Arc of the Zodiac: Prologue

[foolish_m0rtal]

Story: Arc of the Zodiac
Fandom: Juvenile Orion
Genre: AU Fantasy
Rating: PG for some language and gore

Summary: On assignment by the Joshua Organisation, a field agent and an Erasi must team up to kill the most terrible monsters known to the ancient world.Mostly Kurocentric. No real slash, you lovable GabKuro freaks...
Okay, so this is the Questing Beasts fic that I’ve been blabbering about on my LJ. I’m halfway through Ch. 2 as we speak.

I have no idea what the Joshua Organisation is. Don’t ask. It just happened.

This is kind of like a…sacrificial tribute to people who are STILL waiting for my next CF chapter. Please don't eat me.

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Juvenile Orion. Also, thank you to that wonderful Mediaeval and Ancient Beasts Catalogue I used to write the story.

Gods. On the fifth level of headquarters, all the hallways looked alike. Kuro didn’t know how the people working up here didn’t get lost.

He looked down at the letter he had received that morning.

F.A. Kuro Sakaurai:
Meeting Director Itsuki. Noon.

If he could say anything about the Joshua Organisation’s secretaries, it was that they were almost militarily succinct and no-nonsense about their jobs.

“Hey, Kuro!”

He turned. “Yes?”

Mizunagi fell into step beside him and punched his arm lightly. “Good job on the Amphisbaena case. It’s all I hear about in the office nowadays.”

Kuro grinned. “Thanks, though it was the research department that got us that last minute information that helped us confine it.”

Mizunagi ducked his head modestly. “Ah, we’re nothing really. Just paper-shufflers and folklorists.” He held up the stack of scrolls and books in his arms as evidence. “It’s really the field teams that go out and deal with the monsters themselves.”

“You belittle yourselves, all of you. Give yourself more credit, Mizunagi,” Kuro replied. “Anyway, what is your department doing now?”

“The Hieracosphinx.”

His eyes brightened in interest. “Really?”

“Well, apparently, some of you field agents are going after one that’s loose in the western plains.”

Kuro whistled. “Damn. Hope I don’t get assigned to that job.”

Mizunagi laughed. “I just found some drawings from the Archaic Era. Trust me, you don’t want to be.”

“It can’t be worse than the Magyr,” Kuro muttered.

“Oh! I heard about that! Mermaids, aren’t they? Ugly things.”

“Those are the ones,” Kuro agreed. And then, calmly, “One of them tried to pull me overboard.”

Mizunagi grinned. “Really?”

“Really,” he said dryly. “Apparently, she took a liking to me.”

“Gods!” Mizunagi laughed. “That’s terrible.”

“There’s no accounting for taste, it seems,” Kuro said. “Don’t know why she wanted me when Nakaura was right beside me.”

“It was the glasses,” Mizunagi deduced.

“Probably.”

“But don’t tell him that.” Another laugh. They reached a spindly flight of stairs that wound up to the sixth floor. “Hey, Kuro, I’ve got to go. See you later.”

“Alright.”

Now, where was it? A left turn, a right turn. There.

The sigil of the Joshua Organisation. A wyvern jumping through a padlock and key.

The Joshua Organisation. Created to lock away ancient monsters. To kill the destructive ones. To keep track of them so that they would never again savage the human population, just as monsters of old had done.

Directors Offices, the plaque under the design said. An arrow pointed left. He followed it.

-

-

“Field Agent Kuro Sakaurai, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm..” She leaned back in her chair and looked at him through steepled fingers. “You’ve been called in here for a special assignment.”

He nodded. The smell of coffee made his nostrils flare. This director’s office always smelled of that sharp bitter coffee the merchants sold every morning straight at the docks; it was her signature. Her white ceramic cup was lost in the pile of papers at her desk but he smelled its aroma all the same.

She ground her cigarette in the ashtray near her elbow. “We have a dilemma on our hands.”

“A dilemma, Director?”

Her amber eyes were sombre in her thin face. “The Zodiac have awakened.”

“What?”
___________________________________________________________________________________

Notes:

Amphisbaena- A two headed venomous serpent

Hieracophinx- a chimera comprising of a lion’s body with a falcon’s head.

Magyr- ugly mermaids with webbed hands, deformed faces, double-chins, and fishy tails.

Wyvern- winged reptilian creature found in mediaeval heraldry.