"V-Valen?" She whispered at the child before her (him) her irises trembling as she looked down, a screwdriver firmly lodged in her stomach.
It was dark, hazy; he could hardly see his surroundings, but he could sll it: the thick, earthy sll of a forest.
Her voice was weak, almost like she’d been drugged, but he cared not.
When he redrew his arm, blood gushed forth, staining the whites of her tank top, like ink spreading on water. It was horrific.
And so he stabbed her again, and again, and again, but she didn’t do anything about it, she seed to be in shock... it was strange.
’Oh, she was tied up,’ he thought as he noticed the old, sinewy ropes binding her to a tree. He could feel the presence of other people as well, but he couldn’t focus because of the woman’s wails of agony.
That weeping woman was his birth mother.
-----
Mr. Valen shook his head at the stray mory, the smile on his face receding as he took a breath.
He stood slowly, Carla in his embrace as he observed the empty club room, deep colorful lights flashing onto broken furniture, shattered glasses, and spilled drinks.
"Wee-oo-wee-oo!" Police sirens flared from the distance, the sound of footsteps echoing outside the building, audible only to his advanced senses.
He looked down at Carla, still in the form of a black woman, and shifted his hold, lifting her fully into a princess carry.
’I’m surrounded,’ he thought, the whites in his eyes disappearing, replaced by pitch blackness as he used his strange sight.
From his point of view, he could see whitish figures all crouched in different points of the building pointing their weapons at his location.
"Argh!" He suddenly groaned, his sight returning to normal as the whites returned to his eyes.
’What!’ Mr. Valen thought, his eyes widening as a wave of nausea and disorientation overwheld him.
"Bam!" Intense pain exploded across his system, forcing him to his knees, his every muscle straining by the molecule even though his injuries had been healed by Carla’s energy.
’So there’s a cost,’ he thought shuddering as a cold wave overwheld him. In that instant, a shadowy hand phased through his chest as though breaking free from an eternal prison.
Like an animal, it clawed at the ground, its form phasing out of Mr. Valen like a parasite that was abandoning its host.
And once it was free, it stood, slowly, its vortex-like eyes peering at Mr. Valen, it was the shadowy humanoid, the source of his power boost.
The nausea ca in waves, the disorientation and pain beckoning him to shut his eyes.
But he forced himself to stay awake, his gaze locked on the shadowy humanoid, "Let’s fuse again," he asked.
But the shadowy humanoid did not respond, its head tilted as it observed him with those void-like eyes.
It then looked to Carla (the lady still in its arms) and visibly frowned before its form dissipated into the shadows. It was evident that it did not intend to provide any further assistance; the hunt was over.
But the danger was not over. In the next mont, Mr. Valen heard footsteps, (thick, confident footsteps originating from at least four people).
’Shit!’ he thought to himself, wondering how to handle the situation. ’There is no other exit; the place is surrounded, and I’m too wounded to keep up a fight. Should I play the victim? No, security caras and recorded evidence would discredit quickly. I could play along until Carla wakes up; we could use her compulsion marks to make them for-’ Mr. Valen suddenly stopped pondering as he felt a great sense of danger overwhelm him, the hairs on his arms and neck standing on end.
The shadowy humanoid seed to have sensed it too, as it poked its head out of a nearby wall, an unsettling smile growing on its face as it observed the club’s entrance.
The air grew thick and oppressive, the spilled alcohol evaporating into winding steam, bubbling with a sharp hiss.
Mr. Valen clutched Carla tighter, his mind racing through and then discarding options as the confident footsteps drew nearer, each one a hamr blow against the tiled floor.
Confusion warred with instinct, his teeth gritted, his eyes narrowing to slits as he rose.
The doors to the main club area, already hung askew from their hinges, gave way to two distinct silhouettes, backlit by the flashing ergency lights from the vehicles outside.
The first person to beco visible was a man (or a mountain of a man) a hulking brute given motion.
He was clothed in a tactical suit of a dark, non-reflective material that sohow moved freely over his fra, doing nothing to hide the sheer, bulging mass of his muscles.
His muscles weren’t just large; they seed to generate their own gravitational field, the air around them wavering and rippling with contained power, or maybe that was just the novelty speaking.
Mr. Valen felt his breath hitch at the sight of this brute who had his beady eyes locked on him.
But his overwhelming presence did not completely snuff out that of the woman beside him. A woman who belonged on so haute couture runway, rather than a place like this.
She was slender and tall, dressed in a shimring, cobalt-blue gown that seed to drink the chaotic light of the club.
Her face was all sharp, elegant angles, but it was her eyes that commanded Mr. Valen’s attention: they glowed with a steady, piercing cerulean light that unnerved him greatly.
When her eyes passed over him, he felt a cold, invasive touch seep into the back of his retina, one that forced him to blink before the feeling receded.
A few respectful steps behind these two anomalies were another two n in fancy corporate suits.
One had blonde hair and a stoic, professional deanor, his hand resting near his hip. The other was dark-haired, his eyes sharp and intelligent, already taking notes on a small tablet.
They were clearly the NIU agents who led Hunter before, but here, they were rely the entourage to the main event.
The large man’s voice rumbled through the room, deep enough to vibrate in Valen’s teeth. "Well. The party’s over," he said, his gaze, flat and devoid of emotion, settling on Mr. Valen, who knelt on the floor. "We ca looking for one asset, but found two." He joked, but the joke was delivered with a complete lack of humor.
The slender woman’s glowing blue eyes then flickered from Mr. Valen to the patches of dissipating black mist where the shadowy humanoid had vanished, almost as though she could see it, but not quite.
She then spoke, and god, her voice (when she spoke), was a cool, lodious thing that was as invasive as her eyes. "It’s strange, he has no echo, like a void."
She then tilted her head, much like the shadowy humanoid was fond of, as she focused on Carla, her voice sharpening. "But hers is as clear as day, that’s Carla, but wasn’t she white, 82?"
"White or black, labs will figure that out," 82 stepped forward, the floor groaning under his weight as he spoke to Mr. Valen, who glared at him. "You gonna co quietly, son? Or do we have to make this a teaching mont?"
’Who are these people?’ Mr. Valen thought, lowering his head slightly so as to more easily cover his face behind the shade of his hood.
He breathed deeply, his muscles straining as he attempted to run, "Ba-dum!" His heart skipped a beat a new flood of weakness overcoming him, as though reminding him of the futility of the endeavor.
82 had drawn closer, towering over him like the mountain of a man that he was, but at that exact mont, Mr. Valen caught sight of sothing in his peripheral vision, and his eyes widened:
His instincts flared violently as he saw it, a red and blue butterfly, swirling gracefully in the air.
"Gratatata!"
Imdiately, a flurry of gunshots erupted from outside, accompanied by the frantic screams of n and won; the noise was deafening.
82 and the blue-eyed woman looked away from Mr. Valen for just a mont and towards the entrance of the club, where two more shadows now stood.
"Hello kid, miss ?" A voice that sounded like it should be familiar to him seeped through, but he knew not who it belonged to.
Mr. Valen caught sight of an enchanting woman with blue-black hair, wearing pajama pants and a white tank top.
She was barefoot, holding a fat bread stick in her hand, which she ate slowly. The swirling mass of butterflies seed to steam from her.
’How is that possible?’ Mr. Valen thought to himself, his eyes narrowed to slits. He rembered Athyst as a blonde-haired woman with brown eyes, but here she stood before him, sold out by her avatars, in a completely different form.
’Can she change her appearance like Carla?’ he was forced to think, his eyes trailing to the figure who stood beside her, a person wearing a cloak.
The cloak was so large, in fact, that it was difficult to tell whether the person wearing it was a man or a woman.
Mr. Valen did not care, he wanted to pounce on Athyst right then and there, his form trembling where he knelt.
But he was weak, so that even Athyst, who was as light as a feather to him before, now felt like an immovable weight.
"Who might you be?" The blue-eyed woman asked, tilting her head, her eyes narrowing.
"I’m simply the mistake of a certain god," Athyst responded, swaying her hips, "the sa god that governs you actually?"
"Lyrris?" 82 cut in, his voice gruff as he stepped forward, but he stopped in his tracks.
"82 No, what have you done?" The blue-eyed woman whispered, her eyes wide in absolute and utter shock.
"What?" 82 answered with a raised brow before "bam!" His head exploded like a resting bomb, bits of blood and brain matter splattering everywhere in the room.
’WHAT!’ Mr. Valen thought in shock, his eyes wide. But in the next mont, he felt a new presence, sothing that made his heart skip a beat.
It was a feeling of being utterly laid bare, as if a force was peering through his very existence.
"Hey pops, seems like you’re in a bad mo-" "bam!" Athyst was forced to her knees so suddenly that the tiles beneath her cracked, but she was smiling, unsettlingly, from ear to ear.
Everyone else in the room had also stilled unnaturally, the NIU agents, the blue-eyed woman, even the cloaked figure; it was uncanny.
Everyone remained as such for a mont, then two, and in this instant, even though Mr. Valen was not bound by any force, he felt a primal fear at even the thought of looking up.
The gaze passed soon after, allowing Athyst to rise, and she did so with a kind of childish glee.
The lower part of her pajama pants was slowly getting soaked with blood, her knees injured from the forced prostration.
"That ability... The Artist, B-but lab had counters," The blue-eyed woman whispered, taking a step back as she breathed.
"You’re not a combat type, are you?" Athyst smiled at her words, shaking her head as she turned her gaze to the man kneeling in the room. "Would you please excuse our guests?"
"Yes, big sister," the cloaked figure beside Athyst suddenly spoke, its voice male.
In the next mont, he pointed his arm at Mr. Valen one still covered by his large cloak.
The air then grew quiet, too quiet and in the next mont, Mr. Valen took note of the absence of the tile below him.
"Whoosh!"
He was suddenly falling, his pupils dilating to see a hole above him, showing him the ceiling of the club.
The air grew hostile, moist and cold, whipping past him as he fell haphazardly, Carla in his arms, "bam!" He hit his head on sothing in the process, and then, darkness.
Mr. Valen had lost consciousness.
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