Writing: Introduction Bit to Jaz

    It's just as the title says and I apologize for taking so long to finish editing the blasted thing. It didn't take me much longer at all after I finally sat down to do it.

    Unlike the last vague ramble I posted for Jasmine "Jaz" O'Haire, this one is in my regular format and is of a good length. You won't need much of an entering explanation, since this bit starts at the beginning.

   
        The two males walked back into their small city side-by-side, taking in the bustling activity with the pleasure that came when one had been gone three years.
    The darker-haired one stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking around him for the familiar bean-paste fish seller that had been in business since he and Dan had been kids.
    The other took in a deep breath and grinned. “Now this is what I’m talking about. All those foreign places, and they can’t fry beans like the old homestead can.”
    His partner agreed with a small noise from the back of his throat.
    They had just started forward again, intent on checking in with their commander in person for the first time in several years, when a laugh rang out from behind them that made them both stop in their tracks.
    It was a feminine laugh.
    An incredibly familiar feminine laugh.
    A lot of things could change in three years, but there were some things that didn’t and her laugh was one of them.
    They turned as one, hearts pounding with anticipation at seeing her again, minds racing with similar thoughts. Would she have changed? Would she remember them? Was she still waiting for them?
    And they froze when she appeared through the crowd.
    Her auburn hair was tied up in a high pony tail, its length hanging down her back and swinging as she walked. Jade eyes shone with amusement and her lips were stretched in a dazzling grin.
    She wore the outfit of a black-ops member, two handguns hanging from her hips and they swayed in time with her step. Not just a black-ops member though; a captain.
    And she was flanked on either side by two other males they didn’t recognize. Both were at least half a head taller than her and wore a similar uniform to Jaz’s, except they wore a distinctly lower rank than she did.
    “Jaz…” The lighter-haired boy murmured with wide eyes.
     His partner was similarly dumbstruck, his dark brown gaze following Jaz and her new teammates, unable to find words.
    The three black-ops members passed them without a glance and the two returning soldiers couldn’t help but catch some of the conversation passing between them.
    “…wanted to laugh when he said you two were no match for his men!”
    “Did you tell him otherwise, captain?”
    “Of course! I’ll always protect my boys.” Jaz’s smile was bright as she put her arms around their necks and her fondness for them was clear.
    “Hey, Zack,” the lighter-haired male said, eyes narrowed speculatively.
    “What, Dan?”
    “They look like they’re coming back from an op. Probably headed to report to the boss.”
    “What are you standing around for, idiot?” Zack was already walking, eyes fixed on where their teammate had disappeared through the crowd with her subordinates.
    Dan pumped a fist and hurried after his friend.
    Their minds were both set on the same questions; just what on earth had happened to their teammate, and who were those intruders daring to get near her?
    “…work, Captain. You two as well, Kano, Des.” Whitecourt was saying as the two returning soldiers neared his office door.
    Zack waited until his boss had finished speaking before rapping his knuckles on the door twice.
    “Come!”
    The two exchanged glances, sharing the uncertainty they both felt over facing Jaz again, then Zack pushed the door open and they stepped in.
    His office was unchanged, bearing the same smart, yet tasteful decorations likely chosen by one of his female aides and the oak desk piled high on all corners with files and loose papers.
    Four pairs of eyes watched them as they approached the head’s desk, and Zack made a point to focus on Whitecourt, and not Jaz, although the temptation was strong. She’d changed so much while they were away.
    “Mission complete, sir!” Dan announced for the both of them, glancing at their female teammate for a moment before refocusing on the commander.
    The graying man smiled. “Good work. I want reports done and on my desk by Thursday, understood?”
    Both nodded. “Will do, sir,” the dark-haired one replied, voice far less exuberant than his bright-eyed partner.
    Zack finally glanced at the team standing off to the right of the desk. Jaz was entirely ignoring them, which wasn’t what he’d expected. As he watched, was making faces at one of her new teammates, nose scrunched up.
    So much for having matured in the last few years. Well, mentally that is. Physically was another matter altogether and it was probably a good thing that she was a sister more than anything else to them.
    But her blatant ignoring of them was out of character, which meant that she was avoiding them by ignoring them, and the thought put Zack on edge.
    Whitecourt didn’t seem to notice the faint tension in the room, or maybe he was just overlooking it on purpose for the time being, and he addressed Jaz and her team when he spoke again.
    “Captain, you and your team are dismissed. Take a few days off before coming in for your next assignment, will you? I’m sure there’ll be another team willing to take an extra mission so you three can get some sleep.”
     Jaz looked up, jade eyes glinting in the sunlight that streamed through the windows as she did so. “Aa. Will do, sir. Come along, little pets.” The humorous twist to her lips indicated that this type of teasing was a regular thing, and their reaction confirmed it for Zack.
    The two strange men both huffed in amusement at her words, but they followed her command and moved towards the door.
    The boss chuckled at their antics and glanced down at his paperwork, and that was when Dan reached out and grabbed Jaz’s arm.
    She stopped in her departure from the room, and turned to look at him; her face had switched from teasing to indifference so quickly it was frightening. “Is there something I can do for you?”
    “Don’t you remember us, Jaz?” Dan was pleading with his voice, his eyes, and his grip on her arm, but it didn’t seem to be having a visible effect on her.
    Zack was tense, watching her closely while remaining aware of her new teammates standing near the door who were observing the proceedings silently for now.
    “Of course,” she said simply, her jade eyes narrowing a fraction. “Most everybody will, I would guess. It’s not been that long.”
    Dan grinned. “Then what’s with all the coldness? Don’t I get a hug?“
    Zack saw her tense right before she took a purposeful step backwards, away from Dan’s outstretched arms. She hooked her thumbs through her holsters, adapting an expression of nonchalance, but Zack knew what this was now. She hadn’t forgiven them for leaving her behind.
    “What do you two want?”
    “J-Jaz, it’s us! You’re teammates!” Dan’s voice was almost desperate in his attempts to regain good ground with their sister-figure.
    “Yes, I believe we’ve established that, and no, you aren’t. Not anymore.”
    Dan had that kicked puppy look down pat, Zack admitted in the back of his mind, but her words were a far more pressing matter than Dan’s facial expressions.
    “Aren’t you glad to see us at all?” The lighter-haired boy asked with a far more subdued voice in response to her statement.
    “What reason do I have to be happy about?” Jaz questioned with a deceptive air of calm that none in the room believed for a moment.
    “We’re back, Jaz,” Zack took up the conversation, taking his time in speaking. “I would think that's a pretty good reason."
    “No, it’s not. Because you left me without even asking if I wanted to come. Isn’t that correct?” Her smile was grim, her jade gaze hard.
    He had guessed that was what this would be about and chose his next words carefully. “We thought it would be best. You needed the support of your friends and teachers more than you needed us. We did it for your benefit.”
    “You forgot something.”
    “What is that?”
    “I needed my family more than my friends and mentors.” She held together well when she said it, the unforgiving smirk lingering on her mouth, but her voice cracked when she said family.
    Zack met her gaze and knew regret at the look in her eyes, and before he could say more, the captain turned on her heel and left the room.
    Her departure left Zack, Dan, Kano, and Des in something of a silent standoff, with their commander keeping an eye on their goings on while he continued to work.
    One of Jaz’s new teammates, the taller of the two with dark brown hair and muted blue eyes, spoke first and with meaningful inflection to his words. “Don’t aggravate our captain.”
    “She was our teammate long before she was your captain,” Dan shot back, temper heated with his anxiety over Jaz’s response to their return.
    “You’re the ones who left her!”  The brunette seemed to be holding more back.
    “We left her for her own good!” Zack said between clenched teeth, something about these two rubbing him the wrong way.
    His response seemed only to fan the brunette’s ire, causing the other soldier to step closer to Zack as he spoke. “Which is why we had to pick up the pieces of her broken heart when we were placed on a squad together, yes? You call that good for her?”
    “Oi, Kano,” the one apparently called Des said, grabbing his teammate’s arm. “Cool off.”
    The taller male took in a breath. “Sir?” His eyes went from Zack to their commander. “On second thought, do you mind if we take a mission? I think we’d all agree that a bit of time away might be good right now.”
    “Yes, that’d be nice, sir.” Jaz’s voice came from the large window behind their commander.
    She was leaning in the open space, jade eyes glinting.
    “How on earth did you get there so fast?!” Dan all but shouted.
    Their former teammate, Kano and Des’ captain, smirked with genuine humor in her gaze, the first sign of acceptance she had given thus far. “It’s a secret.”
    “As for your request,” the commander interrupted loudly, looking at all the soldiers in his office in the eye so his point got across. “Denied. I won’t be having strife in the ranks, so you’re all grounded to the village until further notice.”
    Silence reigned for a long moment as the four males assessed one another and the sound of Jaz thumping to the office floor came a moment later.
    At her bidding, Kano and Des said their farewells to Whitecourt before heading out the door after their captain, none of them looking back.
    Zack and Dan exchanged looks, before they turned back to their commander. He didn’t seem overly annoyed with the argument that had just occurred.
    “When did she become a captain?” Dan asked after brief moment of quiet.
    “Last year. Kano and Des have been under her command since the day after she made rank. “
    “Did she ever have signs of waiting for us, sir?” The lighter-haired boy said, hope in his eyes. Zack knew he was searching for anything to give them hope.
    “The first six months she was in here every other day asking for any updates on your mission before she stopped out of the blue. Next thing I knew I was giving her promotions until she reached a level of skill that gave her the option of switching to black-ops, and she took that opportunity the moment it was available. Looks like you guys’ leaving didn’t have the preferred effect, eh?” Whitecourt leaned back in his seat, an apologetic smile on his weathered face.
    “Yeah…” Dan murmured before tapping Zack on the arm. “Let’s go, yeah? I feel like some of those fried bean paste fish you love so much.”
    “Aa…”
    They also spoke the required formalities to the commander before plodding out.
    Once on the street in front of the central military headquarters in the city, they faced each other, studying and gauging how the other had taken it.
    “She’s changed,” Dan stated.
    Zack huffed, but resisted the urge to roll his eyes in his soured mood. “You think?”
    “How do we get back in her graces?” The other mused aloud, seemingly oblivious to Zack’s exasperation.
    “What makes you think I have the answer to that question?”
    “Because you’re the brains here, and I’m the brawn,” a half-hearted grin here, but it faded fast. “You know, of all the things I expected to happen, this wasn’t one of them. Tears, anger, avoidance, yes, but... this is something else entirely. She’s got a new team Zack. She doesn’t need us anymore.”
    “That’s because she wanted it that way,” Zack murmured, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he surveyed the street, not surprisingly devoid of the bustling crowds found in most other sections of the city. “She never liked having to rely on us as much as she did. She wanted to be on the same ground as we were, but we never gave her the time of day.”
    “She did? We didn’t?”
    “Yes, imbecile, she did. You just were too busy protecting and shielding her to notice.”
    “Hey! You were doing the same thing!”
    “Yeah, I was, wasn’t I?”
    “Then how do you know she felt the way she did?”
    “We were gone three years, Dan. That’s a lot of time to think and analyze everything about our team. But I didn’t know for certain until we talked to her just now.”
    “And you think she despised how much we protected her?”
    “It was a possibility, and now I think that that’s been confirmed as well.”
    Dan fell quiet, processing Zack’s words for several minutes before he finally said quietly, “She called them ‘her boys’. She smiled at them like she used to do to us.”
    “And she loves them more than she did us, I think.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “They understand her more than we did. You can tell by the way they automatically guessed that she told off her target for talking down her team. The way they’re so comfortable together. Think back; when was she ever that comfortable around us?”
    “To the point where she’d walk through town like that with us, you mean?” Dan mused for a moment, then frowned. “Never.”
    “Exactly.”
    “I don’t want it to be like this, Zack. I know she’s mad, I know she’s got a new team, but I don’t want our old friendship to die like this. I don’t want it to die at all, blast it!” The lighter-haired male threw his hands up.
    The older boy shrugged. “They’re grounded here and we’re not going anywhere until after some well-deserved leave. Might as well make the best of it and see if we can talk to her again.”


    Unfortunately, after this, my bits all skip to that rather disastrous mission that Jaz takes on. I might try and fill in the blank spaces, but I'll likely just end up editing whatever I have got and go with those.

    Sheesh, I have no brain... It's been a long day, with an 0700 wake time, exercising, walking our neighbor's beagles twice solo because my sister is sick, and then I've been running back and forth between schoolwork getting stuff for her all afternoon.

    Anyways. Thank you for reading and I hope this bit isn't too disjointed, considering it's two years old with an edit job to make it more readable.

    As astra per aspera.
    To the stars, through difficulties.