Over the next month Sway over saw the training of each recruit, as well as final arrangements for their mission. Some of the recruits helped take the burden of training off of him by lending their expertise. This left Sway enough time to brush up his studies on the German language, the central European landscape, and German mythology. Munitions arrived for the team, while codes where finalized, and final orders were sent. And finally the dead-line approached for their deployment.
On a brisk morning he gathered all the recruits in the same courtyard they had gathered in a month ago. The six recruits stood in a line, dress for the cold, but also wearing their Browning HP hoslters at their side. Across from them, Sway and Bolshevik stood with a brazier, a basin, and anvil in between them. In the brazier a hammer-head with a V-shaped stamp became white hot. Behind them, there where two more men. One was thin and tall, with pale skin that had a waxy sheen under the light of the brazier's heat. The second was shorter, but had a muscular build, a thick navy blue great-coat wrapped around him. His face was wrapped in black bandages, except for his eyes, which were covered with dark goggles.
" You had little time but you've made the most of it to prepare," Sway began, " It will be your ability to improve yourself on demand that may prove the difference between life and death in the field. Now for our mission, intelligence from the British has located a facility where the Nazi's appear to be using the fundamental matter of existence to create weapons of tremendous power. We cannot allow the Nazi's to continue this research, and must secure it. In three days we will be dropped into Northern Germany under cover of night, and from there we will have ten days to get to Berlin.
" We simply have one last matter of business. Until now we have only been recruits, now we will make you full fledged members of Operation Vanguard." Sway stepped forward, he took out his own Browning HP. He removed the cartridge, and the chamber round before grasping the the gun with a pair of steel tongs. He then lifted the white hot hammer from the fire, and raised it high. On the handle of this gun, along with all of the other ones there was a silver slug embedded. It was exactly onto this slug that he brought the hammer down on, and stamped the silver with a
. He then put the hammer back into the brazier before cooling the silver in the water basin. Finally he put the pistol back into its holster, then turned to face the recruits. "Claude Glass, Codename: Quarry," He called, " step forward." Claude walked to the brazier. "Unload your sidearm, and placed it on the anvil." Once it was there Sway stamped as he had done before with the hammer and tongs. He then called up the rest of the recruits in a similar fashion and stamped their pistols.
" The Vanguard is an organization created with the belief that a small, highly mobile, elite force with grand resources, can take on critical missions that would be impossible otherwise. Your pistols signify your new rank as a Lieutenant in the Vanguard. You now have all the resources of the Vanguard at your disposal. I am your Brigadier, and your commanding officer. Bolshevik is your Colonel. We will leave camp tomorrow at noon, so relax until then, you have the entire facility at your disposal, you are dismissed."
