Chapter 15

Phantom and Jester

Maria clung tightly to Felix’s arm like a cat to a bath, while her deafening screams were drowned out slightly by the wind rushing against them.

As they got closer to the building, Felix readied to pull the pin on his parachute. Maria, on the other hand, hurriedly opened up hers, causing her to launch upward by the wind and leaving her airborne for a little while longer.

Felix had touched down, and his parachute followed. He lifted his goggles and stood in wait while Maria slowly floated toward him, unaware of the mechanical eyes that had watched them floating from above. Cameras zooming in on them as they reached the roof.

He had a wide grin on his face as he helped her down, her eyes were sealed shut with panic.

As soon as she felt the ground beneath her, she looked away with a flustered expression and yelled in a shivering voice, “Shut up!”

“I didn’t even say anything.” Though he did not utter a single word before this, his wide grin gave away all that needed to be said.

She slowly looked at him with teary, flustered eyes.

As she did, she noticed a glint in the distance. She pushed Felix to the ground, “Get down!”

The concrete ground was suddenly riddled with bullets. As the two got back up, Felix saw from the corner of his eye the armed drone floating above them while it prepared to fire once more.

On the ground, he drew out one of his guns and fired, but every round missed the small target and disappeared into the sky. Before Felix could reload, Maria drew out one of her knives and flung it towards the moving target. The knife spun and made a sharp turn midair, and struck the drone right in its center.

“That…” She said, looking to Felix, “…is what it means to be an esper.”

“But I didn’t learn anything.” He responded.

Maria pouted, “Oh.”

“Come on, no time to waste.”

The two agents walked to the door, Felix gestured for Maria to stop where she stood, “Wait, it’s probably boobytrapped.”

Maria snickered in response.

He stood at the side of the door as he reached for the knob while Maria waited beside him.

“Mhm?” Felix jiggled the knob.

“What?”

“It’s, uh, it’s locked. I don’t have anything to pick lock it with. Bring out your grappling hook, let’s look for another entrance.”

“Or break this one down.”

“Oh… right, stand back.”

Felix pulled out the gun from under his coat, but before he could take aim, Maria whispered, “The thing you need to know is that being an enhanced human, an “esper”—”

“Huh?” He glanced over to her to hear what she had to say, but she came rushing toward the metal door.

With a loud bang, the metal door suddenly crashed inward to the building. A cold sweat dripped through Felix’s face as he slowly turned and saw Maria’s leg steadily hanging from her kick.

“—Is that it lets you do things no one else can.” Maria smirked.

“What just—?”

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“No time to waste, right? After you~” She replied with one hand on her chest and the other pointed to the entrance.

“Th-that’s not—We should try this again.”

“Aww, Felix. This isn’t a competition. If it were, then I’ve already won.” Maria answered sweetly, much to his chagrin.

As the two reached the hallway, Felix extended his arm in front of her and said; “It’s possible that they’ve set traps all over the building.”

“I suppose bullets are just gonna fly from all over the corridors?”

“They did earlier, didn’t they?”

She shrugged her arms and suggested, “Alright, so split up to cover more area?”

“Right, be careful. Good luck.” Felix answered as he put on his mask.

“And leave nothing to chance.” She smiled.

They nodded to each other and took different directions. They dashed through the bright, peach hallways with a single bound.

The two agents became nothing more than a dark flicker on the surveillance cameras, all while a figure gazed over them.

Maria traveled through the corridors, where she noticed a silhouette from the other corridor. She quickened her pace, but as she followed the shadows, she found herself at the entrance of the indoor parking lot. The air was damp, and the green lights were hazy.

She brought out her gun in one hand, and her knife in the other, and sought out the shadows that moved in between the wreckage. Yet as she took a step forward, there was a thick, metal noise that caught her attention. As she looked down, fires and shrapnel suddenly burst out right in front of her.

Felix stopped in his tracks as he heard a sound coming from one of the rooms in the hall.

He approached the door as quietly as he could and slowly opened the door.

Immediately he noticed that the scent inside was foul.

It was dark, but there were pale green lights seeping into the room through the window shades.

The black-haired agent looked down and noticed the flowing red fluid that flooded up the floor. As he went further into the room, it did not take long for him to find the source.

On the bed, where the sheets leaked blood, he found three bodies piled up above one another.

He hesitantly came closer towards them to investigate, and saw that they were all riddled with bullets, as he slowly searched their bodies, he noticed something small glinting – it was a pin with a red bird symbol marked with a red ‘x’, hidden in the stains.

Felix put his mask to the side of his head and muttered, “Robins…what happened?”

A loud banging suddenly came from the white, wooden wardrobe from the corner of the room, Felix brought out his white gun and aimed it.

He was ready for battle, but a sense of dread made him feel uneasy as he approached the wardrobe. As he took a step forward, he felt a crunch underneath his foot.

He then lowered his nervous gaze and saw a crushed syringe near his foot. A drop of sweat had formed on his face and slid down his cheek.

The broken syringe gave him visions of a golden fire that burned through every other one of his thoughts. He shook his head as he saw Professor Tetsuya’s desperate expression, and a child with golden hair reaching out to him.

“Not now.” He muttered in a frustrated voice.

A man burst out from the wardrobe and tackled him to the ground.

“What—?! Get off of me!” Felix yelled out in a panic.

The man’s face got up and close to the Elite Agent’s, with wide red eyes and dark bags underneath.

He growled and kept Felix pinned to the ground while a putrid string of saliva flowed out of his mouth, dripping against Felix’s cheek.

In panic, Felix smashed his forehead against the man’s jaw.

As the man moved back and clutched his mouth, Felix grabbed his arms and threw the man over the bed and slammed over the corpses stacked over it.

“Eww…” He quickly wiped off his cheek in disgust.

The man growled, foaming in the mouth, and rushed back at him. But Felix quickly grabbed his white gun and shot him, stunning the man in place.

“Who are you? Were you the one who did this?” Felix huffed out as he quickly got back up.

“M-more… give— give me m-more!” The man growled out as he pushed through and pounced back at him. “MORITZ!”

Felix instinctively pulled out his black gun, and with a big bright burst, the man was slammed against the wall, while the recoil threw him back against the other wall. The powerful impact caused the lightbulb to flicker and buzz.

“Tsk.” He clicked his tongue, still unnerved by the sudden assault. “Bollocks.”

Felix got up and he calmed his breathing before approaching the man’s body. He placed his hand on the man’s neck.

“Good, he’s not dead just yet… hopefully I could still get a few answers from him.” He sighed in relief, despite the man already bleeding out from his shoulder.

Felix put on his mask and slapped the man’s face. “Wake up.”

“G-guh…” The man mumbled out.

The agent knelt down to his level, his featureless white mask staring into him. “Who did this to you? What happened?”

The man’s face contorted with deranged anger and shouted, “M-MORITZ!”

He grabbed Felix by the throat, but the agent stared at him with cold blue eyes and placed his black gun, Misery, against the man’s forehead. A pink and red mist then splattered on the wall.

Felix holstered his gun, noticing the slight tremble in his hand. He clenched it tightly into a fist, forcing the shaking to stop as he stood up.

He glanced back to the three other corpses in the room. He moved to the door and flipped the light switch so that he could investigate.

Clink.

A sharp metallic sound echoed.

His eyes widened as the wall sizzled.

In half a second, the wires inside lit up, and he instinctively leap out the door — Before boom.

~