It was the evening. The sun was shining an orange hue from the windows in the room Seha was in. It would have been a peaceful sight, really. It was an evening where he could have finished his paperwork and go back to his dorm room where he could play games on his console. Or an evening where he could relax and have some time to himself. However, that was not the case. After he had finished given the Ignis the tour and training round, Ch'en had shown up and told him to follow her for a talk after dismissing Ignis.
What did Ch'en want? He didn't know. What he did know was that she was in a bad mood. While he followed her, he could hear her muttering a few Lungmen styled curses. He decided to remain silent and not ask what had happened, feeling that she may decide to take her anger out on him instead if he had asked. He did not intend to become minced meat after a long day at work. But the bright side about that was that he wouldn't have to deal with LGD business anymore.
Ch'en had led him to her office, walking to her desk and pulling up a few folders before addressing him. "Sit. We have time to talk before I have to inform you on what tomorrow's task is," she stated, implying that she had something else she wanted to talk to. That's what he assumed anyway. Tomorrow's task was.. for tomorrow. There was no reason for her to drag him into her office to speak about it today unless it was urgent. But that didn't seem to be the case. It seemed that she wanted to talk about something else.
Seha took a seat carefully, gauging her mood. She hadn't dragged him here to vent to him about what had happened while he wasn't at Rhodes Island, right? He didn't know a single thing about what was going on. If anything, Hoshiguma would be the one she vented to. So.. was she mad that he ignored his training with her but did a training round with Ignis instead? Now that he thought of it.. Ch'en had sent Ignis off in rather a stiff manner..
"If this is about me and Ignis doing a mock battle, I apologize for not attending yours if that made you mad-," he began, only to be cut off by Ch'en.
"No, that is fine. Why would I be mad about that? It's none of my concern about who you train with," she said indifferently, taking an interest on the papers on her desk. She paused for a bit before continuing to speak, as if thinking of a way to phrase something she wanted to say to him. "...I pulled your file from the government, Seha. It was originally locked, but I managed to get ahold of it with my position," she said, finally looking up at him.
Wait.. what? She- She had done what? He honestly didn't know how to feel about what Ch'en had just done. As far as he was concerned, he didn't think he even existed in the government's database, since he was an illegitimate child from a politician and veteran Operator. And even if there was a file about him.. would it even contain any useful data at all? In any other circumstance, he would be mad about someone invading his privacy and personal life. However, he was more curious about what was in the file. He decided to ask about it.
"What.. does it say?"
"Your name, your age, your birthplace, your siblings. Now, onto parents. Your father is out of the picture. No info about him at all. And your mother.. Wait, that's your mother? Jisu?"
Ch'en said with a look of surprise on her face, reading the file to Seha. Hearing his mother's name made Seha feel annoyed. Of course, he didn't know the reason why he had been abandoned with his sister, but there was still no explanation of it. He sighed and pushed those thoughts from his mind. Now was not the time to think about those sorts of things. He answered Ch'en's statement with a simple nod. However, she was still looking between him and the photo of his mother in the folder.
"You two look nothing alike," she said after a moment of silence, looking between Seha and the photo back and forth to see if there were any similarities. Did she know his mother? Probably. The LGD and politics usually didn't mix, but his mother was a veteran Operator of the LGD who had retired. It was more than likely they had met before.
"Of course. I wear contacts and my hair is dyed. It was to blend in so that I wouldn't look too different," he stated, remembering what was told to him at a young age. Who his parents were never should be revealed. Otherwise he would put himself in danger as well. That was why he had wore contacts to make his eyes seem like a normal brown and his hair also dyed to a darker color.
"Then I can already imagine what you look like. And now that you said that.. I am beginning to see a few similarities. However.. that is not what I wanted to talk about," she said with a pause before continuing her statement, "Agent Seha Lee, there is no official way to prove it or guarantee that you have it, but you should have Arts like hers, right? It was said that back in your day, your mother also used a gunblade, but of a way different design. Meanwhile, her Arts was-"
"No. I don't-"
"Seha, I won't push you any further about it. All I'm asking you is to consider the safety of others when out in the battlefield. With Arts or not, you'll still have the responsibility of watching out for your team. Understood?"
"...Yeah. Understood."
"Now, moving on. The second thing I called you here for is tomorrow's task. Normally, like it sounds, it should be tomorrow. However, a few things happened today. That means you'll have to do it now. You will head to the interrogation room and deal with someone we captured today. We have bits of information, but we don't know if it's trustworthy or not. The thing that gets me quite worked up about this is that.. if it goes well, the captive will be joining your team," Ch'en informed him, handing him the folder she had picked up earlier.
An interrogation? Furthermore, the interrogated person would be joining his team if it goes well? What was the LGD trying to do, put suspicious individuals in his team? Seha looked up at Ch'en in confusion, wondering what she had to say about it.
"I know, but the higher ups ordered for it to happen. Just be careful. The suspect took down ten of the twenty Lungmen type guards before she was willingly taken in," she responded with a sigh at his questioning look on what she had just said. She didn't seem to approve of the decision either, but there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was warn him of the impending dangers that could come.
"Alright then. I'll be heading off to the interrogation room then. After that, I'll decide which course of action," he said, getting up from his chair. Ch'en nodded and closed the folder that contained his information before moving it to the shredder. Even she knew that the information she had found out was dangerous information. If anyone else got their hands on it.. life would go badly for him and his mother. As Seha walked towards the door, Ch'en spoke up one more time.
"Before you go, Seha, do make sure to close the door behind you."
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And so, Seha found himself walking down the almost empty LGD hallways. Most of the officers had already retired to their dorms. The ones that remained were those who were finishing up their late work and those that had night shifts. It was a strange sight for people to see him walking in towards the interrogation sector. There were a few looks cast his way, but none that stayed on him too long. The officers would rather just be on their way home to ask what he was doing.
Once he reached the room where the person he was supposed to interrogate was being held, he double checked the folder he had to make sure he wasn't wrong. There was a guard standing at the side of the door, which was unusual. The other interrogation rooms that were occupied didn't have any guards managing them. Was the situation in the room really that bad? He looked inside the room through the one sided glass and saw a person with a helmet and cloak in there. Huh.. that was a strange sight. Shouldn't that have been removed and taken in for processing?
The guard, who noticed Seha's questioning glace at the suspect, spoke up with an question and an explanation to his questioning glance, "Are you the one that's supposed to be taking over this interrogation? Just be careful. The last person that tried to remove the mask ended up in the emergency room with many injuries. So it's advised that you shouldn't attempt to take off the suspect's mask.
"Ah- Yes. And thank you for the advice. Do you have the records of her actions?" Seha asked, curious on what else had transpired while he was not here. This was something he had just grown to dislike. Taking over someone else's interrogation because they had messed up. It made it a lot harder to talk to. And with luck, this wouldn't end up all night.
The guard pointed at the folder bin attached the the side of the window, which Seha took and immediately began flipping through it. After he was done reading, he set the folder down and frowned. Most of the notes in there seemed pretty exaggerated, but it was all he had. How unreliable..
Signaling to the guard that he was ready to enter, the guard unlocked the door and opened it. As Seha walked in, the guard closed the door behind him and locked it. Well then. Stuck in a room with a suspect that had attacked a LGD officer. How reassuring to know that he had backup. He took a look at the suspect in the room, studying them. Judging from the helmet, it seemed that the suspect had an entire set of body armor. Perhaps that was the most that they had allowed to be taken off for processing.
The helmeted individual turned to take a look at Seha, but didn't say anything. They remained eerily quiet. It unnerved Seha, not knowing what the person was thinking or seeing their expression, but he took a deep breath before doing one of the few moves he had seen in a video game based in a location of Columbia.
"28 stab wounds, you didn't want to leave him a chance, huh? Did you feel anger? Hate? He was bleeding. Begging you for mercy, but you stabbed him. Again and again and again!" Seha said as he slammed the report onto the table, remembering what it contained. Despite all his words, the previous interrogator probably had it coming for them. The guard at the door said that the helmet was attempted to be removed. He assumed that it was by force that led to the attack.
The previous guard had been stabbed with a pencil many times with only a few of the wounds causing him to bleed. Minor injuries. Nothing serious. It seemed as if the suspect before him knew exactly what they were doing so that they wouldn't seriously harm the guard. However, that was still an act of assault. It was still a serious offense that he had to announce.
The cloaked figure didn't seem to make any movement in the slightest when the file came down onto the table, simply leaning back a bit and breathing out an audible sigh under her helmet; tapping both of her fingers down onto the hard surface, as a sign of boredom. Then, she spoke up. "But he'll live, no? It's just a pencil, after all. It's not like such a thing could've pierced that armor your friends wear so casually, besides, it's not like I wanted to kill him."
What came out was a female voice, albeit slightly muffled yet soft and calm. As if something like an interrogation was simply another Friday for her, which, it kind of was in some sense. But the LGD officer in front of her didn't know that, plus, she also doubted anyone from the Lungmen Guard Department had heard from her, or at least to the point she'd be recognizable.
Slowly, the female crossed her legs from under the table and opened her mouth to talk once more; "...if you plan on intimidating someone, please bear in mind you should probably apply a bit of more force if you're gonna pull a stunt like that." She referred to the entrance he had made along with the accusations, along with a shrug of her shoulders. It didn't sound as if she was mocking him though; she was actually giving him advice on the matter, as calm as water.
Seha sighed at her statement. At least that was out of the way and she understood how much he sucked at being the bad guy. Interrogation just wasn't his thing, especially after he remembered the actual objective for this interrogation. It wasn't trying to get her to confess, but rather join the LGD.
"It's probably for the best because I hate this job anyway. I would be surprised if that worked at all," he said as he leaned back with a sigh, not planning on telling the person in front of him how this was his first time using this kind of approach. He opened the folder that contained all the female before him and read it to himself. It said that they were a Sarkaz from the Kazdel region, but the reputation.. She was a Sarkaz hunter. No wonder the higher ups had ordered Ch'en to try and convince the person in front of him to join the LGD. Using messy work to clean up messy work in their eyes. Seha decided to avoid that topic and move on.
"Aside from that one guard, it says here that you resisted arrest and knocked out ten out of the twenty LGD officers before getting caught. And- Man, these reports just don't get easier," he said as he blinked, looking at the rest of the report. The reports never really did get any easier to do. And he wasn't trying to look at more reports today. After all, he had spent most of the day filling out reports.
"You know what? Let's just skip this and go to the important stuff. You probably hate this just as much as I do, so I'll just go over the essentials. What is someone like you doing at Lungmen? What we do know of you is that you have a bad history. You're not someone on the high radar, but not on the low radar either. Why would you come here? It couldn't have been to see how peaceful and equal this place was, right?" He questioned, curious at only that aspect. She could have made more business elsewhere. Why here of all places? Was there something that important here?
"I simply wanted to enjoy the nice weather in Lungmen. Is that too much to ask?" the Sarkaz hunter said sarcastically, indirectly stating that it was none of his business. It seemed that she had come due to her own personal reasons. Seha wasn't one to pry into that. After all, he had a lot of personal issues as well that he wouldn't like to talk about.
"Fine. Just two more things before I get to the actual objective my commanding officer wanted me to fulfill. I'd like for us to introduce ourselves. Is there anything you'd like me to call you? My name is Seha Lee and my codename given to me by the LGD is Striker," Seha said with sigh, not knowing why the LGD gave out such strange codenames. Couldn't he get something sounding less.. cheesy? "And the second thing is my request for you to remove your helmet. It's standard protocol here, so would you please remove it?" he asked, continuing his questions.
"...My codename is Lamina. It should say so in your folder, but I suppose you asked for my preference. Thank you. And as for the helmet.." the Sarkaz introduced herself formally before hesitating, moving her hands to her head, taking off the helmet she wore. Once the helmet was fully off and set to the side of the table, Seha was able to see that she had a white-grayish hair color along with red eyes. A common trait for quite a few Sarkaz.
[Lamina^]
Seha remained speechless for a bit before snapping out of it. She seemed almost no older than he was. Was this really the person who inflicted many injuries to the previous interrogator? He regained his composure and spoke back to her.
"Nice to meet you then, Lamina. And thank you for removing the helmet. Now.. let's get into the objective of this interrogation. To make it simple for you, we really have no reason to hold you here, as I'm sure you know. You haven't done anything illegal yet, and the things you had done was due to the excessive force used against you. Needless to say, the LGD doesn't trust you not to be a danger to Lungmen due to your history. That is why you'll be offered a contract to work with us for a year to prove that you're not a hazard to society with.. my team," Seha informed her, frowning at the written offer and contract that was in the folder. He took out the contract form and laid it out in front of Lamina with a pen for her to sign her name.
Both of them knew it wasn't an offer. It was more of a condition. If she declined, then she would be booted out of Lungmen or.. other stuff would happen. Seha didn't know what to think of this situation. Either way, the end results of the situations offered to her weren't good.
However, Lamina simply took the pen and signed the contract after reading all the terms and the small fine print at the bottom of the page. It seemed that she really didn't need to think about it and more so just went with whatever allowed her to stay in Lungmen. So what was her true purpose here? Or had she just signed it to not make him overthink the situation? Deciding not to think too much about it, Seha took the form after she was done with it and stuck it back into the folder.
He got off his seat across from her and took out a key, unshackling her from the handcuffs. Seeing that her hands were free, Lamina rubbed her wrists to soothe the handcuff marks. Whoever put these handcuffs on.. really disliked her.
"Now that it's settled, do I have to wear a uniform or anything? Or can I have my old gear back?" Lamina asked, looking at him as she remained seated. She seemed rather fond of her own gear that she had come with. He couldn't blame her. If he were a wanderer, his sword would be his only comfort item.
"Only for formal events. Otherwise, you can wear what you want. That rule only applies to you and not the rest of the team, as you're more forced into this situation. Nor are you a citizen yet to be wearing the uniform all the time," Seha informed her, feeling dread crawl up his back when he remembered that he would need to wear a uniform to the events. That was not something he was looking forward to.
Lamina simply nodded, putting her helmet back on as he headed towards the door, done with the conversation. He waved for her to follow him, which she did. The guard at the door opened the door and let them both out, though he noticeably kept his distance from Lamina. Lamina didn't mind the guard in the slightest, just following Seha out of the room to the item reclaiming center for Lamina to retrieve her items.
Just at they entered the room, Seha's phone began to ring. Lamina stopped to wait for him, but he signaled for her to go on and get her equipment. The faster this was done, the faster he would be able to get out of here. She nodded and went ahead to retrieve her items as Seha took out his phone to take a look at the caller. Ch'en. Why was she calling him now? Perhaps it was for the best, since he had to tell her that he had completed the interrogation. Picking up the call and holding the phone to his ear, he answered.
"This is Seha Lee. I have completed the interrogation as you've asked-"
"That's done? Right on time. Quick, tell me how it went and I'll skip to the topic."
"Er- Operator Lamina is now officially part of the team. She agreed easily."
"Seha, accept the promotion I'm about to give you. If you decline, then the higher ups will send someone else to manage your team. And I can assure you that whoever they send won't be pleasant."
"Wait what-? A promotion? But I haven't even passed the exam yet!"
"You don't understand what's going on yet, but just do as I say. They're not allowing people that aren't Official Agents to run teams. And for now, you're just a standard LGD agent. So I'll ask you it now officially. Will you, Seha Lee, accept the promotion from standard agent to Official Agent?"
Seha didn't know how to answer that. What was going on? He had no clue what to do, but he decided to trust Ch'en on this one. After all, she never put in in any serious risks. Besides.. Ch'en had just warned him that no one was going to like the new team leader, so that meant that he would have to take charge for once. He looked at Lamina, who was at the door waiting. She was finished gathering her items and was looking at him rather curiously, wondering what the phone call was about. That pretty much made up his mind. Lamina probably wasn't going to be treated very well, like she was in the interrogation room. He couldn't risk anything happening to his team, despite just meeting them. If Seth were here and were able to take charge, Seha doubted that he would let anything happen either. That gave him the confidence to answer Ch'en's offer.
"I, Seha Lee, accept your offer to the promotion of the rank Official Agent."
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[Seth^]
[Ignis^]
[Seha's Official Agent Uniform^]
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Author's Notes
And here it is, the official arts of the current LGD team! Seha has another uniform upcoming his next promotion, though that will be many chapters ahead. I'll try to update more frequently now. Thank you all for sticking along and I wish you all well!
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Ignis: On the count of three, what's your favorite cake? One, two, three-
Ignis and Seth, in unison: Chocolate cake peanut butter frosting with chocolate chunks!
Seha: Our turn, Lamina! One, two, three- vanilla!
Lamina, deadpan: I've never had cake, what is cake.
Ignis: How did none of you hear what I just said?
Seth: I've been zoned out for the past two and a half hours.
Seha: I got distracted about halfway through.
Lamina: Ignoring you was a conscious decision.