POV Huntress

We had emergency, fire to be extinguish. Ghost attacked one of us. Maybe not attacked. Tried to get info about magic by insidious means. I informed other Devas. We had special procedure if one of us were attacked. Then, I and girls called awoken supporters and said, that they should hide as there was danger we were working with. Some, asked about holes in memory, told us, that they had some lately.

I hated that kind of situations. Ghost, according to Smoke was kind of prankster. That was not true. If Smoke didn’t have minor defensive ability great pointed attention we could be in deep troubles. I waited for Devas to come. We would divide into teams with person with sensory radar ability in each and would try to catch Ghost, if he didn’t left War-Saw. He needed to learn, that capital was off limits for him.

I was waiting in headquarters. Some Devas came already. Others, who could came were on the way. Ghost wrote to Lily on internet communicator. He wanted to talk, by phone. He got my number.

-= Hello, here is Ghost. – He said, when I picked call. He was on speaker.

-= Here is Huntress. – I said. - I will talk in name of Unlimited Devas. Why do you call us?

-= Yeah, you know, I call to kind of apologize.

-= What?

-= Yeah. I exaggerated a little. Curiosity took over me, how they say. Adrenaline and curiosity, those things. So I apologize for my improper acts. Sorry.

-= You’re joking right?

-= No?

-= You already used your ability on many people that support Devas! You even attacked one of us! Do you think, that saying sorry would be enough? Who do you think you are?

-= I hoped it would work.

-= I can’t stand you! I give phone to my assistant Mercy, because I need moment to calm down.

I showed Mercy mark to talk. We did similar games in Devas public relations. Maybe not exactly the same, but there were cases, that when someone put some project on brink of collapse because of his or her irresponsibility, one of us became offended, and second helped put things together in secret. Not real secret. That way we could give second chances without explicitly showing, that we did.

-= Hello, here’s Mercy.

-= Hello. Is Huntress ok?

-= No, she’s not.

-= Sorry.

Moment of silence.

-= It’s nice, that you apologized, you know. – Said Mercy.

-= Thank you.

-= But it’s not enough for Huntress, you know.

-= Yeah, I exaggerated. That was stupid.

-= Yeah.

-= I know. What will happen now?

-= I’m not sure, I should tell you.

-= You can. I’m really openminded now and I want to atone a little. Really.

-= Ok, but you won’t tell Huntress, that I told you. She is kind of strict, but just.

-= I won’t. Tell me please.

-= We will hunt you down, unfortunately.

-= What?

-= I know, you seem so gentle person. You just let your emotions get better of you. I know how it works.

-= Are you going to hunt me down?

-= Yeah. We already have teams with Devas, that can trace you with special ability. I hope you will run in time.

-= How many?

-= How many what?

-= How many tracers you have?

-= I can’t tell you that. But I wish you luck.

Moment of silence.

-= Seems Huntress is coming back. I think, I should hung out.

-= Wait, wait.

-= What is it?

-= Couldn’t we make it up? Make some deal or something?

-= I don’t believe Huntress would have a deal. She is angry and feels insecure.

I was showing Mercy signs during talk.

-= It will be deal about security too.

-= Oh, continue.

-= I can trade my ability for two of yours.

-= You have [Will resonance] ability. Is that right?

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-= Yes.

-= Is it major or minor?

-= Major.

-= Please wait a minute.

We had short conversation among five people. We really wanted to have his ability.

-= Ok. – Mercy went back to talk. – We are interested. Huntress is angry and not really agreed, but rest of us is interested, we could outvote her.

-= If we make deal, you won’t hunt me.

-= Yes. There probably will be period of probation, when you will have ban on living in War-Saw and nearby area, but we won’t be hostile.

-= Ok. I can live out of War-Saw.

-= Nice. Please wait another moment.

We looked through our options. I didn’t want to give him sensory radar ability, as he could became problematic with it. Catching him would became very hard. No others [Will resonance] abilities. Also friction control could synergize with his ability potentially, so it was out.

-= Sorry for the waiting. – Said Mercy. – There was discussion, what two abilities we could provide you. You can choose from four major abilities from [Flow bending] or freezing from minor.

Mercy went through details about abilities. Ghost said, that he saw some of them. Still, things needed to be explained, like only one between sonic boom and wind sphere could be chosen. Schedule of learning meeting. Mercy was gentle speaker. One thing they established, was that I shouldn’t come to that meeting. I smiled. It was cheap price for big deal.

Things went mostly smooth from there. One bump was, when others came and En wanted to show to his secret group of magic users Ghost as potential threat. He wanted put them somewhere and watch Ghost alive through binoculars. I almost smashed him on his head. That was risky and stupid. He tried to discuss that, but I told him, that he should thing for himself is he part of Unlimited Devas or servant of those magic users. That cooled him. But someone needed to point elephant in the room. He said, that he would explain himself in less than three weeks. Still, he didn’t push topic more.

Point was, that after he lost his leader mantle and I took it, some of us felt disappointed. We suspected, that he had his reasons, but we also had our reasons to feel disappointed. I wasn’t most diplomatic, but we didn’t have some meetings as earlier, when Unlimited Devas talked in pub or restaurant privately and could solve that kind of problems.

POV Mercy

I learned to have fun talking with people. Maybe I had it from long time, but talked mostly with my sister, so I felt it, but thought, that it was from different reasons. This guy, Ghost, became our glad customer. Public relations were the best.

After that we went for meeting. Ghost pushed it to be done immediately. En, Sith and me with two of our most trusted Devas supporters went there. Those two would become our training partners for [Will resonance] ability. They weren’t magic users.

Ghost was waiting on us in some warehouse. There was no cameras in it. We started with teaching him lightning. En, did that. Sith helped also. It took about two hours, but he was able to learn it. Then he showed us short memory loss ability. It was really something. He could influence person, talk with him and then walk away. That person wouldn’t remember after a moment. It was as if you had dream, which you knew you had, but couldn’t remember what it was about. Worse, it wasn’t dream. It worked shortly, only for few minutes, but it was more than enough to do many things. Stole, threaten, blackmail and got away with it. If it could be used together with irresistible suggestion, it would be psyche destroyer. For normal people, as we had means to defend, but I felt it was overpowered.

We showed him, Sith showed, sonic boom. It took him lot of time to get that one. He wasn’t one relying on his physical strength. We were doing our training in the same time. Sith got short memory loss ability first, then En, then me. It took us about four hours. Ghost needed about one and half more to get sonic boom. We didn’t took ours bio-stones with us, but reactions of training partners told us, we were successful. I had suspicions, that bio-stone of Ghost was close. We didn’t act hostile against him though. I could even tell, that seven hours of training made as into some kind of half-friends. He seemed like one that didn’t have long talk in days.

At the end I asked him, what plans he had. He wanted to go here and there. He even invited me for some trip. I couldn’t because I had responsibilities in War-Saw. According to deal he shouldn’t stay in War-Saw in following months.

It was strange meeting for me. Guy seemed to be closer to normal person I knew from Devas and I knew it was illusion. He was living nomadic life with theft and probably lots of violence. Yet, he didn’t lost that naivety, that people lose, when they were starting to work for themselves. Devas, our organization, he didn’t care. Well, he cared if we wanted to hunt him, but otherwise, he wasn’t interested.

I was wondering, if I should tell him, that with bio-stone’s growth came troubles. We could probably become enemies in future. I wanted, but I couldn’t. I thought to myself, that I couldn’t because it would be weight in his travels, but in fact, or mostly it was because I didn’t want to start hostility between us. It was more comfortable to leave that matter to the future. More comfortable for me.

We said our goodbyes and I went back to my daily living. I was stable, had steady job and was important. Sometimes I felt, that it would be good to travel, to go for some journey, but I had responsibilities and moment wasn’t perfect. I waited for better moment. One can only be in one place, so I chose, what I seemed as best. Dreams, that I would have tome for travel, helped me to have no regrets.

POV Main

Huntress was right. I should decide, if I choose Unlimited Devas or misfits. If I would choose misfits, I should leave Unlimited Devas and stay in Associated, if they would allow me to. If I would choose Unlimited Devas, I should let misfits live with their own way. Or else in the end I would wrong both of them. I wanted to wait some time. Already fractures started to show themselves. I considered, what was going on. I wanted to stay at least until, I would get level four. Dee said, that it wasn’t so far from me. I would consider using freezers to slow Dee’s growth, if not for threat of Diana.

After Ghost taught us short memory loss, Dee showed later, that it was second from major offensive abilities from [Will resonance] and for god’s sake last of major offensive. Already looked, that we could manipulate normal people quite strongly. If there was more, I would feel really bad.

Because I felt, that I neglected responsibilities in Unlimited Devas, I stayed in War-Saw longer. I tried to glue those fractures, but it wasn’t so easy. In time, I stayed with misfits or even before, they started to do things without me. I wasn’t so needed anymore. I was teacher of short memory loss, but beyond that, they didn’t need so much help from me.

Luckily Sith wanted my help with mixtures. We spent some time theorizing. He produced berserker mixture by adding hare in diet to his bio-stone. It was possible, that if bio-stone, that produced heart medicine would have diet with poisonous or venomous animals in it in large quantities, it could produce berserker mixture too. That left us with question, what would happened, if bio-stone with poison medicine was fed with different poisons and venoms. Would it produce health eroding mixture? More, did we need that mixture in our arsenal of mixtures? That was for Sith to decide.

I told Sith, that bad times for hosts would come. I felt, that for some secret reason, bio-stones would at least try to make us fight. I had many dark thoughts. Worse was enemy of bad. Sith said, that I was looking from too idealistic perspective. That I lost part of touch with reality. I asked him, why he thought so. He told me, that I before would ask, what benefits would bio-stones provide for us to encourage infighting or how could they pressure us to fight. That were right questions, because I could work on counter measures then. If I already assumed, that we would fight, I did nothing to stop it. It struck me, how much true was in those words.

I lost myself somewhere there. I was off balance. I didn’t think straight. Now, when I saw that, I would try to get into myself. Into my better self. My better self could be cruel to myself. That way I could see things more clearly. I was, what I was, with bad sides and good sides. If bad things would come, I would prepare and use all my sides against them. If I would lose, so be it. Till that moment I shouldn’t consider, that I lost battle. Just prepare.