"Well now, I'm not surprised about this." a man sighed looking at the live news coverage on the wall mounted projector. In the broadcast, a live shot of a lower district of LR city was shown. There were flames and bright lights all over the area. In this scene, a battle raged between a 'Hound' member and what seemed to be a burning Grim reaper. The man scoffed and returned to his papers unimpressed by the news. "Nothing new."
"Nothing new?" a woman dressed in a black suit with equally black eyeglasses asked. Her tone lacked any form of judgment ,unlike many of her colleagues would have, but instead was filled with amusement. "is that really something a board member of the Public Safety Commission should be saying?"
"What else is there to say? That's all these useless idiots live report on anyway." The man groaned, his rainbow eyes not leaving the document he was reviewing. "Besides my son and Isabelle are there, the problem will be handled soon."
"You seem oddly confident?" The suited woman murmured, taking a loud sip of her cherry tea. "She's only nineteen."
"She has solved well over three hundred cases on her own." The man shrugged, signing a paper, "She has also been a part of multiple thousands of cases involving Psykers who are notoriously elusive."
"Yet, X-96, Quincy Johnson and Wild are still at large?" The woman asked, now judging the man before her. "Johnson is particularly dangerous with his plans while X-96 continues to give law enforcement the most dismal image of all time in the eyes of the public."
On that particular point, the man was visibly uncomfortable.
"what?" the female asked with a mocking smile, taking another loud sip of her drink which only served to irk her companion even more. "Is the weight of the country holding your tongue?"
"Aren't you an agent of P.A.T.R.I.O.T?" the man growled, looking at his guest for the first time in the last two hours. His predatory rainbow eyes met the female's hollowed black eyes. "why don't you take care of it? that's YOUR job, right?"
"You can clean the streets with a dirty mop. All that matters is that the streets are clean." the woman shrugged, knowing that since X-96 hadn't left the empire Rosecurity couldn't enter that case. Regardless of the political and economic apocalypse she was causing or the rampant reemergence of radicals, she never left the empire so she wasn't a concern, yet. Just like the other two. "plus they pose virtually no threat on a national or international scale, I'm sure you know, Tommy, sorry Mr. Thompson."
"Duly noted." The man sighed back to the stack of documents he needed to read. One was none other than the apartment report for a certain man. This document was not needed. As a liaison, he was not privy to the results of P.A.T.R.I.O.T's investigations. There is a reasonable chance this document was planted, but why?
"Why is this in my stack of documents, Agent Smith?" Thompson sighed, showing the document to the international agent who cracked a grin "you and I both know I'm not supposed to see this."
"I know." Agent Smith shrugged, not caring one bit about the multiple rules she broke. "I want the 'most brilliant' detective in the empire to share his opinion on the matter."
The man groaned as he leaned back in his chair. He loved the feeling of his back and shoulder joints popping. His monumental headache and minor heartache were temporarily relieved. He hated this, being forced to use his blessing for other people's issues. There was no way she didn't know the dangers of using his power for long periods. He retired as a P.A.T.R.I.O.T agent because of the toll! SHE WAS THERE!!
SHE GAVE HIM HIS HONORABLE DISCHARGE PAPER!!!
He internally whined as he felt himself in a corner. He didn't want to deal with her colleagues later, especially that douche Fludge, so it would serve him well to help now rather than later.
"fine just don't expect anything worthwhile." he sighed, defeated. Agent Smith, smiling, summoned a small manilla folder which was quickly grabbed by the man.
Opening the folder, he activated his power as he read through the multitude of files contained within. His eyes saw through many of the layers of deception and tricks Fortune had set up over the seventeen years she had been with Micha. Sensing this change in her plans and world, Fortune separated from Micha in order to 'correct' such an error.
Before it becomes a problem...
XXXXXX
Ogasa acted first. He made a spur of the moment decision that he knew was in his personal interest. Although the being before him was not human, and was radiating evil, he did not have to worry about the media if he acted to kill.
"Sinners call," he said, using the calling word to unlock his power, unleashing his multicolored energy to devour every nonliving thing around him. Warped and twisted, the space made the night appear as if it spewed an aura of rainbows.
Sensing danger and a wordless challenge, the reaper let out a deep roar and black tendrils shot towards his opponent. Like a pack of starved beasts, the young man's aura tore the tendrils to ribbons running along them like snakes to the reaper's benefit. With a simple and lax wave of his hand the reaper returned the snakes back to their sender who could do nothing to stop his own attack.
Yet with a mechanical hum the Aura chunks were unnaturally curved and splashed as golden streaks whited through them.
"Huh? No destruction effect?" Zavan said as his whip-like blade retracted fully intact and undamaged. Under normal circumstances Ogasa's blessing 'anti-energy', an aura-based blessing that destroys all matter, would have clearly destroyed the whip blades of Zavan but that didn't happen once the reaper took control of said aura.
This was the major limitation of the reaper's blessing ability; when faced with living creatures, it is unstoppable, but with non-living matter, it is useless. It would be impossible for this creature to survive a battle with any elemental manipulator of reasonable strength.
"Hey! Stop admiring your bling and check on the boss!" Ogasa growled, transforming his aura into a ball that turned into a lance of unending destruction that was launched at the reaper. "Gungnir!"
Zavan retreated quickly, grabbing his leader and leaping across several buildings to put distance between them and the raging war. Narrowly avoiding the immense destruction caused by Ogasa's divine spear.
"As always he does too much." Zavan scoffed knowing just how mad Effy and clank will be at having to fix more areas. There is no amount of money that can compensate for the enormous workload. Putting his leader down slowly, he was startled by the appearance of her body. "What the hell..."
Bright blue flowers bloomed along the branches of the wooden vine on her left side. Having devoured her throat, the roots dug into her sockets and drained her blood, causing her golden liquid to fall unnaturally from her eyes. In the next moment, her right arm became shriveled like a corpse, her skin cracked and fell off like wilted leaves, as more golden blood poured out.
At this sight one could not help but gag and wonder 'what caused this?'
Despite Micha's curse being at work, it was the reaper who unknowingly used it. Souls were the reaper's second weakness since they fuelled its rampage. Ronald will become stronger once the blessing exhausts its fuel supply, like all his family. Micha's soul,a small portion of it and the malice within, had been taken by the reaper because Micha's cells had been mixed with Ronald's body, as a result being near the Reaper activated the curse. This allowed the Reaper to negate the use of her limbs, but did not kill her because of its own incompetence.
Zavan felt fear set in, and he desperately tried to call the healers of their unit. Through the mind link that connected the 'hound' unit members he yelled "MAN DOWN MAN DOWN NEED A HEALER STAT!"
At that point, growth accelerated and the roots slowly curved upwards, allowing more flowers to bloom while slowly becoming red.
"Squad Alpha-Currently engaged in battle-unable to respond." a voice answered in clear panic followed by another "Squad Delta and Zeta-Currently engaged in battle-unable to respond."
"Celias-able to respond-closing in T-minus-no scratch that I have bogies on my right and left flank..."
"even Celias?" Zavan wondered as each squad sent their own distress signals filling the network with fear and screams but none sounded louder than the pink haired spearman's.
"ZAVAN!" Ogasa yelled through the mind link. His voice carried a profound sense of utter dread like none other. "WE NEED TO RETREAT, NOW!!!"
"Wish I could but I-" Zavan began before his pink haired teammate was savagely thrown onto the roof with his body battered and broken like he had been put in a blender. He cut himself off because he knew if he continued to speak, he would only cry under the ominous weight he felt in his heart.
He reached into his pocket and took out a mechanical syringe full of silver liquid-nanomachines-just like the ones flowing through his own blood. Ogasa would be fine if he go-
Clack.
Zavan couldn't do anything-his arm had fallen off! For the young Cyborg, it was almost comical, as if he were a cartoon character. He made the ever so cruel mistake of looking down. When he saw the shadows of the large seemingly bottomless cavern, he was rendered speechless, just like in a cartoon. Gravity took its toll on him at this point, and he plummeted towards the depths below.
Angry at himself, Zavan screamed, the feeling of impending death permeating every cell of his body, causing him to activate the pressure mechanisms on his feet, only to feel the pressure that should expel build up in his legs. He looked around. Where were they? Where are they?
The cavern did it-
He saw him! Ogasa was rapidly falling and his arms and legs flew around while throwing red liquid.
He was not far away! If Zavan could just get close enough he could administer the nano machines then they would have a chance to leave. As he released a wave of pressure he accelerated towards his incapacitated teammate. Once again he took out a mechanical syringe and successfully injected the machines into the unconscious man. This brought some relief to him as he searched for his leader only for his eyes to widen in utter terror...
