The Blue Reaper sat cross-legged in the center of the zone with his eyes closed.
It’s been twenty-four hours since multiple Virelia students—all Topplers disappeared.
The Arcanum was investigating but they weren’t getting anywhere.
Campus tensions kept on rising, curfews got stricter and Students started travelling in groups more often, everyone looking over their shoulders.
At least he’d been cleared as a suspect. Magister Reece Oxford’s personal voucher had taken care of that.
A wet tongue touched his leg causing the Blue Reaper’s eye to twitch.
An Echo had walked over and licked him so he punched it.
The Echo yelped and tumbled backward across the void.
"Ow! What the hell?!"
Azzuri’s voice ca from the Echo’s mouth.
The Blue Reaper stood and looked down at the creature. "Why did you insist on becoming an Echo again?"
The Azzuri-Echo stood on all fours and shook itself off. "I’m more comfortable like this."
"You sure?"
The blue reaper’s eyes shifted slightly toward the other Echoes lounging nearby. Particularly a female one that was grooming herself in the corner.
"A man has needs," Azzuri said.
The Blue Reaper stared at him.
"Don’t judge ."
The Blue Reaper sighed and turned away, pinching the bridge of his mask like he had a headache.
"After looking into the Nesis incident," he said, changing the subject before this got any weirder, "I should be able to corner the Golden Chalice Vice-Magister now."
"The plan?"
"Let’s just say it depends on whether or not the Trinity can play their parts." The Blue Reaper crossed his arms. "And as for Q and his partner, we need to sort out the situation at Virelia first. That’ll edge us closer."
His jaw tightened behind the mask.
"I’m ending everything tonight."
The Blue Reaper pulled out his phone and placed a call.
The receiver answered Imdiately.
"I was suppose to handle sothing with the Vice Magister, but surpisingly the Trinity volunteered to take care of it." Said the voice at the other end of the line.
"So that ans you’ll be free for so coffee tonight.... Zelda??"
"Sure, i’ll see you where we planned to et."
He hung up and pocketed the phone.
Azzuri tilted his Echo head. "Who was that?"
"None of your business."
"Was it a girl?"
"Why don’t you get back to flirting with the Variant."
Reece Oxford sat at his desk in the lionheart agency with his fingers steepled and his eyes closed behind his dark glasses.
David stood across from him.
"Our biggest lead on this so called seventh seal synagouge," Reece said quietly, "starts at St. Helena. Eight months ago."
"Agreed." David scrolled through his notes. "But as it stands, we’re not getting anywhere with current thods. We’d need to find soone directly connected to the massacre."
He paused.
"Maybe your—"
"My elder brother?" Reece interrupted.
David blinked. "You already know."
"I’ve known for a long ti." Reece stood and reached for his fedora and coat. "I’ve been tracking his every move since."
"Should I deploy a team?"
"No." Reece put on the fedora and adjusted it slightly. "We’re going ourselves."
Q sat in his leather chair, swirling a glass of red wine.
The office was modern, everything white and chro except for the dark mahogany desk.
"The experints have been a success," Q said to himself, admiring the wine. "Before the empire could tell what hit it, Kaiser will have ushered in a new age for—"
The door slamd open.
Q jerked in surprise and the wine sloshed out of the glass, splashing across his white suit jacket.
He looked down at the stain then up at the doorway.
John, his butler, stood there.
"What," Q said slowly, "is so important that you would interrupt my scheming session, Johnny boy?"
"Sir, we’ve found Montez."
Q set the wine glass down and dabbed at the stain on his jacket with a napkin. "I don’t really care what that low-life does."
"But sir."
"Taser never liked him anyway." Q waved dismissively. "Let him take so n and do whatever he feels like doing to Montez. I have more important things to worry about."
John hesitated. "Are you sure?"
"Positive." Q picked up his glass again. "Now close the door on your way out and next ti, knock."
Montez was forced onto the ground for the third ti today, this ti in a dark alley.
His hands were bound behind his back with pneuma-suppression cuffs.
He groaned and rolled onto his side, trying to sit up.
Boots stepped into his field of vision and Hailee Cross stood over him with her peircing green eyes.
Beside her, Professor Thadeus adjusted his glasses and watched silently.
Hailee crouched down, bringing her face level with Montez’s.
"We know you were at St. Helena dical Center eight months ago," she said.
Montez said nothing in reply.
"And I’m going to need you to tell everything you know about what happened that night."
She tilted her head slightly.
"Especially about the Blue Reaper."
Alessia lay on the cold concrete.
Twenty students left now, maybe less. She’d stopped counting after the boy next to her had died.
Her right hand had regained so feeling. She could move her fingers and curl them slightly. It wasn’t much but it was sothing.
She’d been working on it for hours.Forcing the blood flow and forcing her pneuma to circulate even though the red gas had depleted almost everything.
The door opened and this ti two figures walked in and one of them pointed at a girl near the back wall.
The other figure started walking toward the girl.
"Hey!" Alessia’s voice ca out weak but audible. "Hey, asshole!"
The figures stopped.
Both turned to look at her.
"Yeah, you." Alessia forced herself to speak louder. "What’s wrong? Scared to pick soone who can actually talk back?"
The figure that had been walking toward the other girl changed direction and walked toward Alessia instead.
"Good. Better than her."
The figure reached down, grabbed a fistful of Alessia’s hair and yanked.
Pain shot through her scalp.
He started dragging her across the floor by her hair.
Alessia squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. Her scalp felt like it was on fire while her body was dragged across the concrete.
"Don’t scream. Don’t give them the satisfaction."
But she couldn’t help it. A strangled cry escaped her throat.
They passed through the doorway into a dimly lit hallway.
Alessia’s free hand scraped along the ground as she was dragged.
Her fingers brushed sothing, the sharp piece of tal equipnt she’d spotted earlier.
She grabbed it.
The figure kept dragging her down the hall, completely oblivious.
Alessia gripped the tal shard tight. It cut into her palm but she didn’t care.
She swung her arm up and drove the shard into the back of the man’s leg.
He screeched and blood gushed from the wound.
His grip on her hair released and he collapsed to one knee, clutching his leg.
"FUCK!, you little....."
Alessia found her resolve and quickly scrambled to her feet.
Her legs were weak and shaky but they worked.
She ran.
"Get her!" the man scread behind her.
Footsteps pounded after her.
Alessia turned left down another hallway. Then right. The corridors all looked the sa—concrete walls and numbered doors.
Her vision blurred and her legs felt more and more like lead.
"Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t—"
She stumbled but caught herself against the wall.
The footsteps were getting closer.
"They’re not using Crests."
The realization hit her even through the panic.
"They’re Achusoi. All of them."
Alessia turned another corner and her legs gave out.
She fell forward..... but soone caught her.
Alessia gasped and tried to pull away.
"Hey, hey, it’s okay." The voice was a gentle and feminine one. "I’m here to save you."
Alessia looked up to find the smile of Milo DiMarco.
Relief flooded through her chest.
"Milo."
"Don’t worry," Milo said, still smiling. "You’re safe now."
But Alessia couldn’t help but feel sothing was off.
It was her eyes...
Her eyes didn’t match the smile.
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