Missing

The night passed, once Wesley was able to fall back asleep, without incident. As the sun began to peek up over the horizon line, Wesley's eyes twitched and he blinked, opening them slowly with a small breath as he glanced up at the ceiling of the little 'hut' that he was in. He grunted, sitting up slowly before he stood up, feeling his muscles and joints send twinges of pain throughout his body. "I'm going to need to get something better to sleep on."

Stepping outside, he could see Jay was already up with the morning, moving through his morning exercise routine. The other three weren't present- he assumed they were still asleep. "Hey," Wes called to his brother, lifting a hand in greeting.

He hadn't forgotten what Evie had told him last night, that Jay too had a number of issues in his dreams. Of course, he knew that his brother tended to show off a bit more, and as such, he didn't open up the conversation on that note. "Hey yourself, dude," Jay responded, waving at the man. "Sun's already rising- figure it won't be too much longer before they get us into basic training."

Wes grunted, moving a hand to his face. "Don't remind me. That bed was probably the least comfortable thing I've ever slept on."

"It is not as if... I am a master of ergonomics..." Ted spoke, the man coming out from the small house that he was using, cleaning off his glasses as he did so. He held them up to the light for a moment, before cleaning them again. "Perhaps later... we can adjust the beds a bit to be more... comfortable," he commented.

That was right. Wes, so far, only had his Framework unlocked for a day. Not that the others had any longer, but they had only one set of Skills to worry about. On the other hand, Wesley had virtually the entire book in front of him when it came to the Skills he could use. He could simply use Elemental Emulation to mimic the effects of Earthshaping, meaning he could have very well fixed his own bed last night.

Jay merely snorted. "The bed was fine. You're just being a little too sensitive if you didn't like sleeping on it," the man spoke, shaking his head before he moved to return to his exercise regimen. He didn't have any weights or any exercise machines or anything of the sort back home, and as such, he wasn't using any here.

Wes caught sight of Ted watching Jay's routine, and he couldn't help but to let a small smirk cross his features. "Wondering why he does that?" he asked.

Generally speaking, exercise wasn't something that very many people bothered with. Mostly because there wasn't much need for someone like Sasha to be able to run quickly if she could just teleport herself. And there was no need for Jay to be able to strike hard without the use of his Skills when he could just use his High Impact skill to amplify his force several dozen times.

"I find it... curious," Ted murmured as Jay continued. "There is no need... for him to do so. The Skills he has available... cover both strength and speed."

"Sure, but they augment his body, right? So Jay decided a few years ago that he was going to make sure that he'd be able to kill Beasts better than anyone, even if he didn't end up with any Skills or anything. Who would have guessed that it was me without anything in the Framework?" he asked, the question rhetorical even though he could feel some animosity starting to swell back up in his mind at the thought.

Ted looked like he was going to respond, but before he could, a shrill whistle filled the air. Despite the fact that Wes couldn't see the origin of where it had come from, nonetheless it felt like it was right next to him.

"Attention recruits! Breakfast will begin in the building you took your test in thirty minutes! Get yourselves and your teammates up and make sure you're there! Unless all five of you are present, none of you gets to eat!"

As soon as the announcement began to echo outward, there was a bit of silence before conversation began to spring up across the various camps. "That's a lot of time to wake us up," Wes commented, giving a small thought. It felt like there should be a lot less time if they were just making the announcement now. It wasn't as if it was going to take that amount of time to wake up the girls.

"I guess they both want their beauty sleep?" Jay asked, grinning a bit at the pair. "Figure we should get them up and around at least," the man spoke, having finished his exercises (or at least been far enough along that he could justify stopping.) "I'll go wake up Sasha if one of you wants to get Evie," he offered, making his way up to where she had claimed one of the houses.

Ted and Wes looked at each other before shrugging, the pair of them beginning to head across to where Evie was located. Wes smirked slightly as he heard Sasha beginning to curse at Jay for waking her, but at the same time, she needed to wake up, so he didn't have any sympathy for her.

However, as the pair entered into the girl's 'house,' the both of them paused. "She was in here last night, right?" Wes asked, glancing over to Ted, who simply nodded. Evie was't present in her home at all, which was a little unusual. Well, at least, Wes assumed it was unusual- he didn't know her all that well yet. "Is this something she would do?"

At that, Ted shook his head. "No... she is not one to... simply leave without informing someone. She may be... a bit impulsive... but she thinks of others often." That was the Life Framework in her. "I do not know where she might be..."

Wesley frowned, hearing Jay and Sasha coming up behind them. He turned, frowning as they came forward. "She isn't here."

"What? Where is she?" Sasha responded immediately, the girl still managing to look mesmerizingly beautiful even half-awake. "You sure she just didn't wander off somewhere?"

At the question, there was a sudden outcry from one of the other nearby camps, and that began to spread like wildfire across the others, and soon it became clear that they were not the only team that was missing part of their group. The calls of concern and confusion began to grow, and just as they were reaching an apex, there was another one of those shrill whistles filled the air once more.

"I had forgotten to mention earlier," the voice spoke, despite the fact that it was quite clear they hadn't. "One member of each of your teams has been taken by one of the senior Soldiers. You must both locate and rescue them before the thirty minutes are up, or you and your entire group will not be eating this morning. Good luck."

The voice left, and once more, a pall of silence fell over the various camps before outcries began to come up from all of the other camps. They hadn't been fed last night, so those who hadn't been able to forage (or simply hadn't tried) had nothing to eat for quite some time, now. Denying them food further was not expected- in the event of a major attack, they'd be needed to help on the backlines of combat against the Beats, and being deprived of food wasn't exactly the best way to show this.

It was for that reason first and foremost, with the secondary of helping her, that Wes' brow furrowed in annoyance. "We need to find her. I don't know how they got onto our camp with none of us hearing anything. It guess we'll need to start setting a watch in the future. Spread out, see what we can find," Wes ordered, and the other three hesitated for a moment before nodding, beginning to look a little more closely at the girl's little dwelling.

Wes himself was inside, moving over the girl's bed and looking through the tent scraps that she'd been using as a blanket, when a feather came out of the material. The coloration close to the central part was a deep red that began to change to purple and then blue as it came out from the center. "A firebird?" he asked aloud, frowning slightly before he heard the others making a commotion outside.

Making his way out from her dwelling, he saw them gathered out just behind her home, and several talon marks were showing in the earth. As Wesley approached, he lifted the feather to show them what he had found.

"What the hell is a firebird doing way out here?" Sasha asked, before her gaze snapped to the side, narrowing slightly. "And what the hell are you doing here?"

They turned to see John, with three others standing just behind him. Wes noticed immediately that Andrew wasn't among them as John quietly lifted a hand, revealing a feather that was the exact same coloration. "Shall we join forces?" John asked quietly.