Dorian awoke early and did something he'd been shrugging off, he went for an early morning run and enjoyed the exertion and burn in his legs—it'd been too long. His run was cut short when the Lodge stirred awake and the stares got too much to ignore. He sighed and run back home.
After a relaxing bath and a light breakfast, Dorian sat out front and waited for a grumpy Dan to come pick him up. He'd given Dan his van back since he didn't need it anymore—they were driving to pick up his new ride. Plus his friends would need it for their part of the plan. They got to the establishment and Dorian hopped out and entered the shop to find Wilson working on a car.
He cleared his throat and the man turned and shot him his signature glare, “You're here early, and lucky for you I'm not of those fancy new places that open only when the sun is up. Your ride is out back. ”
Dorian followed Wilson out back to find a sleek black beast of a motorcycle parked, he looked around for his vehicle only for Wilson to gesture nonchalantly to the bike, “It had a good sports modelled chassis under all the dirt and rust, what kid haven't you ever heard of cleaning?”
Wilson continued, “Since it was a free job I added a few untested functions to it and picked out the colour. You're welcome. ”
“Untested?” was all a flabbergasted Dorian could ask.
“Yes, untested. Oh and don't try to break the engine to get to the core inside, it will blow up and you along with it. The people who can actually afford it don't need such restrictions but the GDF decided to put some on the more affordable ones. Don't rightly know why,” Wilson dead-panned.
Dorian realised the man had never answered his question and he was afraid to ask. A beep on his terminal had him pulling it up a seeing a detailed scheme and capabilities of the bike, it was a lot. He looked at the man and wisely kept his mouth shut, he could find out what the vehicle did in his own time.
Simply driving out with the bike felt wrong and Dorian stood around thinking furiously about how to thank the man, credits were out of the question so he did the next best thing he could do.
“Thanks a lot, Wilson you really helped me out.”
Wilson glared and growled out, “Hah if you think 'thanks' is enough for the back-breaking work I put into this, you got another thing coming. First, you will stay away from my daughter as agreed and second, you will sing my praises to all who ask about this beautiful beast and third, you will forget about my second favour.
Wilson turned and frowned at nothing and seemed to gather himself before continuing, “ My son was a hunter like you, one of the best. He survived that damned field and came back home barely held together. The damned GDF program broke him further and he walked into the wildlands never to be seen again. Treat my final favour as an old man who just wanted some closure,” the last part was said quietly but Dorian could hear the pain in the older man's voice.
Wilson was just a man who missed his son and the lack of knowing whether he was dead or alive weighed heavily on him. Everyone else would assume the son dead but a parent would hope against the impossible.
Dorian didn't know what to say to the man, he felt he owed the man and was about to promise to find the man's son when Wilson stopped him with a gesture, “It would be mighty evil of me to send a young man such as yourself to his death so I could sleep better at night. Forget it. Now get your bike and get out, I have work to do. And don't forget to put on the helmet, I put it there for a reason—and you better not forget to sing my praises you broke gigolo.”
Dorian laughed and wheeled his bike out, already itching to take it for a ride. Dan jumped out of his van and whistled loudly when he saw it. He did a full circuit around it pointing out and admiring details Dorian had missed.
“So, Dorian how about a trade? My van for this beat-up old thing.”
Dorian flipped him off, jammed his helmet on and zoomed off on his bike, he had work to get to.
As Dorian drove down the streets of Kowloon city proper he felt as if he was floating down it. The streets of Kowloon City were maintained and the van drove like a dream, but the bike almost seemed to float above it. Dorian couldn't wait for the drive home so he could fully test out the bike's capabilities.
He got to the checkpoint and flashed his ID, then waited in bated breath till the scanner turned green and he was waved in. Dorian drove in and parked his bike in his spot, he breathed in deep and entered the plant.
For some reason he felt jittery and his core had reacted when he moved towards the massive amount of echo. That was a good sign.
The elevator descended and dinged open and a wall of noise hit Dorian in the face, there was cheering and clapping with shouts of, “He didn't quit!” and the familiar exchange of credits. For a minute there Dorian had forgotten where he worked, deciding to get it over with, the hunter removed his helmet.
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Almost instantly the cheering stopped and silence reigned. He was sure that was the end of it till the cheers started back up again this time louder with catcalls mixed in. Bastards the lot of em. The few women in the crowd had 'fainted' and their male counterparts were busily fanning them and begging for Dorian to hide his face.
He couldn't do anything but smile, say what you will but the hunters of the Kowloon city power plant knew how to have fun—mostly at Dorian's expense.
After Dorian exchanged numbers with multiple men and women and promised to get others in touch with his facial surgeon, the crowd broke up and went back to work. Dorian slipped into the changing room and was back out moments later in his gear to find a frowning Robert standing outside.
The man looked at him calmly, scrutinising his features and then nodding to himself, “Glad you decided not to quit on us.”
Dorian smiled, relieved at the other man not finding fault in his missing work, Roberts's next words dashed those assumptions.
“Glad to see they still look after gigolos well. ” Robert snarked.
Dorian could only sigh and get to work, which was much easier compared to the constant ribbing he had to endure.
Hours later, the workers broke for breakfast and Dorian took his usual seat and was tucking into his meal when everyone's terminal beeped almost simultaneously.
Breaking News.
Whiles the other hunters simply read the news, Dorian had to go looking for it. Robert sighed and forwarded him a hunter run news outlet he could subscribe to, he nodded, subscribed and went through the news—it was the same old. Another flare-up at the Fractured Isles.
The Island had once been known as the United somesuch but Dorian didn't believe it. All the place had ever known was constant war and bloodshed. As all nightmares began, it started with the Systems departure and the attempt by the ruling class to do what the GDF had done around the world — to take power from the reeling hunters and in the ruling class's case, take back power. They almost succeeded too. It was postulated that the crown had opted to not join the GDF which lead to their loss. The hunters somehow got their hands on echo-powered weaponry and a five-year war began, with each side controlling half of the Island.
Dorian remembered the last time a major flare had happened, it was two years ago when the Church Of The Disavowed put their murderous bloody hands in the affair. This time though the sinking of a ship by the self stylised royalty was the cause. Further reading painted a better picture, the royals had sunk the ship with the claim it was smuggling weapons to hunter settlements, and the hunters had retaliated for what they said was the sinking of a refugee ship escaping the tyranny of the throne.
They were both most likely right, but nobody would ever know since the monstrous horrors in the deep had dragged everything down. Dorian hoped his brethren win the war but he didn't hold his breath for such an outcome.
The hunter polished off his tray and left the cafeteria and the discussion that had sprung up about possible third players.
At his spot, Dorian sank down with the core at his back and then opened himself to the echo that surrounded him. It did something it had never done before, the echo rushed in and Dorian smiled, relieved, he closed his eyes to inspect his core and frowned at what he saw. The echo was floating around the core in a gaseous state, like an ephemeral light halo. It looked suspiciously like a black hole.
Intrigued at seeing the mysterious energy in a different state for the first time, Dorian wondered why the core didn't just absorb the echo. He pushed and prodded at the core but nothing worked, he was getting desperate when he decided to 'feed' the echo into the core himself.
Dorian coaxed a portion of the floating gaseous echo towards his core and watched in amazement as the gas solidified into a liquid almost solid stream the closer it got before being pulled into the black nothingness of the core. The core spun once and released blinding particles that floated up towards Dorian's lungs.
The hunter opened his eyes and breathed out and in his breath were the light particles his core had released. The particles, which appeared to be waste dissolved into nothingness and Dorian closed his eyes to find the core had filled a tiny amount. He coaxed more gaseous echo towards his core and began the long slow process of refilling it.
Comfortable with the process, Dorian had taken a breath after expelling the light particles when he made an interesting discovery. Breathing in when pulling in echo pulled even more of the energy out of the air than usual. That and revolving the gaseous echo around the core had the benefit of creating more streams thus filling the core faster.
It was difficult at first but Dorian soon got used to breathing in when he absorbed echo, revolving the gaseous energy around his core and then expelling the light particles when he breathed out. Then rinse and repeat.
It was difficult at first but soothing in a way.
Approaching footsteps made him open his eyes and freeze, floating in an orbit around him were bits of sand and discarded bolts and a solitary wrench. Dorian quickly stopped everything he was doing and the objects floating around him dropped.
That had been close.
With the knowledge that refilling his core was possible with just the excess echo, Dorian moved to the other part of the plan and a continuation of what he'd been doing. Filling depleted monster cores. He arranged the cores in his lap and began the slow process of directing echo into them.
Moving echo had been getting easier since he began working at the power plant but now with his core, Dorian discovered he had much greater control, enough to move the energy around in simple patterns. Acting on a hunch he spun the echo around him in the same patterns as around his core, then directed the energy towards the depleted monster cores.
The echo thundered in at a great deluge and Dorian watched with a dropped Jaw as the four cores lit up and quickly filled almost to the brim.
His discovery changed everything.
One of the stumbling blocks in the plan was the slow rate of refilling the monster cores. It meant they'd have had to wait for months or years to see if their essence stones would also work. But now it was different, all they needed were the depleted cores and Dorian could now fill them near instantly.
Soon, much sooner than expected, Dorian's friends would know if they too could gain powers from the essence stones they carried.