Apostle: One of the followers of God, whose authorities are only superseded by His alone. Independent of Heaven, each apostle represents a fundamental concept of the Universe: Life, Death, Time, Space, Nature, Magic, Craft, Fate. After Genesis, they agreed not interfere in Eden’s and Sol’s affairs unless Nihile presence was confirmed. However, it seems that their Vow of Observance is no longer in effect post-Exodus, with many taking active roles in Sol, some even leading nations.
Chapter 2: Suit up
He hates this part of the job. It’s so… messy.
Sighing, he looks at the results of the blood test, then quintuple-checks the picture on his datapad with the severed head in the transparent bag.
Brown eyes?
Check.
Blond hair?
Gold as the Sun.
A face that sported the most arrogant grin in the world?
He studies the face that is locked in an expression of pain.
Strange, that’s missing…
Whatever the case, there is a 67% chance that this is Dante Bloodfang. Or at least this is the head of Dante Bloodfang.
His body – what remains of it – lies slumped against the wall behind him, a torso missing its left arm, the rest of it blown to bits.
He grimaces. That is going to be a tad harder to identify.
It had been a long fight.
Yet, a few doubts linger in his mind. It seemed as though Dante hadn’t learnt anything from their last encounter. He’d even gone the same way- a graviton explosion catching him off guard. He highly doubts a professional assassin like him wouldn’t have planned and adapted for an opponent whose abilities he knew about. He certainly would have.
Slowly, the corners of his lips bend downward into a frown. Last time, the odds were 30%, now it is more than double that. But it still isn’t 100%.
“Spades.” His team leader’s words jolt him back to reality. Whatever the case, they have finished the job they were assigned. He turns to see Joker standing at the doorway, gesturing towards the Flutterbug waiting outside. “Let’s go.”
“Can’t we wait for a bit?” he wipes the sweat off his brow, “It’s really hot.”
The Middle Eastern heat is really no joke after the whole global warming thing. Whatever he sees through the windows is distorted and shimmering, the light rays refracting from the expanding air. “Can’t we wait another 30 minutes for sundown?” He tries to reach a compromise.
The stern glare Joker gives him tells him that they can be standing on the Sun itself, and he will still have to outside.
Grumbling, Spades swings the bag – and its still-bleeding contents – over his shoulder with practiced ease. He feels a little uncomfortable at just how natural that action feels.
The heat of the Middle East hits him before the sunlight does. He feels like a melting Chillstick. He raises his hand to block it off, while using his powers to repel a fraction of the infra-red radiation from the Sun.
The effect is instantaneous and a sigh of content escapes his lips.
Just like home.
Home.
He hasn't thought about Hope City for a while, what with all the missions and assassinations he’s had to do, but recent events have quickly corrected that.
“Spades!” He knows that voice, and his worst fears come true when he sees its owner standing next to the Flutterbug.
He groans internally. Urgh. Why is she here? Aren’t they supposed to meet up in Hope City?
“Don’t ignore me! I know you can hear me under that mask of yours!”
So can the people in the Oriental Federation, you annoying banshee.
“What do you want, Diamond?”
If the scorching tone his voice was laced with hurt her, the redheaded girl waving at him from the Bug doesn’t show it.
“Is that how you treat your only friend after not seeing each other for 2 years?”
And it had been a good, quiet, peaceful 2 years.
He misses it already.
The sound of engines roaring to life causes him to focus his eyes back to the front, straight into the back of Joker’s sweat-drenched outfit.
He smirks. He loves being a metahuman and the power it gives him.
The control of gravity and, with it, antigravity can be used in numerous ways.
Such as reflecting the Sun’s heat.
“Hot, ain’t it, Joker?”
“Shut up and keep walking” The rude reply only serves to booster his ego some more.
He nods in acknowledgement to Queen, who has been waiting by the door next to Diamond.
“I’ll take that.” She returns it with a grin, before grabbing the bag off his hands.
He follows Joker into the 4-winged Flutterbug, while drowning out Diamond’s incessant chatter of how lonely and bored she has been the past 2 years without her “precious fellow aces”.
“Diamond.”
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“Yes, Spades?”
“Please shut up.”
Then he sits down, closes his eyes, and turns on the music within his mask to maximum volume, all while ignoring the expression of mock hurt on her face. He’s tolerated this noisemaker for 8 years. He can do it again for one flight.
It is halfway through liftoff that he realizes something is wrong.
It is too quiet.
He cracks one eye open to peek beside him, only to see Diamond looking ahead of her uncomfortably, her hands pressed against her lap, as though the Director himself is sitting across them.
Curiosity gets the better of him, and Spades almost jumps back at what he sees.
A Goddamned Spook.
He doesn’t understand how a man wearing a suit and sunglasses has managed to get so close to him without him noticing, but that’s how they worked. Those trained in Hope City’s intelligence units are masters in the arts of stealth and subtlety. You don’t notice them until they plunge a knife into your back. Sometimes, you don’t notice that either.
He takes off his SAM’s –Standard Army Metasuit – mask, setting it by his side, before raising his eyebrow to the intelligence officer.
“Alright, just give it to me straight.” He sighs. “What does the Director want us to do this time?”
In response, the slight dip in the Spook’s gaze prompts him to look at his lap, where a datapad lies, completely unnoticed by him until then.
Goddamn. Those things aren’t light by any means.
He looks up again at the Spook, who now has the barest trace of a smirk on his face.
Masters of subtlety and stealth indeed.
“Spades, we’ve been redeployed back early.” This time, Diamond’s voice holds none of the mischief or chirpiness it does earlier. Instead, it carries a solemn tone, one she reserves only in the middle of missions and assignments.
Redeployment
Tch. He scowls. And he’s just gotten used to working with the Hunters – Hope City’s hitman squad – and men twice his age. If the Director is bringing them back earlier, it means something big is going to happen.
He isn’t looking forward to the new mission.
He isn’t keen on going back to school of all things.
“It’s not an ordinary school. It’s run by the Constellation.”
“That means… that it’s going to be very, very, very difficult. And some might not make it through alive.”
He remembers how the Director had said it. He hadn’t worn his Director/politician face, nor his casual and jaunty face. He had worn his all-business, I’ve-seen-my-whole-race-slaughtered-before-my-eyes, taken-thousands-of-lives-of-my-own, his The-Magician face.
That worries him. Schools aren’t meant to kill you. Schools are meant to be boring as hell and make you want to kill yourself.
His musings are suddenly broken by the sound of glass breaking, and the occupants of the Bug immediately dive onto the cabin floor to take cover.
Are they under attack? At 500 metres above the ground?
“Goddamit!”
The curse flies out of Joker’s mouth with almost as much force as his window-shattering punch does. Spades follows his glare, before letting lose a swear himself.
“That… is pretty disgusting” is all Diamond can make out at the scene before her.
Dante’s head – no, it isn’t fair to call it his anymore – was morphing. He watches in morbid fascination as the face contorts and changes shape, becoming square-ish rather than long. The sun-kissed hair is slowly fading to gray, and the brown eyes transitions to a lifeless blue.
By the time it is done, it is unrecognizable. Again.
A collective wave of anger and disappointment can be felt around the small compartment of the Flutterbug.
Until Joker grabs the bag with a cry of rage and flings it out the window, breaking another one.
Some smirk, others shake their head. The Spook, as usual, has no change in expression. Diamond on the other hand, has her mouth agape at the brutal display.
He ignores her subsequent speech about respecting the dead and destruction of evidence, and follows the head’s arching trajectory with his eyes as it sails into the desert below.
That’s when he spies the figure standing atop the ruins of a village in the middle of the desert.
He can’t see the eyes, but blond hair?
Gold as the Sun.
A face that sports the most arrogant grin in the world?
Undoubtedly so.
He is waving to them, sunlight reflecting off his pearl-white teeth as he grins.
He is mocking them.
Then, in a gust of sand, he disappears.
From the sound of the armrests breaking next to him, he is sure Joker has seen the Vampire as well.
He settles into his seat, as he listens to King whine about “going on another freaking wild goose chase”.
…
Maybe, reassignment isn’t so bad after all.