Arda's Flag Ch.2: What's the difference?

Oh, hi there! This is the second chapter, I hope you'll like it as much as you liked the previous one. I would like to know if anyone as some tips on describing clothing and the like, I think I didn't describe too well what I see in my mind regarding Kira's clothing, and I want to get better at it ;)

Chapter 2: What's The Difference?

Four days after Reean's punishment, the A Team that had been sent to the mission in Raef returned. Most of its members were unscathed, and only a few were still shaken by the events there, but Kira knew they would get used to it, either by loving to kill, or by hating the punishments that resulted from not killing. Kira of course did not see a reason not to love killing the ones that had taken her freedom, but neither did she see a reason not to hate the punishments. The problem here was that actually killing the ones directly responsible was not an option, instead she had to kill the enemies of the ones that had taken her freedom, she had to be their servant. Her answer to this dilemma would be simply killing every human out there, but Jack had always told her not to, and he knew them better than she would ever dare to know them.

The morning of her departure Kira put on the uniform that was to be worn when on missions, which had been sent to her by the mission control. While in the HQ the uniforms that they had to wear was more elegant and the same for everyone, but for every mission, depending on the importance, there was a different uniform, and this time it was green. So long had passed since Kira, who was used to being sent on the most dangerous missions, had worn the green uniform. She slid on a black, sleeveless V neck shirt, a bulletproof vest, and the green jacket with the NATIONS' symbol on the chest, buttoned the beautiful brass buttons, and then slid on the green pants, stuffing the ends inside her black combat boots, and inserting her tail in the hole in the back that had been made specifically for the Armi.

"Good morning, sirs. Requesting permission to retrieve mission file." she said, standing in front of the glass doors of the Control room. She had to show respect. No respect equalled punishment, and that was not favorable right now, as she had other things to concentrate on. Instead she entertained herself in killing the ten or so people in the room in hundreds of different ways in her mind.

"Granted." answered Richard, the man that was in charge of commanding the seventh sector. He was barely in the twenties, and it was not a mystery how he had gotten his job: corruption, the same way most of the important people had gained power. He was sitting comfortably in his chair, arms behind his head, legs propped on the table, his stare fixed on Kira. This man had made her life hell ever since she had arrived. He had always done his best to make her retaliate, and he was behind all the dares sent by the NATIONS, he had been present at all of her punishments, and he had made sure that it was always a man who was appointed to do the punishing. In the Armi’s culture, a man was not allowed to harm a woman in any way; ever. Men were not even allowed to touch women if she did not want to, and if they did, the offended woman had every reason and right to kill them. But not in this case, because he controlled her.

She ignored him as she entered the room and headed towards Veronica, the person in charge of handing the mission files to the Armi, who handed her a dossier. Her eyes darted away from Kira's, too shy, scared, or maybe too proud to even look at her. She ignored this as well scanned the file briefly; the first page exposed the mission objective, which was recovering a stolen item from the enemy, and bring it back in perfect condition. Kira was in charge of the B team, which would reach the A.2 to finish the operation. The second page had the list of the people in the teams. The A.2 team was formed by mostly sixth sector Armi, a few fifth sectors, and one seventh sector, Jack. The B team was formed by three fourth sector Armi, one from Sector five and one first sector. Satisfied, she bid farewell and started heading towards the exit, still ignoring Richard, but as she passed him, he quickly grabbed her arm, and whispered to her softly:

"Hey, I know you have your hands full with the mission and all, but it should be easy for you, y'know, being the so called Chapion of The Spaniah. So I'm gonna spice it up for you a little, give you something fun to think about. I'm assigning you a secondary mission. You read the second page, right? That sector one Arma in your team. I don't know... I just don't like him much..." he had dared to grab her arm without permission, and now he was going to ask her to do something she would not do, in any way, "so I want you to kill him. You can do that right? I mean, I’ve seen you kill other humans quite happily, I mean, what's the difference?" he said letting go of her and straightening himself on the chair.

"What's the difference? How dare you...!" she shouted. He hands swiftly reached the man's neck and werapped around it, as she lifted him twenty centimeters of the ground, his feet dangling uselessly. After these last words she let go of all pretense, she did not care about punishment, he had assigned this mission to get her punished anyway. She had managed to go two months without doing anything worth punishing, and Richard, for some unknown reason, needed to see her being punished. He knew that Kira would either kill the Arma, and then be hated by the rest, breaking her image of perfect warrior, or not kill him, and in that case she was going to be punished for having disobeyed. So why not kill him? The bastard was only going to cause her problems later on. Her hands tightened and he was starting to choke, his hands trying to pry away hers. Kira was so enraged she had not noticed the commotion that her attack had caused. The doors opened and four soldiers stepped inside, three dragged Kira away from Richard, who crashed on the ground, coughing and gasping for breath, while the fourth held a gun at her temple.

"There is..." she gasped, panting as heavily as Richard was, "every difference in the world. You tailless beasts are below us, every one of you, man, woman, and child! You are all Eyttnea!"

"That's enough!" Shouted Richard, who had managed to steady himself, "you'll go on your mission, and you'll kill the Arma. Failure to do so will cause a punishment of 65 whips, which will be added to the 85 you have received for having assaulted a higher member of the human society, and other 50 for having spoken in your language. Get her out of here!" The guards wrestled Kira outside, while back in the Control room, Richard could not help but grin and let out a laugh as he massaged his bruised neck.

"Kira! What the hell did you do?!" Shouted Vier. He, Deistrie, and Reean had rushed downstairs once they had heard that Kira had attacked Richard, and were now helping her stand up after the guards literally threw her out of the room, "they told us you killed Richard!"

"Oh, I wish I had," she said, her voice shaking with rage, "I want him dead!"

"Why?" Asked Reean.

"Because he touched me without permission, because he ordered me to kill one of our own, because...because he's an Eyttnea!"

"Shush, don't say that here!" Said Vier.

"Who cares, I already said it in front of him!"

"You what? You called Richard a demon, in our own language, to his face? Why...why would you do something this stupid!?"

"Because..."

"No, listen to me," Said Vier, grabbing her and slamming her on the wall. Tears of rage sparkled in her eyes, but he ignored them, "you think you're high and mighty, you think they won't kill you. But they will, Kira. You want to rebel? Fine, but you can't do anything against them singlehandedly. Humans are weak, you can kill thirty of them without breaking a sweat, but once they bring their weapons, and once they become many, you will stand no chance,” he let go of her, and she stared at him, speechless. It was the first time she saw Vierveiss out of battle, "get your head straight, and go out there, you have a mission to carry out. Get everyone back alive. All of them," he said, getting near her, his mouth to his ear, and uttered a whisper that was barely audible "and then we'll smuggle that Arma out of here, the one he told you to kill, we'll send him to the Ezra. But we'll do it together."

The morning mist was lifting as Kira walked the grounds in front of the HQ. Vier had shaken her to her senses, and, while still desiring to tear Richard apart limb from limb, she had other things to do. Outside she found the five Armi awaiting her arrival. Before beginning she called their names, wanting to be sure that all of them were there. She guessed that one of the tall, young, handsome men was going to be the one he was ordered to kill. Both of them looked quite at ease, and she had seen both getting punished in the grounds more than once. On their right side was a female. On her right there was another Arma was however shaking violently, very pale and most surely a rookie. He might cause some problems. On his right was another female, older than the first and mellow, who looked vaguely familiar.

"Sedre Voli" the young female from the fourth sector raised her hand. She seamed a little more shaken than the males at her left, but could probably keep herself together.

"Zesciel Venga" one of fourth sector Arma raised his and and said "here". He was short and slim, probably someone Richard would want dead, but he was from sector four. Not her target.

"Mevers Cammini" The girl at the far right raised her hand an waved at Kira, and she recognized her from other missions. She had saved Kira's life once before with her excellent hand to hand combat skills, and was a decent shooter.

"Vech Scriva" the other young man from the fourth sector raised his hand. He was surely someone who Richard would want dead, strong, tall, handsome, but again he was from sector four, and this ruled him out as the possible candidate for the assassination. She turned towards the shaking boy in wonder as she read the information written on in the file.

Name: Agnar Deva

Number: 325.1313

Sector: 1

Age: 19 (24-12-994)

Date of Assignment to HQ: 14-05-1013

And indeed, this was her target. The boy who was ready to faint, the boy who showed no particular reason to be killed. But then again, Richard could have easily been screwing with her. According to the file this Arma had been assigned a mere week ago, and this was with no doubt his first serious mission. It was quite evident Richard wanted him dead, as he probably hadn’t had any sort of time to train or even get used to the atmosphere.

"Agnar Deva" he raised his hand like the others, trying to keep a straight face in her presence. Kira watched him for a second, now convinced that Richard had been screwing with her, and started explaining the mission's details.

"The bags containing all of our equipment, weapons and food have already been loaded on the car that awaits us in the back. If there are no questions, we will leave." she said, finishing her lecture. There were no questions, so Kira escorted them to the back where a large armored car was parked, guided by a man dressed in white and green. A soldier opened the back of the machine for them, and they all entered. Inside they found six seats on ache side, Kira sat at the left with the sector five Arma, while the sector four and Agnar sat on the left. The doors closed, the engine started, and the car moved towards their destination, Raef City, which they would reach in approximately nine hours. The thought of seeing Jack made Kira simile. Jack, the one she lived for, her love. He was probably waiting for her, giving some sort of lecture to the younger Armi in his team, or maybe was standing guard over his team mates while they rested, even though he needed more rest than they did.

“814, we are nearly there” said the driver hours later. For the most part of the trip Kira had conversed with Mevers, the fifth sector Arma, while the three form sector four had exchanged few word to each other. Agnar had been silent the entire trip as he listened what Kira had to say, and was now even paler. He was staring the ground, his fingers flexing nervously, his yellow eyes unfocused. Kira stood up, and kneeled before him, her stare at the same level of his. She smiled and ruffled is short, blond hair streaked with red, as his gaze found her.

“You’ll be fine Agnar, I promise. I’ll bring you back home. It isn't a very difficult mission after all.”

“I don’t want to be here.” He said.

“But you are. The only thing we can both do is live with it. I’m sorry I can’t say anything more encouraging.”

“Am I going to have to kill?”

“Maybe. But it’s not hard. It gets easier, anyway”

“Will you do it with me, if we need to?”

“Of course” She held the boy’s cold hands in her own, wondering what Richard could see in him that was so threatening, but the reasons he might have had to kill him were beyond her, but so was the reason he so desperately needed to see her punished.

As Kira and Agnar stared at each other the car stopped and the men opened the doors. They turned as their eyes adjusted to the bright light, and in front of them rose from the rubble the great Ghost City of the North, Raef.

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Note: This was revised after Clavinn's review.

Note 2: The revenge: Re-edited. Added some details to Richard and Veronica.