Courtney scowled into her coffee cup. Yesterday's Legion meeting had been a disaster. Capital D Disaster. First off, Paris had attacked with his own group of superpowered goons. Secondly, they'd gotten away without a scratch thanks to both he and Achilles treating it like some stupid game.
Thirdly, Achilles was intolerable. Where did he think they lived? In some fairytale land? No. This was reality. Cold, hard reality where children should not be given the burden of protecting the masses. Reality where people could die. Achilles had almost died multiple times already. How could he not see the grey world right before his eyes?
They couldn't let Paris run free. Not if he might kill someone. Even as things stood, Arx was almost always on the brink of a population crisis. Courtney hadn't seen much of it herself, but one journalist had written an article on the delicate balance of Arx's population a few years ago. Apparently the government kept a very careful eye on the birth to death ratio, and tried to keep them more or less consistent.
Too many people and Arx wouldn't be able to support them. Too few and they couldn't support Arx.
"Larsen." Barron sat across from her with his own cup of coffee, jolting Courtney out of her thoughts. Right. She was in a coffee shop to meet him.
"Sergeant."
"You're not my officer anymore. You can call me Ramon if you want."
"Then you'll have to call me Courtney."
Barron paused for a minute before shaking his head.
"Nope, can't do it. You'll always be Larsen."
"Then I suppose the best I can do is call you Barron."
"Fair enough. You wanted to talk?"
Irritation burned in Courtney's chest again. She took a breath to calm herself and gather her thoughts, then smiled coldly at Barron.
"What the hell was yesterday? Where was the military? Paris attacked again with his own team of freaks. I really hope you guys weren't sitting on your asses the whole time." Barron looked guilty and put his head in a hand. The one that wasn't holding his coffee.
"It's getting a bit crazy, Larsen," he replied slowly. "Best we could do was set up an evacuation zone. Keep people at a safe distance and let whatever happened happen. No civilians were there, were they?"
"None." Courtney felt her irritation at Barron evaporating. "What's happening? Or can you not tell me since I'm no longer an officer?"
Barron blew out a breath on his coffee, falling deep into thought.
Just as she'd taken his silence as a sign he couldn't say anything, he spoke up.
"We're trying to downplay this with the media, but it might be best to mention it to you. Couple days ago, someone was doing a routine check and noticed that five of our rayguns were missing."
"Damn." Courtney frowned. "Any idea who did it?"
"No. There was no evidence of a break-in, but after double and triple-checking, our numbers still didn't add up." Then it hit Courtney.
"I think I know where they went."
"You do?" Barron raised both his eyebrows as he waited for her to continue.
"Yesterday, a couple of Paris' goons had rayguns. I'd wager they're responsible for your missing property."
Silence fell for a while before Barron heaved a sigh.
"Great. Of course it would be freaks like that. Any idea how they coulda done it?"
"Maybe? One of them could turn immaterial or something. I couldn't hit her. My arm literally went right through her. And when they decided to run, she just sunk into the ground. Walls wouldn't be an object."
"Damn." Barron took a sip of his coffee, his forehead creased more than she'd ever seen it.
"And no, I don't know how you could stop her, short of bolting everything to the floor."
"But how would she get them out?" Barron asked.
"No idea. There were a couple whose powers weren't accounted for, and I wouldn't put anything past these wacky Miracles."
"Tell me everything you learned." Courtney pursed her lips as she thought about the order to say things in.
"Paris seems to think this is a game."
"When we went to apprehend him, he did say we weren't playing the game right. I'd like to know about his other teammates. And the new Legion member if possible."
"Let's see. I told you about the weird girl. I think Paris called her Mist. Then Jumper had to deal with two. One didn't use his Miracle. The other one could create objects at will. I think he can only create one at a time, but it's a pain. He kept putting stuff up to obstruct Jumper. Luckily I don't think he was experienced enough to think things through super well, so Jumper managed. Then there were two more. I have no idea what their abilities are.
"As for the new guy...He calls himself Prime. No idea what his ability is, but when Achilles insisted we all introduce ourselves with our epithets - don't ask - he called himself 'Prime the something-Young' or something. He's at least capable in a fight, so I'll take that as a point for us. No idea where he stands on the Light Master issue though."
Courtney heaved a sigh and groaned loudly before continuing.
"Speaking of Little Schultz, Achilles was trying to find out a way to communicate our next meeting to him. He insisted that the kid's 'chosen' or whatever and should be allowed to fight with us. I tried to disagree, but he ignored me for a while before finally telling me to shut up. I dunno what you guys wanna do about Achilles, but the man needs to be restrained somehow. And I doubt I can do it. Prime didn't seem inclined to interfere and Jumper has done enough babysitting as is."
Courtney rested her head on the table, trying to fight off the impending headache that came with thoughts of Achilles. Barron slowly sipped his coffee, processing everything.
"Your position isn't easy either," he muttered. Courtney dragged her head up and looked at him.
"I take it it's not just the break-in?"
"No. We got word yesterday of a major heist taking place. We didn't know the exact location, so we had to cover every bank and every jewelry store in the city. We barely had enough officers on hand for that, and then the culprits decided to hit a casino instead. Military ended up looking like idiots."
"Who sent the tip in?"
"Anonymous. Apparently someone involved with the heist decided to secretly leak info on it in exchange for leniency. They said the group was looking at all these different places, but hadn't decided yet and the informant wouldn't be able to communicate what would actually be hit until it was too late to communicate. Pretty convenient, huh? I'm pretty sure the group screwed us."
"Damn. You guys would end up looking like morons. Any leads?"
"Not yet. Forensics has yet to come back, and this group were pros. We'll be lucky if we can get anything."
"I hate those cases."
"And I wouldn't be surprised if the evidence 'accidentally' went missing."
"Evans?"
"Couldn't say. She's not the only corrupt person in the military, you know. Either way, I doubt she'd dirty her hands personally."
Courtney let out a long growl, then straightened up and took a swig of her lukewarm coffee.
"And you didn't hear that from me," Barron said. Courtney scoffed.
"Course not. I respect your position considering what happened to me, but I am furious right now. Why the hell is our military so messed up?"
"Everything's messed up," Barron laughed.
"I wish it wasn't."
"Yeah, well, I figure the best I can do is get promoted and try to change stuff from the inside." Barron stretched as Courtney thought about it.
"I'm glad there's people like you, then. If it weren't for people like you and Jumper I might just give up on humanity," she said.
"Hey, there's good apples and bad ones. Just find yourself the good ones."
"I'll do that. Thanks, Sergeant. Er, Barron. Sorry. Hard to kick the habit."
"No worries. Thanks for keeping me in the loop. I'll sneak the info you gave into our records and maybe we can find out more about Mist and the others. We did find Paris' house after all. Just takes one good anonymous tip."
"Not like the one you got about the robbery?"
"Please don't remind me." Barron drained the rest of his coffee. "Anyway, I gotta run. Too much paperwork to extend my break any more."
"Take care, Barron."
"You too, Larsen."
As he left, Courtney continued slowly sipping her coffee. It was cold by now.
