very well and five weapons would come out at once, which... really wasn’t great,” Titus coughed, a sheepish smile dancing across his face. “All of my siblings, for example, will probably go to Class One. They’re similar to Olivia in a sense where the weapon spirits help keep them under control.”

“I have no idea who that is, but it sounds good to me,” Gideon chuckled. “Let’s walk through these step-by-step though. You first, since yours is more straightforward.”

While the three bait members hung out in the corner, Alara walked around, checking in with the rest of the teams. As she walked up, she’d sweep her eyes around, find the team leader, and place a hand on their shoulder before dragging them off to the side. As she did so, her pupils shifted into slits.

“Your eyes are doing the thing again,” Deuce, the second victim, rubbed his hands together before using one to block his yawn. “Go let the dragon fly around. I don’t want to go through dragon fear right now.”

“Oh my bad,” Alara apologized, waving her hand as her dragon appeared in the air far above her head, flying into the distant corner of the training space. “Tell me though, how’s your team?”

“Fine,” Deuce smiled. “It’s a pleasant surprise to see who I got assigned with. The gamble paid off, because I think I got one of the better teams.”

“You’re too superstitious, all the teams are balanced,” Alara raised an eyebrow. “Pay special attention to the boy with the black hair. He’s the one from Class Zero.”

“Mhm, I’ll keep it in mind, won’t let him get hurt at all,” Deuce flashed a couple hand signs to let his summoning gate dematerialize. “We have one of the lighter routes too.”

“I... guess,” Alara cocked her head back and forth. “Well, let me know if you need any help or want any information on your team members. You’ve been too busy playing poker online recently so you’re a little behind. Otherwise, I’m gonna go check in on the other team leads.”

“Alright, alright,” Deuce shrugged, not a hint of regret on his face, “I won a lot of money for the guild though, so stop looking at me like that. And tell Hazel I said ‘hi’ when you go check in on her team.”

“I’ll consider it.”