The Cainite Order

CHAPTER 19

ЭСЭН МЭНД ОЛСОН БАЙХ ЁСТОЙ

CHAPTER 19

"Survival must be earned."

A few minutes later the trio made their way to the half-operational Combat Information Center. The reinforcements had hastily barely gotten the seldom-used room up and running. Beathen hoped there were a hundred people with a mountain of gear working away. Though he wasn't very shocked to see, at most, twenty people and a few laptops for the CIC. Scanning the room, he saw Natsumi pouring over several books with one hand and devouring a sandwich with the other. Gott was too busy trying to direct ten different projects at once to notice them come in. There were quite a few other faces he didn't recognize, but he wasn't expecting to. Then Leonard Dubois could be seen digging through the various containers they had brought back from the destroyed Chapter's Armory yesterday. Ruaraidh went to report that they were awake and able to assist while Ash and Beathen made their way to Leo.

"Leo what are you doing here?" Beathen asked as they hugged and slapped each other's backs.

"I heard a certain Yank needed a hand so I offered to help." Leo replied.

"So does everyone know what's going on or are you two just stalking me? Beathen half-joked.

Leo glanced at Ash for half a second before he said, "Well if she hasn't said yet then I'm definitely not going to."

As Beathen prepared to lay into his friends, Gott interrupted loudly, "Mr. Faulkner. When I give an order I expect it to followed."

Beathen tried to interrupt, but Gott raised his hand and continued, "I also don't appreciate being ignored by a subordinate as I try and inform them of a change of plans. Had you kept the communication stone active I could have coordinated our counter-assault more effectively," he paused for several moments and cracked a hairline smile "that being said, I have to admit I'm glad you're alright and you're here. Now I'm sure you have questions. Some of which are better answered in private. The rest of you continue with your assignments. We still have much to accomplish in a short amount of time." Gott motioned for the stunned Beathen to follow him. They went to his office a few doors away with Ruaraidh, Ash, and Natsumi in tow. Once inside, Gott motioned for the group to have a seat.

"Sir, once this is over you can court-martial me or whatever you need to do but right now you need everyone you can get." Beathen said, trying to make sure he was heard at least once.

"Mr. Faulkner shut up. You will have consequences to deal with if we survive this, but that's not why we are here. The situation is far worse than we realized. There are fights breaking out on the other side of the Veil in almost every corner of the map. Best we can tell, these are all feints to hide the real threat. We know that this Ms. Wakahisa is doing some kind of massive spell tonight. The problem is that we don't know where it is and we only have enough people for a single assault. The reinforcements that arrived are pouring over all the info we have so far. Now, as for how and when they got here... a few seconds after you refused to follow orders, Epicuro came thundering in screaming that a portal had opened in the Sanctum Sanctorum. Your Aunt and Epicuro went to do whatever they could against what we assumed to be a new threat. Thankfully they quickly realized what was going on. We attempted to contact you but... well you know that part. They had received our message and sent in a scouting party to report back. The only problem is that we are able to get people and equipment through to our side but we can't get back out." Gott explained.

"But why are two of the people I trained with here?" asked Beathen.

"Because they were assigned to a research group that was meant to study your family history." Gott said reluctantly.