The Maltese Talonflame Chapter 1: The Cerise Letter

[Yours Truly]

The Night before

A soft jazz song plays in the background as Daniel stands by the window of his large yet somehow cramped feeling office. The man seems to be lost in thought as he stares out of the open window at the setting sun as it makes its way down across the sky to usher in what he hopes is a peaceful night. And he takes yet another puff from his cigarette as he thinks about the coming day.

New kids.


He hears a knock on the door and turns around to find his loyal secretary standing right behind him. “Yes Emilia?”, she walks into the room and stands right next to him, and he reacts to her presence by offering her a puff of his cigarette, which she accepts gratefully as she takes a long drag before asking him, “So are you ready to meet the new batch?”. She takes another puff of the cigarette and hands it back.

 

“You know that I have never liked to deal with new hires, and you of all people should know exactly what my problem with them is….” He stops talking mid sentence to stare outside of the window some more to think about the unspoken end of his previous sentence. Emilia turns to look at the chief’s eyes with an audible sigh before saying “It wasn’t your fault. You must know this by now, I don’t think that they would have wanted you to carry this burden for so long,” she places a firm grip on the chief’s empty hand, and she pulls him away from the open window and forces him to sit in his old chair to interrupt his increasingly unnecessary brooding. She takes a seat right across the table from him and lights up her own menthol cigarette.

 

“Now get out of your head old man. You still have work to do,” she gently pushes a large folder at him. “These are my final candidates, I want you to give it a once over and tell me which ones you want me to hire. Of course I will be hiring some of them anyway because I just know that you will find another excuse to reject them all if it was entirely up to you, but I thought that it would be a good idea to let you have some control over this process,” she smiles warmly at Daniel before she says “It is your company after all”.


The chief begrudgingly picks up the file and starts to idly flip through some of it, he stops on a rather peculiar file, and he picks up a red marker and outlines a certain entry on the person’s file before he moves on to write the words ‘We already qualify for the Work opportunity tax credit’ right beside it. “You know...sometimes I wonder if I even need you around; maybe I could choose one of the pretty girls in this list to replace you. At least she won’t boss me around in my own office.”

 

Emilia laughs in response, “Sure go ahead. Just don’t come crawling to me if a certain pretty little face burns down your office though” She quickly finishes her cigarette and starts to walk out of the room, ”They are coming to the office at 9.00 am. But I’ll take them on a tour and have them ready to meet you by 10.00 am to give you some time to prepare. I’ll See you tomorrow, Boss,” The peculiar emphasis she places on that is enough to annoy Daniel somewhat.

 

After she left, Daniel peruses the files a little more before he finds himself getting more than a little annoyed at the useless formality. He decides to not waste any more time with reading the files as he stands up and walks towards the door, he is meeting them tomorrow isn’t he?

The Next Morning

Emilia checks her watch after a long and busy morning of making sure that everything is ready for the newcomers, and she notices that it is almost time for them to come. It is 9.00 AM already, I do hope that these kids at least know enough to not be late on their very first day. She takes the elevator down to the lobby to try and find out exactly how many of the applicants are present, and she walks out of the elevator and sees a small group of people present who were milling about and mostly busying themselves with filling out whatever forms they have on hand. As she walked past the receptionist’s desk she turns to ask “Thank you for handing out the forms James. And Katie, do you know if all of the applicants have arrived?”. For some odd reason or other James is the one to answer with “Yes they are all present and accounted for. Although I must say that I expected them to get here faster; opportunity of a lifetime and most of them couldn’t be bothered to make it here any earlier than 8:45 or so, but at least they were quick with the forms”.

 

The man started to mess about with his computer while Emilia turns to leave, and before she gets very far he interrupts her by saying  “Also one other thing, there was a rather young man going by the name of ‘Elias’ here earlier who wasn’t on the list,  and he seemed be quite evasive when I asked him what he was here for. Now normally I would just turn him away for being a suspicious bastard, but he insisted on seeing you specifically, he even told me what your full name was. He was even fine with waiting for a whole hour in conference room B after I told him that you will be busy. Now Katie here,” he gestures at the portly woman sitting on the other end of the table “Thinks that he might be a new client, some young and innocent kid who is way over his head and thought that you looked like a trustworthy woman who could be trusted to keep quiet about his true identity, but personally I think that you just have a not so secret admirer.”.
 

Emilia quietly said “I’ll look into it then” in response before she takes a few more steps away from the receptionist’s desk and decides to reward James for all of his sass by coughing out loud to get everyone’s attention, and immediately pointing at the thin man. “Gather around everybody, my name is Emilia and the man I am pointing at is James, we would like to welcome you to our agency, and James here will be leading all of you on a tour of the agency’s grounds once you have all finished with your forms”.

James’s expression turns to one of surprise for a few moments, before the portly woman sitting right next to him makes a gesture that says something along the lines of ‘Just go with it’, and he immediately moves back to his work station to desperately plan out a route throughout the agency’s grounds. Meanwhile Emilia is already walking off towards the conference room to meet up with this mysterious 'Elias' person.
 

((OOC: Just post whatever it is you are doing inside of the lobby basically, are you introducing yourself to the others? Are you still trying to figure out what line A and dot B on the form means? Are you contemplating your navels or brooding over the fact that my PARENTS ARE DEAAAAD?))

[Newt]

Kayn, who had just completed the form, was giving Zaru, that was on his shoulder, a biscuit. Bored while waiting for the others, Kayn decided to introduce himself to his possible future teammates. Kayn gets up from the chair, takes off his top hat, and makes a bow to everyone. With a big smile on his face, which many could claim to be ironic, begins his introduction.

"Hello everyone! I know most of you are still completing the form, but I thought it would be nice if I started the introductions as soon as possible. My name is Kayn, and no, before you ask, I'm not a child!"

Kayn then looks at Zaru, who was still eating the biscuit.

"And this one on my shoulder is my friend, Zaru." 

Kayn giggles.

"It is really, really nice to meet all of you. I hope we have a good time together~"

Kayn said with a sarcastic tone. Putting his top hat back, Kayn seats in the chair, waiting for everyone else to introduce themselves.

[DigitalAmber]

Jayden sighed and kept filling out his forms. All of it was done except for a question that simply stumped him. It was a health form he couldn’t have been bothered to remember about. He couldn’t have understood why he should be bothered to know his Inkay’s exact parents. They could have been from Orre for all it  mattered. He didn’t see why it was important. Sure, genetics played a part in movesets and better resistances to some types, along with a possible immunity to some diseases, but surely it wasn’t too important. He just wrote in “Unknown” before dropping the pencil. He glanced up and saw an interesting sight. Inva, his Inkay, was trying to climb up a sturdy potted plant which happened to near the table. Inva was stretching out her surprisingly long tentacles to wrap around Kayn’s hat. He sighed, “Inva. Could you not take his hat.”

 

Jayden pulled a feather out and let in float in the air. Inva instantly did a odd mixture of floating and walking on tentacles and positioned herself under the feather. She started playing around with it like a child might play with a balloon. Jayden stood and decided it was time for introductions. Jayden stood up and his mind started to go blank. He rapidly spoke, “Hey, uh, hi. I’m Jayden.” He pulled out a treat, which Inva quickly snatched up, and took a seat. 

[DemICE]

Horace was strained, with a tortured expression in his face.  He hated paperwork. Yet ye was dealing with one right now.  Should he only include his handgun in the question asking about possible weapons of choice? Should he include Magnum too? He trained with, and used him as a gun much more often than his regular one.  Should he include his paintball activities in the practical experience section? They were just an unofficial entertainment activity, but it had helped a lot as far as he was concerned.  

Rhythmic  bulging movements felt on his hip betrayed that Magnum was fast asleep in his coat's inner pocket.  Lucky bastard.  He wished the roles were reversed sometimes.

Eventually with some  "nnnghh" followed by a  "Whatever! Might as well!" he decided to fill those in as well and let them work their questionable magic. 

In the meantime of all this he could swear he heard someone announcing something towards his general vicinity but he was too focused on the form to pay attention.

 

He stood up, paper on hand. An inkay's antics attracted his attention momentarily, though he shrugged and walked towards his hosts. Pokemon doing pokemon stuff, nothing out of the ordinary.

"Excuse me,"  he asked as he approached, dressing their general area but no one specifically,  "to whom i give this completed form?"

[Anime]

Adara lights up a cigarette and takes a few puffs then she threw it on the ground and stepped on it, then she continued filling out her forms. After she has finished those, she turned andmakes a bow to everyone and said: "Well hello there, i'm looking forward to working with you, i am Adara~"

Then, she looked at her Gastly and said:"this is my partner Bartholomew, he says hi"

[krim]

Having filled out the forms far earlier than the others, Arlen was absently drawing musical scores on the back of one of the pages. His father had drilled into his head the importance of paperwork so many times that the answers came almost immediately. Some of the questions were a little odd, but from this kind of job it was to be expected.  He sighed as the other people in the room started introducing themselves, and took a glance at Auri who was perched on the back of his chair. Always glad to meet new people, she let out a few chirps in response. "At least one of us is excited to be here."  he thought. To put it simply, he wasn't sure about this particular job. They didn't provide him with very much information, but it was one his father insisted he take and was far better paying than the last few.

 

After half-listening to the others and taking note of their names, but not much else, he pointed to himself and said "Arlen Eldes. Musician extraordinaire!" with an ironic grin at the end, too fast for most people to notice. Not wanting to be forgotten, Auri cried shortly after. "And my partner, Auri. Couldn't do it without her." then he fell quiet again and waited. He figured they'd want him to make friends with these people, but most of the people he worked with didn't last long in one way or another. Either way, he was content to lay back in his seat as Auri played with a stray strand of his hair.  

[IntSys]

Serra filled her form quite quickly. It wasn't anything particularly special. Unlike seemingly everyone else here, she had kept Cleffy in her ball, as Cleffy sneaking around stealing keys would make a horrible first impression.

 

She fiddled with the buttons on her brown jacket before shoving her filled forms to a man asking for where to hand in the forms. "While you're asking, hand in my forms for me, alright?"

 

A boy introduced himself as Kayn. Very obviously a kid; after all, only a kid would ever need to stress that they're not one. She mused to herself for awhile, before she figured that it was her turn.

 

"My name's Serra Clavis, and I used to run a locksmith service, so I'd believe that you can connect the dots on your own."

 

Her distinct lack of enthusiasm or nervousness almost stood out too well. My age's showing, isn't it... 

[Aurorix]

Aster filled out his forms relatively quickly, he spent the rest of his time starring out the window waiting for everyone else to finish. Occasionally he'd stare down at the tracker attached to his leg with disgust. He may have avoided prison but that doesn't mean he still doesn't feel trapped by the law. The sneasel beside him started snickering at the boy and his brooding. He looked down at the ice-type angrily gritting his teeth angrily, "Ya got something ya wanna ya little piece of crap?" The ice type raised his hands and shook head and a few moments later gave a smug grin. Aster sighed before turning over to everyone else here giving their names out. Some of them, he thought, were being a bit too obnoxious about it. Okay we get it, ya think you're hot stuff so ya gotta make for introduction flashy or funny. Whatever, he'd much rather prefer they just say their name and get it over without theatrics. Though it was about time to start the tour so he might as well get up. He walked towards the group, hands in his pockets and with face that says "I'd rather be anywhere but here" written all over it.

 

"The name is Aster and that punk over there is Frostbite." He gestured his thumb to the Sneasel behind him, the weasel was waving and giving a shit eating grin at everyone.  "Let's just get moving already, wasted enough time sitting around."

[rustytengo]

Jeanne was just watching everyone as she tapped her foot and played with one of the pom poms on her hoodie. They seemed an interesting bunch or at least much more interesting then the usual people she ended up being introduced to and there was only on old man which was a nice change of pace. After it seemed that all the others have introduced themselves she spoke. "Nice to meet everyone. I'm Jeanne Montgomery though you all can just call me Jeanne. Don't worry about the last name we will be working closely together so it not worth worrying about." She said with a happy smile and light laugh.  

[DemICE]

Horace had absentmindedly taken the form from the suddenly appearing-disappearing girl without muttering much more than "Ah, sure."

The seconds were passing and he was getting no reply.  His hosts might as well be asleep standing.  Behind him people were introducing themselves in varied ways.  Was this a school class or something? Sigh.

 

He turned around to have a better look at the others.  They were of various ages, ranging from barely adult to around his own age. One of them mentioned a surname he was sure he had heard somewhere but who cares. 

"Possible fellow colleagues i reckon? Well for those who will be taken along with possibly me, it would be useful to call me Horace."

 

He then turned back around and asked the hosts again,

"Ahem, I am sorry if i spoke in a too low voice the first time, but...  to whom do I hand this-er.. these complete forms over?"

[Yours Truly]

James mutters a couple of curse words under his breath as he continues to desperately try and plan a good and proper tour in the short few moments the applicants are unwittingly buying for him with their worryingly short introductions. But fortunately enough for James, those short few moments are just what he needed to send a copy of the map over to his phone, along with a copy of the short and excessively simple tour plan that he hopes will be enough to distract and entertain a small group of people for a whole hour.

The man stands up with a hopefully attention grabbing clap of his hands before yells out the words "May I have your attention please?," to try and get everyone's attention. He pauses for a moment to walk up to where the applicants are standing before he continues with "Alright, if you are all finished with your forms then may I please ask you to drop them all off at my assistant ," he gives Katie a sideways glance before he raises both of his eyebrows with a teasing grin on his face. "at Katie's desk, and we can all finally start the tour with a short trip to the first floor, as the lobby contains absolutely nothing else of any amount of interest other than the humble receptionist's desk, due to security reasons of course".

He then coughs and gestures to the clearly visible elevator doors before he says "So please gather around the elevator at your earliest convenience, and before anyone asks; yes there is a bathroom on the right".

[DemICE]

Horace placed the forms om the assistant's desk.

"Here, miss. thanks for pretending to not listen before. You should know better than me that you simply can't escape paperwork when it's looking for you."

 

He then paced to the elevator, where he stood and waited.

 

 

[Newt]

Kayn places the form on the assistant's desk, and as instructed, heads up to the elevator, where he meets the the high and thin man. Kayn wanted to start a conversation, but as he didn't know what to say, he just stayed quiet waiting for the others.

[IntSys]

Serra walked into the dreadful silence between Kayn and Horace. Not wanting to add more to the awkwardness, she did them a favor and took a closer look at their apparels.

Mr. Wearing-Sunglasses-Indoors, and Mr. Getting-A-Poor-Fit...

 

She took a breath, and attempted to break the silence. "Kayn, that suit doesn't seem to be your size. Is it a friend's?"

[rustytengo]

Jeanne gets up and hands her papers to the lady the man said was his assistant with a smile after a few others had done the same. She walked over to the elevator and leaned against the wall as one of the other girls tried to start a conversation with one of the men also there. She pulled out her phone and pulled up her contacts a started to flip through them so it didn't look as obvious  as she eavesdropped  into the possible conversation. After all that is a skill she should practice a bit more if she was going to do any private eyeing or whatever that was called.

[Newt]

Kayn, who was almost starting a conversation with someone because of the weird silence, was glad that someone else did that. Hearing Serra words, Kayn giggles, and look at her.

"Oh, you noticed! Haha! Yes, the suit and this top hat are a gift from a friend. I know they do not fit my size, but I like them so much.."

Kayn takes a breath before quickly changing the topic of the discussion.

"You said you used to run a locksmith service right? And now you are trying to become a private detective. Could I ask why?~"

[DigitalAmber]

Jayden  walked over to the assistants desk and slid the papers over it without so much as a second glance. He managed to corral Inva into going near the elevator. Inva was currently trying to  elevator buttons before spotting Kayn’s hat again.  The Inkay tried to subtly steal Kayn’s hat, but Kayn’s height made it extremely obvious. Jayden noticed this and started to react. “Inva! Could you stop trying to take this kid’s hat.” Jayden glanced at Kayn, “Sorry, Kayn, was it? I, err, I apologize for Inva, she’s, err, quite a curious Inkay. I, err, apologize for the bluntness, but what’s with the, err, getup. You look like a theater... troper? Like you took a, err, outfit, from a play.”

[Anime]

Adara walked over to Katie's dest and hands her the papers with a smile. Then she heads towards the elevator and sees Jayden talking to Kayn, "Your Inkay is a cute one~ you must've spent quite a lot of time together" said Adara with a smile, she turns to Serra:" Hey there^^, nice to meet you! oh i really like your clothes, you're cute~ i can see we'll be good partners and we'll get along quite well."

 

[Newt]

Before Serra being able to answer Kayn, Jayden's Inkay tried to steal his hat again, and with that, Jayden apologized, but probably without noticing, called Kayn a kid, and also made fun his outfit. Kayn looks at Jayden with an angry, but cute expression.

"Hey, I'm not a kid! And I use this outfit because I am a magician! If you don't believe me, I could make a magic trick for you."

Kayn smiles and raises an eyebrow.

 

[DigitalAmber]

Jayden sighed, it seemed the kid, because no one but a kid would claim they weren’t one, was a con artist, like a good majority of magicians. Jayden made sure his wallet was pushed down to the bottom of his pocket before answering Kayn’s question, “As long as you don’t ‘magically’ steal my wallet, then sure. Lemme see your magical sleight of hand.” 

[Newt]

"Oh, don't worry! I won't steal your wallet, I promise." Kayn smiles sarcastically.

"Now, let's start! Zaru, please."

Zaru leaves Kayn's shoulder, as if to let him make his presentation.

"As you can see, there is nothing in my hands, neither in my sleeves."

Kayn show his hands to everyone and rolls up the sleeves, and approaches Jayden. Kayn approaches his hands to Jayden's ear, and take a coin out of it.

"Look, a coin!" Kayn shows the coin, and at this moment, Zaru goes back to Kayn's shoulder.

"But wait, it isn't over! It seems there is something else!"

Kayn hands approaches Jayden's ear again, and this time, come out with a piece of plastified paper.

"Mr. Jayden Arcwile, 23 years. I believe this identity is yours." Kayn smiles and shows the identity to Jayden.

 

[DigitalAmber]

““Neat trick, but that isin’t mine.” Jayden glanced at the I.D, “Wait what! How did you get that? Wait... So..." A thoughtful expression crosses Jayden's face for a few moments. "Your hands were there, another one crossed out... that leaves... The Apiom right? You didn’t reach my pocket and I doubt any of the others would aid this. That leaves only a pokemon, of which your Apiom fits. Pretty good trick, kid. Inva wouldn’t have been able to pull that off. She could have had a similar talent, but I didn't want my things mysteriously vanishing. She can be a bit of a handful, you know.” 

Jayden took a few steps back and picked Inva up so that they were staring at each other's faces. In a low whisper he instructed, "Feel free to take the kid's hat." Inva's eyes started to twinkle with mischief.    Jayden turned to Adara when he heard her comment, “Shh, don’t tell her that. She’s cocky enough as is. I don’t want to be the guy who can’t get his Inkay under control.” 

Edited January 25, 2018 by DigitalAmber

[IntSys]

"I was referred to, and the pay is better here, so I figured that I might as well as come," Serra answered Kayn's question, before turning to Adara. "Well, thanks?" She blushed a little. "I had the shirt as a custom order for brand recognition, but I designed the logo myself."

She strode by the sunglasses guy and took a closer look at his sunglasses. They didn't seem to be anything special. "And you, Horace, why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?"

[Yours Truly]

James reacts to the proceedings exactly the way a proper adult who really wants to get all of this over with as soon as possible would, and that is by interrupting pretty much everyone's conversation by clearing his throat and loudly proclaim "Right! Now that we are all done with our introductions and form filling, I think it is about time that we all move on to start the tour before we use up any more of our precious time," while he walked over to swiftly press the button and call the elevator all the way down from its lofty perch in the 8th floor. 

A few moments of awkward silence passes between James and the applicants as the elevator seemingly tries its best to make sure that it stops at every single floor imaginable on its way down. Once the elevator finally makes its way down and opens its doors, the man swiftly walks in, takes out a keycard from one of his jacket's pockets, and inserts his keycard into its slot before he pushes the button for the first floor. He then gestures for everyone else to join him inside as he holds the door open and states "You all have exactly one minute to enter into this elevator before I close this door and spend the next hour by leading a tour of this humble agency for an audience of myself".

[Newt]

"Oh, a hasty man, I see."

Kayn giggles and quickly enter the elevator, being the first of the group.