I’ve been looking and comparing the different bewl uses of Magic Bullets and thus far Prophecy ranks near the top most. Is it due to the usefulness of the power? But why? What system decides that one Bullet uses more bewl than another? Is it how far it circumvents the laws of nature?

-From Professor Shokolov’s Journal, 24th Entry

AxEl carried his bags with visible discomfort. He somehow managed to dig the keys out of his pocket despite the fact. He threw them onto the receptionist’s desk, who looked at him with an awkward expression.

“Could I… help you with those?” he asked, glancing at AxEl’s luggage. He chuckled in response.

“No, I can handle it,” AxEl replied, then took them outside. There, waiting for him on the curb, was a sleek vehicle. Thanks for that, he thought as he packed his belongings inside.

For now, I guess this is goodbye, he thought to himself as he turned the engine on. Soon after, no one would doubt that AxEl had left the town of Minahret. Though had they looked outside of the town, between two inconspicuous dunes, they would have found a car not too different from the one he had taken out to the town.

Only this vehicle would have no one inside, for it had been long abandoned for a greater purpose.

****

After a hard-fought day in the mines, LotUs wanted nothing more than to retire back to his house. He had a pickaxe laying over his shoulders and every step sent spikes of pain up his legs, but he took those as the price of his work.

He finished his daily routine. Putting the equipment back, securing it in its place and then clocking out for the night. He swore he could feel eyes on him during the process, however. He didn’t pay it much heed, his mind clouded by fatigue.

When the time came for him to leave the premises, he did so without a second thought. But the next day would bring him bad news.

It had started off as a normal day until someone had asked him to fetch some explosives from the storage. They were kept tightly locked up for the exact reason they could be harmful in the wrong hands. His crew had even had to sent a faulty batch to the police once in case it had been sabotaged.

Despite all that, he hadn’t expected to find the safe broken into, or to find almost the entire stash of dynamite missing. That had sent him into a frenzy. He ran to the closest miner who would listen and began blabbing off in horror.

“T-they got in! Those damn punks again! T-they took everything!” he shouted at the other man, who tried calming him down. After a while he calmed down and sat down while the police examined the scene. Chief AnIn took most of the tension out of his mind.

Though he knew they were platitudes, they helped. But the question itched at his mind. There had been disappearances, of course, from the case the chief had been working. He knew someone had been stealing explosives. He’d even heard about the incident with the tourists and how’d they’d got locked inside for an awful long time.

This time, he felt, the consequences would be much larger.

****

Nook didn’t like the sounds of the bugs at night. He wouldn’t say he was afraid of bugs, but they did annoy him. Some of his tendencies had even rubbed off on AxEl, who didn’t appreciate having them around. He would swat at an errant fly, or scratch when he felt something crawling on his skin.

“Are you sure they’re going to be here tonight?” AxEl asked, his voice a whisper on the winds.

“They should be. There’s been enough time between that and now that they should have resumed operations,” Anagen said, looking through a pair of binoculars.

AxEl swept his hand through the front and Anagen gave him a glower in return.

“Can you even see anything through those this deep into the night?” he asked.

“Yes. Now stop interrupting me,” she said.

“Reall-“

“There they are!” she replied, hushing the both of them. AxEl crept closer to her and tried to look downwards at the entrance, where he saw a few figures moving through the shadows.

“So, they do come here,” Nook said, happy to have confirmed at least one of the potential entrances they had been scouting out.

After the distant figures disappeared into the cave, AxEl walked away. He pulled a two-way radio out of his jacket pockets and began speaking orders into it.

“How many are there on your end? That’s higher than we thought. Doesn’t change anything. Set them up around the premises. Don’t be seen, or nobody’s going to come for you,” AxEl said before closing the device.

Anagen took off the binoculars and fixed AxEl with a serious expression.

“Are you sure about doing this now?” she asked.

“We’ve already brought as many people as we could reasonably into Minahret,” AxEl replied.

“But there’s way more people than we thought,” Nook said.

“Consequence of such a wide trade. They need the supply to meet its demands,” Anagen replied. She then stood up herself and began to brush the dirt off of something in the ground. AxEl and Nook helped her until a crate could be seen embedded into the ground. AxEl pulled it open and took out the dynamite they had prepped for the occasion.

“Taste of their own medicine,” Anagen noted.

“Just as bitter,” AxEl added. They rushed down the slope carrying them to the front of the entrance. This one had just been one of the mundane ones, with the lock opened. He threw the explosives into the entrance without abandon. Anagen and Nook followed and they ran away soon afterwards.

AxEl gave Nook the remote and nodded.

“On my mark,” he told Nook.

“Yeah.”

He ran over to the larger group of his enforcers. They were huddled between one of the biggest entrances to the mines, one which most would use to get in and through many of the winding paths of the caves. They were dressed in dark clothing, hiding their faces from detection. Though when he finally came in distance of one of them, he thought he recognized the man.

“You’re OkIx, aren’t you?” AxEl noted.

“Yup. Kind of surprised you even remembered it,” OkIx chuckled from beneath his mask. It wasn’t just that, however. OkIx had light skin and blonde hair poking out from under a mask, which made him stand out all the more.

“Well, is everyone ready?” AxEl asked. Anagen coughed deliberately from his side, which caught his attention. He brushed it off and paid attention to OkIx, who was communing with someone over a radio of his own.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yeah, seems like it. Just give the word, boss. I’ll spread it to the rest of them,” OkIx said. He walked away to join the rest of the group while Anagen pulled AxEl aside.

“Perhaps this isn’t the best time, but it’s better than any.”

“For a confession?” AxEl said.

“Focus. You need to be more assertive, AxEl,” Anagen explained.

“Assertive? I’m plenty assertive,” AxEl replied, offended. Anagen shook her head.

“You still act like a kid around those who know better than you,” Anagen replied.

“But that’s what’s actually happening.”

“True. But here’s the trick, don’t let others know that. Come on,” she said as she gestured him towards the small group of his enforcers that had gathered. Wait, but does that mean…

“Are you doing that right now?” AxEl asked before moving. Anagen turned around to answer.

“Why would I need that?” Anagen replied, the hint of a smirk on her face. AxEl resolved to take her lesson to heart. He tried to straighten his posture, walking confidently towards the rest of them. OkIx stood at their head and waved at him.

“Are you ready to give the order?” he asked.

AxEl turned another radio on, one configured to another Nook had in his pocket. He took a breath and answered.

“Now.”

From around the mountain range, explosions burst out. Little motes of light escaped from some of the locations, but only for an instant before plumes of smoke followed. The sound that came from them seemed disappointingly quiet to AxEl, but perhaps that was his own experience getting the better of him.

His feet shook underneath him as he heard and felt rocks fall over many of the entrances that were carved into the mountain. Without a moment to waste, he looked over to his enforcers and ordered.

“Half of you go and look for any other open entrances. The others will wait for me as we watch for the harvesters to come out. Move out,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir!” some of them chimed, which made AxEl feel a bit self-conscious. OkIx approved, he supposed, as he saw the blonde man nod slightly.

They left soon after and AxEl’s little group found a place to hide. Getting to their position would be a pain, low as it was on one of the dunes. There, he and they waited for the plant harvesters to come out.

“Anagen, did you call the force?” AxEl asked with his eyes fixed on the entrance.

“Right after the explosions. They should be here soon.”

They wouldn’t have to wait long for the Silvertongues to come out of the cave. He heard the sounds of footsteps from the cave emanate all around him. In the distance, he could see the first of the police cars turning the corner towards the caves.

He smiled but quickly dropped it once he saw no other come. No, what? I blew up half the mountainside, where are they?

“Anagen, why is there only one car?” he asked her urgently.

“There shouldn’t be?” she replied. The Silvertongues were still rushing out of the entrance. More and more of them were coming out, and his tension mounted with each passing moment

When the police car stopped in front of the mines, they didn’t even try to put up a front. AxEl watched as someone in front of the entire group open fired on the patrol car, and how those behind him followed. He barely got to see the officer get something out before his vehicle was riddled with holes.

No, no, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. AxEl rose from his position and pulled out his own pistol.

“We can’t let them get away! Anagen, call them again!” he said as he fired the first bullet into the lines of the Silvertongues from his position. It missed by a meter, and he was forced to duck as they started firing back.

“There’s people up there!” one of the Silvertongues shouted, and AxEl cursed. He looked over the mound in order to take aim, but the bullets flying through the air was disorienting.

His own enforcers had gotten into position and were taking shots when they could. They were much more experienced than he was in a fight, so he left them to dictate their own orders.

AxEl took shots where he could, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking with every bullet. He missed almost all of his shots, and grew so shaky that he had to drop the gun.

I…I can’t use that. Why can’t I? His self-admonishment was stopped by the sight of a grenade on their side of the mound.

“Grenade!” he shouted and leaped off of his position. The explosion was far from him that he didn’t feel the effects, though fear did shake his heart. AxEl landed at the bottom and a body fell beside him. He looked into the dazed face of the man and winced.

His combat knife had fallen out of his sheath and he looked to be in bad condition. I can help, he thought.

“I’m sorry, but I need this,” AxEl said as he took the knife and some Firewire out of his pockets. He tried to find his lighter, but resorted to chewing it as he normally had. He felt the strength course through his veins, steeling his body and mind.

That done, he brandished the knife and ran into the Silvertongues who were circling the mound. The first of them raised their guns up to shoot him, but he barely made it past the muzzles and slashed one of their chests. AxEl took the gun in his hands and flung it at the next person, who had missed his shot against him by mere inches. The man was distracted enough that AxEl could stab him right through the arm.

He knocked him upside the head and the man fell onto the ground. AxEl kept moving after that, taking cover under the fire of his own teammates and trying to avoid the barrage between them.

He took cover behind a small concrete wall and felt bullets cracking against the other side. Once they stopped to reload, AxEl flipped over and lunged on the first person he saw. He stabbed the man through the chest but missed the second one near him.

The second man wrestled with the gun in his hand and missed the shot, but the sound still ached AxEl’s ears. He was about to shoot him when someone else took him with a bullet through the head. AxEl felt stunned for a moment before steeling himself.

You’re running on pure energy here. Master yourself for once, he scolded inwardly. He took cover behind another one of the walls that he could find and took a glance at the battlefield. Strewn about the entrance to the mines, people were moaning and clutching wounds on their bodies.

“Don’t kill them! We need them alive!” he shouted to those who could hear him. There were still a few mounds and his forces had separated out to be less vulnerable. There were a few bodies on the mounds themselves, their blood flowing down onto the field.

He searched for Anagen and found her behind OkIx and another enforcer whose name escaped him. He ran over to the woman and gasped for breath.

“Did you call them?” he asked her.

“They should be here any moment,” she replied.

The patrol cars’ siren was the first thing to be heard in the night. It caused a newfound franticness to fill the fighters as they engaged each other. They were backing away, each side trying to drag as many people as they could out of the field.

Another group had climbed the dunes and were raining bullets on anyone who was in their path. AxEl’s forces were having trouble with those, and he saw a few distant enforcers fall from their bullet hail.

AxEl popped a few pills of Prophecy into his mouth and made the battle infinitely more manageable. He saw visions of bullets he would have taken, wounds he would have suffered and absorbed the knowledge of how they would happen. Then, with his enhanced strength, he ran around the corner and avoided those which were in his immediate future.

The group positioned on the mound had one person with glowing grey eyes. Any visions involving that person seemed to shatter and change near infinitely. Though his opponent took the disorientation from Prophecy interaction much worse. AxEl climbed the mound and stabbed his way through the five something large group. He stabbed another man through the hand while whipping a second with his pistol.

When someone behind him tried taking a shot, he ducked and threw that same pistol at his face, shattering his nose and flinging him backwards. The fourth tackled AxEl, but barely moved him. AxEl grappled that man in a single arm and threw him away from the mound. He winced at how far he’d thrown the shorter man, but ignored him for the fifth, who was charging him.

He and AxEl’s interactions seemed even more clumsier than an average brawl. They tried hitting where they thought each other would be, completely missing where they actually went. Some lucky strikes went through, and AxEl had a cracked and bleeding lip at the end of it. He grunted and started just slashing in front of him at random angles, and the other man seemed to disoriented to respond. Enough slashes took him that the man fell down and backwards onto the mound, holding his bleeding arms in front of him. AxEl simply punched his face into the sand and went on his way.

When he slid down the mound, he found the noise of the police cars to be much closer than he expected.

“This is the police! Put your hands in the air and stop where you are or we will shoot!” one of the men in front with a megaphone said. Time to leave, AxEl thought to himself. More gunshots rang out in the sky and AxEl’s group ran from them. The Prophecy he was using ran out, and the Phantoms in his vision disappeared.

AxEl and his enforcers kept a regular pace and he moved over to Anagen.

“This is the way you marked out?” AxEl asked. She nodded, keeping pace with the rest of them.

“There’s a footpath that curves around the mountain, but not enough space for a car to travel.”

When they reached it, AxEl was pleasantly surprised to find Nook standing guard with the rest of his enforcers.

“Where are the rest?” Nook asked.

“It wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be,” AxEl told him.

“We can tell you all about it after we’re safe,” Anagen replied. To accentuate her point, she heard the sounds of hounds barking in the distance. They ran faster after that, taking the path and keeping to it as best they could.

They stepped over rocks, ledges and bushes as they made it to where they needed to. AxEl felt a bit weird ascending across the mountain, but eventually they had started to descend back downwards.

When they finally reached the end and saw the vehicles they had parked there, AxEl sighed in relief. After having his immediate worries taken care of, however, his previous question popped into his head. Why did they only send one officer?