A Test of Time (TomTord)

-19-

"So, if I understand what you just told me, you are Tom, but you're also not Tom?" Matt stared at the figure in front of him, utterly confused. Edd seemed confused as well, but clearly still agitated from the call with Tord. 

"Mhm!"Tara nodded, her enthusiasm looking very out of place in Tom's body. She was in a much better mood now, having found out that Mirror and Poppy had actually found Edd and Matt rather easily," Tommy's okay though, he's just in our mind. For now, it's just me!" 

Edd glanced sideways at Matt, unsure if he should believe the little monster or not. The little group had arrived at the base not long ago. Edd wasn't even sure how they had found it to begin with. As far as he knew, no one was aware of the location of the Rebellion Base. But then a masked woman who called herself Mirror, and a dark skinned woman, who Edd assumed was a scientist or engineer of some sort, who's name was Poppy, had knocked on their door, followed by what they had assumed to be Tom, only Edd had immediately noticed the different attitude, as well as the more than a foot of difference in height. He wasn't exactly doing much to hide his suspicion either.

Mirror watched the Rebel Leader, studying his movements. She knew he didn't trust her. And he had reason not to. She was wearing a mask after all. But she couldn't risk him recognizing her. Matt was right there, too.

---------------

He could now feel her presence in the room around him. It was actually kind of comforting, knowing he had a friend.

He shifted slightly in his position, aware that he could fall if he was not careful. He wasn't exactly able to roam freely around the base, obviously, but thanks to Tamara's intervention, he was actually able to explore a lot more than he thought. He would always stay out of the way, quietly watching soldiers train or scientists work from some dark corner. But this room was different. He almost felt like he shouldn't be there. But here he was, sitting atop one of the large air conditioning boxes that was attached to the large metal ducts that ran close to the ceiling. He was in a training area, he knew, but this one was smaller than usual, though still quite large. Most of the rooms in the base were painted white, but this room was a dark grey, not quite a charcoal, but close. It was also colder in here than in most of the rooms, which was even more noticeable to the boy, since he was adapted to much colder temperatures due to living in Norway. The rest of the base was quite warm, actually. It was quiet in this room. Too quiet.

He heard footsteps, and immediately shrank down against the cold metal platform, though no one would be able to see him up there anyway. He held his breath, staying as silent as he could. He somehow could tell that whoever the steps belonged to was the one who used this room, and he was an intruder.

The door opened, and he could hear faint talking in- what even was that? It sounded like several different languages, all flowing seamlessly together, as if the speaker knew each language so well that whichever language of the word that came to them first was what was said, regardless of whether or not it made sense. 

"Only someone with incredible linguistic skills could talk like that," the demon, who Ginger has nicknamed Clover, hissed quietly into his ear," He's... he's speaking Polish... Dutch... Russian..." she paused for a moment, thinking," ... I think that's Hebrew... and... uh... French... and...Spanish...and Norwegian, or that's Swedish, I'm not quite sure."

"It's Norwegian," Ginger whispered back, staring at the figure. He could now make out some of the words that the man below was speaking.

"...idiot..... thinks ...I... why ....he.... and... no!" The man suddenly whirled around and punched the wall behind him, the impact causing a metallic bang to ring out across the room. There was also now a large dent in the wall. The small monster startled, nearly falling off the platform.

"Did he just..." the two glanced at one another, then turned their gazes back to watching the man.

The next thing he said was all in Polish, so Ginger understood him perfectly.

"I have my own ass to watch after, I'm not helping him, who the hell does he think I am, his servant or something?!" he punched the wall again.

Clover leaned over and whispered in Ginger's ear, " He said something about how he's just trying to do his job, and his brother is calling him, asking for help with something, but he's upset because he's still mad at his brother about something, so he doesn't want to help him. And, well, clearly he's really upset."

Ginger looked back at her, surprised," You understood all of what he said?"

"More or less, yeah" Clover blinked,momentarily forgetting that he did not know of this ability she had,"I can understand most languages, but I can only speak ones that I've taught myself how to speak, which is only like, English, Norwegian, and a bit of Polish and Russian."

He wasn't sure was compelled him to do so, but he inched forward on the platform, trying to get closer. Unfortunately, the platform was only meant to support the weight of a dozen or so wired in that part, not nearly 70 pounds of a demon boy.

The platform suddenly collapsed, throwing Ginger to the ground with it, loudly echoing in the nearly empty room. The man who had been speaking suddenly went silent, whipping around to stare right at him, his eyes narrowed.

"Who are you-?" the question was curt, cold, no trace of warmth in it. Ginger scrambled to his feet, almost falling again in panic.

"I-I'm sorry! I'll leave, I was just exploring." He took an involuntary step back, fearful, yet somehow unable to tear his gaze away.

"Who are you?" he repeated, his voice unwavering. He stared at the boy, who remained silent, then shook his head," You know what, it doesn't matter."

"W-who are you...?" The boy asked quietly, his words doing nothing to conceal his fear.

"Me? I don't exactly think I can tell you. I'm not supposed to. The others, including my boss-"he said the words with an odd edge to them," know me as Agent Black. But..."

He glanced up at the corner, his gaze resting on a security camera, its little red light blinking to show it was active. He muttered a string of something in a different language. Ginger recognized a few of them as curse words (courtesy of his father's outbreaks every once in a while). He turned to look at the boy again, pulling the hood down from over his head, dropping his voice almost to a whisper.

"Call me Cass."