Not having time to change, and the outfit not being That bad, we head down the hall to the meeting room I can smell Karl sitting in.
Looking us over as we enter he gives me an intrigued look, like this meeting is somehow my fault. That’s when I realize I’m still wearing the leather pants, boots and corset of my battle gear with a white blouse, looking very much like the strict dominatrix next to the innocent schoolgirl of a Bunny I’ve brought with me. This is going to be a long, long day.
"Well, since you’re all dressed to learn, let’s get started on that literacy spell, Lala" Karl begins with a knowing smile in my direction and Lala positively glows at the praise, now assured that she made the correct fashion decision. Darn it, what sort of thing does he think I’m into?
A few moments later and the two are going over random pages of technical documents, assuring the spell took properly, and expanding Lala’s vocabulary of essential terms for dealing with the Task Force.
Next up is math, which she surprisingly excels at, despite having no formal education.
"Well that should about cover the basics, starting tomorrow you’re our new team secretary" Karl shakes her hand and she beams with pride at having a proper, paying job.
"Do we actually need a secretary?" I send Karl in a text, not wanting to start drama in front of my new friend or make her feel unwanted.
"Yes, yes we do." he texts back "Do you really want to spend 4 hours a day doing paperwork and answering phones, plus going out to investigate portals?"
He’s got a point. Extending my hand to shake her remarkably small one "Welcome to the team Lala"
It’s decided that such a momentous event needs punch and pie, but suddenly the alarms start ringing all over the base.
"Follow me Kat, Lala, you can head back to your room or finish your celebration snack. The alarms mean there’s an emergency, but not in the immediate vicinity"
Arriving at the control room I see a whole wall of monitors, from drone feeds to international news channels. The largest central screen featured the city of Chicago, goblins in the streets, gunfire everywhere and a panicking reporter.
"A major portal has opened in Chicago this morning. Reports say that a 6 person team from the newly founded Multi Species Task Force, including two witches, managed to close it with the help of the Chicago Police department, but hundreds of thousands of small green creatures managed to escape into the city first. Police and National Guard are advising citizens to remain indoors, arm yourselves with anything possible and wait for assistance to arrive"
The canned disaster response plan made everyone in the room laugh. Yeah, just wait for the government to help you, and a million others, that’s definitely the best way to survive.
"Looks like the midwest team has their hands full today" one of the technicians said mournfully.
"Yesterday it could have been us, if that portal had opened closer to Fargo and not right next to the base" another put forth.
In the control room, everyone was discussing their concerns at this turn of events.
"Have the helicopters and private jet arrived yet? We’ve got everything from the Dakotas northward to the arctic and west to the Rocky Mountains in our coverage area, because there’s just not enough manpower to deal with Canada yet"
"How are we even supposed to recruit like this?"
A general sense of Chaos settled into the room, until it was broken by Karl’s shout.
"Listen up and listen well. Call back every Combat Mage not assigned to specific duties, apprentices too. Close the university until further notice, high level students have been drafted to service as per their contracts. And start setting up the healing halls in the basement."
Looking at the shock in the room, this was a pretty unprecedented demand.
"Safe House will now be Command Central for the corps, pending further orders. Everyone get to it, and nobody call the President, we want this to go smoothly and not get bogged down in national politics" With this Karl turned and escorted me from the control room.
"Do you even have authority to do all that? I thought you were not really in good stead with command?" I asked quietly as we took the elevator up to our floor.
"Not really, but I’m the most ranking mage here, which puts me in base command for the moment. Plus, all our senior brass were in Seattle when the Dragons came. We don’t know who is injured, dead or missing at the moment. Don’t tell the technicians"
Behind us a soft laughter chimed and Narishma dropped into the elevator from the roof panel.
"I knew things would be fun once you arrived" she giggled.
"Not now Ari, we’ve got to get things in order quick. It’s all happening too fast with these unlucky strikes in the cities. Soon the civilians will be rioting and it’ll be near impossible for the government to keep order. You want the job? Because I really, really don’t."
Narishma’s giggle turned into full blown laughter. "Oh Karl, you cranky old man. Of course I do. My Vampire blood loves nothing more than power, so I’d be glad to make all the little piglets coming to the base wriggle under my heel."
"Excellent, you’re hired. Just don’t mess with my partner or my fluffy little bunny and we’ll get along great."
Narishma’s eyes lit up in delight. "You captured a rabbit kin warrior? Is it in the holding cells? Can I interrogate it?" she began.
"NO" I shouted over her rambling "She is neither a warrior nor a prisoner. We rescued a slave girl from the portal we entered yesterday and she’s cute, sweet and innocent. Don’t you hurt my Lala"
The vampire tossed me a cheeky grin "So, her name is Lala is it? Would that be the sexy maid that all the technicians were talking about? She was quite a hit in the office gossip this morning"
"That’s her" Karl nodded "The outfit was a misunderstanding, I sent her for clothes and she found the Halloween costumes in the storage room. She’ll be our team secretary moving forwards."
"You’re too good to me Karl" Narishma laughed. "I’ll behave, just be sure to send her my way when you’ve got reports to file instead of coming yourself. You’re not the only one that loves cute fluffy things." With that she was gone again. Vampiric speed and magic together are really something.