25: HONEST EVILS
//
4:14 P.M. // 10 - 25 - 2023 // Saint Hospital
Featuring Parker, ??? and Gwen Olynn
//
The boss’s voice breathed into Parker’s ear. “Echo, status check.”
The woman in front of him squeezed her hands tightly. He could see sweat present on her neck. “Mr. Fasad? Were you saying something?”
Parker shook his head and adjusted the mask on his face up; he could breathe too much, his mask was too far down. “Mrs. Samson. How frequently do you hear these voices?”
An uncomfortable look spread across her face. “It’s… it’s as if it’s always questioning me.”
“You’ve said that it speaks in your own voice?” Parker coldly watched her every movement, from the twitch at the corner of her lip to the quick blinks. “Tell me. What questions, exactly?”
Her fingers rose, fell, and then squeezed again, and her lips tightened. “Ah, yes. There’s not a whole lot, but the more times it says it, the more times… I…”
“Please get to the point, Mrs. Samson.”
She hesitantly nodded her head. “These are the words exactly. I’ve heard it enough times to memorize it by heart.” A breath in. And a heavy exhale out.
“What if no one wants to visit me anymore?”
“Would anyone notice if I left or if I died?”
“What if I’m just a nuisance to them?”
“Where would I even go after this?”
“What if no one cares about me?”
“What if I wasn’t sick anymore?”
“What if they forgot about me?”
“What if I wasn’t even here?”
“Who—”
Parker interrupted with a subtle note of disgust. “I understand, Mrs. Samson.” Under his breath, he muttered something.
Mrs. Samson’s gaze on him was dull, but she attempted interest. “Did you say something, Mr. Fasad?”
“No, I didn’t.” A cold jolt of mana brushed the back of his neck, and he stood up abruptly. “That will be it for my visit today.” Parker lifted up the clipboard, pushing the unused pen back under the clip.
He wordlessly paced over to the door, but before he left, he called back to her in a low tone, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Samson. It will all be over soon.”
Not caring for an answer Parker promptly closed the door behind him.
“Echo, can you confirm that she is an Anxiety incubate?”
Parker didn’t reply immediately. His brooding stare was locked onto the door he had just closed. “Echo. It’s a yes or no question. Don’t make this difficult.”
His sigh was brief as he turned to walk to the elevator. “I can confirm it. The incubate displays all the normal paranoia of an Anxiety infectant. I estimate that the hatching will begin in at most one month.”
“We’ll see about that, Mr. Fasad.” she said back, her tone mocking but still in lied nothing but her true message. He slightly frowned and pushed the down button.
“Please. You told me to choose a disguise name ‘like a facade’. I’m only following your orders, mom.” Parker dared to hiss.
She stayed quiet.
The elevator door opened with a pleasant ding and revealed a girl. He eased the muscles on his face and tugged on his mask again as they crossed each other.
As the door was closing, the girl turned to make eye contact. “Good afternoon, sir.”
Closed.
“Consider it my final warning, kid. Don’t. Call. Me. That. If you think I favor you over the others, don’t push your luck.” Her voice was furiously and dangerously silent. Other than the humming noise of the elevator going down, Parker could hear nothing.
He held back a remark and responded shortly.
“Copy that, boss.”
“Then a good pet, and come back to base.”
He glared at the door.
“Copy.”
//
5:14 P.M. // 10 - 25 - 2023 // Arc - Hospital
Starring Dean Harvest
Featuring Avil Daniase and Junseo Park
//
Avil was breathing harshly on the bed. His eyes were unfocused, and he was sweaty. The grip he had on the blankets made his hands red from the exertion. “Dean.”
“Y-yeah?” I was a little scared of him and what was going on. Whatever was happening I couldn’t understand at all. “Do you need something? I-I can get you water—”
I was cut off. “No.” His face was frighteningly pale, he looked almost like a banshee, his voice shook under a falsely secure smile to me. “No, where did Ced say he was going?”
My eyebrows knit together. “To find Gwen. Didn’t you hear him?”
He made no attempt to answer me and only slumped back into the bed. His grip partially loosened, and his finger tapped twice onto the crumpled blankets. Avil said slowly, “Dean. Leave now.”
“Sorry?”
“Get out!” He bursted out in sudden anger. As I flinched something fell onto the ground behind me with a grunting noise, their shoulder landing by my foot and pushed through the curtain. The same someone groaned and then stifled their breath. I turned, baffled by the intrusion, a silhouette of them was barely visible.
“Who’s this?” The words left my mouth before my conflicted mind could fully grasp the situation. Avil’s eyes were no longer so clouded but rather dangerously pointed onto the figure on the floor who was quickly getting up in an awkwardly jittery way.
Avil growled, “I don’t care whoever the f*** you are,” the etchings of exhaustion against his loathing face sprang the urge in me to get out of the way. “I’ll f****** kill you if you’ve been eavesdropping the whole time.”
I promptly took two steps to the side, but he wasn’t paying attention to me at all, rather at the tall figure behind the curtains. Glancing around the corner, my first impression of the person was a very attractive guy who had a look of guilt and fear on his face. He looked to be Korean, standing around my height or a bit taller but not as much as Ced was by barely an inch or two. What caught me the most off guard was his stylish pink hair, the roots of which were a dusk black color. They were clearly dyed, but still were completely natural on him.
And then he noticed me.
I pulled back for a moment and blinked. I recognized him.
That was Jun from homeroom.
“Dean.” I definitely recognized his voice. “I swear it’s because you guys were making a scene. H-honestly I still don’t know what just happened.”
No one said a word, not until Avil finally muttered loud enough for just me to hear, “God f****** dammit.”
“Sorry?”
“I said f*** this bulls***!” His hands were trembling just the same as every sound that escaped his mouth. I could see his eyes watering as he wiped his face twice with his arm, and he sniffled loudly.
Avil was on the verge of crying.
I averted my eyes.
The room was so suffocating.
If only I had an answer.
“I-I’m… going to g-go now.”
“D-Dean! Don’t—wait…”
The sniffling was stuck in my head even as I pushed the door behind me. One of the Arc doctors spotted me walking out and approached me, I pushed the slightly peeled visitor name tag sticker against my shirt. To my surprise, she didn’t say anything to me, and just went inside.
A thought passed through my head.
I could leave now.
…
I… should. But…
My mind drifted back to Avil’s red fingers. To Cedrance’s horrified face.
And I couldn’t get them out of my head.
…
There wasn’t any reason for me to do anything.
So why did I open my watch?
Why did I contacts?
Why did I press the one called Nightingale?
…
“So you’ve finally reached out, Dean Harvest. Have you changed your mind yet?”
My mouth opened to say something, but then I paused. Why did I…?
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“Take your time. I can wait all day.”
“I-I,” courage rose in my chest, “I need your guild’s help. Please, help me.”
Parker took a moment to digest what I said. “Well, you know nothing happens for free.”
“Yes. I know that.”
A short silence.
“Tell me, does joining the Nightingales sound like a good trade to you?”
I tried my best at a scoff. “Y-you know that it’s ille-legal to contract minors?”
He chuckled, “Aren’t I a minor? Don’t worry, it’s just an honorary position for now. You will get your place when the time comes. And if you’re worried about money, don’t be. We pay our agents fairly and generously. For example, how does starting with $400,000 yearly and a minimum of $40,000 per mission sound to you? We’re willing to negotiate further details, of course.”
Immediately an unsettling feeling of distrust built in my chest, his words hitting the stone wall that was Dean in my mind. I, too, has the same suspicions. Though I knew nothing about money in this world, nor even from the world I had been stolen from, there was something odd about this deal. Why me?
A conflict arose in my head.
I wasn’t anybody special. Still unawakened, no people skills, average grades, atrocious fighting skills, and I had no friends to speak of. So why me?
“But don’t worry. I did say we were generous, so consider this a favor.” A note of disappointment was evident in his bored voice, and yet a feeling of shock stirred. “So, Dean. What do you need from Nightingale?”
I froze. Skepticism was all about.
But still, the urge to do good was stronger than any rationale.
I told him without stuttering.
//
5:20 P.M. // 10 - 25 - 2023 // Wings of Justice Hideout
Featuring Parker, Gwen Olynn and Cedrance Manamune
//
“Oh, you mean the girl with the bob cut?” Parker sniffed. Blood was all over the floor, splattered on the wall where the knife was fading into nothing, the fluorescent white light bouncing about all over the crime scene. A girl tied to a chair, yellow vomit at her feet and on her laps that stunk the room. A guy in a doctor’s coat standing behind her, his face mask covering everything below his eyes.
A burly man bearing the Wings of Justice insignia in a butler’s suit, dead on the floor. His head had rolled somewhere to the side, but Parker didn’t care to notice.
“Yes,” Dean said with conviction, “her name is—”
“Gwen Olynn, isn’t it?”
“… how did you know?”
It was cold in the room. Parker paced over to the agent’s dead body and turned him over, careful only to touch his suit. He then began to unbutton the man’s outfit. From behind him Gwen’s breathing intensified.
Parker turned his head around and tapped his ear, then put a finger to his smiling lips. Gwen’s eyes widened and she flinched. His smile fell off his face, Parker resumed taking the man’s clothes.
“How could I not?” Parker raised his voice. “She’s the only person truly keeping the incubating demons at bay.”
“What?”
Gwen gasped from behind him, and began coughing horribly as he finally managed to yank off the suit from beneath the agent. “What…?”
The urge to laugh escaped from him, and only a single breath left. “Oh, you never knew? Shame. I always thought she was a smart kid. What happened to all of her textbooks?”
She whimpered quietly, “They never said anything like this…”
“Professor Carmela must have known,” Parker allowed her a hint with a smirk. “Wasn’t she the one who assigned Gwen and the other nobodies to the Saint Hospital? News travels quickly, you know.”
“Parker, are you talking to someone?”
“No, I’m not. But someone is listening to me.”
A breath of paranoia came over from the other side. “Who?”
Parker waved off the question. A cold wave of mana seeped into the back of his neck, and he shivered. His eyes traced towards the door almost invisible against the white steel walls, walls made of mana impossible to enter or exit without the right clearance, impossible for any normal person to get in or out of. It didn’t mean it couldn’t be broken through by someone who wasn’t particularly normal.
Throwing the coat on his shoulder, he walked to Gwen, and then to her back where she couldn’t turn her head. He pulled something, a little blue thermometer, from his pocket and looked at it, then pushed it back in, returning his eyes to Gwen. From up close, she looked so much unlike what her poker-face afar would suggest. Gaunt, pale, sweaty, sickly. He took a couple steps back, and she no longer looked so ghastly. His head tilted to the side in interest. “Well, someone is coming to save her soon, I suppose.” Whoever was coming was coming fast; security was very low in the middle of nowhere.
“Are you sure? I mean… I haven’t even told you who k-kidnapped her though…?”
“Hah. You don’t need to worry. You should know that I have my ways.” His eyes drawled across her hair, scanning Gwen down to the soles of her shoes. She couldn’t see him nod.
“I’m going to hang up now. Consider my offer, will you?”
Before Dean could put in another word Parker clicked the button on the earpiece, and the call cut off.
“Now that that’s over,” Parker circled Gwen again, making sure to touch nothing, “hello, Ms. Olynn. How are you?”
With a sort of cruel intrigue his gaze never once let go of her, even as her trembling figure refused an answer, shaking, and shaking, and shaking. It was something he couldn’t understand nor care about.
“If you’re wondering, no, I won’t hurt you.”
He muttered something under his breath, and her pitiful eyes remained staring at the ground, blood and vomit stinking the room.
Gwen sucked in a shaky breath.
Parker continued, “And I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“But I wasn’t lying when I said someone was coming.”
—TTTTCCHKKKK
Suddenly a sound like tearing paper came from where the door was. The two turned their heads to see a sword stuck through the white door, coated in a blue water-like manaform. And then it swished to the side, slicing through the mana door. A gash appeared where the sword had pulled through, and the door began to unmake itself, shredding like fabric and then dissolving into the air with every piece that tore itself off in a flurry of moments.
“You’ll keep quiet about me, yes?” Parker’s eyes were narrowed suspiciously on the sword, now swinging in other directions and erasing the very mana that made up the door with each slash. His words were a threat.
“Then, what happens to you next will be your choice.”
—TSSSHHHHKKK
And then he disappeared.
Unto Oblivion
Cost: 50 MANA
Cooldown: 5 seconds
S- // Parker dissipates any of his Shadows after 1 second, then teleports to its location. The cooldown for Nightspawn is refreshed upon casting the ability.
…
“Echo.”
“Yes, boss?”
Parker rested against the rusting gate pole, the gates were pushed wide open. Trees were all around, branches and fallen leaves scattered on the floor, crunched beneath his feet. He lightly kicked aside the agent next to him, passed out with a light dent on his head. The man’s hands were flopped over in front of his face, and Parker gave him a distasteful look.
Not twenty feet away in front of him over to the left side of the gate was an SUV with no one inside, in good conditions, the windows tinted black and the body painted a dark scarlet.
“Give me a full report.”
The boss’s voice was patient. Parker thoughtfully looked back around to the old complex. Somewhere in that building Gwen was being saved by another person, “Someone very powerful just came to save her.”
“Elaborate.”
“Cedrance Manamune. I recognize him, he’s the highest ranking freshman at Arc this year.” He waited for a grunted response of approval, then continued.
“Target Gwen Olynn is one of the five Arc kids that appear weekly at the Saint Hospital,” Parker closed his eyes. “Their objective isn’t known, but from observing them I can—”
“Not that. You’ve made me plenty aware of who she is. I’m asking about her condition and her escort, Cedrance.”
Groaning, Parker pushed himself off the gate, each step the loud sound of crunching leaves. “First off, you heard the call, yes? It’s as Dean said, she looked like someone who was kidnapped. Her mana was dangerously low, just above average paralysis range, or at least that’s what was indicated. But not only is she smelly… I believe I know something about her Innate ability, and a secret she may be harboring.
“… go on.”
“First, her Innate. It’s her appearance. That’s all there is to it.”
“What about it?”
He stopped in front of the car, and then slid his finger across the headlights. Warm to the touch. “She’s sick, and all of a sudden, she isn’t. Or at least, that’s what her appearance suggests. As far as I saw, she only looked to be sick when I was near her.”
“Ah. That is rather worthless.” The boss paused. “And what else?”
As he looked into the vehicle, he saw a few keychains here and there, a plastic cup of tea in the front holder, both of the seats in front were cleared and empty. It looked very clean and unused. Circling to the side, a shiny insignia immediately caught his attention. It was a grey outline of a semicircle cut horizontally by a dividing squiggle fading into a pointed tip, all split through a narrow rhombus. Sideways, it looked like SD. Parker recalled that it was a simple design with its origin dating back to the first child of the Silverdawn president, who drew it as a baby.
He smiled, sliding his finger across the Silverdawn insignia. What a coincidence.
“The mana around her was spiking weirdly when Aythe Siena was talking to her about a deal with Reyenal Ato.” Parker pulled his finger back. “What’s stranger was the fact that she had hardly any mana around her before, her reserves were probably low from keeping her from dying. When he left, the mana disappeared. That isn’t possible.”
Nothing was said for a moment.
“I see. I have no doubts about the fact that she holds an unsayable secret.”
“You’re interested.”
“Who knows? Tell me about Cedrance.”
Parker sighed, and then pulled off his face mask. The cool air tickled his face. His ears perked up as a cracking noise came from ahead of him beyond the trees past the car. He put his hand against the passenger seat door and then pushed his mana through, and another wave of cold eased past the material and inside swiftly.
Nightspawn
Cost: 210 MANA
Cooldown: 32 seconds
S- // Parker enters into Reaper form, leaving behind a Shadow of himself that dissipates upon contact with any targets. He can control these Shadows without effort, and upon dissipation Shadows impart their memories onto Parker. Shadows deal half damage to targets with the Darkened Shiv. Shadows disappear on their own after a certain amount of time has passed.
SHADOW LIFESPAN:
28 hours
He sighed. “Like I said, he’s the best freshman at Arc right now. He’s a Valiance class Fighter, and big guts going after Aythe Siena like this… boss, don’t tell me you want that oaf with us?”
She snarled, “Don’t you think for a second you have a say about that. But no, I want neither of them to become Harbingers. Well, wouldn’t it be better if the escort was on the… right side?”
“Someone is here,” Parker said plainly. The smile had never left his face, and neither had the smile from the Shadow inside the car. “I’m going now.”
She laughed boredly. “You have 5 seconds to return back, then. Your side mission is complete.”