Salvage

Azazel watched the revenant fall in what felt like slow motion. As the explosion spiraled out, Azazel teleported forward, grabbing hold of the hostage and falling to the ground, shielding her with his body. The flames tore overhead, but he looked into the woman's eyes to assure her everything was all right. Despite his reassurance, her tears were unceasing.

After a minute or two, the flames relented. He stood when it was safe for her and let out a puff of air in relief. The tall man didn't even notice that his back was still aflame.

X approached him quickly and quenched the fire with his own jacket, blinking at the smoke and letting out a small cough. Azazel merely smiled, offering the woman his gloved hand so she could stand.

X and Azazel looked at the revenant on the ground, whose body was now little more than ash.

"Call in the cleanup crew," X sighed, narrowing his dark eyes at the corpse.

xxx

The Firebreak Squad sat on the patio of a small family-owned ice cream parlor called Benny's. The umbrella was angled just right, so it provided enough shade for them to talk beneath the rays of the piercing summer sun.

A small TV was attached to the brick wall, playing the news.

Genisym Labs filed a new patent for a brain-machine interface. The suggested purposes include treatment for traumatic brain injuries and it is said that this interface will be a step forward for science. Up next, a shocking discovery in Valorys.

Vashti took a spoonful of neapolitan ice cream into her mouth, then made a satisfied expression, "Fuckin' delicious," she mused, waving her spoon around. "But I've been thinking lately… I don't know if I should break up with Tim or not."

"Tim? What happened to Lisha?" Azazel asked, his crystalline blue eyes widening with surprise.

Vash frowned, "She started talking about marriage way too often. I'm not ready for that yet."

"That's too bad. She was really fun to play videogames with," the blond man lamented.

"What?" Vashti scoffed, furrowing her brows in disbelief, "Didn't she kick your ass every time?"

"Not every time! I won…" Azazel trailed off as his mind was focused on making sure the chocolate chips in his ice cream were perfectly organized. Only once they were ordered to his satisfaction was he able to finish, "Once."

"Solid ratio. Anyway, Tim has been great so far. Super loving, gentle, and a good sense of humor. He didn't seem too out of the ordinary, until I had a chance to play on his computer," she paused to take a breath before continuing her long-winded explanation, "His desktop background was from Nekopara – which was fine, whatever. I opened up Steam, and saw he had exactly 69 hours in each of the Nekopara games—and there's 21 of them, by the way. His library is mostly catgirls, honestly. He seems to be a big fan of hent- I mean 'visual novels.' Later, while I was playing some PvP, he bragged that he spends $3000 a month on gacha games. That's an expensive hobby."

"What's the deal with catgirls anyway? They barely even look like cats. I don't see the appeal," Azazel said, spooning up a bit of vanilla ice cream with exactly two chocolate chips.

"That's a rabbit hole we don't want to fall down right now," X replied, pointing his pirouette wafer like a wand at Azazel.

Azazel became visibly puzzled. "I thought we were talking about catgirls, not rabbits."

"Figure of speech. Vash, let's see pictures of this guy. I'm curious." X leaned forward with a smirk, encouraging her to show them photos.

Vash nodded, then pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket to show them her gallery. As she scrolled through, it was mostly normal couple photos as one would expect. One with an arm around her, another holding up peace signs, a few breakfasts together, even one from bed. Normal things…

Normal except for the fact that Vash didn't appear in the photos on account of her revenancy, so it looked like this sorry guy was just posed by himself.

"Wait, you took selfies with him?" Meera's face was marked with visible concern. "That's a major risk."

"Yeah, he insisted. I glimmered him every time though, so he thought I was showing up when he took the photos," Vashti explained with a devious chuckle.

"What about afterward?" Meera inquired.

"I told him his phone's deep learning AI has a tendency to glitch out when trying to remove people in the background, and it'll sometimes remove someone from the foreground instead, especially if they have a darker skin tone," Vash explained, and finished with a wink before summarizing, "I basically convinced him his AI is racist as a product of the white supremacist establishment."

Meera stared at her, bewildered, "You're good at this. I need to take notes."

Vashti cocked a questioning brow, "For what? You don't date anyone."

"True. But I like learning new things. Like how to tell a convincing lie." She looked up at the sky, hands in prayer, and whispered, "Please forgive me, Lord. I'm only joking."

Some lights flashed as the news anchor on TV announced the next headline. "Secret government training program, codenamed Protocol Alpha rumored to involve human experimentation? More after the break."

Next, a commercial played.

'Did you know there's a way you can forget the past and live without worry for up to a year?

Experience the best vacation possible with our comprehensive package that includes a temporary memory wipe that can let you start again, at least, until you have to return to work.

Not recommended for people under the age of 18. Side effects may include dizziness, nausea, heartburn, lack of awareness, loss of self-perception, and trouble finding your way around. Serious side effects could include partial or total memory loss, severe dissociation, and reckless behavior. Rare cases could include being stuck in a perpetual time loop inside your head and reliving a specific experience over and over. If you experience any of these side effects, please contact your New Life agent. No refunds.'

X shook his head, scoffing. "I can't believe that has been around for so long. It really should have been banned ages ago."

"Some people just want to forget, but they can't. Could be useful to get away from it all sometimes," Vash replied with a shrug.

"They just have really good lawyers and lobbyists. Nothing more to it," was the dark-haired man's simple response.

It was then that all four of their watches beeped in unison. Their digital dossiers all lit up in front of their eyes.

A new mission request, this time in Moldova.