>Location: Lungmen Downtown
>Date: [REDACTED]
>Time: 0830
The city of Lungmen was bustling with life as cars zoomed around the freeways and their citizens were regularly going through their own daily lives under the night sky of the city downtown
That was the view you'd get from a room inside the Lungmen Guard Department, or L.G.D for short, main building, In the room were the two signature figures of the L.G.D, Inspector Ch'en, and Hoshiguma. Sitting across of them were four people dressed in casual clothing. But if you looked closer, they weren't any regular people, as hidden underneath their normal guise were blades and guns.
"So, I take it you are the Phantom Task Force?" Ch'en says to the four men who sat across her and Hoshiguma,
"Yeah." One of them answers. The person's face donned a mask with the mural of a skull and his head had a halo above it, as he stood up and held out his hand to Ch'en, introducing himself briefly, "I'm Ghost."
"...Ghost....you're the rumored the Angel of Destruction, or so I've heard." Ch'en asks him as she reaches out and shakes his hand,
"I suppose some call me that....but I'd prefer not to be called that."
"Alright, Ghost, then. And the others are..?"
"From my right, Echo, Smoke, and One" Ghost introduces his squad mates one by one, pointing to each of them as he respectively said their names,
"I see. I'm Inspector Ch'en, and this is Officer Hoshiguma" She then introduced herself to them briefly but enough to get the basics out of the way, before immediately getting straight to the matter at hand,
"I've received and read the documents sent to me by your commanding officer. To put it simply, you are here on a covert mission to assassinate a black market arms dealer who's been a primary character supplying weapons to [UNDISCLOSED], your supposed enemies and is now hiding somewhere in Lungmen?"
Ch'en then gave a brief explanation of her understanding of the situation they had based on the many scattered papers and documents on the coffee table that separated the two sides.
"That's right, and for that, we request your assistance in tracking down this individual, seeing as this might also affect Lungmen's safety, too." Ghost confirms her and gets straight to the point of wanting to ask for cooperation from the L.G.D, using the possibility that the situation could compromise the nation's security as an excuse to persuade her to do so,
"It's quite concerning and we can't rule that possibility out, but we can't mobilize our forces for something discreet like this, as it might raise unrest among the civilians, and we can't really help by lending you some of our experts, for we fear the possibility of Lungmen being unintentionally dragged into this crisis of yours."
From the seems of things, the negotiation wasn't exactly going so well for them, but then Ch'en suggested something else,
"But although we might not be able to help you directly, we can help refer you to a logistics company that can help you with tracking him down. Their name is 'Penguin Logistics'."
"Alright, I understand, that'll do.... So, where can we meet this Penguin Logistics - you guys, don't laugh! We need to act professional!"" Ghost cuts his own sentence to stop his teammates who were giggling at the fact that there was a company named after a penguin, but even he was starting to grin a little,
"B-but, Ghost, a penguin...are you serious? we're working with penguins! What're they gonna do? Waddle until they catch em?" One of his squad mate, Smoke, the supposedly joker of the squad, jokes with him, causing the other two who sat with him to chuckle a little,
"That's just a name, you idiot!"
".....I'll arrange for everything. Just follow this map here and you'll arrive at the meeting point. They'll send someone to greet you. There's a logo here if you need to refer to it when looking for them," Ch'en then hands over a piece of paper to Ghost, whose face was already stuck between trying to keep calm and collected, and just laughing together with his mates , while she herself just made a 'really?' face at him.
"Thank you for this. We'll be on our way now." Ghost says as he takes the map from her, before hitting his friends' shoulders, telling them to stop laughing. They then stood up, and together they bowed at them as a sign of gratitude before leaving the room, but as soon as they stepped out of the room, the four mates burst into laughter loud enough for even the people inside the room could hear them.
"They're a lively bunch, huh?" Hoshiguma, who'd just been an observer throughout the whole negotiation says sarcastically to Ch'en, who already had her face planted in her palms in disappointment.
"More like a bunch of idiots. Can't believe they're supposedly a highly revered special forces unit." she replied with an annoyed tone to Hoshiguma before returning to her own duties as she sat back at her own office table.
"But still, though....hard to believe that Ghost guy is really the so called Angel of Destruction. He looks younger than you, even." Hoshiguma then said to her again, this time her tone was a little more serious.
"Should I be concerned that I look older than him?" Ch'en replies back to her, maybe a little offended she's joking around with looks now. That's sensitive for even her.
"No, not at all...just it's kinda crazy to think that he's got over 2000 kills recorded to his name at such an age, and that's just the confirmed kills." Hoshiguma says again, as her hands pick up a certain document on the table that specifically had details written on him. His background, deployment stats, mission successfully completed and all.
"..When you see people smile and laugh, you think they're living happy. But whatever happened behind the scenes gets covered by the same smile and laugh they put on their faces." Ch'en suddenly says.
Hoshiguma only replied with silence, but she understood what Ch'en had meant by her words.
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-Streets Of Lungmen-
-Around 8-ish at night-
And with that, the four men started making their way to the destination Ch'en had marked on the map through the night streets of Lungmen. Throughout the walk, they were very much distracted by the vibrant shops and atmosphere of the city, the dark of the night making the vibrant charm of the city shine out even more.
"Ghost, how about we-"
"No."
"But-"
"That's the 10th time you've asked me and it's still no."
"Come on, you want to go too, don't you? It's your first time in a city, after all!"
As the two had their small skit together, a crashing sound could all of a sudden be heard not far from where they stood. Curious as to what happened, they went in the direction of the sound to check it out, along with the swarms of other curious civilians.
"What's happening?" a random civilian asked around in the hectic situation,
"Just another of Penguin Logistics' shenanigans" another random civilian answered,
And true enough, it was just the red haired angel Exusiai dealing with a couple of thugs. The four of them were at the scene, but since they didn't actually know her at that time, they'd just intended to watch until the small skirmish ended. That was the plan initially, at least until it seemed like a thug was about to hit Exusiai from behind.
In a heartbeat, Ghost instinctively lunged forward from amidst the crowd, blocking the hit from the thug, and helped her deal with the rest of them.
"Nice assist, random guy!" Exusiai said to Ghost, but Ghost just stared at her. To be more exact, he was just staring at her halo. Truthfully, he'd never seen anyone else with a halo, aside from himself, so he was really intrigued to see another person with it.
"You done staring, Ghost?" Echo suddenly taps his shoulder, bringing his entranced consciousness back to his senses.
"Huh? Was I staring? sorry."
"Hehe...was this angel too beautiful that you couldn't take your eyes off of her?" Exusiai couldn't help but tease the person who helped her,
"Huh? Oh, uh......I was actually looking at your halo. It piqued my interest."
"What, you were interested in this thing on my head? And here I thought my face was beautiful" Exusiai jokingly pouts a bit at him, but Ghost was a little confused as to why she was pouting at him. He was even thinking that maybe something he said somehow offended her, so out of a feeling of guilt, Ghost says what he thought girls would like to hear, as per what he heard from his mates, with a most convincing of faces,
"You are beautiful...?" Hearing that, the rest of his squad mates looked at Ghost with a face warped with shock and disbelief,
"I-Impossible! He's never said that to any girls in the army!"-Echo
"Has he finally developed a taste in girls?!"-One
"I thought he was gay."-Smoke
Of course, Smoke got his ass whooped there by Ghost. They all had a small chuckle together, but then Exusiai had remembered something that she had to do, which was actually meeting with them, but since she didn't know it was them, she panicked a little and rushed off,
"Oops, gotta go! I'm gonna be late to the meeting place!" But as she turned around, Ghost noticed that she had the Penguin Logistics logo on her, the same one plastered on the map that Ch'en gave them. Realising that, he quickly grabbed her arm, stopping her,
"Wait, you're with Penguin Logistics, aren't you?" He asked as he showed her the logo on the map. Exusiai was a little startled, but nonetheless still nodded at him.
"Yeah! That's us! So uh....let's see....you're supposed to be the ones that Ch'en mentioned."
"Yeah, that'd be us, I think" Ghost affirms her.
"Well, thanks for making my job easier! Come on, follow me! I'll bring you to the boss" Exusiai said as she started to walk from them, a small tilt of her head signaling them to follow her. As they walked together, Exusiai started some small talk with them, and eventually she had her attention caught on Ghost, as like her, he also had a halo. Thinking he was a fellow Lateranoean, she then started to talk with him,
"I didn't expect to meet another person from Laterano here in Lungmen!" But to her surprise, he only made a puzzled face, as he asked back,
"....Laterano? Where is that?" She was a little surprised, but she thought that he was joking with her. A classic joke that no one wants to admit they are from Laterano, or so she thought. She had a small chuckle, before she said back at him,
"Haha, nice one, but it's not really funny with that halo on your head."
"What about my halo?"
"Whatddya mean by that? It means you're Lateranoean, aren't you?" She continues to grow more confused by what he's saying. Does this guy not even know who, or what race he even is, or so she thought.
"....I'm Lateranoean? Aren't I a Sankta?" by now, he'd started to sound like someone who'd been revealed his own true identity that he never once knew,
"Yeah, and Sanktas hail from Laterano?"
"Wait, wha-"
"Who knows, maybe you are!" Smoke suddenly cuts in, saying jokingly to him as he wrapped his arm around Ghost's neck and quickly and discreetly peeling him away from Exusiai.
"....What was that about...." Exusiai mutters quietly to herself as she looked at the two, confused by the context of the words she'd exchanged with Ghost.
After some walking later, they finally reached their destination, which was a building that looked relatively old and quite abandoned. They then entered the building, greeted by a penguin who wore black sunglasses and had a chain around its neck sitting in a chair.
"I-It's a PENGUIN!!! Can you believe it?! There really is one!" Smoke suddenly shouts in excitement as he sees the penguin,
"Oooooo, you're right. It's a penguin," Echo says to Smoke as they made their way to sit across of the penguin,
"Man, I take personal offense for that...anyways, the name's Emperor. You can call me Emperor. so, how much are we talking about?" The penguin, sounding quite annoyed by what they said, starts the conversation and gets straight to negotiating with them.
"What do you mean?" Ghost seems puzzled at his question,
"I'm talking about money! How much are we gonna get paid? No money, nothing goes." the Emperor asks again, this time sounding more serious than before,
"....we have to pay..?" Ghost looks more puzzled now. To be honest, he's been in a puzzled state for quite some time now at most things, kind of like a kid that didn't know a lot of the world.
"Sheesh, you lot have no idea how businesses work, do you? You pay, we provide, that's how things work around here...bla...bla....."Annoyed at his response, The Emperor started to ramble at them about how money makes the world go round and some other random crap.
Seeing the situation lose control a little, Echo immediately jumped into the conversation to save it from spiraling more out of control, or rather he was trying to save his own captain.
"How about 2 million LMD, how does that sound?" Echo says quite suddenly in the middle of the Emperor's rant, but those words were enough to get him to stop, as he looked at him with a face of almost disbelief, before he grinned wide,
"That sounds fuckin great! Texas, bring in the fine liquor, we're drinking to celebrate the start of this wonderful cooperation!" The Emperor suddenly burst out in joy, as Texas came from somewhere in the building with a bottle of liquor in her hands.
But as the Emperor tried to even just open the bottle, he was stopped by Ghost,
"No, please don't. I'd prefer if we start the operation as soon as we can." Ghost says, objecting to the Emperor's declaration of a party, and after some time of hard contemplating, the Emperor finally gives in to him, especially when he remembered that 2 million LMD were on the line for this agreement.
"I guess we'll briefly do some introductions, then. He's Echo, that's One, this is Smoke, and I'm Ghost"
"And also the one who called me beautiful, right? hehehe, has anyone told you that you were beautiful, Texas?" Exusiai all of a sudden cuts Ghost brief introduction just to tease her own coworker, Texas.
"Are you sure your eyes are fine, Ghost? You ought to get them checked up if you saw anything in this dumb excuse of a girl" Texas gets back at Exusiai,
"..My eyes are fine, thank you." Ghost finally stops the both of them in their own little skit, although he sounded like he took the joke a little too direct. He then says,
"How about you all introduce yourselves, so we actually know who's who"
"Okay~ This lovely angel here is Exusiai, the boring wolf is Texas, that's our amazing singer, Sora, and this is Croissant, and she has a big shield!" Exusiai also, briefly introduced the whole cast of Penguin Logistics, at least who was there at the time.
"I see. Nice to meet everyone here. I hope we can work together well." Ghost says with a smile, well they couldn't actually see him actually smile, but he was smiling, and as he did, he shook hands with everyone. After some small talk with each other, the planning for the operation finally took place, led by Ghost.
"Ok, so based on the intel from Penguin Logistics, me, Echo, Exusiai and Texas are going to take this route by car. They are most likely also going to travel with cars, so we'll wait until we get to the freeway, then we'll start to pursue them so they won't have any other routes to break from us. The others, be ready to cut them off at this point here," Ghost briefly explains the plan to everyone. Apparently, according to Ghost, they could trace his whereabouts thanks to one of their arts device, and they just needed intel on the lay of the land to determine the best possible route to take him out.
But to Exusiai, who'd kind of been with them for the longest, noticed something about Ghost. The person she thought looked clumsy and aloof to things now had the most strict and composed expression out of everyone there, it almost surprised her a little. She thought he was just another dumb muscle for brains type of guy, but he's starting to prove himself otherwise.
It was almost like he was already so used to these kind of militaristic things, even though it was the most basic of things that were the ones that weirdly put him off.
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As everyone was busy attending to themselves and their equipment, prepping themselves up for the upcoming operation, Exusiai, who was more really just lazing around since she didn't really care these things and only thought she only ever needed her trusty gun for almost every and any situation, suddenly had her wandering gaze caught onto Ghost.
He was occupied checking up on the equipment he had laid on a table in front of him, and at that moment he had his pistol held in his arm.
Thanks to a little push from boredom, she made her way to him,
"At least every Sankta in this world has their own favorite gun, either they use it or not. Mine is this Vector, how about yours?" Exusiai rests herself besides him, leaning against the table as she looked at him for a second before shifting her glance to the gun in his hand.
"Is that it?"
"...Yeah, It's my favorite."
"Aaah, a pistol type of guy. Nice. Can I take a look at it?"
"Sure, here."
He then hands over the pistol to her, with which she then inspects very carefully, before her eyes noticed a small detail that really caught her attention,
"Wow, personalized! That carving of your name looks really great! The stylized handwriting is just *Chef's kiss*"
It was a carving of the word 'Ghost' stylized in cursive on the pistol's grip
"Thanks...Echo did it for me."
"You guys are really a close bunch, huh."
"Yeah. I love them."
"...I can see why they said you were gay."
"What, no-"
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After some in-depth preparation that took around an hour or so, they were all finally in position and on standby for the operation to commence,
"I know you wanted to be ready in case anything happens, but don't you think being on standby one whole hour before the operation starts is kind of overkill?" Exusiai grumbled a little to Ghost, thinking she could probably get one good game in that hour, really. Listening to her small rant, he started to contemplate his own decision, and after letting her run her mouth off a little more, he finally got out of the car, saying he'd be back with some ice cream to make up for it.
"Sheesh, ice cream? Welp, I guess it's better than nothing." She mumbled to herself, before taking comfort and extending her legs and resting them on the cars dashboard, just dying from boredom.
As they waited for time to pass, Echo, who sat behind the her, suddenly started to speak,
"I'm sorry for the trouble he's caused for all of you"
"What trouble?" Exusiai asks him back,
"...Well, he kinda did a lot of weird things, so I'm sorry if those bothered you or anything."
"It's fine, he's probably just a little nervous!" Exusiai exclaimed, her cheerful tone uplifting the awkward mood in the car.
"I hope so...he's not really used to talking with people..." A short pause then resumed, before Exusiai suddenly asked Echo,
"...Hey, mind if I ask a question?"
"Go ahead."
"Who are you people, really?"
"They're our client, Exusiai, we don't need to ask them every detail." Texas says in a slightly uptight tone as if scolding her a little for the question she asked,
"No, no, it's fine. You probably won't even meet us again, so it won't hurt for you to know. We're soldiers, actually."
"I see.....so I'm guessing he's the new guy, then? That explains why he's so quirky-"
"He's our leader."
Echo's sudden cut in put a stop to Exusiai's words, as well as surprising Texas a little, who was also listening in. She was a little surprised to know that.
"Wait, really?"
"Yeah. He's got way more combat experience than any of us, so it was kind of a given he'd lead us...."
"He must be kinda old then-"
"He's the youngest out of all of us. Literally, he's probably the youngest in this car."
Once again, the two Penguin Logistics operators were surprised by that fact,
"Are you serious?" Texas
"You can't be. I just finished high school, like, a year ago!....I think...."
"....Well, I guess a tie, then...But still, that means he's done nothing but just fight........probably from the moment he could even walk, he was trained to fight. He was born and raised in the army, and he doesn't even have any parents, nor have he even met them. Not even a parental figure. To him, the army is probably his whole world....but it is because of all that too that no one in the army really felt like approaching him. Not even us, initially. Cliche, right? I know."
He then faced downwards, as if reminiscing something, a gentle smile slowly forming on his face,
"But one day, a new task force was established, one purposed for special operations, high risk and high profile missions, things like that. Elites, codenamed the Phantoms. He was the first to be drafted, then came us. We were nervous, to say the least when we found out we were going to be working with him, but after awhile it turns out he was a really great person. He's saved our butts too many times I can't even keep count. He's really been the reason for most of our success up till now. Honestly, I'm glad he's my leader. For how quirky he is, his skills are real, and his will to fight and uphold is just unbelievable. I bet you won't find someone else as determined as him, at least for me. Heck, I can bet you he'd go against a whole nomadic city just for the sake of a mission"
"...would that someone apply to me?" Exusiai suddenly asked quite a weird question,
"....Who knows, maybe. But if it's for the better, then he will. He will keep fighting, and he will not give up until it is physically incapable for him to do so."
"...High praise, eh. Sounds like a really wonderful person, just doesn't really seem like it now" Texas banters a little, sarcastic. It seem they've somewhat warmed up to each other now.
Hearing all those words, Exusiai then stared out the window, looking at Ghost who was now at the counter of a store. From the looks of things, it looks like he's having an awkward time with the cashier trying to pay for the ice cream. She smirked at the sight, before she glanced upwards, as if thinking of something.
She then whispered slowly under her breath,
"...That's nice....someone that would always be with you, no matter what..."