A Faction at War

"You said we were going to get a pizza!" The loud yell filled the room with the sound of various mixed methods of disappointment. Disappointment in the place they arrived out, disappointment that the tasty food would not be devoured, and far more importantly disappointment that he'd been forced to come here at all.

The girl walked in behind him, still holding her assault rifle down at the her side while she kept her eyes locked on him easily to make sure that he didn't try and run away at all, if he did then she had the perfect solution she could butt stroke him! "I know, right? What kind of bastard douche bag lies to someone about pizza. There is just no shame left in this world..." The sound of her voice mimicked his disappointment, still following behind while he turned back to her with a look of be-wonderment in his eyes.

"Y... You're the one that lied about it!"

Those dark brown eyes narrowed then instantly, her head lifting a bit to the side while a brow was raised. "Now that's just crazy talk. Are you feeling OK?"

The reality was that she did offer him food as a motivator in order to get him into the van that brought him here. Was she ever going to make good on that offer? Probably not, but it got him here, and that's what matters. This soldier wasn't cruel, she wasn't evil, and she absolutely wasn't going to bring him here by force, she was simply going to make the offer and let him decide on his own if he was willing to try and go after it, of course that offer ended up being for pizza, but close enough. Now that she had him here he could find out what this group was really about, what they did here, how they trained, how they lived. It would give him the ability to defend himself, help him to understand everything rather than being a clueless civilian the next time that a demon appears somewhere. This was her goal, her intentions, and while she had a more unorthodox way of handling herself, when this lady was asked to accomplish a goal, like for instance "go fetch that one guy that did that one thing before he gets killed in horrifying ways" she does it, and she does it well.

"You two, keep it down. You're standing outside of the Mage Wing and being loud about it." The deep and booming voice spoke out to the two of them quickly while the narrowed gaze of blue eyes stepped forward from the doors. He hadn't gotten to see who they were only knowing that they were very loud and that he didn't want the people doing their studies to get distracted. When that happens things have a very weird tendency of exploding violently. Such a thing was a very potential side effect of mixing different world energies around with one another and then standing back to see what exactly was going to happen. Like chemicals these different sourced energies are sometimes unable to be mixed nonviolently, but as he eyes finally rested on the sight of that man he'd met earlier that day the easy and careful smile rose around his lips and he'd step forward easily with his hand stretched out.

"I see that you decided to join us. Nathan, wasn't it? It's going to be great to have you around here."

The younger man, only noticeably younger because of a lack of grey hair coming around the side of the head, reached out to take that hand, he did remember this guy and when he spoke with him last he thought that this guy was crazy, but now that his mind was open it was very clear the kind of unintentional conspiracy was happening out in the real world and he had managed to recall the full conversation. An easy chuckle fueled the soft voice as Nathan finally spoke out to him with a level of respect that he should have before, trying to make up for mistreating the man earlier, "Oh yeah, it is. And you're.. Um... Roger?"

"Actually, he likes to go by his last name. Ex-Army fellow's sometimes do that. Just call him Sampson." The girl said, the weapon still slung over her chest as she reached her hand out to pat the old man's shoulder and step in closer to towards him, "And that's right.. We hang out. It's pretty cool."

"You know, I still don't know your name yet." Nathan spoke up quickly to the girl, shaking his head slowly at the fact that this lady, this woman, this person hadn't really told him anything about her despite the amount of talking that they did. Sure he knew that she was... A woman.. And that she... Could shoot guns... and she was into... Having dark hair? There was no real information about this girl outwardly present, but he had one on her, he did know something, something he wasn't going to forget anytime soon. This girl, this exact lady standing before him, had lied to him about pizza, and THAT was unforgivable.

"Is that so?" She spoke up to this quickly, her head turning to the side as if in deep though, as if trying to remember their conversations from earlier, "that's just weird. Well, I got to get going, need to turn this weapon into the arms locker. Can you believe they gave me a dysfunctional weapon? I put the rounds into the magazine, slap the mag into the feed and it works just fine, but when the ammo runs out it stops firing! That's just inconsistent..."

"See you around, Valery." Sampson quickly retorted to her drawing her attention back to him quickly as she stepped away. The easy smile touched on her lips at the sound of him stating her name, ruining the ambiguity of there being someone that knew of her but didn't know her personally. She didn't mind, she really didn't mind at all. It wasn't like Val had a problem with Nathan at all, or that there was any kind of reason what so ever that she would want to avoid telling him her name. No, there was likely no real reason at all other than the idea that for that small time that it was happening it entertained her. With her open hand quickly lifting up to tap the side of her brow this Asian lady would turn herself away and leave these two gentlemen to get better acquainted.

***

It was going to be a rather easy tour, the building itself was rather large, mostly existing underground, but those three points, the main focus of trinity between the organization were all above ground and very easy to get into. While most would see that as an oversight on the side of the company it was really the safest place for those areas to be given that it permitted fast evacuation out of the building in case they needed to head off for a job of some kind. The reasoning was there, and while they moved easily down the hall that lead them towards that sorcerer wing Sampson would speak easily towards Nathan, working to explain their organization in more depth and do what he could to answer the plethora of questions that this younger adult was obviously going to have. What he was able to explain was that the realities of hell existed, and the demons from the legends walked the earth and while most didn't bother anyone, at anytime they could crack that veil and step through from the spectral plain into their reality in order to wreak havoc. Many would imagine the demons to be beasts, animals, mindless creatures, but this was actually far from the truth. Demons, by nature are just as intelligent as normal people even if they were vastly more experienced with the world around them being that they were constructed first before man-kind. The information they'd been able to gather to that date was that these creatures were the same as they were in the biblical texts, fallen angels that rebelled against their god and were cast down to the planet and into the burning pits to suffer for their arrogance, but there did seem to be a difference in that word. Many would believe that if demons attacked people then it would be the duty of the angels to protect them, a point that Nathan had made sure to ask about, but where the demons did attack at their own whim it gave this organization the belief that there may not be any angels left, that they might have been all killed off during the angelic war that resulted from the rebellion. That left humanity to defend itself against this threat, and that was the purpose of Cerberus. Just because people couldn't remember the attacks that happened didn't mean that they didn't exist, and that others didn't get hurt. Cerberus's job was to try and anticipate these attacks, to locate where the demons were going to break through at, and to intercept them before people could start getting hurt. This left the organization as a responsible team, but that would always be the best they'd be able to do.

"Isn't it kind of weird to have the name of an organization come from a Greek myth when we fight Christian things?" Nathan finally retorted, lifting a brow at the implication of it, but leaving himself open to receive an actual answer for this.

Roger had to nod quickly at the question, agreeing that it was a bit odd, but in a way that name made sense, and he'd explain why, "The group is headed by three divisions, you know, three heads, and our job is to guard the gates of hell, in a dramatic sense, so it fits."

These two came to a stop then as they stood in the center of the magic user wing, the air around them was thick with different scents that were used in ritual of casting various spells. The movement of energy shifted regularly causing either a light wind to pass by them, or a slight change in temperature that happened instantly. As these two stood there, though, the clear design of spell weaving could be seen while one person moved his hand over a bowl of some kind of smoking vegetation and then with a flick of his wrist a ball of fire would form a perfect circle around his hand, not burning him, but remaining sustained while he moved to easily write down something in the notes beside him just before the color changed to a few different shades and more notes were taken. The fire would eventually disappear all on it's own when he released the energy binding it, but what he was doing wasn't something that was really observable without first understanding how it worked. Roger noticed the young man looking on at the different sights, spells that froze water, spells that lifted things off of the ground, different methods used to release various types of energy from their contained host in order to be gathered and harnessed by the person doing the experiment.

"So.. Am I going to have to do all of this?" Nathan asked easily, turning a worried look over to the man that had decided to show him around.

An easy laugh lifted from those lips followed by an easy shake of his head. "No, son. This is what we like to call the Mystic Wing. Here we gather people with a talent in casting magic of different kinds. You know how alchemy in mythology is changing matter from one state to another in order turn something into something else? You know, lead into gold is the popular example. We do that with energy. Everything has latent energy in it, like say a leaf. What we do is learn to gather energy and then mix it with another energy in order to change it into what we want it to be. So that way we can pull energy from that leaf I mentioned either by harnessing it or burning the leaf to make it release that energy, and then release it as a bolt of electricity, or something. We say that it's magic, because that's what magic essentially is, but it's really just science."

"Oh... I think I get that." the younger male nodded to the idea of it, starting to really think about it, but his mind was cut short at the next statement.

"Yeah, the priests don't really like us doing it that much, though, which is why we have out own wing. They see the gathering and manipulation of energy as being something that humans aren't supposed to be able to do, and that it's an abomination to God, or whatever. It's fine, though, a lot of the branches have little quarrels with one another, but when it comes down to it, we all have the same goals." Sampson was trying to put a positive spin on it, but the statement was really tainted with how it started, the down beat feeling that even in an organization that was dedicated to saving humanity there was still trouble between the ranks. Instead he'd turn to the new member and easily give him a good slap behind the shoulders, "Come on, I'll show you something you'll like."

It was important for Nathan to grow a little bit used to this place, he needed to learn where things were, what kind of people he'd be working with while he was part of this organization. Demon slaying was a hard life, it took a lot out of people and forced them to face what they had taught themselves their entire life was impossible. It wasn't something that most simply jumped into, a lot of people needed to be coaxed, but while he was here this veteran fighter would take his time to make sure that the new member to their organization would be familiar enough with not only the building itself, but how everything worked around here, what he could be expected to face. It wasn't always the easiest group of people to deal with, but what they did here couldn't be done by others making it all that much more important. As they walked they'd move back the way that they came, heading down the long hall lined with pictures and photos of other hunters that had come before them, the sight of the many that had lived and fallen not only to this organization but to the human race in general. People that saw the demon attacks and said loudly that they weren't going to simply forget, that they weren't going to stand to the side while others suffered, and that they weren't going to allow this supernatural force to bully their species. The long travel down this hallway brought them to a T at the backside of the building, but without any hesitation at all Roger had turned to the right and would be expecting Nathan to follow. The pictures changed from old men with long beards, shifting into what looked to be military people, individuals in uniforms from various countries. This group wasn't there for only one place, it was there for the entire world so they sought out talent from all across the planet to fill their ranks. The further they went the more militaristic that the building started to look, computer areas, a war room, and even as they walked further into what looked to be a command center for some military operation they all seemed to stop short at the sight of these two. In the mage win people tended to themselves, dressed as they wanted, but here it was clearly different. A uniform designed to fit their corps and a clear designation of hustle about the work atmosphere.

"This is the Soldier Wing, this is the larger of the divisions, but the most organized. They house a lot of firepower in the war against the demons, but if shooting was their only talent then honestly anyone could do it. A lot of the soldiers are actually clairvoyants, they can sort of feel when the fabric between the spiritual realm and this plane is being torn and then sends out a response team to deal with it. Some of the times the soldiers are all we need, but most of the time bullets alone don't do anything to the demon unless they're very weak. If it wasn't for them we wouldn't even have an organization, them being able to tell where demons are trying to come through at is the very core function of what makes us work. Of course, not all of them have that, but some of these people have exceptionally good talent when it comes to the art of killing demons. Almost eerily so. Like her over there for instance." The motion of Sampson's hand motioned over to the Asian girl seeing her finishing up her briefing and giving her quick solute. With this younger male moving to hide behind older fellow Nathan would go to tug at his sleeve, hoping to pull him along out of this wing so that he wouldn't need to deal with Val so soon again already, wouldn't have to deal with her pizza related lies. It wasn't something that someone in his position simply "gets over".

"So what's so special about being a soldier then, it seems like anyone can do it." Nathan asked rather quickly while they moved towards those halls once again.

Roger looked down to him, tilting his head a bit at the question. "They have the largest division, but it's not because they aren't special. Even those without strong clairvoyance still need to have it in some regard, not to mention that they need constantly train for long hours in order to keep their skills up. Demons are physically better than humans in a lot of ways, because of that it takes a lot more effort to fight them. Most of the time we lose more soldiers in a fight than anything else, their the first ones into a fight and the last ones out, so it takes a lot of work on their part to maintain what they can do."

They had already finished their trek up the hallway and were starting down the final one, having to cross the hall was simple and easy, but the sight of the pictures on this wall were nothing to be surprised about. This wing was something else entirely, it was far more religious given the number of pictures of popes, cardinals, priests. There was clearly a religious hue to this one and while they finished their way into that win it was pretty clear that they were standing in what looked to be a church with pews and whatnot along with many people bowing their head in silent prayer. Sure they could have mass, or church, or what ever here, but that wasn't something that was needed to be held every day. The church design itself was enough for them to be able to prey down to the golden statue of their lord praying to him openly and without shame. Some of them even fasting at this point only for the sake of dealing better with the demons that could come about. These religious halls housed these people and while one of the bishops spotted these two standing to the side Sampson knew what was happening and spoke quickly to the kid, wanting to finish up that tour before they were kicked out.

"This is the Diviner wing. Where the mystics pull energy out of items these Templar’s push their personal energy into items which is normally nothing unless their holding some kind of holy or blessed item. The item will then react as it was designed to, so you might end up with a cross that can create an energy shield, or a sword that can shoot an energy copy of it's blade out. Every blessed item is unique in how..." It looked like through his best intentions this older gentleman was never going to get to finish his little speech about the Diviners thanks to the approach of the bishop that quickly stood there with them.

"This is a place of prayer, sir. You don't need to explain how we work to the young man, we're very capable of it ourselves." The bishop stated, giving a very clear message that this mage was not only not supposed to be here in their wing, but that he should turn and leave. It wasn't any of the wing's type to flat out attack the other members, but Roger certainly didn't want to push at these guys, not while Nathan was right there. It wouldn't do him any good at all to know just how splintered the organization really was.

"Sorry, yeah. I'll see you around Nathan. Take care of yourself."

When Sampson turned to leave he'd vanish down the hallway leaving this younger man with the bishop and the other followers that all turned towards him, slowly getting up as they were able to approach and shake hands with him on joining their ranks. The shuffle of small talk, the mixture of murmured voices crossed in their as they prevented one another from being heard, but Nathan didn't really find himself needing to listen. His hand constantly, perpetually releasing someone else only to grip another as people spoke to him, talked, and when the crowd grew larger the same bishop from before finally stepped in to ask others to please return to their seats. The new world that his eyes were only recently opened to was something troubling for most and while this sub-leader understood that, he also knew that people sometimes needed more space to get to understand things. It was time to really get this man acquainted with who he really was, what he was actually able to do, and then allow him to be settled into this organization. Crowding him, gathering around him, while sometimes welcoming could scare people off when they weren't ready to be in the community just yet.

"Nathan, that's not a bad name. I'm Bishop Evans. Please come with me so that we can get you a room and settled in." he informed the young man, having no idea just how much the mage had really actually told this fellow.

Nathan followed, guided by the hand on his back as he was taken away from the praying hall and towards the side. While the wing was made up to look like a church that wasn't the only thing that was here. Doors to the side could lead relatively anywhere, and as this wing was a bit more religious driven than the rest there was good reason for that, something that this bishop knew he'd eventually need to explain.

"You know what? I've been guided around here all day," Nathan finally spoke up, stepping away from the suited man and shook his head quickly, "I get that we fight demons here, but nobody ever asked if I wanted to fight demons. I mean, Sampson was telling me about what Cerberus does and the different branches of it, but it's kind of a lot to deal with. The drawing energy out of things to make spells is.. Weird but I get it, and the soldier wing seems pretty easy, but what is a Diviner? You chased Sampson off before he could really explain it."

The soft smirk rolled over Evans' face while he moved to take hold of an hold cross from around his neck, pulling the rope over his head and holding his hand out to Nathan who reached back, when he'd take that grip he'd turn it, placing the old wooden cross into his grip and wrapping those fingers around it. This young man wanted to learn about what a diviner was, how they worked. Evan figured that he could explain it to him until he was blue in the face, but there just was something more convincing about having people do it for themselves. This wasn't like explaining the mystic wing, or the soldier wing, Nathan belonged with the Templar wing because he had shown talent in their craft, that meant that he didn't only need to tell him what was going on, but could show him as well. It would make things quite a big easier.

***

"Across the world there are items that have been blessed by God. Some of these items are ancient, some of them are new...ish. A blessing is like a computer code for reality, when it's activated it alters the state of how we accept reality to work." The bishop made a lot more sense explaining it than Roger did, and in a way Roger was actually wrong with how he assumed things worked in this wing.

This alone drove Nathan to start questioning if any of the wings knew how the other side worked at all, but when Evans spoke up again Nathan would quickly listen, "What you're holding now is an old blessed cross. Don't look at it, but feel it, feel the grain of the wood, the age of it, the weight. Visualize it with your mind."

Nathan did as he was told, given that it was an old wooden cross it wasn't that heavy, pretty light actually, the wood itself was hard to describe from feeling. It had debits, bends in the wood, small chinks taken out of it thanks to time itself. As he formed the shape of this in his mind, he'd continue to describe it in his head, thinking about it, feeling it, testing it, and then in an instant something happened. As he focused entirely on this object the in his hand an aura would start to grow around his body, the folding this energy grew slowly but formed what looked to be a bubble made with a bright yellow energy. Those eyes looked on at the field that was made around him, the protective aura that separated Nathans vulnerable body from the outside world around him. Even when Evans moved to press his hand against that field it was clear that nothing was going through it, but the field changed when that focus on the cross was lost in order to focus on the field and that aura would fade away, disappearing from existence and demonstrating the importance on the acceptance and focus of these items, and letting Nathan learn just a little bit more about how his talents worked.

"So.. It's not really us that makes the effect happen, it's the item?" Nathan asked easily, hoping to understand just what the difference would be.

"Yes and no," the answer came in easily, "The power of the weapon comes from the almighty, but it can only be unlocked by people that had a higher connection to him. Think of it this way, if the item is the lock, then you're the key specifically made to fit these locks. See what I'm saying?"

Nathan had to nod to that, it did make sense, and in a way it didn't matter if he denied this information or not, because clearly what was being told to him was the truth. He knew that it might take a bit longer to get used to these kinds of things, using different auras, finding out what they do, how to identify them. It was going to take at least a little bit for him to at least get used to the fact that things he thought were simply myths before were not only fact, but were also attempting to hurt people. If anything this young man could use the training, sword training, weapons training, whatever he needed to do in order to protect others, but if anything else at least he didn't feel like someone on the outside looking in anymore.