Lost Bird

5

5

Groaning and rolling over, Marc cursed his late night assignment with the academy and the early morning course he signed up for. Whose bright idea was it for me to take the advanced corporate accounting course to help with our businesses? Oh, right, mine.

The rest of his brothers had arrived earlier in the week to set up for their long-term mission. Establishing cover stories, enrolling everyone, and, in Axel's case, receiving class lists and syllabus for the semester. Axel would be teaching Marine Biology 101 and an advanced learning requisite that was to be taken before going into the doctorate program. Most students chose their specific field of interest when they took this course. Marc and his brother , Raven, had only arrived the night before to join the rest of the team at TDU. They were due to start newest mission.

Rumours had started to spread of a new drug being developed and distributed from the university campus. The Academy had been monitoring the goings on and had found some credible intel that supported the rumors and now they had three overdoses in the last month to go along with them.

We should probably explain the basics of The Academy. It was an organisation that was dedicated to helping people and working around the red tape that tied law enforcements hands. They recruited under the radar and its ranks were filled with all walks of life. Men/women, children/adults, professionals/ students. As long as you were a genuinely good person, who was passionate about helping people, willing to sacrifice a large social circle and ok with not being recognised for your good deeds, they took you in and trained you. You see, you couldn't tell anyone what you were a part of unless they were Academy also. A lot of the success of The Academy depended on their commitment to secrecy.

There were a lot of rules and getting into all the ins and outs of how it all worked would take forever. In a nutshell The Academy was made up of teams. All dog (boys/men) teams or all bird (girls/women) teams. They referred to themselves as families. On the rare occasion you would come across a couple team or a mixed dog/bird team. But again, they were rare. Because of the very low numbers of birds that were members of the academy, and the dangers the teams faced daily, a lot of the dog teams had taken to living a polyandrous life. Which was to say that a team of dogs shared one bird. The guys could sleep better at night knowing that their bird was always taken care of and always loved. A lot of the missions given to them lead to travelling for longer stints of time.

Marc's team had all agreed that that was exactly the type of relationship they were looking for. They just hadn't found the right bird yet. They knew their chances weren't horrible. If a team as big and diverse as the Blackbourne team could find their bird, he was sure his team, the Toma team, could find theirs. The Blackbourne team had 10 family members who were all extremely different. Marc had met their bird and knew they had made the right choice for them.

Her name was Sang Sorenson and she was probably one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. She was sweet and kind, and definitely loved her boys more than anything. Marc could admit that he had been a little jealous when he had first met Sang, but not because he wanted her. Because he had wanted what they had. That total devotion and love only brought them closer together. She was the heart of their family and had cemented their bond.

Marc loved his brothers and knew they would never give each other up for a bird. When he had been shown just how beautiful a relationship like the Blackbourne teams could be, he knew it was exactly what they needed.

          In all there were 5 members/brothers on his team. They may not all be related by blood, but they were all brothers in every way that mattered. They all passionately believed in the academy's philosophy that family is a choice. They had all joined The Academy young and had been lucky enough to find their family quickly.