The trial (1)

The commander proceeded to lead the group down one of the several hallways that intersected at the concourse, before finally stopping in front a receptionist's desk. The furniture here followed the same theme as all the others. Black ebony wood intertwined with silver lines that seemed to form the circuitry of the machine's they used here.

"I called in advance," the commander said, before pulling out a jet-black card with gold vinyls, and handing it over to the receptionist.

The receptionist swiped it through a small box-like machine, before tapping at several places on the ebony table. With each tap, a silver line of circuitry glowed blue.

"Apologies Commander Aziel, it seems that the room you booked has been allocated to someone else," the receptionist replied shakily, not daring to look up from her computer as the commander stared at her silently.

~What, is he going to reprimand her?~ Atlas thought to himself.

He was usually a good judge of character -one didn't survive in the undercity without being one- so he believed he had a good idea of the type of person the commander was.

He was a stickler for the rules, through and through, but with a massive temper. It was easy to overlook this what with his soft green eyes. But the waves of wesen emanating from his body right now was enough to deter that effect.

Once again, Atlas couldn't breathe, and struggled just to stand up right. However Sasha seemed perfectly calm, even stepping forward to talk to the receptionist herself.

"We've had a long day, so please understand the commander's behavior," she said in her thick accent, trying her best to make it sound a little more friendly.

"Are there any other rooms available? It doesn't have to be at the commander's rank, it can even be one of the recruit bunkers," Sasha said after.

The receptionist hesitantly shook her head at this before replying; "I can't have the commander put in an accommodation below his clearance level. Perhaps if I could arrange external accomo-"

"That won't do," the commander interrupted. His tone cold, and calm, though the gaze in his eyes alone was enough to set the receptionist on fire.

Meanwhile Atlas was still struggling to stand up straight.

"I-I'll check for other rooms," the receptionist replied before frantically tapping on the ebony table, prompting multiple holographic screens to pop up in front of her.

At this point Atlas was reaching his limit, and reached out his hand to signal the commander to drop the aura he was emitting.

The commander instinctively reacted to this, grabbing Atlas's arm before it could touch him.

"I-I can't breathe," Atlas strained to say. Realizing what he had been doing the commander's eyes went back to their natural color, and he let go of Atlas's arm.

"Apologies commander, it seems there's only a single tribunal affiliated room available within the high ranking sector. The only other rooms are within the recruit sectors, will that be okay lieutenant...." the receptionist announced, looking towards Sasha in question.

"Lieutenant Sasha, and yes that'll be okay," Sasha replied.

"I won't have my lieutenant staying with recruits. Check again," the commander argued, prompting the receptionist to search once again.

~All this fuss over where we're going to stay? The rumors about surface dwellers being spoiled weren't wrong,~ Atlas thought to himself, growing tired of having to interact with all the wesen that was being emitted in this place.

"I'm afraid there aren't any other rooms available. Most of them are being used by the Generals and Admirals for the War Summit," the receptionist explained, her eyes averting the commander's gaze.

"There are only 4 Admirals and a handle full of Generals in this hive, are you saying that the more than one hundred rooms in this building are being occupied by that many people?" the commander asked. Surprisingly his voice sounded calm, apparently now more understanding of the situation.

"T-The admirals have been allocated 3 floors each due to their discharge. They wanted to be comfortable, so they won't be holding it back," the receptionist explained.

~Discharge?~ Atlas thought to himself, before quickly realizing what that they must've been referring to the wesen waves that everyone here was emitting.

But still, for someone to emit so much wesen that 3 floors be allocated to each of them was absurd to him. And even then, if it was so intense that even the people here needed to be protected that much, he couldn't imagine meeting them.

The commander remained silent at this for a moment, before asking; "Is Admiral Stretos here?"

The receptionists quickly tapped something onto the ebony table, before nodding her head in the affirmative.

"Give me his room number. And continue looking for something closer to my lieutenant's clearance level," he replied before turning towards Sasha, "Excuse me lieutenant Sasha, I have urgent business to discuss with Admiral Stretos," he added, as the receptionist handed him back his card.

"I've alerted the Admiral of your request, he's transmitted his current location to your card," the receptionist explained.

Just as the commander was about to leave he turned back to Sasha and whispered something into her ear. Atlas could just barely make out the words; "Don't tell anyone about what we saw down there. ... faction is ... could be disastrous." There were words he couldn't quite make out, as his ability to read lips wasn't as practiced as most of his other skills.

Once the commander was gone, Sasha had both her and Atlas placed in the recruit sectors. And after the receptionist apologized profusely for having to put them there, the two of them headed towards their allocated accommodations.

Atlas would've thought since their rooms were in the same building that the walk there would be a short one. But it was anything but that. They walked 10 minutes, and went up several floors before finally arriving at the recruits sector.

The infrastructure here was less pristine than the ones they were in before. It was clear that this area was for lower ranking individuals as even the wesen floating in the air didn't seem to hinder Atlas at all. Which relieved him, as he had been under the impression that everyone on the surface was a power monster.

"You may go to the toilet or the cafeteria as you please. Though any attempt to go to any of the other floors will be seen as an attempted escape," Sasha explained as they neared their room numbers; 809 and 810.

Atlas was confused at this, and took a moment to respond.

"You're letting me roam freely?"

"I am no babysitter, and I can tell you are a smart one, mieze. You have felt the power of those on the lower floors, so you have great understanding of what you are up against, no?" she said, before sliding her card over a small box positioned left of her room's door.

"Besides," she continued, before pointing to one of the many cameras positioned on the ceiling. "So stay out of trouble. We leave for the court room at the break of light, so rest well," she said, before sliding her card over Atlas's room door as well.

After giving atlas one last look, she went into her room and shut the door.

{Are you going to escape now?} the voice in Atlas's head asked once they were alone.