Rhyme or Reason ➲ Gareth

TO

DREAMS,

AND THE FOOLS WHO DREAM THEM

"Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just." Gareth quipped towards an orphan, as he bandaged the scrapes on his leg. "There we go. Remember not to remove the bandage until it heals." "But Gareth, what if it gets itchy?" "Well if you scratch it, it's going to hurt even more, you sure you want that?" "No..." "Good, now scoot, and remember, stand up for yourself when you're being bullied, and they'll leave you alone."

"What if they come back with more people Gareth?" "Then you let me know, and I'll burn down their toys." Gareth smiled pleasantly, then scratched the top of the boy's head, before ushering him to go back into the playground. Giving one last look towards his small, but relatively successful orphanage, Gareth stepped into the confesion box, where a stranger awaited him.

"Yes? Another target?" Although his voice remained calm, one could hear the disdain in his voice for the man's presence. A single file slid through the confessions box, and Gareth looked towards the file. "Drew Casper, today you'll be going without Nicklaus, we have a recruit we want you to take for field experience." "And what did this man do?"

"He's been doing an occult ritual and somehow using Hollow Bait to hunt down a village near Worcester. England's Holy Church is asking us to handle this." Gareth paused momentarily, he was going to have to get some more volunteers in the coming days, but for now, he was more interested in his new partner. "This is a new recruit I take it? No serious hunting I hope." "Relax Gareth, she's skilled enough to handle herself."

_______________________________

The sound of an acoustic guitar could be heard as he opened the doors to the meeting point. His partner could not be any older than twenty, and in fact to him, looked very much like a teenage girl. Excewpt that he noticed she had one eye missing. "That's a nice song, what are you playing?"

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TO

DREAMS,

AND THE FOOLS WHO DREAM THEM

"Well, I do, of course, I did ask the question." Gareth stated with mild laughter. Gareth took her hand and shook firmly, then placed his arm on his hip. "Well assuming that you've got a vital role to play in the vatican, you'll be here for some time yet. But it depends on the job you have. People like me, we're expendable. Excellent scientists and cratsmen on the other hand, not so much, so I'd suspect you'd be here for some time yet. Have you been briefed about the mission?" Gareth gestured at the pocket of files he had been holding. "Or did the church leave that to me?"

coded by electric of gs

TO

DREAMS,

AND THE FOOLS WHO DREAM THEM

"Hahaha." Gareth was amused at the somewhat classic naivete of a girl who didn't really have much experience out on the field. Gareth was similar when he first came to become a field operative, but he was personally so anxious on the ride to the operation that he had vomited on the plane ride. "Eager to be James Bond? Maybe you can seduce the target with a pretty red dress and a nice smile."

He gestured towards the exit. "Come on, car's outside." The exterior of the roman vatican was beautiful to say the least. It was too bad that any time spent in the nearby vicinity was so short lived that any attempts to describe it was far too mundane and unnecessary. The car outside that awaited them was a small beige colored Lexus. While quincy did not require public transport, to be seen flying outside of the vatican at high speeds using Hirenkyaku would no doubt cause suspicion. As a result of precautions, there was to be no use of quincy powers in broad daylight.

"We are flying to England. There's a man by the name of Drew Casper that we need to kill." Gareth drew out the files and handed them to Samantha to read. Drew Casper was a fairly young man, with tattooed ritualistic markings over a third of his face and over his neck. "The man's into occult and paganistic rituals. Unfortunately, one of his rituals actually worked, and he's managed to bind hollows to his will with the use of stolen Gintou tubes and hollow bait. We're going to eliminate him, and then pacify the Hollow Population in that town."

"All in all, we'll need to assess the situation of the town, take out all the hollows, save the remaining survivors and wipe their memories, as well as killing Drew Casper for crimes against humanity and God." Those words rang in his head. "At any rate, the plane ride to Worcester is about two hours long. We'll be taking the Vatican's private jet. You have any questions so far?"

coded by electric of gs

TO

DREAMS,

AND THE FOOLS WHO DREAM THEM

"Of course, but just don't expect it to jump that high at the start." Gareth replied in response to Samantha's query about cash. "Hazard Pay is included, the severity of the mission determines the amount you receive, as well as how many commendations you've received in your line of work. So your work base is going to be lower at the start. As an inventor though, your commissions off of making new equipment for the Vatican will be a hundred times more than what you earn on field."

"And also.. can't we just take away his connection to the supernatural.. permanently? Or something? Or are we dead-set on killing him?" Gareth's eyes darkened somewhat as he continued to drive his way past he Italian countryside, they were almost past towards the airport, but there was still quite a bit to go. "I can understand if you are concerned that death is a punishment fitting this crime. I have often questioned this myself, whether it's possible to simply incapacitate, and not kill an individual." Gareth looked towards Sam briefly, before making a left turn towards a barren straight to a private hangar. "But you need to isolate those feelings against your job. We carry out our orders, whether for the greater good or for the worse, it is not our decision."

"Don't treat this as a mission for the greater good. And most definitely do not expect that this mission will have a favorable outcome. Inquisitors are often sent to do morally questionable tasks." Gareth silently drove the rest of the way towards their intended destiantion. It was another twenty five minutes before they finallly arrived at the hangar, at that point, he parked the car, exited and gestured for Sam to do the same.

"Hello Doctor." "Good morning, are we ready to fly out yet?" "In about twenty minutes, we'll need to ensure the engines are prepared." The plane was relatively small, it could perhaps carry no mor than ten or so people in it's passenger area, but the space was fairly comfortable. This jet was technically the property of the former vatican banker Peter Branco, but since his forced retirement, it had been seized by Gareth for personal use at a low bidding price.

Gareth walked the stairs up into the private jet, before getting another idea. As he seated himself onto a rather expensive looking lounge area, Gareth spoke to Samantha. "Since this is your first field operation I'll have to explain the basics of two man jobs."

Gareth spread out a paper map of the area onto the lounge table, on it were annotations of possible areas for advantage outlooks, indication of any intel and several photographs of Drew Casper that he had retrieved from the Criminal Database of the British Government. "In a general two man job, we have one on outlook, and one on operations. Outlook provides intelligence reports and of course scouting data for the operative to work with, as well as providing sniper fire and long range assault when things get hectic. For this job, I feel like you should have hands-on experience in handling field operations instead of working as an outlook."

While it may seem to be a dangerous thing to send out Samantha as an operative unit n her first mission, Gareth estimated that this mission was solely made to test out the recruit. A general inquisitor would have no problem in dealing with this mission alone, but as a mentor, his job was to oversee the success of the mission. "I'm sure you've had virtual reality training far more complex than this mission. But this is the real world, and you actions have significant consequences. This is part of your training." Gareth paused to give room for Sam to respond.

coded by electric of gs

TO

DREAMS,

AND THE FOOLS WHO DREAM THEM

Gareth observed his new mission operative that he was meant to be mentoring throughout this course. Almost immediately after realizing that they were going to ride a private jet, the kid's brain had begun analyzing structural weaknesses and improvements to the design. "Er... yes, well, while they are structural weaknesses, I'd appreciate you not reconfiguring anything on the jet Samantha." Gareth was pretty amused by her fascination with the jet, it reminded him somewhat of a small child.

"Err... They did tell you i wasn't exactly the best aim in the class right? You know... Eye-patch? Shitty depth perception? Yeah." "It's a good thing that I'm on Sniper outlook then! Hahaha." In all honesty, if Sam really didn't feel like doing it, Gareth wasn't going to force the issue, but for now he was confident enough in her abilities to be able to finish the job.

"I mean.. until some genius spirit doctor out of nowhere comes up with a synthetic eye I could use, this is going to be an ongoing issue." ...There was a pause in the midst of the conversation. Gareth grinned. "Well, you just so happened to be partnered with one. I should be able to restore your eyesight, but I'm going to do so after the mission, if I restored your depth perception, your aim might worsen instead of getting better."

As the plane began to speed up, Gareth buckled his seat and felt the pivot of the airplane elevate himself thousands of meters into the air. "We should be there in about two hours, I suggest getting some sleep before we arrive. We might not be able to sleep in a few days."

coded by electric of gs

TO

DREAMS,

AND THE FOOLS WHO DREAM THEM

The flight took an approximate of two hours to complete, the flight was relatively smooth along the way. While Gareth would have personally decided to have slept, or at least preferred to, he was going over the case files with mild vigor. Whether or not Samantha's initiation would be successful was dependent on his capability to plan, and he didn't plan on risking her life for nothing.

"We'll be touching down soon sir." Gareth briefly looked towards Samantha, who at this time seemed completely asleep. He didn't want to disturb her sleep, considering she'll need this minor rest break. She seemed to be somewhat agitated by his choice of words, which estranged him since she didn't seem the type to be suddenly irritated at something for no reason. Well... maybe.

"Time to wake up." He exclaimed, slapping her on the back. "Come on, we'll have some time for rest on the road." As they exited the plane, the captain parked it into a private hangar at a sanctioned landing location that had been issued by the Church. "Stealth Hirenkyaku is now authorized." Gareth paused, completely forgetting if Sam had the ability to utilize the Hirenkyaku. "You know how to utilize the step right?"

coded by electric of gs

TO

DREAMS,

AND THE FOOLS WHO DREAM THEM

"This is as far as I will go guys. This town you're going to gives me some serious collywobbles... No way in hell I'll be driving inside that god-forsaken place." "Hollows. They're called Hollows. And they're real." "..Hollows? Yo- No... Ar- You two.. Are you two some kinda ghost busters?"

...

A silence that was unnatural to Gareth filled the entirety of the taxi cab. Then he smiled, and spoke to the taxi cab. "Do you believe in God, sir?" "Aye, I fancy myself a Christians yes." "We are what you would call exorcists, but our jobs are slightly different from what most people think." He leaned in closer to the taxi cab driver, then with a single, fast thrusting motion, Gareth slammed his finger into his right temple, and in that instant, altered his memory and knocked him unconscious, to make him forget about how he got there in the first place. Gareth stared at Samantha, his temple could be seen pulsing as he exited the cab.

"Samantha, if I was not capable of altering someone's memory, do you know what would have happened to that man?" He paused, it was a rhetorical question. "He would be dead, his taxi cab annihilated beyond recognition, and all traces of the man would have been gone. Furthermore, there would have been a civilian casualty on the first day of your mission." His tone was ice cold. He was reprimanding, and disciplining a child that took this work far too lightly.

"Do you understand why I flew here on a private jet instead of using our step technique, it's because we must. We must maintain the secrecy of the supernatural to governments, otherwise the spirit world will end in politics, and the Vatican will be blamed for all the billions of deaths these last few months."

"Never compromise yourself. Let's move." And with that, Gareth pulled out the small rucksack that they had carried out into the fields, and they began a trek towards the village. "We should use Hirenkyaku to make the trip faster, but be careful not to be seen. Otherwise we'll have to incapacitate them as well."

Despite Hirenkyaku allowing an individual to move faster than the eye can follow, the subtlety required to use it meant that they were not allowed to enter open paths. In that regard, Gareth followed  through a forest route, which took approximately thirty minutes to get to the apprximate location, and allowed him to be able to provide an outlook from a hill of some sort, looking down onto the village.

"I will station my outlook here. We first need to identify what has happened inside of the village. More importantly, we need to establish the hollow threat within the area." Gareth paused, putting a thumb to his chin. "But while I'm capable of doing it, I'd like to see you identify the spiritual activity in the area. How many hollow can you feel with your spiritual aura?"

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