Setting elegantly, with a teacup in her hand, as if she owned the place.
"Excuse me for the rude entrance. You can call me Fox, the head of the Sky Guild. Nice to meet you," Anna, appearing completely unconcerned, introduced herself.
"Now, what were you speaking about? Please continue," Anna said with a humored voice, but the pressure around her was no joke.
All the team looked shocked, and the man in question froze in fear.
Ignorant as he may be, the mask in front of him had become synonymous with fear and mystery. So, of course, now he knew for sure he had screwed up with what he said.
"What? I own this station, and any discovery that comes from it legally falls under my property," Morris said. Sadly, his ego wasn't one to be scared away. "And as an outsider, you are breaking into private territory. Even the Sky Guild Master won't say otherwise, right?"
After a long silence, she let a deep, disappointed sigh, taking her phone and tapping something before setting it beside her. Not minding the confused faces, she said, "Give it a minute."
Soon, Morris's phone rang in the silent atmosphere.
"You should take that," she commented with an easygoing tone.
After taking his call, he turned, looking at her with an ashen face before slipping away, like a frightened cat spotting a cucumber.
"Now that the irrelevant one is gone," she said, clapping her hands, and stood up. "Nice to meet you, Mana-1 Team. As I said before, under the rules of the Guild, I can only give my code name: 'Night Fox,' the current Guild Master."
"It's an honor to meet you, and I have to say, meeting a senpai from Top Gun is an honor," Li Ming excitedly said. As the oldest daughter, she surprisingly didn't follow her family's line of work and did a 180-degree turn, shifting her focus to aircraft.
"Oh, they still remember me?the last batch was Class '21, right?" Anna asked, surprised.
"You must be joking? No one has broken your records until today," Li Ming said excitedly. "And yes, I am from the '21 generation. Let me introduce you."
As she was about to introduce them, the door opened and Yuki entered in his Guild uniform.
"Yo… Boss, when did you come?" Yuki, of course, had spotted Anna the moment she entered through the shadow and was now just about to confirm who it was.
"Just now," with simple words, she came closer to him and sized him up for a second before sighing in relief. "Not bad for a first mission, right?"
"If you count almost being chewed by a sea creature on my first mission as a good thing," Yuki said with a sigh.
"Hahah, you've been through worse," Anna laughed.
"True," he sighed. Looking around the place, all the team were looking at them like they were looking at rare creatures, he nodded. "I guess you're here on a professional job. I will take my leave."
Slipping from the office, he strolled through the corridors. "Man, seeing it live like this really gives a weird feeling."
From corridor to corridor, he found himself face to face with a little girl driving her small car.
"This looks familiar," as he murmured, he sensed something rising from below, then it clicked. "Damn, it's that!"
Sprinting to the closest emergency phone, wiring it with his technopath ability, he called the main office. "Sorry for the suddenness, but if you have any emergency protocol, it's best to activate it now."
As soon as he hung up, he heard a scream behind and the building shook.
Looking back, he found a Meg biting on the glass for a second before flipping and diving. Using his senses, he traced its life signal to below, and shockingly, there were more than ten Megs in the deep. "That didn't happen in the show!"
"Miying!!!" Suyin's voice came from the other entrance, as she came sprinting along with Jonas, Mark, and Anna.
Confirming that the girl was alright, he sprinted to his sub and spoke to Anna through the mask comms. "Have Skull follow me. We've got trouble. A pack of the Megs are running around. They are leaving the area. Meet me at the sub. I will have Mama Hen track their route."
[Why not crash them?] Anna asked, confused, retreating to the office.
"Ever heard of a mutated predator that travels in packs?" Yuki said, already jumping inside the hatch.
[Set up and keep the hatch open.] After a moment of silence, her voice came back with a sharp edge this time.
Yuki left the hangar. seconds passed; a shock hit the top of the sub before Wanda and his mother entered, closing the hatch behind them.
"Hatch secure. Dive!" Wanda called.
Not minding their action, he nodded and cranked the speed and depth.
.....Back after Yuki left the office....
Wanda (AKA Skull) entered right after Yuki slipped away, and as the discussion was going, Yuki's voice came from the speaker. Not giving them time to react, the whole structure shook.
[We got a pack of Megs swimming down. meet at the sub. I will have Mama Hen track any heat signal they could find around. Also, send a signal to all the close shores.] Yuki's voice came again.
[Why not have the main sub take them down?] Wanda asked.
[Ever heard of packs of top predators? we need to know what we dealing with first.] This was all Yuki said to make them understand his line of thought.
Thanks to the research Yuki got in, they were by far the first faction to discover the root of their superpower, and with it, their understanding of the 'mutated creature' also advanced.
To talk biologically, the Meg has an impossible survival rate in the current seas, as it lived in an era where the seawater wasn't only 'salty' but also contained a high concentration of other extinct elements, which made the current situation of the sea a death trap for its kind.
And so, they are mutated, and any mutated top predator can be in a group ONLY for mating. So, the current reaction is irregular, meaning something is playing behind the scenes.
Now, Yuki left all he knew about the series lore and started to think using the perception of a native, and only two situations had a high degree of plausibility.
First and only case known: the impossible land 'Flora' appeared along with a variety of creatures always thought were extinct or myth to begin with, which is impossible in this situation.
The second and most close to home: 'Breach.'
Breach: is a concept still fresh. The first time it happened deep in the Amazon, they found a mutated tiger and it almost took down all the native clans there before they got hunted down. It was followed with dozens, if not more, similar cases.
The kicker: the creatures weren't native where they found them, but a species well known in Flora. So how did it get there?
Simple: they found a direct tunnel from the Flora to the said place that has portal-like space-time attributes, meaning a highway to other regions from Flora. And it worked both ways.
This intensified the inner fights of nations about lands and borders, and more table flipping came around.
Thankfully, with Yuki's Awakening System, the Sky Guild has cemented its position, and its drifting nature didn't make them the focus of attention.
But under the flow, before Yuki left the home base, they controlled three Breaches in the sea.
And now they came to a situation that was far more weird than the first three, and all the past ones are classified as 3-S Missions, as the sharks, mutated and strong as they are, are still normal animals, not real Flora species.
Back to Anna...
Anna, while talking to yuki, got back to the office, looking at Wanda and giving her a hand signal. The latter nodded.
"Start sealing, and leave the hatch open," she spoke to the comm, coming closer to the window.
On the other side, Wanda sighed and looked at the team.
"I wish we had time, but I will explain later," Anna said, her voice gaining a more serious tone. "If you choose to stay and help in this situation, then you are to sign a contract of silence later, as from this moment on, Mana-1 is under the jurisdiction of Sky Guild."
"Hold on, is that even possible?" DJ exclaimed. "Even as a tech man, I know that's just sheer robbery. The world doesn't work like that."
"Oh, shut it, Jaxx, come here!" Miying screamed, dragging the attention to her.
"I just got this message. The dude before just got arrested at the airport for unpaid taxes or somthing. Sky Guild just bought his property, and saved his company from getting busted, along with Mana-1!" Looking at everyone before pointing at the phone.
"I just got a message from their 'home base.' Grandfather and I have full authority over decision-making in Mana-1 and its facility," Suyin said in a shaky voice, looking at the foxy lady.
"Okay, so what's this about, Boss?" DJ asked as if nothing had happened, and all the others gave him a weird look.
"What? You will be surprised how many times I change jobs," DJ shrugged.
"Oh, but this time, you're in for life," Wanda smirked. "If you sign that contract, you are under our flag until you die, as you will see later, there's something that really shouldn't be viewed by outsiders."
anna looked around. "As for those who don't want a part of this, I hope you leave this observing room and have a seat in your room until everything gets settled."
To their surprise, she didn't wait for their answer. Instead, Anna turned, facing the open window. Shockingly, Wanda jumped under her gaze.
"You have until comms contact." And Anna jumped after her.
Freaking out, all the group got closer to the window, looking down.
What they saw was them standing on top of the sub with calmness as they stepped inside the hatch with practiced movement.
"Okay, that's cool, I'm in," DJ murmured, gaining strange looks.
"Well, I guess you don't say that every day," Heller shook his head calmly, agreeing with him. As a specialist in his line of work, he got the chance to perform operations on some Awakened, and he knew the contract was something normal between their ranks.
"Well, if the mother and aunt are like that, no wonder the kid turned out like that, its kind intresting." Jonas murmured, and everyone looked at him confusedly.
"Wait, you didn't notice?" he asked confusedly. "The reaction Fox Lady had for the kid after he entered the office?"
After getting a confused look, he sighed.
"If I'm not mistaken, she almost jumped at him for a second out of reflex," he smirked. "And she ended the life of that man just for thinking of using him. I don't think she will go that far for a normal member of the Guild."
"Why not her boyfriend?" Miying asked confusedly.
"You know, she's married?" This caused her to freeze, and some had a cold sweat on their backs. "Although Top Gun didn't keep her records and real name, they keep the minimum personal info, and this is a widely known fact about the Sky Guild Master."
"Oh, right!" They said, forgetting all that with the detective air Jonas was putting on.
"Well, I guess you could earn a life as a detective," Jaxx smiled. "I got a comm contact request. Anyone want to withdraw?"
After a group nod, she accepted the contact.
[Well, look at that. Looks like I owe you that F-22 old engine,] Skull groaned after confirming that no one left. [Man, I really want that jet upgrade you mentioned.]
"The first sentence, and I feel like entering another world, thank you very much," DJ looked at the screen as if he got slapped by a stack of Lincolns.
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Enjoy the new chapter! Feel free to leave a comment (if you had any) and share your suggestions