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sustraiii · 5 years

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TEAM ZRCN ARC 2 - CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2 is here and we’re catching up with Wisteria following her mission. Not much happening in this chapter, but we do get some more information on the people Wisteria is really working for. Keep your eyes peeled for more information on the family in the coming chapters!

Some credit/thanks to @jaguar-knight for letting me briefly reference one of his characters in this chapter too!

WISTERIA

After just over a week of laying low, Wisteria was beginning to go a little stir crazy; it didn’t help matters that the apartment she had rented out was small enough without the presence of two other people. Wisteria had now wished she’d made more of a case to borrow one of the residences her employers owned, at least they were of a more comfortable size, with plenty of room for three people to hold up. On the other hand, she couldn’t exactly use any of the many residences the Rossi’s owned - they were strongly against the idea of letting anyone outside of the ‘business’ being allowed to enter them.

Luckily, they were not opposed to coming out to buildings they didn’t own, as the three of them were soon graced by the presence of two members of the family or at least people who worked for them anyway.

Laurel and Sparrow were merely two of many spies the Rossi’s had working under them, a role which Wisteria and Nieve had found themselves in originally until they decided Wisteria had better uses elsewhere and managed to form a deal to get Nieve promoted as well. Wisteria didn’t even know if Laurel and Sparrow were their real names. For the sake of anonymity, anyone who worked as a spy for them was given a codename of sorts. Wisteria had memorised their names a long time ago - Laurel, Sparrow, Biggs, Twinkle, Fletcher, Razzle and Dazzle, Cosmos, Hurricane, and Fudge.

It had only been a brief visit, mostly for the two of them to confirm that they had successfully retrieved the asset. A fact which made Wisteria scoff rather loudly after they had left, shaking her head at the audacity of that family.

Since then the three of them had been left alone, waiting to hear news on if they were okay to finally meet back up with Farron in Shizukana. They had watched the daily news reports, but there was barely anything mentioned about the raid, besides a small segment the day after the raid had occurred. That was until today, when Farron finally reached out to them, informing them they were due a visit from Nightlock regarding the situation.

Wisteria had turned the bedroom into a makeshift office for the occasion, setting the briefcase on a fold-out table as if to show it off, and generally going around the apartment ensuring it looked reasonably neat and tidy.

She and Nieve had been talking in the bedroom when Ulysses peaked his head in, and let them know he had arrived. Whilst he went to let the man in, Wisteria hurried to get comfortable behind the desk.

“What do you think he’s like?” Nieve asked, scratching her chin as though in deep thought.

“If he’s anything like the rest of Farron's friends, then I’d say he’s about as smart as a bag of rocks,” Wisteria replied.

Nieve chuckled at that, and then the two were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Ulysses informing them that Nightlock was here.

“Let him in,” Wisteria instructed. The door clicked open a moment later, with Ulysses holding it open for Nightlock to step inside, and for Nieve to step out of the room.

Nightlock paused in front of her, his gaze travelling over her, before a smirk formed on his lips. “So you’re the one responsible for the attack on the lab?” He shook his head in amusement. “Colour me surprised.”

“Careful!” Nieve suddenly warned from behind him. He turned to see her paused in the doorway, practically glaring at him. Despite her expression, she spoke in a fairly light-hearted tone. “You’re playing with fire.”

And with that, she finally left the room. When the door shut behind her, Nightlock turned back to face Wisteria. “Cute guard dogs.” He commented.

Wisteria moved her lips as if laughing sarcastically, but no sound came out. “Very funny.” She made a habit to follow this with an exaggerated yawn. “Farron told me you had news for us.”

“Straight to business, ay? I like it.” He nodded his head in approval. Upon getting little to no reaction from Wisteria, he cleared his throat awkwardly, before continuing. “You’ll be happy to know the company is dropping the case! Considering there’s no video footage, and only the testimony of a somewhat confused guard, it’s doubtful they would have had much of a case anyway. I’m presuming you wiped the footage when you took the security systems down?”

Wisteria breathed a sigh of relief at the news, visibly relaxing in her chair. ”Well, I didn’t personally, but yes, we wiped the footage when we hacked your system,” Wisteria told him. “We’re not amateurs you know.”

“Clearly,” He was quick to say, indigo eyes meeting her own. She held his gaze unflinchingly. “You’re not the usual sort Farron has working for him. Besides Lunick, the rest barely have two brain cells to rub together between the lot of them.”

Wisteria laughed a that. “Couldn’t agree more.” She then tilted her head, shooting him a mock sympathetic glance. “You must think pretty lowly of yourself to imply you barely have two brain cells.”

“Oh, well there’s a key difference between me and them,” Nightlock said with a clear tone. Despite his tone of voice, his expression suggested he had been ruffled by her comment. “Do you know what that is?”

“Enlighten me.”

“I don’t work for Farron. I work with him. He is not the sole person I’ve made mutual understandings within the past, nor will he be the last. It’s wise not to keep your eggs all in one basket don’t you know.”

Wisteria nodded her head in mock understanding. “So, now that you’ve shared your information with us, do you need to be here any longer?” She asked, making a gesture towards him. “I do hate to cut this short and all, but we do have places to be.”

Nightlock stared at her for a long moment. “Someone with your talent should not be working for someone like Farron. He will only drag you down I am sure of it.”

“Let me guess,” Wisteria cut in, tapping a finger against her chin, “you have a better offer for me? A “mutual understanding” as you put it?”

“Well, not me personally, but I do know someone, who could put your talents to some use.” He explained, watching Wisteria to see if she was following. “I know of someone who could truly utilise your skills. He’s a wealthy man, with connections high up in Atlas, and would no doubt pay you handsomely for work. From what I hear, he’s quite the threat himself - to his enemies at least. The two of you together would make quite the team. You know, you’ve probably heard of him before, his name is-”

“Pass.” Wisteria simply said, raising a hand to cut him off.

“You’re not going to let me finish what I was saying?”

Wisteria arched a brow. “What part of pass do you not understand, Crocus?”

That threw him. The man took a step back, clearly thrown by the fact she knew his first name. A hand went to his tie, nervously adjusting it, before he spoke again, “How do you know my name?”

“I did my research,” Wisteria told him flatly. “There were two people working for the lab named Nightlock, and as one of you was a woman, I made the logical deduction.”

Nightlock seemed oddly offended at this. “So you’ve been snooping on a friend? I doubt Farron would be happy if he knew.”

“Don’t flatter yourself by calling us ‘friends’. I hardly know you.” Wisteria said, rolling her eyes as she did. She stood up from her chair, slowly striding towards him. She stopped in front of him, and rested a hand on his chest; his heart was beating fast deep inside of him, a fact which made her smirk. “Next time I would advise that if you don’t want your real identity to be known, you choose a codename that isn’t your fucking surname. Now, I’ll ask again, are we done?”

He hesitated a moment before moving his head in a slight nod. He made a step towards the door, gripping the handle, before turning to address Wisteria once more. “Since you declined my offer, I take it you’re happy working for Farron, even though we both know he’ll only end up dragging you down?”

“More or less,” Wisteria admitted with a shrug. She stepped back and propped herself against the fold-out table. “Besides, who says I’m working for just Farron? As you said yourself, it isn’t wise to keep all your eggs in one basket.” Wisteria gave him a wink.

Following that tidbit of information, they left it that, and Nightlock finally made his departure. Wisteria didn’t usually like to imply that she worked for someone else when on jobs like these, but to hell with it. Besides, she doubted Nightlock would tell anyone about this, at least not Farron anyways. They had a far more tenuous relationship than she had anticipated, with Farron clearly valuing their partnership more than Nightlock did, if Nightlock’s general lack of faith in Farron was anything to go by. If anything, he would probably be chuckling away to himself, that someone Farron valued dearly had been double-crossing him this whole time.

Shortly after Nightlock had left, Wisteria packed the fold-out table away into a wardrobe and then grabbed the briefcase and stepped out into the living room. Now that they had the all clear, they could finally carry on with the mission and meet up with Farron in Shizukana. Luckily, Wisteria had had a boat on call for the past three days, so she only needed to make one small call before they could head on out.

Nieve and Ulysses were waiting patiently on the sofa, though their ruffled clothing suggested they had not been sat so far apart a few minutes ago.

Resting a hand on her hip, she gave them a playful smile and said, “Pack your things ladies, we’ve got a boat to catch.”

#team zrcn fic #wisteria bloome #nieve #ulysses crest #crocus nightlock

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