Chapter Text
Badump. Badump. Badump.
His heart beat loudly against his chest as he scanned his surroundings cautiously through his eyeglasses. His grip tightened around the gun handle and took small carefully steps along the small bricked alleyway as he inched closer to where his enemies base of operation was. He was alone on the mission to infiltrate, retrieve and save some people who were taken away and kept hostage a couple of weeks ago in Madrid.
"Merlin, I'm in." He whispered and leaned on the wall. He peaked at the corner of the building stealthily and saw several men dressed in black walking around and mentally counted them. There were at least eight armed men doing their rounds outside and probably some were hidden within the stores.
"Alright. Got your location. From the main road about two to three kilometers or so you'll see the abandoned shelter. You should be able to locate the targets in there. But make sure you aren't seen or else it's game over for you Gawain." Merlins voice buzzed on his earpiece. "There should be a shortcut around there area. Take that route instead."
Gawain nodded his head and checked the remaining three cartridges hidden in his coat. It should be enough to get him to the shelter and save the hostages. He also had a small extra pistol besides the designated gun he had in his hand. If he runs out of bullets than Gawain had a Plan B a.k.a steal his opponents weapon and use it against them.
"Got it. This should be over in a few minutes." He said as he loaded the cartridge and emerged from the alleyway he was hiding in and revealed himself. He made a dash toward the direction Merlin had directed him, instantly alerting his opponents.
"él enemigo!! él enemigo!!!"
"W-wait! Don't just jump in!! Gawain! Gawain!"
The red haired ignored Merlins voice and charged the men who had noticed his presence. He lift his hands up on eye level and began firing at them one by one in such accuracy. He narrowed his eyes and shot the men precisely on their arms immediately immobilizing them and making them drop their weapons. He launched himself forward and kicked the man on the chest and switched at another target.
His eyes caught another man at the corner of his peripheral view and swiftly stepped back to avoid getting shot. He cursed under his breath and knelt down to shoot the man on the leg before rolling on the side and shooting another armed man that emerged from one of the opposite building.
"Man, they just keep on coming!" Gawain complained as he did a quick flimsy handspring on the sidewalk and shot two of the armed men that was pursuing him. "I can't get close to the shelter. Crap!" He cluck his tongue annoyingly as a bullet graze his arm. He pulled out something sharp from his coat threw two daggers almost kunai like on his side and hit the man on his legs and shoulder making him cry in pain. He unloaded his gun and let the empty cartridge fall on the ground before loading a new one from under his coat.
As his pursuit continued, his breath started to grow heavy. He had been running and rolling since the start of his engagement with his opponents. He quickly rolled to the side again and hid behind the mailbox to try and catch his breath and rest even for the shortest second before extending his hand above and firing at the man who was quickly approaching him. "Hah! Bullseye!" He cheered and made a dash towards the end of the road. He could see the shelter already and nearly reached it however things didn't go as he had planned.
"Gawain, above!"
"Huh?!"
Not a second later he saw a huge GAME OVER spelled out in front of him and his surrounding slowly pixelized and changed back to the dull metal surrounded underground training room.
"Maan, I was that close!!" He groaned tiredly put the gun shaped controller on the table located at the corner of the room.
"Unbelievable. Shot right through the head by the sniper." Merlin sighed as he stepped into the room and handed the red head with a towel. "Honestly, Riku-kun you should try and listen to me sometimes when I tell you not to rush in like that and be aware of your surroundings. You've just got assigned as Gawain a week ago."
"Sorry, Banri-san" Riku laughed and slipped off the VR headgear down on the table and wiped his sweating face off with the towel. "I got too excited and was too eager to clear this mission. I promise I'll try to listen to you from now on."
Nanase Riku, 23, code name Gawain of Knights of the Round Table, Japan Kingsman Branch. Recently, assigned as the new Gawain after the last agent fell to his death while on a mission in the Himalayas.
Ogami Banri, 30 or also known as Merlin was the Japan branch Quartermaster slash sometimes adviser of the agents. He sighed heavily for the second time and shook his head. "Just try? Real missions aren't just gonna be some kind of simulation game, Riku-kun. There's a lot of things that could happen and go off tangent than what's in the simulation game. Things you won't be expecting up to the very last minute might happen." He chided.
Riku sheepishly laughed and followed Banri out of the room. "I'll promise on work on that. "He said and Banri just gave him a look. "Aha..ha.. A-anyway, I'm surprised it looks and felt so real."
The older agent gave up. Riku still had a lot of things to learn even if he had been appointed as a part of the secret service. He looked down on the tablet he was carrying and swiped it open with a finger. " Yes, the layout, subjects and objects you saw through the simulator are loosely based on the missions the other agents have done before. Of course, not from the current agents but from the older generations."He explained and continued to navigate through his tablet that has been displaying a computerize layout of what seemed like a town in Madrid. "We've collated all these data and tried to create a simulator to help agents train individualy or whenever they feel like it besides doing their own missions It also give us data of our agents abilities and check all your physical conditions. The only difference here is you won't really die when you get shot or stabbed as this is only a simulator"
"Ah, I see"
Banri led Riku back up from the underground training room and slowly made their way around their headquarters. "Your recent training in the simulator did show some good results." He said as he opened Riku's file that showed graphs, charts and numbers. "In just a week after your appointment, your accuracy in firing had improved." He initially explained. "Of course, not that you were bad at it before but your accuracy has raised at least 4%. I'm quite surprised you actually shot the enemy without looking at where they were."
"That was just pure luck" Riku looked bashful and stared the sudden change in interior. "I don't think I'd be able to pull it off again." He said as they made a quick turn at the corner. "Wow.." The new agent looked around and never fail to look amaze at the sudden transition of their surroundings despite being in the place for a week now. From a dull all metal interior to extravagant European influenced interior with large paintings, long curtains draping from the ceiling down to the floor, sculptures and vases adorning every corners. Riku would always gape at how luxurious they all look.
The blue haired quartermaster continued to browse through his tablet and reviewed the data he had collected. "But still your improvement is outstanding your speed as well has improved compared to the data we initially had during the selection period for Gawain. You've built a lot more stamina. "He continued to praise the young agent and gave him a small smile. "Of course everything looks good except for disobeying and not listening to your superiors orders."
"Ahaha... Ooops" Riku laughed nervously and quickly apologized.
Riku who had just recently joined the secret service and still hasn't gotten used to becoming an agent yet. Luckily, he hasn't been assigned to any mission yet either since most of the were already filled by the other agents and had been asked to be the reserved for the mean time. Speaking of the other members, he hasn't met any of them yet considering he has been in the headquarters for a week now.
"The [ KMS I ] is not complete yet so I do appreciate you trying out the simulator everyday and helping me improve it whilst waiting for the others agents to comeback. Bors would be really ecstatic to try it out one of these days though." Banri smiled appreciatively at Riku and thought of the other agent going rampant with his favorite weapon. They stopped in front of a big mahogany door and glanced at his watch. "We'll they should probably be here now..."
"They?"
Banri chuckled "Stay here for a while. I'll introduce you to them in a minute." He stopped for a second and looked at the red haired agent.
"O-okay?" Riku looked confused but nodded his head and stayed behind. He watch Banri fix his vest and entered the room.
"Oh!! Ban-chan!"
"Bors, nice to see you and Bedivere are back" Banri smiled as he walked into the huge conference room and smiled at the two men sitting beside each other.
They greeted each other with a handshake and Banri welcomed them back as he ushered them to take a seat again. "So how'd it go?"
"The last mission went well. Bors did a good job and didn't messed up this time. "
"Sou-chan!"
"It's Bedivere right, Bors?" Bedivere reminded him with a frown.
Banri laughed as Bors pouted a little and crossed his arms on his chest like a child. "Looks like Tamaki still isn't used to our code names yet" He chuckled.
"Because it gets my tongue tied sometimes. In the first place why are we named after such complicated names." The light blue haired man, called Tamaki grumbled. "On top of that it's english"
Sougo, the smaller man beside him gave a soft laughed and cupped his elbows. "but yours isn't complicated."
"Yeah but what about Mo-"
"Shh!" Sougo put a finger on Bors lips and stood up from his seat. His eyes narrowed and glared at the door as he felt another presence from the other side of it. "Who's there?!" He yelled as he draw pulled out a dagger from his sleeves and positioned himself with his dagger. He looked he was ready to pounce at whoever barges in at the door.
Banri sighed put his tablet down on the table. "Sougo-san, Bedivere calm down." He said. "Keep your dagger away. You're scaring Bors."He said and looked at Tamaki who suddenly paled beside Sougo."Gawain you can come in now." He called out loudly and on cue the door opened revealing a red hair man standing awkwardly at the door with a blonde standing behind him.
"...Who?"
"I see Geraint is also awake now." The long dark haired agent smiled and beckoned them to enter the conference room. "How's the arm?"
"I'm fine now but my arm still hurts a little. "Geraint said as he cradled his injured arm gently. "Merlin how long was I out?"
"Hmm..for about a week? You missed 2 episodes of your favorite show but I recorded it." Banri replied and the blonde agent threw his free arm on Banri happily and hugged him while screaming Thank you in 8 different languages. "Calm down, let's check up on that arm later with our medical in house team." He said as Geraint nodded his head.
"Thank you Banri!! I'm so happy!"
"WAIT YOU CAN SPEAK JAPANESE?!" Riku almost screamed beside the blonde called Geraint and looked at him incredulously.
"Oh! Sorry." Geraint smiled apologetically. His japanese was slightly accented but he was speaking fluently that Riku almost drop his jaw. "I just thought it would be nice to converse in english so..." He chuckled. "Forgive me?"
Riku groaned and covered his slightly embarrassed face. "You could have told me you spoke Japanese earlier. My palm was sweating so bad that I nearly peed myself when you started talking to me in english."
"You should brush up on your english, Riku." Banri quipped as the other agent groaned. "You might need it soon."
"Hey, Ban-chan who's that?" Tamaki asked as he pointed at the unfamiliar face standing a few meters from them.
"Ah, sorry." The older agent laughed and called Riku to his side while the Geraint lined up beside Tamaki and Sougo across the table. They greeted each other with warm smiles before looking at the new face beside Banri "Everyone I'd like you to meet our newest and the last member, Gawain." He pat Rikus back and pushed him forward a little. "You all might be or probably weren't aware but ....Gawain recently passed the exam conducted three weeks ago and has been in the organization for about a week now."
"Oh, a newbie huh?"
"Bors.." Sougo warned him and Tamaki softly apologized.
Riku laughed nervously and greeted them. "It's okay. I am still a newbie. My name is Nanase Riku... I mean Gawain. Nice to meet everyone."
Bedivere's eyes softened a little and extended his hand towards Riku. "Osaka Sougo but please call me Bedivere." He said and welcomed Riku to the group. "I look forward to working with you soon" He smiled at him.
"Ah..yes. Me too." Riku said and shook Sougos hand.
"'sup?" Tamaki greeted and shook Rikus hand. "Yotsuba Tamaki, Bors. Sou-chan is my mentor."
"I see..."Riku nodded his head and looked at the blonde who had made him feel nervous earlier just because of their english conversation.
"Rokuya Nagi, you can call me Nagi or Geraint which ever is fine Riku and it's very nice to meet you too."
"Yeah, Nice to meet you." Riku answered back in english and slightly blushed in embarrassment and prayed his pronunciation was good. "I'll be in your care, everyone"
Banri nodded his head and ushered Riku to line up and sit with them across the conference table. "Okay, now that everyone is here and acquainted we can continue on with the meeting." He said his voice slowly turning serious.
Sougo nodded his head and fished out something from his pocket. "This is the data we came back with from Hokkaido." He said as he handed Banri a USB stick and sighed tiredly.
"I'll check on this in awhile. So how was it? How was Hokkaido?"
" 'twas so cold" Tamaki shuddered remembering the cold nights he and his mentor had suffered during his mission. "We also had to hike a mountain for 2 hours while it was snowing and I almost got chased by wolves can you believe that?"
"Bors, that's obviously part of the mission "Sougo said and looked at Banri. "The lab on top of the mountain Tristan mentioned was already abandoned when we arrived. It was as if someone knew we were coming and they quickly fled the area." He said "But it wasn't the case anyway."
"What do you mean?" Banri's brows furrowed and leaned on the table eager to hear more from Sougos story.
The lavender haired agents eye turned serious as he slid the folder in front of him towards Banri. The older agent opened the file and flipped through the documents as Sougo continued to report. "The lab was abandoned by...I say a week now. The mug stains on the table were dried out and ants were already crawling around were proof it wqs long abandoned. However, two computers were still left running when we arrived. I managed to gather as much as data as I could when you tried to hack into their system but...."
Banri nodded his head as he remembered the events after. "Someone knew you were there and I lost control over the system..."
"And everything went BOOM!!" Tamaki finished and let out a heavy sigh. "When Sou-chan heard Ban-chan lost control over the system and lost contact from you through our earpiece he said we needed to make a run for it and ripped the USB out of the computer. The next thing I saw was the roof flying above us and the lab was on fire."
"We managed to get out barely unscathed. If we stayed there by a minute or two longer we'd be roasted." Sougo said and his partner shuddered at the thought. "After that, we decided to return to the area the next day to check if there were any thing we could salvage but someone beat us to it."He said. "The remaining machines that miraculously survived the fire and explosion looked like it was smashed not because of the impact of the explosion but by a hammer or something huge and blunt. The other only clue we managed to get besides the USB is Manila."
"Philippines?" Banri said and the two agents nodded their head.
"Hmm..this sounds like a serious problem don't you think?" Nagi asked and looked at the other agents seriously.
"I don't now the details of Bors and Bediveres mission but if Banri-san...I mean Merlin lost control over the system doesn't that mean someone else managed to hack in and change the system and password hence kicking him out?" Riku said as he put a hand on his chin and analyze the whole situation.
"Yes." Banri crossed his arms over his chest "And the fact that someone predicted Bedivere and Bors would come back to the lab even after the explosion and made sure that the machine was unsalvageable...."His voice trailed off for a few seconds. "We might have a serious case in our hands, gentlemen"
"Someone is trying to keep us out. It's pretty obvious." Sougo said and everyone nodded their head in silence. "I'm not sure what data were we able to get from the computer but Merlin please be careful when analyzing the data." He said.
"Don't worry about it. I've got this" He said and turned to the screen behind him. "Anyway, you heard them Arthur?"
"Arthur?!" The five agents yelled in chorus and looked around.
Suddenly, the screen behind Banri switched on its own and saw a man in a suit sitting on the table. Half of his face wasn't seen from the screen but Riku could easily see that Arthur, the man who had selected him to be Gawain was probably older than all of them.
"Ossu, old man!" Tamaki casually greeted making the man named Arthur chuckle a little.
"Tamaki-kun! I mean Bors!!" Sougo scolded his partner. "I'm really sorry Arthur. Bors is still..."
The man on the screen laughed. "It's fine, Bedivere. Bors will be Bors. "He said as Sougo apologized again on behalf of his student. "Anyway, I'm glad the two of you are safe and managed to come back with a valuable piece of information. The two of you can rest it easy for a while. I thinking of sending Gawain and Gareth to inspect another location."
"Me?"
"Yes, Gawain. I do feel bad we have to send you on a mission like this right away when you just entered but a duty is a duty."Arthur said. "Gareth is coming back today. The two of you will set out to Croatia a day after tomorrow and investigate an incident there."
"Umm.. Okay?" Riku nodded his head and looked at Banri who just looked at him apologetically. "But who is Gareth?"
"Wow. Rikkuns in a pinch" Tamaki snickered.
"Rikkun?" Riku blinked and stared at Tamaki who has given him a new nickname.
"Merlin prepare Gawain and brief him on the next mission." Arthur said and Banri nodded his head before the screen behind him turned off and Arthur disappearing from the screen.
Banri looked at the other agents with a small smile. "Guess Gawain's welcome party will be put to hold then."
"Wait who is Gareth?" Riku asked but Tamaki just grinned and leaned back on his seat with a chesire grin on his face.