♛Shadows Lurk♛ Darkiplier x Reader

« ♡ » Chapter 1 - The Beginning

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3 years later

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"Commander Flare!"

(Y/n) turned her head to see a boy with short dark hair standing in the doorway to her makeshift office.

"James wants to see you; it's about an upcoming field mission,"

(Y/n) cracked a smile, turning away from the papers at her desk. "Reef, you can just call me Flare, you know? What's with this 'commander' business?"

"Sorry," Reef apologised as he neared. "It's a force of habit. And it would be disrespectful to shove your title aside! After you earn something like that, why would you want people to ignore it?"

"Because, Reef," (Y/n) explained as she stood and walked out of the room, Reef following closely behind as they walked down a long hallway. "I'm just like everybody else."

"Yeah, if everybody else could achieve the rank of sergeant within their first year of service," Reef muttered to himself as he tried to keep up with (Y/n).

Turning into a room that connected off of the hallway (Y/n) noticed three people standing around a large table in the centre of the room. Continuing in she took up a position around the table, taking note of the giant map on the tabletop. A man with greying hair stopped whatever he'd been saying once he noticed (Y/n).

"Commander Flare, nice of you to join us." He said, a small smile appearing on his face. "I take it Reef already told you what this was all about."

(Y/n) nodded. "Yes, General James. He told me it was a 'field mission', care to be more specific?"

"It's a rescue OP." a girl with darker skin and long brown hair answered. "Nothing too exciting, but nothing we can't handle."

(Y/n) glanced to her, grinning. "Correct. It'll be a piece of cake, right Brandy?" Brandy nodded, mirroring (Y/n)'s grin.

"Not so fast, morons," a snide voice chimed in. (Y/n) turned her attention to the last person standing around the table. "We have to be smart about this. We can't just run in there pretending we know what we're doing. Unless you want to end up imprisoned, too, commander." He shot a glare towards (Y/n).

"With all due respect, general," (Y/n) began, not breaking eye contact with the smug looking boy that stood across from her. "Do we really need Liam's squadron for this mission?"

"You're joking," Liam stifled a laugh. "You can barely lead yourself to the mess hall, let alone lead a mission to retrieve soldiers from the King's dungeon!"

"Better watch your mouth, lieutenant, before I'm forced to sew it closed myself." Brandy snapped. A moment of silence befell the room before James sighed.

"I wouldn't have called you all here if I didn't think you all needed to go." He said, placing his hands on the table. "As Liam said, we need to be smart about this. This is a very serious mission." James nodded towards Brandy after he'd finished speaking.

"I was talking with the general and a few other strategists earlier and we devised a plan for your squadrons to infiltrate the castle. We received new word on the prisoners' whereabouts this morning from an unknown source inside the castle walls."

Brandy then pointed to a part on the giant map covering the tabletop, near where the outer wall of the castle was indicated.

"This is where you'll wait until the guards have their shift change, meaning you'll have a few moments when you can sneak past the gates without any hassle. Then, you'll need to make your way through some of the foliage along the inside of the castle wall to get to this point here-" Brandy pointed to a large clear space on the map, "Where you'll be able to climb in through a small gap in the castle's wall-"