Thinking that maybe they could get the information they wanted from one of the knocked out henchmen they waited until some of them came to.
"Where did Vernas go?!"
"I-I-I don't know!"
"You have to know something!"
"Ah, honestly I don't!"
"What is Vernas up to?"
"I'm just a lowly hired lackey. They don't tell me nothing!
"Who was that girl that chased your boss out?"
"I don't know! All I know is that she's been meddling in the bosses business for a long time now. He's afraid of her."
"Well I think we figured that out ourselves anyway. We are not going to get anywhere like this. Hey Zel, find anything with the bio scan?"
"From what I can tell she was a STF agent..."
"STF? What did this guy do to have the big guns after him?"
"STF? What's the STF?"
Martina, Zangulus and Zelgadis look glare at Gourry with annoyed expressions.
"And Rotamis wonders why I want another partner... Tell me Gourry have you honestly forgotten who the STF are?"
Gourry thought hard for a moment. That moment lasted 3 minutes.
"Gourry? Well?"
"Ah.....I forgot."
Zangulus, Martina and Zelgadis facefault.
"Well it's not like I can get a good enough scan here. I'll take a few readings to take back to the station while we take back these thugs. And when we get back I'll explain who the STF are to you again Gourry..."
"You've explained it to me before?"
"Yes, 7 times. I would have thought maybe by now you would have remembered it, but I guess I was wrong."
After calling for some back up, all of Vernas' men were piled into a police van to be taken back to the station with Zelgadis, Martina, Gourry and Zangulus following close behind.
Back in the station they went over to LPD's crime laboratory for some additional scans. Zolf joined them.
"So you are trying some red haired STF kid chased out our guy and you guys didn't do anything?!" Zolf's tone of voiced was not a happy one.
"It's not like we could have. By the time we were able to react they were already long gone."
"I'm still confused, what are the STF again?"
Sighing at his dumb partner, Zelgadis went into his explanation on what the STF are, again.
"The STF Gourry are a special government funded group that are specially trained to deal with extreme situations. Normally the things that they are assigned to do are so suicidal that no sane person would do it."
"If it's suicidal then why do they do the jobs?"
Before Zelgadis could explain more Zolf quickly answered that question.
"Because they don't care about human life that's why! They are just a bunch of thrill seekers that don't even give a damn about their own lives! They are all egomaniacs that think that they are superior in every way!"
"Okay you are talking that a bit far Zolf... Gourry remember I said that they have special training? Well that training prepares them for suicidal missions. And they are not all egomaniacs, in fact we have worked with a few of them in the past."
"We have?"
"Yeah, but mostly level 2 red agents."
"Level 2 red agents?
"There are color denotations. Red means a field agent, orange a red agent trainee, gray an office worker, yellow are research and aide, blue are crew trainers and green are the high commanding agents. In the STF the higher the level you are the higher ranked you are in training. The higher ones get the more dangerous jobs. Since we don't get jobs that involve danger to that extreme we sometimes get some STF agents helping us out, but at a low level."
"Oh," Gourry said thinking quite hard, absorbing everything Zelgadis said.
"You didn't understand a word I just said did you?"
"That's right."
Multiple sweat drops and sighs.
"Well that's Gourry for you. So Zel was does that DNA scanner say? Do we know who the STF agent was?"
"Normally I could find that out, but for some reason her record is blocked off and restricted. She must be a real high-leveled red agent. I can normally get the records of red agents level 3 and below. I did manage to find out her name though."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Inverse, Lina Inverse."
"Lina Inverse? You lost your guy because of a STF agent named Lina Inverse? What kind of a name is that?!" And thus Zolf started off back on his rantings again.
"Zolf could you please give a rest for once? I know you don't like the STF but could you for once just shut up about it? Anyway, her name sounds familiar...hmm ...Inverse... now where have I heard that name before? And where can I find her?"
"I'm used to big criminal bosses and government officials trying to find me, but this is the first time a cute LPD officer has tried."
Everyone looked back to the doorway. Leaning leisurely against the wall with her arms crossed stood a short girl with long red hair with blond streaks and red eyes. She was wearing a STF combat uniform, with STF technical goodies, and she had two very small scars on her face. She looked about 15 or 16 years old.
"And just who the hell are you?!" Zolf shouted at her.
"Lina Inverse, STF red agent, level 9," She said in a cool and calm voice.
"Aren't you a bit young to be a level nine STF agent?" Zelgadis asked her skeptically looking her over with an intense stare.
"Aren't you a bit young to be a LPD officer?" Lina said matching his stare.
"Hmm... good point. So Miss Inverse, what happened with Vernas and what do you know?"
"First of all, it's Lina. I wont have any of that 'Miss' crap. I'm not that old to be called that, in fact I'm one of the two youngest level nine red agents in the STF. Second Vernas had an ace up his sleeve and threw a plasma bomb at me that I almost didn't avoid. I'm lucky to be alive. And last but not least, I'll tell you what I know in about 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."
As soon as Lina got down to 0 a short girl with shoulder length black hair and blue eyes came stumbling through the doorway and tripped on her feet, landing on her face.
"Ouch."
"Well Amelia, you're late..."
"I'm so sorry Miss Lina! It wont happen again!"
"Amelia, now what have I told you about the Miss Lina thing?"
"You told me not to call you 'Miss'.
"And what do you say to that?"
"I tell you that it would be disrespectful not too."
"Then what do I say?"
"You say that you don't care and that you are only a few years older than me and I wouldn't be being disrespectful to you by not calling you 'Miss'."
"Okay if we have that all clear, then why are you still calling me 'Miss Lina'?"
"..."
"Oh nevermind. Well aren't you going to introduce yourself to the LDP?"
"Oh sorry! Please forgive me!" Amelia gets up to a standing solder stance, "Amelia Sailune, STF orange agent, trainee."
"Amelia if you tell them that you are an orange agent then they already know that you are a trainee. You don't need to say that."
"But I sounds a lot more professional."
"Oh for Pete's sake! We're STF agents not business people. Well we have introduced ourselves, why don't you LDP officers tell us who you guys are?"
"I'm Gourry."
"Martina."
"Zangulus."
"Zelgadis Greywers, and since he wont tell you, that's Zolf."
"Interesting how you are the only one who tells me your last name... anyway Amelia do you have the record file?"
"Right here!" Amelia said all bright and cheery holding the file up to her.
Thrown off a bit by her perkiness Lina shakes her head at the young girl as she takes the file from Amelia.
"Okay this is what we know about Vernas, he's a scientist and his crime has to do with his experiments and research. And whatever that research and experiments are, happen to be very dangerous and a threat to the world," Lina said while laying out Vernas' file on a table so everyone could see.
"Is that all you STF agents know?"
"Well it's a step up from you guys. And it's all we know. The STF headquarters knows all the inns and outs of the case or any STF case for that matter, but they don't ever tell the whole case details when they assign them. Personally I think that's a stupid thing to do, but hey I don't make up the rules, I just follow them."
"You mean break them," Zolf said bitterly.
Lina just glared at the second in commanding officer. Then turned over to Zelgadis.
"Is he always like this?"
"Oh yeah. Doesn't like STF agents."
"I figured that."
"So what are you supposed to do now?"
"I was supposed to fill you guys in on what we know, which I've done already, and then we are supposed to wait for STF HQ to contact us to give us our next orders."
"Do you have any idea of what they are going to be?"
"Don't know, probably has to do with you guys. I can't think of any logical reason why me and Amelia would need to come here unless there was another reason."
"Why don't you just contact them now?"
At this point Zangulus, Martina, Zolf, Amelia and Gourry were getting bored. The conversation had turned into a Lina/Zelgadis chat, which was funny because Zelgadis isn't much of a talker. He hates chatting with people if he can help it, let only with strangers.
"I'd contact them now, but I wouldn't know where to contact them at. For security reasons they have to keep on changing the voice link whenever they contact one of there agents. It also takes a while to change and realign all the frequencies like that, so that's probably what's taking them so long."
"Must be pretty interesting being a STF agent..."
"Well maybe you should join up with us someday. You certainly look like you are in good shape," Lina said with a crooked smile while eyeing him up and down.
Lina got a very silent, blushing Zelgadis in response. Amelia stared at Lina with wide eyes. She knew Lina to be a flirt but this was the first time she'd ever seen Lina be that foreword. Usually Lina only flirted back, but never started the flirting altogether. Then Amelia looked over at Zelgadis. 'Well he is Miss Lina's type. To think for once her actually showing some real interest in a guy. Gavin is not going to believe this!' Amelia started smiling thinking of the gossip that she now had.
"And just what are you smiling at Amelia?"
"Uh, um, that, is, a Miss Lina - "
"For the last time, it's LINA! Not 'Miss Lina', just plain Lina!"
A flash and a beep came from the communicator that attached to Lina's ear. Lina presses a button and a small green screen moves in front of one of her eyes (think Dragon Ball Z with Frieza's squad of fighters' power level scanners). A little picture is displayed of a STF HQ agent on the screen that only Lina can see, but everyone else could hear what the guy said.
"Officer Inverse, you need to come back to the STF HQ ASAP."
"Why send us here if we have to leave right away?"
"You needed to inform the officers involved with the Vernas incident with the warehouse on the case details that you know."
"Why?"
"They needed to be filled in so that way they will know what they are doing when they come here."
"Huh? They are coming to STF headquarters?"
"Yes, that is correct."
"Why would you guys want to do that?"
"I'm sorry I cannot divulge that information at this moment."
"Doesn't the city need it's police officers? I didn't know that they could spare any."
"It's all been cleared with the main police head quarters."
"But you still haven't answered my question about how they can spare officers."
"I cannot speak further at this time, just bring the LPD officers with you on your way over here and someone will tell you more about what you need to know. HQ out."
Static sounds replaced the man's voice when the transmission ended. Lina just pushed the same button as before to retract the communications device.
"What I need to know isn't always all I want to know... why do they have to be so damned secretive about everything?! Can't even answer a simple question. I'd expect them to do something like this to someone else, but to one of their own agents? It's pathetic..." Lina said shaking her head.
"So we have to go to STF HQ with you now?"
"It sure looks that way... Oh well come on, we'd better get a move on."
And Martina, Zelgadis, Amelia, Gourry and Zangulus left following Lina leaving a very annoyed Zolf.
"Thinks she can just come in here and boss everyone around like she's in charge! I hate those STF agents! They show no respect for no one!" Zolf was basically complaining to himself, he was alone, unless you counted the computers. (Relm: Well if the computers could talk I'd becha that they'd tell him to shut up, I know I would.)