A few days passed since the unintentional encounter with Foundation forces, and the remaining members of the Hunter teams and Hoplite Actual had returned to their headquarters.
In the lunch hall, the rookie was eating with the Norwegian operative, when they noticed that their superior was in a heated argument with another officer.
"That entire mission was a bust!" the officer said. "I have no idea who told you that was a good idea! The Foundation's gonna think we were there to kill them!"
"Top brass' orders were to do population control on those things..." the commando answered nonchalantly. "So what if the Foundation was there? They're just collateral damage, we aren't intending to paint them as the target."
"Oh, and it's just fine with you taking one of their own just like that?" the officer countered. "How reckless can you be, Castle? Any more of this nonsense and they'll have you demoted and reassigned."
"Nonsense?" the commando asked. "You mean to tell me that acting in self-defence was nonsense?"
"It's not in self-defense if your team fired the first shot." the officer responded. "Major Gorman's gonna hear about this very soon, you'll see. Once he does, you're out of here for good."
With that, the officer walked off, leaving the commando where he stood. He then left of his own accord, with his right-hand hand following right behind him.
"Should we be worried, ma'am?"
"Nah, not really..." the Norwegian operative waved off. "The regulars always make empty threats like that and they never do anything. It's just pretty normal at this point."
"And... does he always fight with other officers like this?" the rookie asked again.
"Yep, that's Major Edmund Castle for ya... along with his lap dog, Zaire Obasi..." the Norwegian operative answered. "Along with me and you, being proud members of the Hoplite Team..."
"Yeah, right..." the rookie muttered. "What did you say your name was again, ma'am?"
"Sergeant Rika Eriksen..." the Norwegian operative narrowed her eyes. "Did you forget that already, kid?"
"I had so much done in the first day on the field..." the rookie answered. "Yeah, I tend to focus to the point where I forget some things..."
"Right..." the Norwegian operative responded. "Anyways, sometime later, I'll introduce you to the Hoplite Two. They're on a separate operation right now, so you're gonna have to wait."
"And that makes us Hoplite One, right?"
"Yeah, that's us... but..." the Norwegian operative responded with a sigh, then stood up from her seat. "Follow me, rookie."
"Huh?" the rookie reacted. "Where are we going?"
"I'm gonna show you something..." the Norwegian operative answered, before beckoning. "Come on, follow me."
"Alright..."
With that, the rookie began to follow behind the Norwegian operative, albeit still confused as to why. After a few moments, the two arrived at Eriksen's office, with the rookie waiting outside as she was instructed to do.
The rookie looked around the hallway, still wondering as to why the Norwegian operative asked her to follow. After a few more seconds of waiting, the Norwegian sergeant emerged from her office, peeking her head out.
"Hey, rookie." she called out. "What're you waiting out here for? Come on, get in here."
"A-Alright..."
With that, the rookie walked inside of the Norwegian operative's office, closing the door behind her. She was then offered a seat by the Norwegian operative, sitting across from each other on the desk.
The office itself was not too big, having only a capacity of four people at a time. The desk was mostly neat, apart from a few scratches chipping away at its paint.
She then placed what seemed to be a photo album to the side, positioning it horizontally as she opened it.
"Since you did a good job earning your beret, I figured I'd introduce you to the entire Hoplite crew..." the Norwegian operative said to the rookie. "You already know me, the boss and his lap dog, so I figured it'd be fair for you to get to know the rest."
"Okay..."
The two then looked inside to see the photos of the album. The first picture was of the Hoplite Actual, with Castle in the middle, with Obasi to his right, and Eriksen to his left; all were standing in a static position, smiles on their faces.
"Yeah, that's all of us, but you already know that..." the Norwegian operative spoke up. "In a little while, once you get used to things around here, you'll be in one of the pictures as well."
"It would be nice, ma'am..." the rookie replied. "Was this picture taken since you have been selected?"
"I was just about to get to that part..." the Norwegian operative responded. "Yeah, a while after my first field op, and being promoted to sergeant, we got this photo together."
"Oh, I see..."
The Norwegian operative then turned the page to find more photos, all of which had Eriksen present with a few other soldiers.
"Oh yeah, this one here..." the Norwegian operative pointed to one of the photos. "This one was a mistake..."
The photo was of Eriksen waiting by a closed door, with a closed fist, seemingly hiding something in her hand.
"What's this, ma'am?" the rookie asked.
"Well you see, I was supposed to pull a prank on the boss one time..." the Norwegian operative answered. "But it didn't go down so well..."
"What happened?"
"This."
The Norwegian operative put her finger on the next photo, showing Obasi with white powder on his face and glaring at her, who looked uneasy.
"It went on him instead?"
"Yeah..." the Norwegian operative nodded. "After this stunt, they made me go through PT for a week straight. So yeah... just don't do what I did, kid."
"Alright... I won't, ma'am." the rookie understood.
"Good... now on to the next ones..."
In the next pages, there was a variety of photos, such as the entire Hoplite Team doing training, having fun and all the like.
"Focus your attention here..." the Norwegian operative pointed to one of the photos on the right page. "Here's the original Hoplite One before we came along."
The rookie followed the Norwegian operative's finger and looked at the original Hoplite One Team. She noticed that there were four members, two men and two women.
"Here's Lambert, Calvin, Mašek, if I could remember their names, and... Nilsen..." the Norwegian operative introduced the members one by one. "That's them."
"Ma'am, you seem and sound uneasy about something..." the rookie spoke up, noticing her superior's tone when she spoke about the last member. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm all good..." the Norwegian operative answered. "Nilsen was my... motivation. She was one of the reasons why I came here in the first place.
"She's that close to you, ma'am?"
"Yeah..."
After a few seconds of silence, Eriksen slammed the desk with her fists, making a loud banging noise that made the rookie react in fear.
"Ma'am, calm down!"
"Don't you fucking tell me to calm down, kid!"
"Ma'am, you don't need to yell!" the rookie said to her superior. "Maybe we can talk about this? To help you calm down?"
"I..." the Norwegian operative took a deep breath and sighed. "Shit... sorry, rookie. It's still been fucking with me to this day..."
"What was?"
"Listen, the entire Hoplite One team got wiped out on the same operation." the Norwegian operative responded. "I'm only telling you this story once, so you better pay attention, rookie."
"I'm all ears, ma'am."
-----
Mid 2011
"Nilsen!"
A young Rika Eriksen was running down her village street and calling out to her good friend, who works for the military. She had blonde hair, brown eyes, fair skin and was of average height.
Currently, she was wearing a full military uniform for the Norwegian military. The most striking feature of the uniform is the blue beret, having the Global Occult Coalition's insignia on it.
"Hey, Rika." the operative greeted back with a smile, arms wide open.
The two then pulled themselves into a hug, with the soldier lifting the young girl upwards and twirling around. The two laughed together, as the operative then put her back down on the ground and knelt down to her level.
"How are you, Rika?" the operative asked the young girl. "Are you doing well? Are you doing alright in school?"
"Yes, and yes!" the young girl nodded, smiling. "I had the highest score on my math test a few days ago!"
"I'm so proud of you, Rika..." the operative smiled, patting her on the head. "Keep up the good work."
"Hey, Nilsen."
The two looked to see that three foreign operatives were walking up to them; two of them were American and the other being Czech, all evident from the flag patches on the sleeves of their uniforms.
"What the hell are you doing?" one of the American operative asked. "We're gonna be late for the operation..."
"Oh, sorry..." the Norwegian operative apologised. "I was just talking to my friend here."
"Well, your talk is costing us time..." the other American operative replied, who was female.
"That's enough, Calvin..." the first American operative sighed, who was male, then turned to the Czech operative. "Mašek, how much time we got left?"
"Twenty minutes..." the Czech operative responded in his native accent.
"Come on, Nilsen..." the male American operative responded, turning around the same as the others. "We'd hate to have you miss out on all the fun."
"Alright, I'll be right behind you, Lambert..." the Norwegian operative responded, then looked back to the young girl. "Sorry, Rika, I'll be away for a bit..."
"Where are you going?"
"That's not something you should worry about..." the Norwegian operative patted her on the head once more. "I'll be back, just keep being good, okay?"
"O-Okay." the young girl responded.
"Alright, I'll see you later, Rika."
With that, the Norwegian operative turned around and caught up with the rest of her team, not wanting to be left behind. The young Eriksen saw this and walked back to her house.
-----
"Are you seeing anything, Nilsen?"
"Not a thing..."
An entire Global Occult Coalition strike force, including Hoplite One, were all aboard a K-Class Destroyer of the British Royal Navy, HMS Kilmarnock. It is armed with all the necessary turrets and arms, alongside a set of harpoon missiles.
The ship was moving at five knots, trying to keep as quiet as possible at finding their target. Even as it was midday, their target was still nowhere in sight.
"Man... we're never gonna find them at this rate." the male American operative sighed. "Slippery bastards..."
"We'll find them soon..." the Norwegian operative responded. "We just have to wait a while..."
"Yeah, well, top brass isn't the type of people who wanna wait for anything..." the male American operative then activated his radio. "Calvin, Mašek, see anything on your side?"
"Nothing yet." Calvin responded with a sigh. "Are you even sure this is the right place?"
"Yeah, that's what the intel says, so keep looking..." Lambert replied. "Top brass wants to get this job done ASAP, and we don't wanna get out empty-handed."
"Roger."
"Seagull One-One, keep this speed." the male American operative contacted the assigned team on the bridge. "We don't wanna scare them off."
"Copy that, sir."
The destroyer kept its speed and its crew kept looking, a ways away offshore. The nearest town was Ullapool, which was about fifty kilometres away.
After about five minutes of fruitless searching, the team inside of the bride notified the Hoplite commander.
"Sir, we got a large blip on the radar." the Seagull One-One leader informed. "It's about two kilometres away, up to the northwest."
Just then, sounds of a foghorn had become audible, along with Nilsen pointing out its source.
"Lambert, I see them!" the Norwegian operative pointed out at sea. "They're over there!"
The male American operative followed her finger towards where she is pointing. He noticed that targets were next to each other, as expected, with one sounding its fog horn.
The targets were two sentient fishing trawlers, measuring thirty-nine metres in length.
"Targets spotted..." the male American operative smiled, then activated his radio. "Seagull One-One, arm the harpoon missiles."
"Copy that, sir."
"Calvin, Mašek, targets spotted on the port side." the male American operative told the other two team members. "Better get over here, or you're gonna miss it."
"Meeting you there." Calvin responded.
With that, Lambert and Nilsen continued to monitor the two fishing trawlers, as they waited for the other two members to meet them.
The two fishing trawlers were near each other, with one of them vanishing into the horizon. The ship's harpoon missiles began to arm, aiming at the still present fishing trawler.
"Three missiles are primed and ready, sir." the Seagull One-One leader informed through the radio. "Awaiting your orders."
"Hey... did we... miss it?" Calvin asked the two, with Mašek in tow, being out of breath. "We ran here... as fast as we could..."
"Nah, you're just right on time." the male American operative chuckled. "Seagull One-One, hit it."
With that order, three harpoon missiles launched from the ship and headed towards the fishing trawler. Explosions were heard, as the missiles successfully hit the trawler's starboard hull, taking on water.
"Good effect on target!"
With that, the Hoplite team began to cheer, along with a few other operatives present along the sides of the ship. A fog horn began to sound in the distance, with the first fishing trawler returning to its sinking partner.
"Huh, the other one came back." Nilsen pointed out.
"Then let's deal with it too..." Lambert then contacted the Seagull One-One leader. "Crew, prepare to engage new target."
"Copy that, sir."
As the harpoon missiles begin to re-engage to their new target, the first fishing trawler continued sounding its fog horn as it went over to the starboard side of its sinking partner, trying its best to avoid taking on more water.
All of its efforts will be in vain, as the second fishing trawler slowly submerged from the surface. A few moments later, the second fishing trawler is no longer visible on the surface and the first seems to have ceased all activity.
"Did it stop?" Nilsen asked.
"Eh, who the hell cares?" Calvin shrugged. "The boat just sitting there just makes it an easy target."
"It's turning..."
The three members listened to what the Czech operative said, and looked at the first fishing trawler. It was indeed turning, with its bow facing towards the destroyer.
"What the hell?" the female American operative asked. "The fuck's it doing?"
"Can't tell..." the male American operative answered.
After a few seconds, the fishing trawler immediately increased its speed to one hundred and twenty knots, deliberately colliding with the destroyer in the blink of an eye.
-----
A Few Days Later
The young Rika Eriksen was inside her bedroom, colouring a page in her colouring book. All of a sudden, her mother called her from downstairs.
She heard her mother's voice and immediately ran downstairs, curious as to what she was called on for.
She saw her front door open, with her mother nearby. She was talking to an operative from the same organisation as Nilsen, evident by the man's blue beret with its insignia on the front.
"Oh, here she is now..."
"Mamma, what's going on?"
"Rika, this man wants to talk to you." Rika's mother answered. "I'll be right here if you need me..."
"Okay..."
The mother stepped away from the front door, heading towards the kitchen. She did so as to keep an eye on her daughter, but also let them have a bit of privacy in their conversation.
"Soo... you're the kid that Nilsen's friends with." the operative said. "Rika Eriksen?"
"Yeah, that's me..." the young girl nodded. "Where is she? Are you one of her friends? Is she here? Can I see her?"
"Save your questions..." the operative interjected the young girl. "I um... came here to tell you some news..."
"What news?"
"About your friend, Nilsen..." the operative sighed. "She's... no longer with us. She was... killed in action."
"W-What?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't want to tell you... but someone had to..."
"She's... she's gone?"
"I'm afraid so..."
The young girl's eye formed tears and began to silently cry. The operativs kept a stoic face, with a hint of sympathy for her. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a military card, handing it to the young girl.
"W-W-What's this?"
"A card, belonging to the military that Nilsen worked for." the operative answered. "Whenever you feel that you're ready to avenge her, come to the flower shop two blocks from here and show the shopkeep this card; she'll handle it from there."
"I uhm..."
"You don't have to, but I suggest that you keep a hold of this card." the operative responded. "Make sure that you finish your general education first, before doing so. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I think..." the young girl responded, taking the card.
"The same instructions are written on the back of the card in case you forget." the operative added. "I'll be taking my leave now..."
With that, the man turned around and began to walk away from the Eriksen household. The young girl looked down, taking a good look at the card she was given.
The front showed the organisation's insignia; a blue map of the entire world as depicted by the United Nations, with a pentagram drawn across it and each gap stating the organisation's fivefold mission.
"For deg, Nilsen..."
-----
"So yeah... I finished general education, went to that flower shop, and came here." Eriksen finished her story. "I owe it all to her, since I looked up to her so much."
"I... I'm sorry that happened, ma'am..." the rookie replied.
"Well, that's my reason to be here, to avenge her and everyone else being threatened by anomalies..." the Norwegian operative responded. "So, kid, why did you come here?"
"To protect the ones I care about..." the rookie answered. "I didn't want to stand around doing nothing while danger's afoot, so I thought I'd take action."
"Then I want you to do that for the entire human race." the Norwegian operative urged the rookie. "You should know that these abnormalities of nature are dangerous, and should be put down. Do you understand that, kid?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Right..." Eriksen then looked at her desk clock and noticed that a considerable amount of time had passed by. "Ah, shit. They'll be here any minute."
"Ma'am?"
"Hoplite Two should be heading back." the Norwegian operative stood up from her seat and walked towards the door. "Come on, we're still meeting them."
"Right behind you, ma'am..."
With that, the rookie followed the Norwegian operative out of the office. They walked through the hallway and a series of doors, leading outside. The rookie stopped for a moment, thinking she had heard a muffled blunt noise coming from one of the doors.
"Hey, rookie! Hurry up!"
"Y-Yes, ma'am!"
The rookie immediately continued to follow behind the Norwegian operative. Meanwhile, behind the same door where the rookie stopped in front of, are Castle and Obasi.
"You think just because you don't say anything, you're strong?"
The two were trying to interrogate Ryder, who is currently tied to a chair. Currently, he was hurt and dazed, as he had never talked ever since he was captured.
"I'll ask again..." the commando spoke again. "Where are you from?"
Again, the recruit didn't speak.
"You son of a--"
"Sir." Obasi spoke up, stopping the commando from swinging another punch. "I suggest we should leave him here. Come back after a few days, see if he'll talk again."
"Fine... my fists are getting tired anyway..." the commando then bent down, looking the recruit straight in the eye. "We have ways of making you talk, whether you like it or not."
With that final message, the two walked out of the door, locking it behind them, leaving the recruit in the dark.
To Be Continued