{Ron}

Dr. Crow smiled at me and if I didn't know him it probably would look like a sincere smile. "I had no idea that I was getting a new hire today. In any case, welcome to the team."

I gave a nervous laugh and made myself smile even though I really didn't want to. "Yeah it's my first day so ah…"

I was stumped, I had no idea what to say or do next.

Dr. Crow chuckled, "The new hires are always nervous when they see me for the first time. I wonder why that is? I suspect when it comes down to women, I'm just too hard to resist. Men on the other hand, maybe I'm too intimidating for them? I have no idea."

I tried to control my gag reflex instinct when Dr. Crow said that women find him too hard to resist. I'm pretty sure that's not the case for all women. Considering what Patty told me about Abigail throwing up on the guy when he had her in his custody.

I guess my gag reflex came out anyway. Dr. Crow tilted his head. "What's wrong? Was it something I said?"

I wanted to tell him the truth but I didn't want to start off my first day at work on the wrong foot with my boss. I shook my head and lied, "No, I'm just having the first day of work jitters, that's all."

Dr. Crow nodded. "I see makes sense. Let me get you settled and start your orientation."

Dr. Crow leaned over and pressed on his phone. A woman answered the phone, "Yes, Mr. Crow?"

"Please send Harley and Bob," said Dr. Crow, "it seems that I have a new hire today that I wasn't told about. I need to send him to orientation and then he can start his first day of work."

The woman sounded surprised. "That's interesting I don't have any new hires plugged in on today's schedule. Sorry about that Mr. Crow, one might have slipped through the cracks. Sure I'll send Harley and Bob. May I ask what the new hire's name is?"

Oh crap, now what? What name should I give him? I thought. It took me two seconds to come up with a name. Since my codename would probably give away that I'm a DA, I decided to use my real name.

Dr. Crow looked at me. "Well what's your name kid?"

"My name's Ron," I said.

For some reason, Dr. Crow's eyes went wide at the very mention of my name. He composed himself, "The new hire's name is Ron."

"Okay then, I'll send his trainers up, they'll be there in a moment," The woman said.

"Sure thing," Dr. Crow said. He ended the call and gave me a strange look and I had no idea what it meant. "You say your name is Ron huh?"

I nodded. "Yes. Last time I checked, that's my name. Why?"

"Hmm," said Dr. Crow, "you look familiar to me for some reason, have we met before?"

Truth be told, I've never met Dr. Crow in person myself. I've just seen what he looks like in the pictures I was shown of him. I shook my head. "I don't think so."

Dr. Crow got up from his desk and started to walk around me as if he were a shark examining his prey. To me he might as well have been a shark. I stiffened as he circled me.

"You're right, you're not him, although you bear a striking resemblance to him," Dr. Crow said.

I blinked. "Um… Excuse… Me?"

Dr. Crow shook his head. "It's nothing Ron."

He stopped circling me when there was a knock on the door. He looked up and answered the door. "Ah, Harley, we have a new hire today!"

"Really boss?" Harley said. Harley to me totally sounded like a guy. However, once Harley stepped into the room I got a big surprise to find out that Harley was a woman. A big strong woman for that matter. She seemed like the type of woman who might have been in the military at one point in her life.

Dr. Crow nodded and pointed to me. "Yes Harley, we have a new hire. His name is Ron."

Harley's eyes went wide when she heard my name. Okay what the hell is with people freaking out when they hear my name?

"And before you make any assumptions," said Dr. Crow, "it's not him. He just has the same name."

Harley breathed a sigh of relief when Dr. Crow said that. "Alrighty then, I'll take Ron to orientation. Uh, Ron? Follow me."

"Well then Ron," said Dr. Crow, "I'll be checking in on you every once and a while. I do that with all my new hire's at least six months and then I'll leave you alone."

I nodded. I turned around and followed Harley out the door.

* * *

As soon as Harley and I got around the corner from Dr. Crow's office, she and Bob wrestled me to the ground, sat me down on a chair and tied me up in it.

"Hey what the heck?" I said. "So is this part of orientation or something?"

Harley nodded and gave me a wicked smile. "Oh yes, we do this with all of our new hire's just in case one of them turns out to be a DA."

"Wow, if you're that paranoid," I responded, "then maybe you shouldn't break the law."

Harley and Bob snickered.

"I wonder, how are you so adorable?" Harley smiled. "You're obviously too cute to be a DA."

I rolled my eyes and thought, Wow if looks alone tells them I'm not a DA then maybe they should just let me go so I can plant the tiny bombs' I have in my pocket to blow this place to hell with.

"I don't think he's a DA Harley," Bob said.

Harley raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why do you think that?"

"Well he doesn't have the signature brooch that a DA usually has on." Bob noted.

I actually forgot that instead of the brooch to wear with my outfit so I can use it to change into my fighting outfit, I had the key. The key is supposed to be an upgrade from the brooch for whatever the reason. Wearing the key around my neck all the time is still going to take some getting used to.

"Yeah but still, he looks very similar to Prince Silver," said Harley, "you know, the personal bodyguard to Princess Black of the Diamond Warriors."

Normally by this point I would be working on escaping from the chair I was tied up in, but that comment about Prince Silver piqued my interest.

"Uh, Prince Silver? And Princess Black?" I asked. "You guys aren't only just paranoid, you're delusional."

"Now that wasn't very nice Ron," Bob growled.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah and like you've been nice to me? I'm sorry you have me tied up in a chair so I don't think being nice is needed at the moment."

"Good point," Bob said. He looked at Harley. "Honestly Harley, if the boss says it's not him, then it's not him."

"Yeah," said Harley, "remember the last time he did that? You know, Agent Black isn't Princess Black and then it turns out to be her when he sent agents to that laser tag game to capture her?"

"Oh yeah, that's right!" Bob said. "Yeah from what I heard, Princess Black is one of the fiercest Diamond Warriors ever. I wonder why they keep popping up lately?"

"Well from what I heard," answered Harley, "The Diamonds actually escaped to Earth when their planet was destroyed. For some reason, they transformed into humans and had their real names changed to sub names. Last I heard that, is that they're actually working for the government now. So if Ron is Prince Silver it wouldn't come as a surprise to me."

"So how do we go about figuring out if he's a Diamond Warrior?" Bob asked.

"Dr. Crow told me and other select agents on how to figure out if someone is truly a Diamond Warrior. You cut them, they're blood will run a different color than human blood. Not to mention the wound will automatically heal. There'll be no sign of injury whatsoever." Harley said.

My eyes went wide when I realized what Harley was getting ready to do. Okay, now it's time for me to get out of this chair. There's no way in hell I'm going to let one of those idiots cut me anywhere on my body. Nope, not happening!

I started to struggle to get out of the chair while Harley and Bob were still talking. When they finished their conversation, Harley turned her attention to me. She pulled out a small pocket knife and smiled. "Don't worry Ron, this won't hurt a bit. We won't cut you too deep. Dr. Crow doesn't like his new hires bleeding out on the first day. He usually does that after the second checkup on his employees. We just want to figure out if you're a Diamond Warrior or not. After that, we'll proceed with the rest of your orientation."

"If this is how you do your orientation," I said, "I wonder how many new hire's that quit afterward? If there's a lot of new hire's that quit, I don't blame them."

Harley chuckled, "I have to agree with you on that. But hey this is how the boss wants it done, and it will get done. You're going to get cut anyway."

Harley came up to me and sat on my lap. She used the knife to rip a hole in my jeans and then she stabbed me with it. I let out a small yelp of pain and then as soon as the pain came, it left.

Harley got up and looked at the knife in horror. She showed the knife to me and on it was what looked like silver colored glue that a child would use in preschool.

I looked at the knife and raised an eyebrow. "Why is this horrifying? I don't get it."

"Holy fuck, you are a Diamond Warrior!" Harley exclaimed.

I tilted my head. "Okay I don't get it. Why are you afraid of silver colored glue that's on that knife?"

Harley shook her head. "It's not glue Ron. It's your blood! Every Diamond Warrior has a certain type of blood color and yours is silver. That means you are in fact a Diamond Warrior. I don't why that happens with you guys but it happens."

"I heard at the battle for Shaw Castle, there was one actual Diamond Warrior in the mix." Bob said. "The rest of the DA's were regular humans. From what I know of most of the DA's are regular humans."

I blinked. "Okay, I still don't get it."

"Just look down at your pants and see where the knife wound is." Harley instructed.

I looked down to see that there was a silver stain on my pants right where the supposed knife wound was. Although I didn't see a wound I saw the stain on my pants and I felt puzzled by this. "Again, I don't get it."

Harley's jaw dropped at my confusion. "You mean to tell me that no one's told you about Diamond Warriors? No one's told you about your past?"

I blinked and gasped at Harley. "Okay if this is a joke I'm not playing along."

"It's not a-" Harley started to say when she took a bullet to her head. I smiled because I knew it was Simon that shot her. I could tell what Simon's gun sounds like because I'm the one that made it for him. There was another shot from Simon's gun that hit Bob in the forehead next. Harley and Bob's lifeless bodies fell to the ground with a thump.

Well, I can tell they're not Diamond Warriors, or whatever Diamond Warriors are. I thought. Their blood color is red.

"What the hell are you doing Agent Silver?" Simon asked. He looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world at the moment.

"Sorry about that, Agent Shadow." I said. "I got distracted for a moment. It won't-"

I couldn't finish my sentence when I had a strange image flash before my eyes.

I was standing at a window of some sort of spaceship and staring out into the open space. I looked at my reflection and it looked completely different from what I'm used to seeing when I look in the mirror. My hair was a silver color and my eyes were all silver, they didn't look like human eyes because they didn't have irises. The outfit I had on was a silver suit jacket buttoned up on the right side of it with seven gold stars. I was wearing a sliver hooded cloak that was tied in a loose knot around my neck. It almost looked more like a cape than a cloak with the way I was wearing it. I also had on silver pants to complete the outfit.

There was a woman that looked about as young as me in my reflection starting at the window. She had black hair that was in a long braid with a white streak of hair going down it. She had a black shirt on with black pants. There were gold bracelets on her wrists and she was also wearing a hooded cloak that was tied in the same fashion that mine was.

I noticed that me and the young woman beside me were wearing gold crowns on our heads. Also we weren't wearing masks to cover our eyes. I opened my mouth to say something to the young woman beside me but that was when I snapped back to reality with Simon yelling, "Hello! Agent Silver! Anybody home?"

I shook my head trying to shake off whatever that image that I saw. "I have no idea what's going on with me at the moment, but I think this place is doing something to me so let's get out of here."

"Works for me! Dr. Crow's agents are sure to be on our tail before we can destroy this place," said Simon, "look at what I got!"

I smiled when I saw Simon take out of his hooded cloak the Ruby Statue that Patty sent us after. "Well that's the first part of the mission complete. Now we need to put the mattress store to rest."

Simon snorted. "You can say that again. You still got the bombs with you?"

I nodded. "Yup, I might be in this stupid employee's outfit but I have them. And yes, I have my weapon on me too. I was going to complete the rest of the mission but because I decided to be stupid, I got myself caught."

"Let me guess," said Simon, "you were trying to pose as an employee to get closer to the Ruby Statue?"

"You guessed it!" I said. "But it seems Dr. Crow actually expected one of us to do that. Anyway, let me get out of this chair and finish the job."

I got out of the chair and we ran through Dr. Crow's lair placing bombs in every direction. The bombs had a timer on them and I set them to go off in one minute. Finally, we got to the front of the mattress store and I placed six more bombs in there. I paused when I saw Stacy knocked out and lying on one of the beds. I looked at Simon and raised an eyebrow.

He smiled. "What? I discovered she was an Agent for Dr. Crow so I knocked her out. She's alive but she won't be for long."

I shrugged because I had no qualms about killing an Agent that works for Dr. Crow. That's because Dr. Crow is the definition of the word evil. The government agrees with us killing and disarming Dr. Crow's agents because he is the number one enemy of the government in general.

Once Simon and I left the building, there was a loud boom and we turned around to see debris flying everywhere. Seeing that even the cameras were destroyed in the blast, we left the building by jumping onto a nearby roof and jumping to different roofs until we got back to headquarters.

* * *

When we got back to headquarters, Simon and I had to go through the decontamination machine to make sure we were okay. Once that was done we went to the main conference room to discuss the success of a completed mission.

Patty smiled. "Well now you two, job well done! You got the Ruby Statue and you put the mattress store to rest. Although I doubt that destruction of the mattress store killed Dr. Crow, he's probably still alive."

"Um, Patty? I have a question for you," I said.

"Yes?" Patty said.

"Actually it's two questions," I said, "first of all, what are Diamond Warriors? Second, who the hell is Prince Silver?"

Patty looked shocked by what I just said, but she quickly composed herself. "Ha, ha, I wish I could tell you, but I can't. Corporate had a feeling these types of questions might come up with your new codenames so they classified that information. Sorry, I can't tell you."

I gave her a skeptical look. "Uh-huh sure, whatever you say. The strangest thing was Dr. Crow actually seemed terrified when I told him my name was Ron."

"You did what?" Patty asked. "What made you decide to do that?"

"Well I got the bright idea to pose as a new employee so I could increase my chances in getting the Ruby Statue." I explained. "I was just going to walk through the back door and find it that way but it seemed that Dr. Crow already thought of that. So I took a different course and acted like a new hire instead. Dr. Crow apparently was the manager of the place. So I had to tell him something. I wasn't about to tell him my codename because that would give away that I was DA."

Patty nodded. "I see. Of course Dr. Crow would think of that. He's always trying to stay one step ahead of us. I do find it funny that Dr. Crow would freak out over your name being Ron. I wonder why?"

"One of Dr. Crow's goons said that I was someone by the name of Prince Silver and that I was part of some alien race called The Diamonds." I said. "Honestly, although that conversation was interesting and all. I think they were delusional and telling a tall tale just to distract me and it worked. I got distracted instead of getting out of that chair as quickly as I should've."

"Hmm, okay then," said Patty, "well in any case, good you two you're free to go."

* * *

Once I left Patty's I felt completely and utterly lost and confused.

Simon put a hand on my shoulder. "What's wrong Ron?"

"I don't know, I'm just really confused right now." I answered. "When I say confused, I mean beyond confused and I don't know if there's a word for that. The second time I got distracted I saw some weird image flash before me. I wonder though if it was a memory or something? I have no idea. I wonder if Abigail's had the same experience considering she's used her key already. She looked exactly like she did in that image I saw when she transformed."

"I see, well maybe you should talk to her about it." Simon said. "I wonder if it's a side effect of using that key?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so. I didn't use my key at the mattress store. It happened after Harley cut my leg and some sort of silver color was on it. It looked a lot like silver colored glue that a child would use in preschool. She said something about that if I was a Diamond Warrior then my blood would be a different color. Apparently, my blood's color is silver."

Simon gave me a look of disbelief. "Yeah I don't think so. That's a bunch of nonsense! I mean blood color being a different color other than red and a strange image flashing before your eyes after being cut?"

"Yeah." I said. I felt completely weird about this whole thing. So I decided to end the conversation. "I'm going to go find Abigail."

Simon nodded. "Okay."

Without another word, I went to go find Abigail.

* * *

I pulled Abigail into my bedroom and we sat down on the bed.

"What's going on Ron?" Abigail asked.

I took a breath and let it out. "I had the strangest thing happen to me on my mission."

"What was it?" Abigail asked.

"Well, I made a stupid move and decided to pose as a new hire for Dr. Crow's mattress store that he was disguising his lair has. I told him my name was Ron because I didn't want to tell him my codename because that would've given away the fact that I was a DA." I said.

"Makes sense to me, I don't think I would've posed as a new hire for Dr. Crow in the first place. I probably would've disguised myself as an employee and walked into the lair." Abigail said.

I nodded. "Funny thing was, Dr. Crow was expecting that. He had uniforms set out for every size. So when I went to the manager's office to find out Dr. Crow was the manager, go figure. When I got caught, one of Dr. Crow's goons said that I might be someone by the name of Prince Silver, a Diamond Warrior."

Abigail's eyes went wide when she heard that. "Yeah at laser tag one of Dr. Crow's agents called me Black Daybreak Diamond when I fought them at laser tag! They said I was the fiercest Diamond Warrior ever. I recently had a weird dream about being on some sort of weird spaceship and I was standing next to a guy that had all silver hair, silver eyes, and his outfit was strange. He had a silver hooded cloak tied around his neck, and a silver suit that looked a lot like royal attire. He didn't wear a mask to hide his identity as a matter of fact both of us didn't wear a mask. We did have gold crowns on our heads."

I gasped. "I saw that in an image that I got distracted with when I was on my mission. I went to say something and that's when I snapped out of it."

"Huh, I wonder if what happened to us was actually a memory?" Abigail pondered.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Simon seems to think it might have something to do with using those keys we have? But I never used my key. That image happened after one of Dr. Crow's agents stabbed me in the leg with a pocket knife and when she showed me what was on it, she said it was my blood color. Yeah I still don't believe that. I mean blood color that's silver? Seriously? The substance on the knife didn't look like blood at all. It looked like silver colored glue that a child would use in preschool."

"Uh, I think that really is your blood color Ron," Abigail said.

I blinked. "Say what now?"

Abigail sighed and then took out a small pocket knife.

"What the hell are you getting ready to do?" I asked.

Abigail didn't say anything. She just ran her knife on her index finger and gave herself a small cut. It was small enough to be a paper cut. I gasped when I saw the color of her blood. The color of her blood was black.