Chapter Two

The Assigning

A white limousine sits parked in a clearing in front of a small two story building.  Everything is circled by tall, thick trees, forming a darkly mysterious forest.  There was no road or path, and the only exit was a small break in the circle of trees that revealed a dark grass path which was now scarred with tire marks.  Nothing seemed normal about any of it.  The limousine, the building and even the trees emanated some sort of distinguished, condescending aura.  There was complete silence save for the sound of the car door suddenly clicking and swinging open.  A slender young man, of ostensibly oriental descent yet surprisingly pale features, steps out.  Upon shutting the limousine's door and quietly approaching the building he hears the car disappear behind him from the clearing.  He approaches the building with an exasperated expression upon his face.  He mentally reviews his reasons for being there while simultaneously cursing his family for it all.

This is The Brotherhood Affiliation Hub Number Two.  The assigning of all new recruits will be done here.  I along with hundreds of other boys will finally get to be accepted into this organization.  Not all a hundred will get in, of course.  But I don't have to worry.  I'm a Rajiv.  I was born on top.

As he steps before the front doors he hears a faint click.  Two panels at the top of the double-doors slide aside to reveal a cybernetic eyeball.  It buzzes at it spins around to focus on the stranger.

"Identification process awake," a synthetic voice sounds from the orb, "Data found. Name Tiga Rajiv. Alias: TBA.  Rank: TBA.  Authorization Confirmed.  Access approved~."

That must be Arkameddeus, the security network invented by The Brotherhood engineers.  Father told me it could be very effective, yet very annoying.

Another faint click sounded from the door.  This time it swung open.

What?  No ominous creak?

He enters the room and looks around to see three doors and a stair case to a balcony with three more doors.

No one's here yet?

He hears a faint noise from the door to his right and decides to investigate.  He opens the door to find the hundred other boys.  Recruits mingled noisily throughout the room, laughing chatting as if it were a party.

"Hey! It's the prince! Hey, Shack! OMG Guess what! Ihavethisfriendandtheirhereandyoushouldtottallymeetthemimeanomgtheyresocoolseriouslyimeanliketheyresmartandfunnyandcoooolyoushouldsomeethemomgandbblahblahblahyakyakyattayatta…" a young boy shouts, jumping before the addressed.

"Hey, Shack."  a blonde boy mutters from behind his more rambunctious friend.

"It's a CHICK!"

Shack looks down at the boy with a questioning and disbelieving eye.

"Um...excuse me.  You are aware that this being The Brotherhood expels all possibility of a girl being here.  So are you positive it's not simply a guy in drag?"

"Nope!"

The entire room seems to partake in the moment of silence.

"Whatever." Shack mutters finally stalking away to the snack bar with hopes of not being approached by anyone for the remainder of his stay.

People are stupid, he muses while taking a drink and attempting to ignore the antagonistic and suspicious whispers around him, which were no doubt about him.

"People, really are blind."

Shack turns at the sudden seemingly parallel remark.  He frowns upon recognizing a certain dark-skinned person clad in black.

"They must be to let you in."

 "Phew!  You recognize me!  If you didn't notice I was going to give up on this."

"Oh, really?  Who are you?"

"haHA! you're an ASS. And they say you're better than the rest of us. But that's not really true."

"'Us'?"

"We're all as smart as you, the ditzy-ness is just an act, keeps things interesting.  That's like the point of The Brotherhood.

"You don't even belong here.  What would you know about The Brotherhood?  Nothing."

"Oh, on the contrary, Shack.  I'm just like you.  I simply deal with my issues differently.  Not everyone has to be stoic and apathetic like you to be great.  You're only extraordinary because you're broken."

"You won't be here long."

"You underestimate me, Shack.  As you do everyone, and that is one of your biggest flaws.  Along with your egotistical wanna-be-badassness."

"I am going to kill you one of these days."

"Please! After knowing each other for over a year and you still haven't come close?"

"Anyways, I have some people-"

"No."

"Good!  Come, I'll introduce you to them!"

"No!"

"Shack, these are my new acquaintances James and Drew.  Guys, this is my dear friend Shack."

"Hey."

"Nice to meet you!"

*condescending glare*

...

"Why are we all just standing around? What are we waiting for?"

"Uh."

SUDDENLY!

The door in the back is flung open with a slam.  The hall goes silent as they all turn to look at the commotion.

"Did that get their attention?" a man whispers, poking his head out from the door.

Seeing the boys staring in rather surprised expectation at him he jumps, standing tall and rigid he shouts "Come!", turns swiftly, takes one deliberate step then sprints into the dark corridor.

The boys watch with stunned bewilderment for a moment before slowly beginning to stumble into the corridor to investigate.

"Well, if that doesn't answer your question, I'll tell you," Koji tells Shack, "remember what today is.  And what we're here for."

"Stop trying to be enigmatic."

"Following a strange man down dark corridors to the unknown is fun!"</sarcasm>

"Why are the lights off?"

wtf

...

"There sure are a lot of stairs here."

"What's that sign say?"

"Enter room one at a time for evaluation for assigning."

"So, we stand here s'more?"

"Yup."

...

"This is AWESOME."

"Welcome, sir.  Please take a seat." a man sitting at a desk staring tiredly at the papers before him recites upon hearing the door open.

"We will begin the evaluation with," he continues but stops suddenly upon looking up to see who entered.

"Y-you?!" he shouts, jumping up and having to adjust his glasses to keep them from falling from the sudden motion.

"Oui.  Me."  Koji smiles smuggly, shutting the door quietly behind her.

"You know you're not supposed to be here." The man hissed quietly leaning forward.

"Why?  We got it all talked out, right?  I get transferred here.  I serve under your number one guy.  Everyone's happy!" she sits nonchalantly in the opposite chair.

The man leans back and sighs, rubbing his temple like he had a migraine.  Which he did, it was just sitting in front of him.

"You're a female.  This is The Brotherhood.  You just don't belong here."

"Is it because I'm a girl or is it my name?" she smirks slyly raising a brow.

He fixes her with a hard glare before sighing again.

"Yes, of course we know what line you come from, Ms. Ookami.  We do background checks on every one.  Your family just happens to be very infamous."

She laughs, somewhat mockingly.

"Right, sure.  And you guys are just totally cool with another one of us coming through here?"

"You're brother wasn't that bad." the man mumbles under his breath.

"Angel. Ha, just proof of how messed up our blood line has gotten." she shrugs.

"But you're father..." he groans leaning forward onto the desk and holding his temple again.

"Best sex of your life, huh?"

"What?! I- no!  I-I've never had the p-plea- misfortune!  But I've heard..." he pauses, expression changing from flustered to exasperated.

"He was a pain in the ass."

"People say...I'm a pain in the ass!"  She cheers.

"That's not something to be proud of."

"Look, I don't care what your regulations state.  I'm not going back to that place," her playful expression disappears and her tone becomes serious, almost threatening.

The clerk looks at her as if almost considering taking her seriously but still seeing her as a pest.  He exhales deeply from his nose before straightening, pen in hand now, and gave her a long, cold, hard look.

"Are you sure, absolutely sure you're willing to make the sacrifice to our cause, to join The Brotherhood?"
            "Yes'm." she bobs her head.

"Positive?" he growls.
            "Mmhm!" another nod.

"Alright," he relaxes shifting his gaze to the evaluation paper in front of him and begins the questioning process.

That done, Koji makes her way cautiously down the stairs towards her new companions, muttering something about "bad karma".
            "All done, K?" Drew asks upon her reaching the last few steps.

"Yup!" she replies giving a thumbs up. "Your turn Shack!" she turns to him, smiling at the scowling boy with his arms crossed.

He sighs, practically vocalizing how pointless he thought it.

"Great," he mutters unfolding his arms and gliding up the steps into the dark hallway.

"It really is dumb for them to evaluaize him." Drew grumbles.

"Yeah, they should just go ahead and make him leader of everyone!"

"No, he's even too good for that.  They should just make a #1 elite team and just put him in it."

A pause.

"Heh, and name it: 'Team Better-Than-U.'"

The twins laugh at this and Koji forces a smirk on her face, not wanting her intense craving to be number one or jealousy towards Shack to be shown.  She forces out a laugh under her breath, unaware that James noticed her unintentional glare at his brother.

'PFFT! Shack's not that great! I don't get what the big deal is. He's such an ass. I'm so much better than him. Why don't people see that? Just cause he's royalty? I should be number one. People should be talking about me. God, I hate him.'

"Oh! Hello, Master Rajiv!"

"That is my father, please refrain from calling me that." he says coolly, taking a seat in front of the desk.

"Oh, of course.  My apologies, little Tiga." he smiles trepidly.

Shack sighs, rolling his eyes and wondering how he could choose two very offensive names, sequentially.  Wasn't it obvious he wasn't little anymore?

"Well, I'm sure this analysis will be very pointless, so let's just skip through it." he says circling the "Rajiv" at the top of the paper and putting a line through the questions beneath.  "So, what will your family name be?"
            "Tora."

"Tora," he echoes writing it in the given space, "Ok, that'll be it then, Mr. Tora!" he smiles cheerily.

Finally. Shack thinks, getting up quickly and moving to leave.

"Best of days to you." he adds before the boys shuts the door behind him.

Finally. he sighs. Thank God I'm still alive.

Shack glides down the steps to rejoin his new acquaintances.  Why? Because he had nothing better to do, not because they were worth his time or anything.

"Now what?"

They look between each other for an answer none having any real idea what to do next.

"We go back to the main hall and wait until they post the assignments." Shack states coolly.

The others nod, frowning at the thought of tedious waiting.

They return to the initial waiting room and find chairs had magically appeared.  They get concessions and take their seats next to the snack table and watch the younger soon to be brethren chat it up and continue to be peppy socialites while the more professional slightly aged brethren sit tiredly or restlessly on the side lines.

After what felt like and probably was a good two hours the doors in the back of the room opened and out walked an Elder with a piece of paper.  He hurried over to the wall near the snack table, taped the paper up and quickly walked away to disappear behind the doors.  Elders are very mysterious.

Immediately upon the door closing there was a flood of boys rushing madly at the posted parchment.  There was shouting and shoving in the excitement to see the results.

The parchment wasn't that extraordinary.  It was broke into two sections "Expendables" and "Brethren".  At the end of the list of Brethren was a small bolded and highlighted section titled "Elite."  Obviously if your name wasn't on the list you didn't make the cut.

The boys scan for their names, cheering once they find it or searching more frantically if they don't.

Fortunately the ones in "Expendables" were too young or dumb to know what that meant and weren't the slightest bit disheartened by it.  On the contrary, most thought it was a higher caliber and were quite happy.

Koji smirks, seeing her name at the very end of the list, #22.

Of course.

She looks one above hers and sees none other than the prince's name.  She laughs, glancing to the right to see Shack standing impatiently outside of the crowd.

She walks over to join him as the crowd begins to disperse, going to the assigned room for their orientation speeches.

Koji glances back at where the crowd once stood to see a lone kid standing rigid and staring at the flyer with a tragic expression.  Koji frowns, recognizing the boy.

"Hey, Ace, what's up?"

The boy turns slowly to look at her with a dreadfully heartbreaking, tearful grimace.

"M-my name's not on the list!" the boy whimpers proceeding to break down into a sob-fest.

"N-no way!  You just didn't look right, see?" she grins, putting a hand on the boys shoulder and turning him to the flyer pointing at it.

"See you're right~" she drawls out running down the list with her finger.

"Here!" she jabs at #14 in the "Elite" section.

Alex gasps.

"No way!"

"Uh huh." Koji nods.

"I made it?" he shouts in disbelief.

"Yup."

"I made it!  Woohoo, yeah me! I made it! Woop!"

He laughs jumping up onto Koji's shoulders and raving like a mad monkey.

"Jeeze, did you really think you weren't gonna get in?"

"No, just not in the Elite!"

"Woo! Jesse, guess what!" he screams seeing his friend walking their way.

"What?" Jesse sighs.

"I made it in the Elite!" he yells, leaping off Koji's shoulders and flying with glee.

"Really?" Jesse states flatly, almost sarcastically.

"Yeah!" Alex screams in his friends face, eyes still bulging with excitement.

Jesse was far too used to his best friend's hyperactivity and simply looked at him with a tired expression.

"I'm elite, oh yeah!"

"Apparently."

"We're elite!  We're so 'leet we're top 'leet, yeah!" he cries, wrapping an arm around his bud.

Jesse smiles slightly, allowing his friend to drag him away to their orientation.

Koji smiles proudly, watching the two boys walking away.

"Koji."

She starts, turning abruptly to see Shack more impatient but smiling, and the twins having walked up to join them during the excitement.

"We should be going to the orientation now."

Koji sighs.

"Man, this is longest first day/orientation thing ever!"

The others laugh and proceed to walk to the Elite meeting room.

"Woo, propaganda!"

"Woo!"

"It's good to know indoctrination didn't die with Hitler."

"It just looks like a little movie theatre."

"No straps on the chairs?"
            "Nope."

"Spikes?"

"No!"

They take their seats in the middle of the room.

"Who bought the popcorn? Nobody bought the popcorn??? I NEEEED POPCORN!!! BLARGFJSLKAKDSHKA-! It went dark again."

"They closed the doors."
            "Shhh, it must be starting."

A light flickers in the back and a light is projected onto the blank wall before them and the film begins.

The words "Indoctrination too…" beneath the Brotherhood and Joint Tech Divisions logos are shown followed by "The Brotherhood."

"Welcome to The Brotherhood. This film is meant as an introduction to your new occupation and life amidst The Brotherhood." a voice begins to narrate the film.

"But to begin we must first explain what The Brotherhood is."

The words "What is The Brotherhood?" appear on screen.

"The Brotherhood is a special and important organization that works covertly to maintain the stability of Earth's society."

An image of a busy, populated city is shown.

"It would be incorrect to say 'our' society, for The Brotherhood itself is a society of its own. Originally created by the founders, John Oscrew and Jacob Writh, as a place for fellow runaways to find acceptance and a family, it eventually grew from a club promoting unity to a philanthropic organization."

A picture of the founders as teenage boys is shown.

"As it grew it also became more exclusive.  It was no longer a place for all lost boys to come and go like a homeless shelter. After the Founders passed on and as new young men became leaders, their different views were implemented and the Brotherhood became increasingly radical."
            "Now, few new members are accepted and previous members' sons are generally expected to replace their fathers in the order."

"Order?" Koji whispers aside to Shack.

"What Does The Brotherhood Do?" is shown on the screen.

"The Brotherhood is an armada."

"Wha?" the twins exchange worried glances.

"The Brotherhood is a neutral power fighting to keep the balance between the two poles known as good and evil. The Brotherhood consists of both beasts and heroes fighting together to prevent either power from corrupting the world.  In this way The Brotherhood holds true to the Founder's ideas of Unity."

James gasps, eyes tearing as images of brutal warfare flash before them.

"No," he whimpers.

"Jamie," Drew whispers, putting a hand on James' to comfort him.

"They lied to us!" he cries.

"Shh. I know, but..." he squeezes James' hand.

Koji looks at them empathetically, Shack glances back at the doors to see a guard posted there watching for any ruckus.

"Drew! I don't want to hurt people!" James' tears fall on Drew's hand as he grips it tightly.

"I know, but..."

We have to. Drew thinks to himself. What else can we do?  There's nowhere else for us to go.  It's just like the movie said; we're runaway kids looking for a family. We can't stay with our real parents anymore. Mom is an alcoholic and blames us for everything and Dad's abusive, but I'd never let him lay a hand on you, because I love you

And that's another reason we had to runaway. Dad would never accept us. I don't think anybody would.  He probably could tell there was something wrong with us, something between us, that's probably why he was so hard on us.

But the invitation from The Brotherhood was a blessing! We could finally escape, together!

But I never should have lied to you. I knew you hated fighting but I also knew we couldn't stay there.  This was our chance, we had to take it! I need to have you with me! I'm sorry, so sorry...

The movie was coming to a close.

"Thank you for joining The Brotherhood."

The doors in the back swing open flooding the once dark room with light as the projector turns off. The boys turn round wondering what's next.

"Thank~ you again for sitting through that terrible movie and joining the Brotherhood!" a cheerful looking man stands in the doorway with his arms outstretched to the boys in a welcoming gesture. "The assignments for your individual squadrons are posted on the back wall here along with your housing assignments and the man whose charge you will be in.  Transportation to your new housing can be arranged if necessary for more information or if you have questions or concerns please feel free to ask me. Otherwise you are free to go.  Be sure to report to your new housings first thing tomorrow morning.  Again, thank you for coming and remember: We're watching you!"

"They're nice and honest." Koji mutters.

"Guy sounds like a recording," Drew adds.

"Heh, yeah! Right, Shack?" she turns around to find the stoic boy no longer standing beside her. "Shack?" she looks about the room for him in surprise and a slight panic.

She sees him at the back facing the wall, apparently staring at the posted assignments.  As she walks up next to him she sees his expression is one of extreme annoyance.  His mouth is set in a tight frown as he glares intensely at the paper.

"What? Did you seriously expect special treatment or something? What are you so upset abou-?" She stops in mid sentence staring at the paper for a moment in disbelief before she is overcome with a fit of laughter.

Shack simply continues to glare at the paper as Koji grips her side from the pain of laughing so hard, she leans against the wall to keep from collapsing.

Curious, the twins walk up to see what the big deal is.

            "Choice!" Drew smirks turning to Koji and giving her a high five.

            "Woot!" Koji cheers, wrapping an arm over both the twins' shoulders in an awkward sort of mangrouphug.

Shack finally tears his eyes away from the paper to see his new "family" spazzing with laughter and stumbling closer to make him a part of their gay party.

He sighs, shaking his head and covering his face with his hands as they overcome him and carry him away as a unit.