It wasn’t as long of a flight as I had thought. It only took a day and a half to reach the headquarters of Crimson Guild. After we had landed, I was met with a group of people that looked rather official. One of the women firmly grasped my hand and started shaking it. She had black and red hair with grey eyes.
“Hello! I’m Ace Galion, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Percy Clarke,” She said warmly.
I smiled, “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Galion.”
Ace smiled widely after dropping my hand, “As per our tradition here, I’ll take you around our complex and give you a tour, as the director of this branch of Crimson Guild. You’ll have the rest of the day to set into your dorm and explore if you need. The orientation and training will begin tomorrow right after breakfast. For now, I’ll show you to the dorm you’ll be staying at. For the terms of you being new here, you’ll share a dorm with Lukas so you will have someone to ask questions to after I leave.”
I nodded quickly and looked around the area. It looked like an airport, the runways were a fair amount shorter and the planes were airships like were like pirate ships. Some of them were bigger, but most were small. When we walked into the hanger, the air smelled like gas and oil. There were airships being worked on and observed by people in jumpsuits.
“Those must be the engineers Lukas was talking about.”
“This is the main and technical hanger. During the snowy season, all of the other hangers get filled with the airships. If you get put into the engineer division, this is where you’ll be working. Feel free to ask any questions while we go through our tour.”
I nodded and closely followed Ace. As we entered the main building, Lily jumped out of my arms and started walking along side me.
“The cafeteria and most of the dorms are all on the same level, although some of them have been spreading to the other levels to make room for new operatives here,” We continued walking until we got to where Lukas’s room is, “This is Lukas’ room, put you stuff down and we can continue the tour.”
I nodded and followed Lukas into the dorm. There was a small living area with one room on either side of the dorm. Lukas opened the left door, “This can be your room. We’ll get you more settled after the tour. Ace normal is really quick with them.”
Nodding again, I walked into the room. There was a full sized bed, and desk, and a dresser. Other than those things, it was rather plain, “It’s… plain, but livable.” I said, putting my suitcase on the bed. I walked out of the room and looked at Ace, “Alright, let’s continue the tour,” I said with a smile.
Ace clapped her hands together and nodded. From there she showed me where the cafeteria is. It was small and simple, but the cooks were nice and welcoming. Way better than the hospital food. We then went to the infirmary, which was a small hospital. Everyone I had met so far seemed really nice. Then, the technical division, it looked like an office building. There were cubicles everywhere that each had 3 monitors in them. Then, finally, the gym. It was fairly big. Workout equipment lined the walls. The middle of the huge room was padded floor. There were a few gymnastics beams and bars in one corner and a vault in the other corner.
“If selected for the Field operatives, this is where you will be training and taking the annual test.”
“There’s an annual test for field agents?”
“Oh, yes. It’s to make sure they are still fit to work in the field. If they fail the test then they would be moved to the tech division while retaining their rank.”
I nodded slowly, “This room will be seeing me a lot, I can tell.”
“So you have any questions, comments, or concerns?”
“Lukas said that you had already talked to my parents, back when I was 10, do you have a system where parents can contact you if they see their child is like us?”
“We do! If we get contacted by sometimes parents, we will send a field operative and their tech partner to meet with the parents. Your parents specifically, we had to directly contact them. Each time someone brings something to reality it gives of an energy signal. With your big robotic slider, and being so close to this base, we got a huge surge of energy, so we ended up tracking the source. Unfortunately, your parents didn't believe that what we were saying was true. That's when they turned you into the hospital. Nurse Alex, I'm sure you know her, is one of our field agents here. We tasked her with watching over you while in the hospital.”
“Miss Alex… she was my favorite nurse,” I smiled at the memories we had, “She had to leave a few months before my discharge, I never got to say goodbye or thank you.”
A voice piped up from the door of the gym area, “She still can be your favorite nurse, Perc.”
I spun on my heel, nearly tripping over myself. Alex stood in the doorway, leaning on a crutch, smiling. Her long brown hair was in a beautiful down her back, her soft brown eyes shone happily. I covered my mouth and quickly walked over to her, almost knocking us over.
“I missed you so much, Miss Alex,” I cried, hugging the older women tightly.
“I missed you too, Perc,” she said softly, wrapping her free arm around me, “It's Mrs. Alex now, though,” she said, stepping back slightly. She held up her hand to show a simple, yet pretty, wedding band.
My jaw dropped, I gently grabbed her hand to examine the ring closer. It had an emerald green and a runny green next to each other, “It's gorgeous!”
“Isn't it! My new husband through it would be perfect for us,” Alex said fondly.
“Well if you don't have any other questions, I'll leave you to and Lukas to your own devices,” Ace said with a smile.
“Is there any form of identification for the agents? Like a badge or anything?”
“As a matter of fact, there is,” Ace said, holding out her own badge, “Each agent also gets a guild issued phone. It has a GPS, mapping system, and it's easier to contact your partner of something goes wrong.”
I nodded slowly, “I don't think I have any other questions. If I do I'm ask Lukas.”
With a nod and a wave, Ace too her leave, leaving me, Alex, and Lukas in the gym.
“My husband is actually one of the physical therapists if you want to meet him,” Alex suggested.
“That sounds lovely. Luna's, do you want to come with?”
“Yeah, I'll come. After meeting him, we should head back to the dorm and get you settled in.”
“Of course, I have a physical therapy appointment for my leg, so you can leave after meeting him.”
With that, we went back to the infirmary. As went I started thinking about how much my life just changed. I'm starting new. In a new place, with new people and friends. It's going to be amazing. When we went the infirmary, Alex got envelopes in a hug by a man with dusty blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes.
“Lexi, you were late! I started to worry that you forgot!*
“Don't worry, Samuel, I didn't forget. I just connected with an old patient of mine,” she said warmly and stepped aside,” Samuel, this is Percy Clarke. I followed her progress at the hospital a while ago.”
Samuel looked at my before smiling happily, “Hello! I'm Samuel Feist, Alex's husband!”
“How do you do,” I said warmly, extending my hand.
Samuel too it, pulling me into a hug, “ I hope you don't mind, but I'm a hugger.”
“Not at all,” Once Samuel let go I stepped back, next to Lukas.
“We'd love to stay and chat, but we need to get Percy settled in,” Lukas said, piping up.
I nodded in agreement, “It was good meeting you, Mr. Feist,” I said with a wave before Lukas and I both turned to leave. Both Alex and Samuel waved us goodbye as we left. And crossed one of my arms over my front, rubbing my other arm. It was a nervous tick I had picked up in the first year of going to the hospital.
Lukas glanced my way, “Today was probably overwhelming for you, huh? I still remember my orientation.”
I huffed softly and nodded, “Yeah. I haven't done anything this exciting since… a summer between hospital stays. I imagined up a huge pool in my backyard. Not, where my parents pissed.”
Lukas have a small laugh, “Well, the excitement rarely stops here, so you're in luck.”
“I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not,” I said jokingly.
“That depends on who you ask. Oh, one thing Ace didn't show you was the washers and dryers. They aren't in our dorm, since it's an older floor plan.”
“Oh, that would be go to know.”
“It would be a good idea to wash the sheets that are on the bed currently, too.”
Lukas briefly showed me where the laundromat was. Luckily, it's close to our dorm. We made the wall to the dorm in silence, not knowing what to talk about. One at the dorm, I went and stripped the sheets off of the bed. I took them out into the small living area. Lukas had a basket of his own laundry.
“Ready to go get things washed?”
I smiled a little, “Absolutely!”
Lily was trotting next to me was we walked back to the laundromat. After leading up one of the big washing machines, I jumped up to sit on one of the dryers, “Is there any make nearby? So I can lively up my room?”
Lukas jumped and sat across from me, “I think so… I'll check my maps app when we get back.”
I nodded and leaned back, against the wall, “How long have you been here, as an agent?”
“I… actually started when I was 18. So around 5 years.”
“So early… If you don't mind me asking, why?”
“Well… there was a mission that ended with multiple people being captured. Ace made the choice of starting multiple people trainings early that year I raised through the ranks quickly because I had… motivation.”
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