Chapter 01: Before Death

"Why?" The only question she can ask. Why, out of all people on Earth, why is her best partner have to be the one to end her family's life? Why did her partner killed all their comrades? And why are they pointing gun at each other's face?

...

Let's turn back time from about 12 hours ago.

Somewhere on the deserted area of Turkey. A man in a black suit, holding a black attaché case keeps on turning his head left and right. Sometimes, he would even stop to look at his back, and then continue walking whenever he saw no one. As it was 12 noon, the sun was at its peak so the man have his shades on. His tanned face sweat profusely, it might be from the heat or from something else.

Anyway, when he reached the corner, he checked his surrounding again. Assured that no one's watching, he pushed one part of the wall and a hidden door suddenly opened. He looked around for one last time before entering. Then he closed the door, wiped his sweat, and sighed.

"Were you checking if someone's following you?", asked the voice within the room.

"Yes. You see, a mole has been following me since I arrived on the airpoort. Fortunately, I lost—" him, was what he was going to say if he was not stunned of the scene he saw the moment he turned his back to see where the voice came from.

A pile of unconscious men formed a small hill on the center of the room. On top of it was a lady in a baseball uniform, sitting cooly with a lollipop in her mouth.

"Yo! You called me mole? Ain't I too big for that?" asked the lady with amusement in her eyes.

Terrified, the man in black suit can not find words to say. His adam apple moves up and down. His forehead, which he just wiped a sweat off, was dripping again in sweat. His hands that were holding the attaché case shook and tightened on its holding bar.

...

Zephyr looked at the man in a black suit and remembered the profile given to her early this morning.

=Name: Revy Smith

Age: 32 years old 

Identity: A Canadian syndicate. 

Case Status: He was holding an information about Biddy, a world wide criminal involved in child trafficking, kidnapping, smuggling, and killing. He was also suspected of being a member of Savvy Crayon Mafia Group, a criminal organization said to be based in Savannah Desert.

Mission Details: December 22, XXXX, an information exchange will happen in an unknown location in Turkey between Revy and a small time gang. Stop it and steal the information.=

This will be also be their last mission before going home. She threw her lolli stick away and jumped down from the small hill of human she beat for about an hour. Now that she remembred,

"Kidding. Truth is I never followed you. I've been here all this time. You're Revy, right? The information is inside that case right? Hand it over and you'll be fine," she said calmly. After all, there wasn't any order to kill so leaving them alive won't be a problem. Also, they will send a tip on the nearby police station once they're done. That said, who was that mole sniffing around that this Revy guy said? An unknown third party? Tsk. More reason for her to end this quickly.

"Who are you?" asked Revy as he stared at her with a serious face.

"Why should I tell you?" She smiled at him. Not even her partner know her true name.

"I'll give this case and your identity was all I asked, and you won't give me that?" Revy replied with another question.

"So what if I don't want to? Surely, you know who has the right to negotiate here," she said then took the bloodied bat lying next to her feet.

"Huh!" Revy scoffed.

"Don't tell me you're thinking you are the one controlling this situation?" Revy asked with a hint of smile in the corner of his lips.

"What do you mean?" she asked wondering what this man's playing at.

"Let me ask you, what's faster.." Revy took out a black thing resembling some sort of remote, "...your bat or my bomb detonator?"

Her playful expression suddenly turned serious. She can see that the target isn't bluffing. He was willing to kill himself just to destroy the information? It was that important? If that is so, then Biddy's most likely involved. The suspicion that Biddy was part of the S.C Mafia Group was most likely true, too.

If it is only her identity, alright, she can give it to him. Besides, he have no way of knowing whether it is true or not.

"Please don't give me wrong information. I know you are from C.I.A. that goes by the code name Kaze, Wind, and Zephyr. You use this code name interchangibly."

She was stunned. Any thoughts of deceit left her mind. Doubt sprung up from within her as questions filled her mind. Some sense of fear threatened to overwhelm her. But she tried to remain calm and composed. After remaining silent for a while, she sighed and made her decision.

"Here you go. My information's all here," she said, and without further ado, she placed the flashdrive in the table in front of her.

"Please back down a little," said Revy as he walk forward slowly, waving his hand that was holding the bomb detonator in the air.

She smiled and said, "Know your limit, dude. Don't try to start something funny." She walk backwards slowly without taking her eyes off of Revy.

"I know how to keep my word. It's you guys who don't know a thing about it." The man reached the table. He opened the attaché case and took out a black square out of it. He plugged in the flashdrive and it lit up a green light. Revy sighed and smirked afterwards saying, "So you guys do know how to keep your words too, huh?"

....

Once Zephyr saw the small black square out of the case, her eyes glinted a strange light. The black square was a highly classified military item solely belong to the militar. It's called by the name R.B100, also known as information judge. This item, as the name suggest, has the ability to judge whether the information it was given was true or not. Green light means the information was true. However, how did a small pawn get a hold of this? She can't be blamed for doubting because, even an information about this item was highly guarded and was even believed to be destroyed.

If not for a chance of luck and some sense of curiousity, she'll never know that this type of object even exist in the world. Well, blame that on her curious little genes who never rest without knowing the truth of the matter. She nearly died by just discovering that information, and so, she bet there's no one in her comrades who know about this. Yet it appeared in this random mission they were assigned. She don't want to be suspiscious but this situation suggest something really fishy.

But she don't have time to think. The moment she saw the man lowered his guard, she smiled, her eyes flashed and her feet sprung into action. Not more than a second, her body was already in the air. In another second, her bat connected with the man's hand that was holding the detonator. As a result, it flew in the air and landed on a place quite far from them. The man fall down on his butt, while she mercilessly point the bat to his face. 

"I keep my words, indeed. So what now? Do you have the ability to keep this information?" She smiled cheekily. But in the man's eyes, it was very frightening he pissed his pants and passed out.

"Eh? That easy? I was expecting some fight. Tsk! You're no fun! Ugh, and here I am, getting pumped up thinking you were some sort of a boss, tsk!" 

Disappointed, she proceeded to the table and checked the contents of the black attachè case. Verifying and skimming through them, she closed it and...

She suddenly freezed. A bullet just barely grazed her left ear!

Then followed by that, a voice suddenly came from behind saying, "How careless. Didn't your trainor told you to never show your back to an enemy?"

She chuckled. "My trainor did. But they never told me to be careful of my comrades. Instead, they told me to entrust my back to them. Wasn't that the same of them saying I should trust you of my back?" She turned her back and saw a frowning man with a riffle in his shoulder approching from behind Revy, who have his hand frozen in air, and was holding a knife. It seems he only faked his unconscious state earlier and planned to assassinate her instead. Thankfully, she have a partner she could trust. She looked at him when he said,

"Tsk! Who would be so stupid to teach that to their student?" The man stopped walking and put the shakles on Revy's hand, who looked way too afraid to talk or even fight back.

This man was her partner, Chaster Chaser. That's his code name. He was estimatedly 27 years old. Though that is only an estimation as personal information such as name, age, and gender are all highly classified information that even they, the members of the agency, have no permission to access.

4 hours after, they were already in their headquarters, watching the news of their masterpiece.

"Nice job out there, Zeff. Where's your partner?" 

She turned her head and saw a beautiful blonde, carrying folders that pile up to her neck and was walking towards the door. 

"Outside. Smoking," she replied shortly followed by a question, "Need some help, Corrine?". Of course, Corrine was just another code name.

"No. Rest your a** up. You just returned right? It's fine, I can manage," Corrine said and soon the sound of her footsteps were gone. She shrugged her shoulders and put her feet on the coffee table in front of her, then became lost in her own thoughts. It feels like she's missing something but she can't point her finger to it.

....

Another hour passed...

"Hey, wind brat, wake up! The boss is here. We are asked to report." She opened her eyes and saw the grumpy face of Chaster. It seems like she fall asleep while thinking and from waiting for their boss to return. 

"The boss is here?" She confirmed. She's not very sure if she heard it right.

"I just said that," Chaster replied raspily. 

She smiled and ignored his rude answer. One thing only revolved in her mind, 'I'm going home, kyaaah! Finally. How I missed to bully him. Wait for me brother, haha, this will be fun.' She thought as she think of many ways to "torture" her little brother.

...

Chaster look at the youngest agent they have in the facility, smiling silly with twinkling eyes after hearing that the boss returned. If he don't know she was just excited to go home, he would think that the lady have crush on the boss. This lady's action always caught his amusement. But thinking of the following mission given to him, he wonder, what will be this girl's reaction? Will she be this unguarded towards him? 

How unfortunate. If only they met on a different timezone, maybe they will be good friends.

"Let's go wind brat, the boss is waiting," he said and headed towards the door.

"Aye, aye, Sir!" The kid replied enthusiastically. He smiled, a genuine one. Though, Zephyr will never see it.

'Right, let's cherish this moment while it last,' he thought as they enter the office.

....

8:30 in the evening. It was this late but a certain house near a desserted alley in L.A, still have their lights on. The 'grr grr tak tak' sound that the skaters create when they pass by and do their tricks echoes on that deserted alley. 

"Stop it, sister! I'm no longer your baby! Oh darn it! How can you be this childish?! You're 18 years old, for pete sake!" A youngman's voice shouted in irritation. The viewer from the outside can only see a running shadow of a female, based from the lean figure and long hair in ponytails. Then it disappeared from the window frame and was followed by controlled feminine laughter.

Next, the shadow of a kid followed trying his best to catch up. But due to carelessness, he toppled a chair over.

Blaag! His shadow fall down along with it and also disappear from the frame of the window.

"Ugh! Raizel! F*ck*ng shut this childish play now!"

....

Raizel, the true name of Zephyr, suddenly stopped when she heard her little brother cursing. Her grin disappeared and her face turned very serious.

"What did you just say?" She walk towards her brother. "Did I hear it right? You cursed? You f*ck*ng cursed?!" She shouted in anger.

"Ra-Raizel. Si-sister" Her brother tried to find words to say. If this is a prank, she might laugh on the pitiable state her brother show. She can't blame him though. She rarely show her anger, after all.

"Get up and follow me. I'll report this to the General." She walk towards the door. Behind her was the ten year old brother who was trembling in fear.

"Can... can you not--?"

"Report? You think I have the right to decide? You shouted the curse. I can't cover you," she said while grinning. Enjoying the sight of her suffering brother.

"F*ck you, Raizel! This was your trap, right?! Ugh. I hate you!" The kid get up while his eyes becomes red as tears started to well up.

"No sense knowing that now. It's your fault. Who told you to curse? And who would be so fool to do it loudly?" Raizel laughed at her brother's misfortune. 

"Also," she said as her face turned grave again, "Cursing was never cool. Be thankful I am reporting this instead and not punishing you by my own hands."

The kid became furious instead of becoming afraid. He probably realized that Raizel was just fooling around. "You don't have to report me. I'll go to mother, the general, and report my own sin to her! And you, I really hate you!"

After that, the kid run off on his own, bumping her on the process. As she can no longer hold it, she burst out laughing. Her seven years old brother did not realized she also cursed. How she loved to see this side of her brother. It relieveed her of stress and always find it funny.

After all, she can't bully anyone in the headquarters. They're old and they're no fun. All they talk about were adult stuff she always hate to hear. 

Hearing her laugh, the brother shouted,

"Arrrgh! Raizel Mikael Smith! I'll make you pay for this!"

"Yes, dear brother. I'll wait for that. Don't forget my name."