“Hey! Has anyone seen B? She missed core training today and she isn’t picking up any of my calls.”
“Did you check her apartment?”
“Yea, called her place but her husband said she hasn’t been home.”
“Hmmm. Maybe she got black-out drunk and passed out somewhere? You know how she gets.”
“Nah, something is up. Her husband said her armor is missing and she doesn’t drink on the job.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure she’ll turn up.”- Angel Mercenaries discussing the whereabouts of their colleague Clementine Bee
Chapter 10: EAting with an [ANGEL]
Corporate Alliance Territory
Eden City// Cordell Industries Central Territory.
----------------------------------------
After hearing the Colonel's explanation of the jobs, Jack took a moment to confer with his partner in crime.
Does Combat Medic sound good? Jack asked the Angel.
[No. While it is one of the more noble professions it’s not what is needed for our task. And neither is Infantry. For you to get stronger and demonstrate your abilities, you're going to need more autonomy, where you aren’t surrounded constantly by onlookers. Cavalry Scout seems like the best option.]
How so?
[You'll need to hunt monsters. To that end you'll need to be alone so that no one can see you activating your abilities. From what I’ve garnered so far, the Gasp of Gehenna and other abilities you have aren't exactly normal. Especially for how low your mana pool is.]
So I should be hiding them?
[Yes, unless you really need them, focus only on wind blade for the time being.]
"I'll join the Cavalry Scouts." Jack finally said, with the Colonel turning and inputting his response into the terminal.
"Alright son, your application to join the Empire was approved. Welcome to the Imperium Recruit. We're scheduled to ship out back to the Empire at Oh-Six-hundred tomorrow. So get your effects together and a car will be there to pick you and your sister up. Oh one last thing, she uses a wheelchair right?"
"Yes sir she does."
"Alright we’ll send a specialty car. Good luck on your endeavors and stay safe on the way back home son."
"Understood, thanks for the help Colonel." The duo shook hands as Jack left.
"Don't thank me just yet." The man muttered as the door closed behind Jack.
By the time Jack had stepped outside from when he entered, nearly nine hours had passed. It was almost night time and Jack was absolutely famished. Retrieving his firearm from the clerk, he tucked the gun into his brown shoulder holster and went on the prowl for food. Unfortunately with the crowd of people still outside, it made finding a food store that wasn't packed nearly impossible. Luckily, he was able to find a neon pink food truck that was parked behind the Awakened Testing facility selling tacos in an alley.
[That smells heavenly.] Sahaqiel commented as Jack approached the truck.
"Hola hermano, I see everything went ok huh."
Jack was momentarily taken aback by the familiar cyborg cooking meat and chopping vegetables in the back of the food truck.
"So ese, you want a taco? Real authentic, none of that fake gringo basura."
"Uh sure. Aren't you a test proctor for the facility?"
"What? You saying I can't also sell tacos on my break?” The cyborg raised an eyebrow. “We all got to make a living.”
“No! Not at all!” Jack laughed nervously his face a little flustered. “I was just.. surprised to see you here.”
“So what will it be? You want carne asada, barbacoa, or just ground pork?"
“I have no idea what any of what you said means, so I’ll take pork.”
The cyborg shook his head and tapped the side of his truck where a menu was taped on. “Barbacoa is roasted beef, and carne asada is grilled steak.”
“Pork is fine.” Jack replied, not in the mood to be particularly adventurous. Despite the man’s size and cybernetics, his hands moved deftly, quickly preparing and cooking the materials in front of Jack as he waited, making his mouth visibly water from the smell.
Jack held his hand out to sync his wrist wallet with the register but the man waved him off.
“Here hombre, on the house on account of my piss poor attitude earlier.” The man handed Jack an expertly wrapped taco that was warm to the touch despite the heavy foil around it.
“Really? Thanks!” Jack replied, cradling the soft tortilla and heading to the station where a tram was about to take off.
After forcing the barely working doors of the aerial train and boarding, Jack unwrapped his food and bit into the soft tortilla shell, where an explosion of flavor coated his taste buds that made him freeze mid chew.
“We have to go back.” Sahaqiel said, materializing in front of Jack with her mouth drooling. For a moment Jack considered doing so and spending his entire life savings to buy all the tacos the part-time taco cyborg could make, but before he could give it more thought, Sahaqiel suddenly leapt, attempting to bite Jack’s soft shelled taco. Fortunately the teen reacted quickly, strategically placing a palm on the Angel’s head to intercept the gaping maw that attempted to steal his food.
“Get your own!”
“Give me!” The woman yelled, swatting at Jack’s hand that held the taco.
Luckily the train cabin was an empty husk with barely any working electronics, seeing as no one ever rode this line, Jack was free to scream in defense of his taco. “Chill out! It’s mine! Can you even eat?!”
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
At Jack’s words the Angel froze before composing herself and sitting back down next to Jack. “That’s a good question, I don’t know. Let's try it.”
“What? Try what?”
“Feeding me.” Sahaqiel said coyly, leaning close to Jack with her eyes closed and pinkish lips ajar. “Aaaah”
Jack's face went immediately tomato red, he crossed his legs and looked away before shoving a portion of his taco into the Angel’s mouth.
Suddenly his taco felt lighter and Jack could taste the Mexican delicacy on his tongue, almost as if he’d just taken a bite out of it.
“It's so good!” Sahaqiel cupped her face and exclaimed joyfully, her entire body shaking in delight from the taste.
Looking down at his taco, Jack could see what appeared to be a bite mark.
“Weird, I can taste it… I thought you couldn’t interact with things?” Jack asked, hiding the rest of the taco as the woman savored the taste.
“I can’t, but it seems with certain inanimate things that don’t produce a mana field I can consume. Like food. That’s just my guess though.”
Suddenly Jack’s system flickered to life and updated.
[Acquired Skill! Consume LvL 1]
[Angel System Status]
[TITLE]- [The Incomplete Nephilim]
[JOB]- None
HP[180]
MP[6]
FREE POINTS REMAINING: - 0
[STRENGTH]- 15+3(18)
[VITALITY]- 18
[SENSE]- 12+10(22)
[AGILITY]- 12+10(22)
[ARCANA]- 3
[Active Buffs] Wind Affinity I(+10 Sense, Reduce cost of Aero based skills)
[Passive Buffs] Partial Rune of Atalanta(Left+Right Leg+10 Agility modifier) Sigil of Gehenna(Left arm+3 Strength),Fractional Blessing of Sahaqiel(+20 Wind Affinity+10 Light Affinity) Skill Siphoning.
[Resistances]- +5 Radiation(Human Innate)
+50 Anti-Curse, +20 Anti-Corruption.
[ACTIVE SKILLS SLOTS]
[Slot 1]: Gasp of Gehenna LvL 1(Drain target of mana. Warning: excessive drain can lead to the target's death.” EVOL
[Slot 2]: Fira LvL 1(Let lose a burst of hot flames from palm) 20MP
[Slot 3]: Wind Blade LvL 1(Condense wind into a blade and fire it)20-15 MP=5(TH)
[Slot 4]: Dash LvL 1 (Acquire a momentary burst of speed) 5 MP
[Slot 5]: Optics of Sahaquiel LvL 1 {SEALED}
[Slot 6]: Consume LvL 1(Extend your mana to dissolve a non-living item to replenish nutrients.)
DATA HIDDEN.
“Jack, we should go back and get more tacos!” Sahaqiel suggested, interrupting Jack as he tried to view his system. Her face was nose to nose with his, forcing him to put a palm out and push the Angel away.
“As much as I’m inclined to agree, we’ve got work to do, Sara. Plus… I still need to learn more about my abilities and how all this system stuff works.”
“Sara?”
“Sorry, calling you Sahaqiel sounds weird and Saha doesn’t sound right to me.”
“I’spose that makes sense.” Sahaqiel said, calming down. “So what did you want to know?”
“Well, how does the system work exactly? I just got a skill from whatever you did. And during the… incident last night, I ended up using Gehenna without access to the system. Plus after, you even said that my body was still in the process of gaining access to it. So what happened there? I thought Awakened could only use skills with a system.”
Sahaqiel leaned her head on Jack’s shoulder as he munched on his taco. He wasn’t looking at her but he could feel her gaze boring a hole in his tortilla. Reluctantly he held out the taco.
“Well, to begin with, the system is just a crutch.” Sahaqiel said in between bites. "From my understanding it was created to help our descendants deal with the Demonspawn’s return. Humanity is perfectly capable of using abilities and skills and even developing their own. But the development cycle of a human being capable of creating their own abilities and techniques was too long. So a system was designed by our administrator to assist humanity when the time came.”
“Wait, are you telling me god designed the system?”
“Yes and no. First off, let's clear something up. I’m not some kind of special creature or servant of some god. I’m a human. Same as you, but... Hmmm I guess changed and a few thousand years older? Well, I was originally a human anyway.”
“What?” Jack replied. A little stupefied at the Angel’s remark. "Then what's with the wings and Angelica appearance? I thought you were some kind of servant of god?!”
“Pfft, there's no such thing as gods or demi-gods, silly.” Sahaqiel let out a laugh. “At least from what I know. If there are any, I've yet to meet them. Though there were a few that came close to what you could consider godhood I suppose. From your memories and my experience, non-Awakened always deified us True Awakened as gods. My wings is what inspired angels. Dagda, Shiva, Fujin, Loki, Nezhah, Ishtar. They all existed at one point or another. Sometimes as warlords, or taking on the guise of different people when they got bored like Tarhunna who you call Zeus.”
“True Awakened? Is that different from regular Awaken?” Jack asked, no longer feeling hungry and caught up by Sahaqiel’s words. His entire understanding of an Awakened being elevated by just a few sentences.
“Of course, what you call Awaken are just people that uses Eve's system to fight and gain abilities. A true Awaken however is someone like me who can perceive mana naturally and manipulate the energy to my will. Once you become enlightened and evolve, your morphology will change and adapt to the flow of energy around you. Sadly, humanity lost this ability over time and Eve had to create a system that would allow what remained to fight back.”
At the word “evolve”, Jack’s curiosity soared as he looked at his system. He was aware of monsters evolving but not humans. In fact he never heard of a human being undergoing visible evolution.
“What changed to make us lose that ability?”
Sahaqiel paused mid chew.
“Everything,” Sahaqiel whispered after some time. She was no longer leaning on Jack’s shoulder but staring blankly into empty space as if she were seeing something that wasn’t there or recounting a bad memory.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” Jack said, suddenly feeling sad as Sahaqiel’s emotions channeled into him. He placed a gentle hand on the crestfallen Angel’s shoulder which seemed to snap her out of her trance.
“It’s not your fault. I’m just… still adapting to the world I knew no longer being here. The price of freedom I craved I guess...” The angel let out a melancholy chuckle.
Jack wanted to give her some space, but he needed to know more.
“So what will happen to me? Will I evolve? Change to be like you? My system says Incomplete Nephelim are there stages to this?”
“Yes. Eventually you will evolve as we merge closer together and your biology will shift to be more like… me.”
Lets hope I don't develop the urge to be naked all the time.
[It's not my fault your subconscious perceives me as such. Maybe if your hormones weren't all over the place.] Sahaqiel quipped.
Jack took a moment to process everything he heard. If what she was saying was true, then he would eventually become a demi-god of sorts. He wanted to ask about the fate of the True Awakened, but judging from the disheartened look on her face, Jack decided to table the topic for later.
The rest of the train ride was largly uneventful as Jack and Sahaqiel sat in silence, staring idly at the crowded neon metropolis below them. Occasionally Jack would shrink back or hide in an alley as he spotted flying suits of white armor, but luckily it seemed they were non the wiser to their target being directly beneath their nose.
After much skulking, Jack soon found himself back in front of his familiar run-down apartment, where Mike stood leaning on a blue patrol car smoking a cigarette. Upon seeing Jack the man waved him down.
“Hey kid, we need to talk,” Mike said, approaching the teen with his weapon drawn.