Damien cursed under his breath and punched the steering wheel, unloading his frustration. With a mournful shake of his head, he said, “That means those kids are dead.”
Astral arched her brow, waiting for her uncle to elaborate. It was possible that he blamed himself for their deaths. Despite his shields, he couldn’t promise safety to the vulnerable youths of the nation. Despite being aware of her uncle’s feelings, she couldn’t connect those emotional dots. To her, the game participants being dead was a foregone conclusion.
Maybe she had more time to process their deaths. Maybe she had grown accustomed to the worst scenarios, her mind trained to prepare for the darkest possibility first. While her uncle clung to the hope that they’d find the missing players, she was devising practical scenarios.
If a demon was in the games, which would appear to be true by this point, then they wouldn’t find remains, let alone survivors. If they were lucky and the demon was a gluttony class demon, they wouldn’t face a legion of constructs looking to test their monstrous builds against the Hunters.
This demon was clever and patient. The EMI would have to proceed with extreme caution.
Damien pulled the side-by-side over and turned off the engine. He turned to Astral, arm resting against the back of their shared seat. His frown was deep, his gray eyes cold and hard as old hidden wounds tugged at the corner of his eye.
“I know pops likes to keep you at a need-to-know-basis, more so than the rest of us.” He flexed his lower jaw as he chewed on words best kept to himself. “Thing is, pops is a little fixated on making the problem go away. But in my not-so-humble opinion, I think he’s playing a game of whack-a-mole. He’s treating a symptom instead of the problem, you get me?”
Astral nodded once. Dezmond wanted simple solutions to complex problems. Damien had no issue with complexity. It was all a living puzzle, only where most of the pieces weren’t real to begin with.
Damien’s dark brooding auras transformed into a kaleidoscope of colors.
“I went over pop’s head and did a deep dive. Might have some legal issues with all of that since strictly speaking we only had permission to look at this year’s game participants. Little fucking good that was…” Damien grumbled. “Thing is, I started with the game participants going as far back as about a decade before the Council took over. Technically there aren’t any records at the Academy about pre-Council events. Given a chance to boost one’s profile, let’s just say they don’t miss an opportunity to mention that they were part of the games.”
“You designed a bot to pull the game data from the public database,” Astral said. “And what did you find?” She was genuinely interested. It was rare that her uncle’s instincts didn’t pay off.
“Apart from a bunch of fucking liars… Let me back-up a bit, it gets all…” he made a wild gesture in the air, and took a breath, his frustration receding. “Looking only at the championship games, I know without a shadow of a doubt that this isn’t the first year where there was a full team wipe. It happens like clockwork every ten years. I have very limited data on that even with over-reaching my permissions with the Academy.” He wiggled his hand and grimaced.
“But every year, the championship game participants do go missing. It’s usually one or two from each team. Except for the past three years, where no one on Squad VII was taken. I think as a side effect, we end up seeing more people getting taken from the opposing team over the past three years, which I think is what has sparked rumors of foul play. I’m not going to ignore the possibility of murder, but this has been going for years.”
“It’s possible that murder is just status-quo come the last game,” the sergeant proposed. “I don’t agree with it, but I understand the whole win by any means necessary. Since neither the G.C. or the Academy wants to admit that their bright stars are petty cold-blooded psychopaths, it sort of creates the invisible script that given the right context murder is okay.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“I agree it’s not something we should ignore, or excuse. For now, it’s part of the pattern of behavior,” Astral said. “Do go on.”
“Naturally, I branched out from the championship game to the games in general. I didn’t find anything ground-breaking there,” Damien admitted. “I got to thinking, what happens to these people? I mean we have two classes of people: we have champions and game participants. We can also break them down into people who serve their tour and people who are exempt. Now we have four categories of people.”
Astral let her uncle have his dramatic pause. To her knowledge the odds of survival from the war were dismal. Upon return, the Nation did little more than lip service to aid returning soldiers. Her father has established the EMI project to help returning vets transition into normal life, only to discover that many of his charity cases had inadvertently become Hunters. Some vets embraced their new purpose. Most did not. They too were separated into categories…
“I’ll spare you the details, but everyone who’s been in the games are now dead.”
Astral arched a brow. “That’s a bit overdramatic.”
“I mean, not quite everybody, but it’s consistent. Champions who serve don’t last more than a few years after their tour.” Again, he paused for dramatic effect.
Now that was an interesting detail. “Are there signs of a migration pattern?” Astral asked.
Damien’s brows shot up in surprise. “I-ugh, I didn’t think to look.”
Astral cocked her head in a slight nod, indicating that Damien should look into it. He’d get back to her with his results if only to have something to gush about. She liked that he had access to so much data and shared a mutual goal, it made getting answers easier. Without him, she’d have to collect fresh data for every hunt, limiting the full effects of the demon’s influence and strength. He was an asset, even if he had his blind spots.
He shook his head. “That’s not why I’m bringing it up. Princess, if you register for the games, you’ll be marked for death. There’s no knowing if what’s happening with these games is tied to the soldier’s deaths, but there is a strong correlation with games. I know that much! I wouldn’t want to risk it.”
Astral nodded acknowledging his concern. “It’s not your call. Yes, I’m under orders to register, but those are my orders, not Dezmond’s. Dezmond’s just a facilitator in this instance. People are less likely to argue with him than they would me. If you’ve forgotten, I’m fourteen. Most adults can barely stand getting orders from their seniors, you can only imagine the push back my… youthful enthusiasm will net me.”
Damien cast a quick glance to Noland, who had nodded to himself as he followed the conversation.
“No one believes the events of my life over the past fourteen years. Not even in the EMI who were there when that village was raided when I was two.” Not to mention the Clearwater incident eight years prior, which had been so thoroughly swept under the rug, that no one residing in the town today was aware of the town that had existed only a few years before. “Not even the people who saw me come out unscathed, bundled up, following my father. No one believes, because they can’t. Consider what I’ve achieved? What does that say about them? I’m not them. Not at all. I don’t expect them to share my skill, not in the slightest! But for whatever reason they think they should be able to do what I do, maybe even better. My history shapes their personal narrative and naturally there’s going to be a strong visceral resistance, especially when they feel that their best just doesn’t measure up. I can’t be bothered with the constant proving and re-proving of my skill. My worth. It would take too long to get people onboard, and too many people would get killed while my support system decided my worth for me.”
Noland looked away, suddenly interested in the equipment tags.
Damien pulled her into a tight hug. “People are dicks,” he said to her. “I’m here for you. I just want to make sure pops isn’t bullying you. And even though I know you mind my saying, it bears repeating: I worry about you.”
He pulled away from her and smiled. “You’re my only niece!” That wasn’t it though. He had worshiped her from day one. He had faith in the old lore. When his research yielded to her recovery from the world between worlds, he knew exactly who she was. Now he had nothing but faith in what she could bring to humanity.
Peace.
A world free of demons.
Only because she had done it before.
This was family lore, a secret thousands of generations old.
Though he knew who she was, the rest of the world didn’t. She doubted that they’d care even if they were made aware.
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t here to win popularity votes. She was here to do a job.
“At least, you’re aware. We’ll deal with the aftermath after we get done here,” Damien said. His fractured aura dimmed with worry, as the intellectual blues flared, if only for a second. He’d dig deep. He’d dig as deep as he could, gathering all of the numbers that shaped their world. He’d save her. He needed to.