Point-of-View: X
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"Wait, really?"
"Yeah, that’s what I heard. A team of Category 1s led by a Category 0 found and attempted to capture an Outlier, but they were nearly all wiped out like it was nothing. There were only two survivors, the Category 0, and one of the Category 1s, but the latter lost most of both his legs, so he’s pretty much useless now," I relayed what I’d heard.
Today’s the 29th of May, about a week after the latest attempted Outlier capture mission. I only heard about it yesterday, when I accidentally overheard a couple of random ta-Humans talking about it.
And earlier today, I brought up what I’d heard to Trevor, who confird it but didn’t really give any more details when I asked. Jerk.
Anyway, it was currently a little past midday, and I’d decided to pay Adelmira a visit, as I typically do at least once a day, and discussed the rumor I’d heard with her. She’s the only one of the three Outliers that Eden captured that I actually get along with...that Osian bastard is a total sleazy shithead, and Astra is, uh...kinda psycho, to put it lightly.
"So, then, this Outlier was powerful enough to take out a team of Category 1s? I an, all the Outliers probably are, but...," Frowned Miraliz skeptically.
"Yeah, they shouldn’t have enough control over their Auras to fight effectively. And yet, this one apparently wiped out multiple high level ta-Humans without even breaking a sweat," I surmised...yeah, sothing about this whole thing doesn’t add up.
I an, when it happened, less than three weeks had passed since the ta-Orbs were scattered...is it really possible for soone to gain control over their Aura in that short a ti without any help? I guess it’s not totally impossible, but as far as I know, it’s completely unheard of and unprecedented.
"Wonder if Eden will go after this Outlier again. I’m not seeing anything new on social dia, so they probably didn’t find this one through the internet...do you think they just randomly ca across the Outlier?" Wondered Miraliz curiously.
"I’ll try snooping around and try to hear more information on what happened, all I know at the mont is the bare minimum," I sighed wistfully.
"Yeah, there’s no point in speculating about it, is there? Hey, by the way, why exactly are we getting today off from training?" She asked .
"Hm? Oh, I don’t really know the specifics, but Trevor has so big eting with the higher ups and other Category 0s. He seed pretty annoyed when he told that he has a eting, so it’s probably going to be a long one," I inford her with a shrug.
I couldn’t help but wonder what his eting was about...but there’s no point, and I doubt he’d give away any important details to , anyway...
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Point-of-View: Trevor Compton
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I locked my room door with a sigh before heading for my desk and sitting down as I lifted open the lid of my laptop, pressing the power button and waiting for it to boot up. I then took out my phone and checked the ti...hm, only a minute before the eting is supposed to begin.
Once the system started up, I opened up the video conference app and logged in, typing in the code for the virtual eting room. As it loaded, I let out a sigh of relief as I saw that I wasn’t the last to enter.
Still waiting on three others, out of a total of twenty-two. The majority of the higher ups, Category 0s and a couple of Category 1s were included in it. Before long, everyone had joined the call, as I switched on my audio and video.
"It looks like we’re all here...well, then, let’s begin right away, shall we? We have finished deciphering all the ta-Orb research material that we stole from the Harmony lab we raided...unfortunately, we didn’t learn anything significant, nothing that we didn’t already know from our informant. That is, except for one detail. How the Aberration Skill that was used to create the ta-Orbs works and the appearance and na of the user. If we can find and capture them, then we will be able to create our own ta-Orbs in due ti," Surmised the senior-most higher up.
"Huh? Don’t tell that we’re being sent out on a wild goose chase to try and find this guy?! You know that conventional capture thods are useless against Harmony...if they realize that we’re after this Aberration Skill user, Neo Cronje will simply transport them to a different country!" Pointed out one of the other Category 0s.
"You misunderstand , I only ntioned this in order to have everyone keep an eye out for this Aberration Skill user, I’m perfectly aware of how futile searching for them blindly will be. Now, to get on to the main topic of this eting...it’s finally ti, we’re going to begin our ultimate goal of world domination. We’ve waited long enough."
Huh? Is he insane? He does realize that there’s a reason why we haven’t gone for it yet, right?
"Is that so kind of a joke? So long as Harmony remains an obstacle, we can’t-!"
"Let elaborate. Using Dark Skill techniques, we’re going to brainwash and puppeteer the leaders of various nations...in other words, we’re going to slowly but surely take over the world from the shadows, and once we’ve accumulated enough political power, we take over. After that, it’s simply a matter of hunting down and wiping out the ta-Humans of Harmony."
"With all due respect, sir, it won’t be easy to take over countries like that...for starters, we don’t even have enough Dark Skill users that are competent enough to pull it off," I spoke up with a frown.
"No need to worry, Arisu Kimura will lead this effort, to make up for her miserable failure to capture the most powerful Outlier sighted yet."
"Wait, what? H-hold on a damned sec, no one told about th-!" Arisu began to protest indignantly.
"In addition, Ash Silver will also be a key part of this mission. Arisu will use her Dark Skill brainwashing techniques on the leaders and their high ranking subordinates, and once that’s done, then Ash will use his Dark Skill: Condition technique to establish and lock in their loyalty to us. After that, we’ll simply post so Category 1s to control the leaders from the shadows, relaying our instructions to them."
"Are you sure about this? If Harmony catches on to what we’re doing, then...," One of the other Category 0s trailed off doubtfully.
"That won’t be a problem...our informant will give us information regarding which countries are and aren’t occupied by Harmony ta-Humans...countries with none or few of them will be our first targets."
Oh, boy...it looks like he’s decided to go through with this, regardless of what any of us say. A lot of the other Category 0s were trying to talk him out of it, but the other higher ups weren’t complaining...he must have already discussed it with them, and they must have ultimately agreed to it.
Stupid old bunch of has-beens, they’re only going to get us exposed and killed. Just because we’ve failed to get into a position to take over the world in all these decades doesn’t an that we have to force it due to impatience.
We’ve spend the last century or so building hidden bases all over the world...which, admittedly, was an idea we ripped off from Harmony. If we hadn’t, then we’d be really struggling to keep ourselves hidden right now, thanks to all the technological advancents in regular human society.
And we’ve kept regular humans from stumbling across our hidden bases by using a Dark Skill technique called Ward to compel any that wander close by to walk away, though that technique is only mildly effective on ta-Humans, so it’s primarily used to keep normal humans away.
Even though most of our bases are in remote, isolated areas, civilization keeps expanding their territory, tearing down forests and jungles to do so.
Well, we also have small groups of our lower Category ta-Humans running companies and stuff in regular society, along with so that are tasked with studying various fields, so going into science, so in technology and so on. Harmony likely does that sa with their mbers, otherwise how’d they have researchers with the know-how to create the ta-Orbs?
We’ve slowly but surely managed to integrate ourselves into regular society, hiding in plain sight, while continuing to construct our various hidden bases throughout the world, but...the way things have been going, it may very well be impossible to remain hidden for too much longer.
And well, that might be the exact reason why the higher ups have decided to move forward with the world domination plan. In the anti, they’ll probably have and so others continue to train the Outliers in order to prepare for when we do move out of the shadows. That’s all well and good, but I can’t help but doubt the feasibility of this plan.
Then again, if our informant in Harmony cos through for us, this might actually work...speaking of which. I wonder who it is? Only a few of the higher ups know the identity of our informant, I’m guess he or she must have warned them that they would stop giving us information if we revealed their identity.
It’s an undisputed fact that they’ve betrayed Harmony, there’s no way we would have known where to find that Harmony lab otherwise. And yet, I was having a lot of trouble placing any trust in whoever this is, just because they’re not loyal to Harmony doesn’t an that they’re necessarily loyal to us.
Whoever it is, I can’t help but wonder what their true motive is. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that by going through with this plan, we were playing right into their hands. Nah, maybe I’m just overthinking things...
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