Crimson

Prompts.

When Vita was still a trainee for the brigade , the sixth brigade had been in charge of the Royal Crimsons security .

Every trainee was entitled to a mentor in the sixth brigade .

Vita's mentor had also been captain of the sixth brigade , he had been Vita's friend , confidant and someone Vita had admired immensely .

He had quit abruptly and decided to travel around without a word to Vita .

Later on , the King had told Vita that he had fallen in love , so ,the king had agreed to let him go even though he could never remain in Caeso .

Even though a brigadier was basically a servant to the throne , there was no law that said they could not quit but it was unheard of .

Vita had never understood why his mentor had done that , he had even detested the man for abandoning his duty and vowed to never let any of his brigadiers end up like that .

Now that Vita thought of it , his vow had never included himself , Karma was a cute b***h .

At least , she had made him meet Juno in her attempt to squash his stupid vow .

He laughed at Karma and realized that he was not alone on the road .

He bent his head to avoid the eyes that were seeking the origin of the crazy laugh.

Something had been plaguing him since earlier , he didn't know if telling Nero of the recent developments in his life was a good idea .

They never kept anything from each other but that had not seemed weird to Vita as it was usually Nero with the embarrassing tales .

Telling Nero how he had cowardly followed Juno was more embarrassing than all of Nero's stories combined .

And Nero was not one to forget easily .

****

He reached the building he and Nero had been staying and discovered it was empty , Nero was nowhere and Fabia was gone too .

Vita felt uneasy , Nero never went anywhere with his horse .

And Fabia would have equally refused to go along yet they were both missing .

He exchanged Juno's coat for one that had the brigadier insignia and ran out .

Thankfully , the Governor's building was close to the quarters .

He started off with a fast walk , then switched to Jogging and soon to a steady run , he really should have told Nero something about where he was going .

If something had happened because Nero had been unable to reach him , Vita did not know what he would do .

He finally sighted the Governor's building .

He approached the building and ran up , taking the stairs in two's.

When he reached the top , everything was the same .

Everyone going about their businesses the usual way .

He stopped running and walked down the corridors leading to the Governor's office , he would find Larona and ask her what exactly was going on.

The guards around were in their usual position but Vita noticed that their eyes lingered on him , he stopped walking when he reached a turn that led down another corridor .

Something was obviously happening , the guards were pretending not to be aware and the other workers were not doing any serious work .

Even the patrol guards that usually walked around the city had all been missing .

Had they found new information on the thief and mobilized to go there .

Had the looks from the guards been because he had been missing ?

He went ahead , into the corridor .

Even if they had found new information on the thief and mobilized there , Larona would be here , she could bring him up to speed on the current situation .

He reached Larona's office and found it locked .

The governor's office up ahead was also locked .

Vita turned around growing more tense , he would grab the first guard he saw and make him tell him exactly what was going on .

He was walking down the last corridor when he was pulled into an office .

He turned around immediately and found Nero with a finger on his lips .

He sighed , angry but relieved .

" What exactly is going on ? It feels like something bad is happening ", he whispered furiously .

Nero kept looking out the door , ignoring him .

He finally turned around to access Vita .

" You walked in here wearing that ?"

Vita panicked , had people discovered that he was wearing Juno's clothes?

Since Juno wore large clothes , the clothes had fit Vita perfectly like it was his .

" Is there a reason I shouldn't have ?"

Nero nodded .

" I came here in secret , the fact that you walked in here with the brigades coat means that was in vain ".

Vita sighed , rubbing his face .

" What is going on ? Why would you come here in secret and where's my f*****g horse ?"

Nero just shook his head .

" Fabia is safe , he brought me here and hid himself away ".

Vita was having a hard time understanding exactly what was going on , Fabia had willingly carried Nero ?

Nero finally removed his self from the door .

He had a grave look .

" Someone brought a truth prompt into Agrippa and took her straight to the governor ".

Vita stilled .

" A truth prompt ?"

Nero nodded .

Why would a truth prompt be here ?

Vita had met one before , they were scary people whose origin was still undetermined .

They made people do their bidding by invading their subconsciousness and torturing them there .

They made the people relive nightmares over and over again and thrashed around in their memories until the people told them what they wanted to hear .

People that had been attacked by truth prompts never survived for long and those who did were never their old selves .

" Why would a truth prompt be here ? Did they catch the thief ?"

Nero sighed .

" That's the tricky part , Larona was the one dragged away ".

Vita barely knew the woman but the thought of what might happen to her had him focusing on what was at hand , they had to get her out .

Nero continued , " The governor found something and he apparently thinks that Larona is related to the thief ".

Vita thought for a while , " Could it be the swapped painting in his office ".

Nero shook his head .

" The painting is untouched , it's just all of Larona's properties ransacked and strewn around .

" You are here to go through her office ?"

Nero nodded .

" I checked her office earlier and it was arranged like nothing happened ".

Nero thought about this carefully , " That's what makes me so unsure of all this , why do they not want to be noticed and why is the governor not informing us of all people ? "

Vita nodded and walked ahead of Nero into the empty corridor , he headed straight for Larona's office .

Nero followed close by , his footfalls non-existent in the empty corridor .

When they reached the office , they split and began to go through everything they could see .

Vita checked the painting on the wall , it was still the same fake , no one had tampered with it .

He went ahead to a desk and began to search the papers that were there .

There , he found a list of the divisions of Agrippas budget , a list of councilmen and their properties , another list of the councilmen and properties that they owned in secret .

It seemed that the Governor and his councillors had been dividing Agrippas budget amongst themselves and Larona had been gathering evidence .

Was that why she had been taken?

But , if that was the reason then they should have also gotten rid of these papers .

" What exactly is going on here ? "

Vita looked up to find Nero holding a bunch of papers , he had a disgusted expression on.

Nero came towards him , his eyes still on the papers he was holding .

" They took everything , everything and let the people suffer . Is that why they took Larona ? To shut her up ?"

Vita had no answer to that , he personally knew the Royal Crimsons and even though they were not the best of people , they genuinely cared for the people .

No wonder the levels of crime and violence increased daily here .

Nero was in front of him now , he looked at Vita with shaky eyes .

Vita heard the rustling of paper and looked down at Nero's hand , it was clenched .

" Do you still think the Thief is just a petty criminal ?"

A crumpled up paper In an almost invincible corner caught Vita's attention .

He went to it and gently pulled it out , it was yellow and falling apart .

He unfolded it gently and read what was written in ink that had faded .

He balled up the paper back and put it in his pocket .

When he turned around , Nero was an inch away from his face .

" What does the paper say ?"

Vita sighed and extracted the paper , he passed it to Nero who read it with no decipherable expression .

It was correspondence between Larona and The Haze .

It had nothing incriminating on it but the fact that Larona had kept it did not sit well with Vita .

He remembered then , he had seen Larona at The Haze on his first visit .

And she had seemed to even know Juno .

Of course , if she was exchanging correspondence , it had to be with the owners .

But , what could they have been talking about ?

This was not time for that ,he turned to Nero.

" We have scouts in this area right ? I want to know where Larona was taken to ".

Nero nodded and ran out .

Vita went through the papers one more time and kept the ones he found important into his pocket .

He was going to have a lot to discuss with the Governor .

He left the office , unlike Nero he did not try to sneak out .

He walked out through the lobby , he wanted everyone to know he had seen what lay in the governor's office .

He had really wanted to just punish the thief and leave political matters in the hands of those that cared but it seemed he had made the wrong decision .

As he descended , he realized that Fabia was waiting for him down the stairs .

He got to the horse and began to rub his head while the horse kept sniffing his shirt .

Did Fabia like the smell of lavenders ?

" Come on boy , we have a lot to do today ".

The horse snorted his response and Vita got on his back .

He wondered what Juno would say about the governor and his councillors .

He would probably behead them with one of his multifunctional swords .

There was no reason for that now because Vita fully intended to take matters into his hands .

He would borrow the thief's Vision for Agrippa just for today .