The man before them stood taller than the both of them, dressed in a brown vest, an elegant top hat, and a small bag strapped to his belt. With a wide grin, he asked “Why are you in a boring old server room when there’s a festival outside?”

Felix aimed his pistol at the unknown figure, “Who are you?”

In spite of his reaction, it was clear to the both of them that man in front of them was significantly more dangerous than the guards they faced before.

“I apologize for my rudeness, please allow me to introduce myself, I am one of the guards here you see.” He took off his top hat, revealing his brown hair as he bowed.

“Don’t lie to us.” The blue-eyed agent sharply remarked.

The blood-covered man put his top hat back on, responding, “Well, I can’t tell you that, but please refer to me as Harbinger. I was employed recently here in order. Pleased to make your—” A knife brushed against the side of his head before he could finish speaking.

“What kind of guard kills his own men?” Maria clicked her tongue. Her palm steadily descended back to the onyx table. Her happy-go-lucky demeanor turned cold and frigid.

Harbinger nervously laughed and continued to feign ignorance, “My, please enlighten me, whatever could you—?”

Before he could finish talking, a gunshot sent him slamming towards the door.

Felix blew out the wisp of smoke flowing out of pistol, his glowing blue-eye radiating through the darkness, his body silhouetted against the moonlight.

As he lowered his gun, the table beeped with a high-pitched sound.

“Looks like our download is complete.” Maria perked up, grabbing the drive.

“Harbinger, he said…”

She tilted her head in curiosity, “Oh, how foreboding. What about it?”

“I recognize that name codename… He worked for the agency. Rank twenty-seventh, a veteran who went MIA months—”

Maria pushed Felix to the side, a knife spinning between them.

As it struck the window wall, a soft cackle followed. The man Felix had just shot got back on his feet, “I see my reputation precedes me.”

“You’re still alive?” Maria looked at the knife stuck to the window. It was the same one she threw at him earlier.

“You both are from the agency, aren’t you? Have bullet-proof vests stopped being standard issue?” Harbinger scoffed, brushing off his brown vest as if nothing happened.

“He must be the agent that the Robin told us about.” Maria pulled out her knife from the cracked window, putting it behind her.

Felix aimed his gun once more and began firing, only for the man in the top hat to hop away, dodging his every shot.

“How rude. From what I gather, you and I are on the same mission, so perhaps we could strike up a trade?” Harbinger suggested, lifting up his hands to the air.

Felix reloaded, his mismatched eyes never leaving his target, “And what would that be?”

“If you please give me a copy of the information, all parties will be able to go on their merry way.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a drive on you?” Maria asked as she showed him the large metal flash drive.

“I do… but after dealing with the guards…” Harbinger replied as he pulled out a broken flash drive from his vest pocket.

“That sucks. We gathered the data, but only have one drive.” Maria put the flash drive in her back pocket.

“True, but I can’t come back empty-handed.”

Felix raised his eyebrow and stated, “Yeah, how about you get your own and not bother us?”

“Hmm…” Harbinger put his hand on his chin, “Would you please be so kind as to tell me your codenames?”

“What for?” Maria asked sharply.

“Codenames let the other party know what they’re dealing with. It’s part of the treaty to let an unwilling party go unharmed.” Felix elaborated while Maria readied herself for combat.

She turned to him and replied, “I’m surprised you know this.”

He glanced over to her, “I’m surprised you don’t.”

“Please forgive me, but I’m going to need that drive.” Harbinger explained as he drew his gun.

With two daggers in her hands, Maria took her stance, her fangs in full view.

“Harbinger, engaging.”

“Venom Vanguard…” She hooked the table’s leg with her foot, then kicked the table towards Harbinger, “Engaging!”

A glassy onyx wall made it’s way towards Harbinger, but he swiftly jumped over the airborne obstacle with his gun ready. But before he could even plant his feet, she closed the space between them in a single beat.

The edges of her steel blades clashed against his gun before he could even aim, and he was forced to use it to parry each of her explosive blows.

As their weapons clashed, her unnatural strength quickly overpowered him, to the point where he found himself struggling to keep her daggers away from his chest.

Unable to aim, he kicked Maria’s diaphragm, and hopped away to a safe distance.

“Venom Vanguard… The serpent who kills with a single cut, with blades laced with neurotoxins that could kill an elephant in minutes.”

“Are those the rumors going around?” The dark-haired woman hissed at him while rubbing the lower part of her chest.

“Quite. I have to say, disabling someone’s motor functions is quite a scary gimmick for a little girl.”

Maria got back up and threw another knife towards him, “So you know who I am, yet you’re not backing down?”

Harbinger shifted his body and effortlessly avoided the attack. In response, he raised his gun at her, but before he could fire, a bullet struck him in the chest, which slammed him against one of the pillars.

“Right… forgot about the other one.” He huffed as he got back up, quickly moving away as two more bullets shot at him.

“And what about you, boy… whoa!” Harbinger spoke to the darkness while avoiding the shards of lead aimed at his head, “May I please ask for your code name?”

“…Ch-Child of Stars.” Hidden behind the server, Felix accidentally let his first thought slip out of his lips.

“Child of…? That sounds oddly familiar.” He responded as the Venom Vanguard leapt at him. The two danced with gun and blade while they attacked each other with words.

“It’s rather odd for an Elite Agent to prefer fighting in close quarters.” He remarked.

“It’s odd for an Elite Agent to be mouthing off the way you do, and yet here we are!”

Felix continued to attack from the darkness, behind the countless blinking lights of the data servers. But Harbinger simply dodged the bullets coming his way, “My, my, you sure lack presence. If it weren’t for your glowing eye, I’d have taken you for a ghost.”

Though Felix fancied the shadows, his glowing eye betrayed him as its light reflected on the glassy surfaces of the servers, letting Harbinger pinpoint his location.

He continued to fire at Harbinger from behind one of the servers, supporting from a distance while Maria acted as the vanguard.

But as the two clashed once more, Harbinger parried her knife, then raised his leg. Maria, who was not gonna fall for the same counter twice, raised her guard and steeled her body. But Harbinger grinned, finally able to push back against her, he aimed his gun and fired.

Cracks formed in the knife.

Maria’s hands trembled as she tightened her grip on the knife’s hilt. The impact radiated through her veins as she just barely blocked the bullet with her knife.

Harbinger then glanced over towards Felix’s reflection and fired his direction, too.

In a panic, Felix ran behind another server as Harbinger unloaded the rest of his shots, “Does he ever run out of bullets? Wait… does Marie ever run out of knives?” Before he could ponder either question, one of Harbinger’s shots struck him in the shoulder.

Though the projectile did not tear through his black cloak, the impact felt like his bones shattered like glass, “ARGH! Bollocks!”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Felix let out a feral growl and kicked the server with immense force, flinging it towards his enemy.

Harbinger was startled by his enemy’s inhuman strength, but as it black pillar hurtled through the air, he simply ducked beneath it, barely breaking a sweat.

It crashed into the other servers, toppling them down like mechanical dominoes.

“The Child of Stars…” Harbinger made a curious stare as he dropped his gun and pulled out another one from his thigh.

But as those questioning words escaped his mouth, another blade sliced through the air and left behind a thin trail of light. The knife grazed his cheek, and a stinging pain started to radiate across his face.

Blood lust leaked out of Harbinger as he rained down lead in response, angrily firing one round after another in quick succession, breaking apart every server.

But Maria moved as quickly as he aimed, leaping above one server after the next.

Felix felt a strain in his arm, the bandage that was wrapped around it began to feel warm. He took a step forward, lifting his arm once more.

But before he could return to the battle, his body froze as his eyes followed a grenade that came in his way.

Yet before it could fall, he heard the sound of an unwinding cord, and watched as it was caught in the claw of a grappling hook.

With the bomb in her grappling hook, Maria improvised a weapon that slithered perfectly to her will.

The explosive whipped up and down, left and right, leaving no room for Harbinger to go into the offensive. He was cautious of both Maria’s bomb whip, and of Felix, who had resumed shooting from the rear.

He was left to defend himself and bide his time, waiting as his wounds accumulated. He only needed a few seconds.

With a grin on his face as the explosive began to beep, he grabbed the cord on Maria’s grappling hook and threw the explosive back at her.

— Click.

Her eyes widened in response, and in a moment that lasted less than a second, the grappling hook made an unnaturally sharp turn towards the floor, “Get down!” She yelled.

The explosive let out a deafening boom, and a cacophony of crumbling followed.

All three agents were thrown back by the fiery burst.

Debris rained down above them as the ceiling snapped. Thousands of black glass shards clattered on the ground. The powerful blast left a dark crater on the ground, which quickly collapsed into a large hole.

The window walls around them had cracked, and let the frigid air slowly seep out with a silent whistle.

The tremors from above caught the attention of the guards below, narrowing down their search.

Dizzy and lightheaded, Felix opened his eyes and felt a stream of red liquid flowing out of his forehead, “…I hope this counts as minimum damage.”

But as he tried to drag himself up, he found himself unable to move. His arm buried under the rubble of the ceiling. He struggled to lift the debris with only one arm. Memories flashed in his mind of a similar event. A clear memory of his own mangled leg, buried underneath a fragment of a concrete wall.

He grit his teeth and angrily pushed the rubble away. But his eyes widened as he heard his enemy groaning a few feet away.

Harbinger slowly got up, pain visibly radiating from his movement. His top hat was on the floor, showing his disheveled brown hair.

Panic began to set in as he watched Harbinger pull out a magazine and reload his gun.

Felix used every ounce of strength he could muster. His veins started to glow, and a numbing electricity crackled out of his fingertips, letting him get rid of the rubble.

But as he did, his face turned pale as he saw his arm, tangled in a web of wires, while a shard of glass from the metal server protruding through his flesh.

Unable to move, he searched frantically for something he could use, and saw his pistol lying a few feet away from him.

But while he could barely reach the tip of his gun, Harbinger had already aimed his own at him. Felix closed his eyes, then Harbinger fired — with a loud bang, a splatter could be heard spilling across the ground.

He opened his mismatched eyes to see the silhouette standing right in front of him.

“I’m pretty sure… you’re the one supposed to be protecting me… Felix…” Maria muttered softly. Her blood sliding across her smirk.

“M-Marie…” Felix cracked out a whimper as her blood dripped over his face.

As she fell beside him, his ears began to ring.

Harbinger walked towards the two of them and took the drive from Maria’s back pocket, calmly placing it in his vest.

Marie?

Marie, come on… get up.

You’re okay right? Stop kidding around… Come on…

You’re a little too heavy, you know that?

Get up… come on, get up. Marie…

The brown-haired man looked at the two with a curious expression, “Felix? Felix Aster? So then… you must be the ‘Black Cat of Ruin.’”

As he walked towards them, Felix started panting as his body began to boil from within, “I’ll kill you!”

“Oh, please. You’ve been doing a terrible job at that.” Harbinger scoffed.

Felix snapped the broken glass that was protruding from his arm, using it to cut off most of the wires that bound him to the floor. He sliced through his black sleeve, causing his arm to gash open.

With a vicious growl, his skin and flesh pulled apart just to strike Harbinger’s face.

Harbinger’s knees buckled. His face ached as a red stream started pouring out of his nose. But he looked back at the young agent and grinned, “Was that supposed to be a punch? Please.”

He struck back, causing Felix to bounce off the ground.

“No hard feelings, but no loose ends. Please forgive me.” Harbinger cocked his gun and slowly pointed at the groveling young man, who was facing down on the ground.

But as he was about to pull the trigger, Felix leapt forward and kicked his hand upward, causing him to fire toward the ceiling.

“What the hell?!” Taken by surprise, Harbinger clutched his throbbing arm and looked back at him.

Felix lowered to the floor and stood on all fours, a stance reminiscent of a wounded animal, with a limb rendered useless.

He shot the disheveled man a feral glare, like a predator focusing on its prey, taking one small step at a time.

“Is this why you’re called the Black Cat?” Harbinger shouted, his voice cracking with rage.

The blue-eyed agent began bouncing around the room, jumping above one server to another. Left, right, left right, leaving cracks on the black glass, closing the space between them.

A vein popped in the older man’s forehead as he grew increasingly irritated.

But when the blue-eyed agent finally lunged at him, Harbinger aimed exactly where he would be, expecting it, and immediately fired straight at his forehead. A blue flare burst from Felix’s face, shooting his body towards one of the black pillars.

As he crashed, Harbinger lowered his gun and let out an exhausted exhale. He ran his fingers across his disheveled hair, trying to compose himself.

Blood poured from Felix’s face as he let out a weak cough.

“Still alive? Time to put this kitty down for good.” The brown-haired man pointed his gun one more time. As he pulled the trigger, however, there was nothing but a hollow click. He had run out of bullets.

Felix’s eyes opened slowly, as if he had just woken up. Disoriented, his vision struggled to focus. A chunk of his cheek had been blown off, leaving a gaping bleeding hole across his face.

“Tsk…” Harbinger grabbed the blue-eyed agent by the throat and slammed him against the wall, “This is the strength of an enhanced human? This is supposed to be the pinnacle of human strength? What makes enhanced humans so special?! What makes you so special?!”

Felix looked up, revealing the bullet that he caught in his bloodstained teeth and spat it at his face.

An enraged grin formed on the man’s face as the shard of lead struck his cheek.

Harbinger squeezed his neck tighter, asking, “Please, explain to me how a novice like you, the poster boy of Project ASTRAEA, reached rank thirteen?!” Frustration bleeding through his words.

With only one useful arm, the blue-eyed agent grappled against the hand choking him. His face swelled as he struggled.

My rank? What does that have to do with any of this?

Sweat dripped over his mismatched eyes, blurring his vision. He could barely make out Harbinger’s expression. With barely any air getting into his lungs and brain, Felix’s consciousness was quickly fading into black.

But before he could pass out, he faintly heard Harbinger’s ridicule, “Who would have thought… that Nocturne’s little brother… would turn out to be so pathetic?!”

As he uttered those words, small, ephemeral blue sparks erupted from the wound on Felix’s other arm.

He’s right, I’ve done nothing to earn my place… It's probably nothing more than the whims and expectations of the higher-ups.

But who cares?

I’m here anyway, so I’m going to honor something.

I will rise higher—

And you’re in the way!

A sharp slash whipped against the wind, followed by a dull wet thud on the ground.

Felix’s arm was raised upward, set ablaze with a fiery blue haze pouring out from his wound.

Harbinger’s eyes slowly descended to where the sound came from, where he saw something familiar wrapped in a sleeve, leaking with blood.

“Huh?” His voice cracked as he realized his arm had been cleanly taken off.

When Felix’s feet touched the ground, he took in a crude inhale and supported himself against the wall that he was choked against.

Harbinger’s glanced back at his opponent, and in a rage, he struck with his remaining arm. But the black-haired agent caught the attack with ease.

Stood in front of him was the same agent, with the same raven-black hair, and the same blistering wound on his face. But now, he was bathed in a blue glow that outlined his body.

Azure sparks glistened around the child of stars, and wiry strings of electricity started to form from his wounds, weaving and sewing his cheek back together, reforming his missing flesh.

Harbinger tried to pull back his arm, but the tight grip on it would not move an inch. His brows curled angrily, frightened and enraged.

With a loud, desperate cry, the man swung his foot with a powerful kick, striking Felix dead in the face.

The grip around his arm loosened, and he was able to back away.

But the ephemeral sparks spiraled, forming waves of blue flames that danced into a spherical shape — it was as if a star formed around his body.

Unable to make sense of what was going on, Harbinger’s mouth trembled at the sight of the burning blue dome, “Wh-what?!”

But the crystalline structure in front of him was incomplete, having gaps where the flames did not shine through, sections that were thin and transparent.

From one of the gaps, Felix gazed at Harbinger with eyes full of fury.

Harbinger’s instincts screamed for him to run, but his body was a few seconds too late to respond. He was only able to turn around and take half a step forward.

Then, the blue star burst —

Particles of blue light scattered, illuminating the entirety of the server room. The silent shock wave sent Harbinger slamming through several servers.

With slow aching steps that lifted up the rubble around him, Felix approached the man with a fierce glare. The blue haze that enveloped his body was dispersing and fading away.

Once again disheveled, Harbinger tilted his head up. Standing before him was the man he had taunted, wrapped in cold, silent rage.

“P-please… spare me…” Lying atop the broken black pillars, he pleaded, “I’m just doing what they told me to...”

“By who? Who ordered you to do this? What are they after? Why did you disappear from the agency?” He grabbed the old man by the collar and shot out a flurry of questions.

“He took everything… He said he’d give her back… He said he’d give her back if I did what he told me to…”

“Who is he?!”

“Julius…”

“Julius who? His full name, from where, what does he look like?” His grip tightened.

“He has blond hair… wears a suit… and hides his eyes… I don’t know anything else.” He mumbled in a barely audible voice.

“Give who back?”

“Her… her, her! HER! HER! HER! GRAAAAGH!” Felix let go as Harbinger began to violently convulse, “…I can’t… even remember her face…” The broken man sniffled.

“I see.” Slightly disturbed, Felix picked up his gun and sneered, “If that’s all you can offer me…”

“Please… d-don’t kill me…”

“No hard feelings, but no loose ends.” Felix echoed.

But as he reloaded his gun, Harbinger cackled, “I remember…”

“Huh?”

“Julius, I see it now…” He looked up at Felix with tears in his eyes, reflecting the glowing aura that he emitted, “...that power… that… “Star.” It’s you… you’re the one he’s afraid of, Felix Aster!”

Blood splattered out of Harbinger’s mouth as he laughed out maniacally and fell to the ground.

Felix stepped back in disgust and shock at the sight of the broken man.

“Please… don’t kill me…”

His hand trembled as he aimed his gun at the man’s head, but before he could pull the trigger, a memory intruded in his head. One with a soft smile, and a warm ember glow. The words echoed in his ears, “You’re a good, kind person, aren’t you?”

The blue haze that enveloped him dispersed, and his smile faded along with it. He looked to the side and clicked his tongue.

“You’re an Elite Agent… have some pride, damn it.” With a disappointed sigh, he fell to the floor and glared at him with pitying eyes.

Harbinger let out a soft chuckle and closed his eyes, turning completely silent.

~