118 Side B

...??? PoV...

"I don't know why you are bothering me," I say with a sigh as I lean back in my chair.

The man in front of me, who is wearing a well-tailored suit like usual, also sighs and rest his head on his hand. "Why do I even give you the reports? Those briefing sessions could be a lot shorter if you bothered to read the damn reports."

I wave my hand in the air, "Yeah, whatever. Give me a quick rundown, and we'll be done with it."

The man in front of me, who we only know as "Adam," shakes his head and pass a hand in his short cropped brown hair. "The 'quick rundown,' as you call it, was in the report. I don't even know why you are so difficult."

For crying out loud, I'm not difficult. Who in their right mind would sit through those dreadful reports, they are always long-winded and never get to the point.

"Alison, I saw you rolling your eyes." Adam reprimands me and taps the screen of the tablet on his desk. "Look at this, the faster you understand the situation, the faster you'll be out of my office."

I can't help but sneer, "I know, stop treating me like a child. I'm already sixteen for fuck's sake, so-"

"Another reason for you to shut up and listen to the fucking briefing then." Adam interrupts me, and I back down after seeing his exasperated expression.

"Good," he says before tapping on the device, "You should learn to behave."

I stop myself from dishing out another snappy remark and look at the device for the first time. The first thing in the report is an image of a large mansion in the middle of nowhere.

"Let me guess; some rich guy dabbled in things he shouldn't again?" I ask. Most of our missions revolve around the recovery of certain artifacts which ended up in the hands of overly curious millionaires with too much time on their hands.

"Are you unable to read?" Adam says with a fake smile while his hands grip his desk so hard that his knuckles turned white. I can't help but gulp; an angry Adam is never a good thing.

"Let me see... This place belongs to a certain John Thomson? Never heard of the guy before." I mutter as I read the rest of the report. The report doesn't say much about the guy; he hasn't done anything noteworthy. He was a student at the local community college; then he suddenly stopped coming to his classes.

To me it looks like the standard spiel, a student gets a bit of money and burns it all on a huge house he can't afford. I've seen a lot of these in my missions; those rich people are most of the time completely disconnected from reality.

I read the next paragraph and raise an eyebrow. He is apparently involved with the Enforcers, and those guys don't like us.

"Are you sure this is accurate?" I ask Adam, who answers with a nod. Adam's reports are always on point and accurate, so I see no reason to doubt him despite the surprising contents of this particular one. I lower my head and resume my reading; this John Thomson appeared on our radar after a particularly flashy battle. It was all over the HiddenNet for a while, but the Enforcers did their best to scrub the network of that particular video.

But, like the regular Internet, it's impossible to truly remove something once it's posted.

I then play the video in question; it was taken from one of the numerous news channels on the HiddenNet. The first thing that I notice is a large number of people around the battlefield. From the looks of things, it looks like a conventional war between two Families, although the number of participants is quite a bit larger compared to what's typical for the situation. I notice a lot of different species are fighting side-by-side, a rare sight in itself. This battle must be the result of a Coalition War. These wars rarely happen, but it's always spectacular when they do.

I wonder what it has to do with-

My thoughts are interrupted when a gigantic creature burst out of the defender's base. This creature looks powerful, and I know that I would never be able to destroy it on my own, it would require all the might of the Organization to deal with such a menace.

The attacking Enforcers shift their attention towards the demon, and from what I understand the creature was some sort of hidden super-weapon.

The video then stops, and I read the next paragraphs with attention. According to the report, this battle was started by the actions of an unknown gunman, who was later revealed to be John Thomson. I watch the next video extract, and it shows an armored figure blasting a barrier with strange weapons.

I can't but shudder at the sight, those weapons of his look like they pack quite a punch. I even wonder if Object.Block() ran through our quantum computer would be enough to hold against such an assault.

The extract of the assault ends, and I switch to the next video. This one is displaying the rest of the battle, where the demon is fighting with the attacking Enforcers. Weirdly enough, it seems like-

My thoughts are stopped again when a group of Devils suddenly appear out of nowhere. Devils are native to Europe, so it's rare to see them in the US like that. The Devils use their telekinesis or Coordinates.Modify() as Adam calls it, to put a stop to the battle.

The leader of the Devils speaks about sacrifices, bloodlines, and all that jazz. I almost skip this part of the video when a magical formation appears in the sky. It isn't like the wasteful and inefficient magic of the Enforcers. Instead, it is without any extra features and looks like it's almost on par with what we do.

"Adam, don't tell me that-"

"Don't worry," the brown-haired man interrupts me. "It isn't a direct Code call, but it's closer than what we are used to seeing."

I nod, I don't know what would happen if the Enforcers truly understood the nature of their magic.

It would certainly make my job more difficult.

The reports give detailed insights about what this circle was, but I can barely understand what it says. I'm not a scientist; I'm a field operator.

Instead, I skip the long-winded explanations and watch the next video. The chimera, which is now controlled by the spirit of an ancient biblical demon, is facing John Thomson in direct combat. Normally, a human without enhancements should die in an instant.

However, this guy is far from ordinary. His movements are slow, but he's still avoiding the deadly strikes of the demon that could have wiped out an entire city block. He teleports around with blue portals and narrowly avoids every strike.

"How is that possible?" I ask Adam who is also watching the video on his screen with narrow eyes.

"We don't really know." He declares, "But I'm certain of one thing, it can't be Self.Save()."

I ponder on what he's saying, "Do you think he's a Penitent Warrior then?"

"It can't be. I told you already; it can't be Self.Save(). Furthermore, no organization that we know of was operating in the area, and he isn't wearing the characteristic armored suit of a Penitent Warrior." Adam says.

I nod, I will never face another one of those Penitent Warriors again if I can avoid it. The last time it happened, they almost killed my entire squad, we only survived thanks to a lucky teleportation.

"Do you think he's a Clairvoyant then?" I ask.

"It's impossible," Adam shakes his head, "The human brain can't handle the load of Object.Predict(), and there haven't been any records of someone having access to that ability yet."

"So you are telling me that this guy can do all of this," I say as I point to the video, "without any Code call?"

"I'm not saying that at all," Adam replies, "We didn't have our eyes on the area at the time, so we can't know for sure what he's using. It could be something similar to the Enforcers' 'magic.'"

"If you say so," I say, half-convinced by Adam's explanation.

I watch the rest of the battle unfold, and can't help but gasp when John Thomson finally killed the demon.

"W-What was that?" I mutter under my breath. But my surprise doesn't end there. Another video plays; this one is labeled 'Message Of Rebellion.' My jaw drops when he outright insults the Enforcers to their face, call for their dismantlement and declare his independence before teleporting away.

"Is this guy suicidal?" I say to myself. "Is he still alive?"

It wouldn't surprise me if the Enforcers outright killed him after what he's done.

"Read the rest of the report, if you think this is shocking you haven't seen anything yet," Adam says with a barely hidden smirk. I keep reading, and what I see makes my heart skip a beat. John's call to arms and destruction of the demon caused massive changes in the local political scene.

Large Families fell, and something new emerged. First of all, a massive Empire rose from the ashes left by what the locals are calling 'The Beelzebub Incident.' Another group called the Freedom Movement, which originated from Enforcers discontent with the current state of affairs, seems to be on the rise and the primary opponent of the Stonecrusher Empire.

"It doesn't sound good; why haven't we done anything about all of this?" I ask Adam.

He shrugs, "It wasn't high on our priority list, those things happen all the time, so we didn't worry about it. But take a look at this."

Adam shows me a map covered in different colors, and a red blob quickly spreads as time passes.

"The red blob is the Stonecrusher Empire; their growth is unprecedented." He says.

I nod, "So are we going to do something about it then? And what's the connexion with John Thomson?"

"We think he's still alive and operating from the shadows. You see, recently a bunch of bases of the Empire was annihilated at the same time." Adam says.

"And, what makes you think that it's related to him?" I ask.

Adam plays a video on his monitor and shows it to me, "I don't know about you, but I don't know a lot of Enforcers who are using literal tanks to assault an enemy base."