Chapter 59 : Vanessa shrugged

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Apparently, rampant violations of the stray directory was how Lint's brother ended up getting kicked out of the church… What was his name again… Fred? Frank? Freed?

Yeah, that last one sounded right; Freed. Freed Sellzen.

"Oh boy, that's not good."

Jafar's gaze quickly snapped to Ethan, before returning to the road, "What? What's not good?"

"It says here that the group of stray devils have taken a small group of people hostage. Apparently, they've been holding them for a few days now."

"Poor souls…" Irina murmured, her hand's clasped around her rosary in prayer, "Xenovia, shall we pray for their innocent souls to be comforted by the lord's embrace?"

"Indeed," Xenovia nodded, closing her own eyes, as the two began to whisper prayers.

"Wait a second girls," Ethan cut them off, "It says here that despite holding them for an extended period of time, the people were visibly shown to church scouts only fifteen hours ago, they were alive."

Ezekiel put a hand to his shin, "Hmmm, no doubt a distraction to draw us into their abyssal domain, no? These wayward demons seem to possess quite the cunning intellect for corrupted beasts of the occult."

"Don't these stray's mutate more and more over time?" Vin chimed in, "Like, they go more insane and beastly over the course of a few weeks or months?"

"That is the commonly believed principle," Xenovia confirmed.

"Then does the preexisting power level of a devil before it becomes a stray determine how long it takes for them to go crazy?"

"Yeah, that's how it works," Vanessa nodded, before her eyes went wide, "But what does- Oh… Oh no."

"Yeah…" Vin cringed, before turning to the front of the van, "Hey Ethan, how long have these guys existed in the directory?"

"Let me check…" Ethan paused for a minute, flipping through the file on his lap, before turning his own head to the back, "It says here about two weeks."

"So it's either they've mutated slowly, or they're powerful," Vin pondered, "Regardless, something's up if they expressly wanted none of the hostages they got eaten. Like Zeke's sayin', it smells a lot like a trap… Almost like they want exorcists to come after them."

"We don't exactly have a choice unfortunately," Jafar called out, "There's innocent people in there counting on us. Ethan, give us the details on those two main devils in the report."

"The first one is named Keizer, former Knight of the now-defunct peerage of one Lady Marissa. Not a lot's given about reasons for running, but it seems like he was a distinguished warrior, and was unsatisfied with her giving up Rating Games for the life of a married woman. He killed her in her sleep one night, before fleeing up here to the human realm. Given his Evil Piece being labelled as a Knight, expect a lot of speed from this guy, probably a bit of striking power too."

"The other one's name is Howitzer…" Ethan threw his hands into the air, "Okay, seriously, who the hell name's these guys? These are terrible names!"

"I don't know, their parents?" Vanessa shrugged, "Now stop worrying about that, and read the paper already."

"Sorry…" Ethan cleared his throat, before continuing to read, "Howitzer is a Rook from the peerage that belonged to Lady Marissa's fiancé. Looks like it's the same thing, dissatisfaction at losing out on the chance to fight because of the marriage, so he worked together with Keizer to kill Lady Marissa, and get away. The two are like brothers-in-arms, in a weird, fucked-up way, I guess. Remember, he's a Rook, so expect durability, power, and a lot of big-rook-energy."

The sound of Vanessa's hand hitting her face clapped throughout the van, "Ethan. Never say that again, that was awful."

"Duly noted."

For a while, the group fell into silence, listening to the sound of the van's tires rolling along the road. Vin was tempted to plug in his earbuds and let the sounds of music wrap himself in their embrace, but before he could, he noticed that his blue-haired companion was clutching something in her hands, looking over, Vin noticed the thin white wires stretching from the device, and up behind Xenovia's locks.

Smiling fondly, Vin popped his own earbuds in, closed his eyes, and let his mind drift.

Numerous songs later, Vin felt someone shift against him. Cracking one eye open, Vin found Xenovia nudging him with her elbow. Pausing his music, Vin pulled out his earbuds.

"Time to go?" Vin asked, to which Xenovia simply nodded, before walking out of the back of the van.

Vin quickly followed suit, setting his phone on his seat in the van, emerging out into the late afternoon sun. Why couldn't they ever do this in the morning? Planning, he guessed? Whatever, it wasn't important.

"How are we tackling this?" Vin decided to open the discussion, his eyes roving over the decrepit shopping center in front of them.

Not the biggest one in the world, that's for sure. He remembered this one, it ended up being too small, and it was just easier for people to build a new mall closer to the center of the city than to worry about a tiny mall out on the edge of the boonies.

Once, it was bright, bustling with lights and people; now, it was easily in a state of disrepair, graffiti coating sections of yellowed, weathered walls, windows boarded up, and the skylight of the mall, the very centerpiece, has a massive hole in it. Hell knows what that was from, but if Vin has to guess, it had something to do with what they were called here to stop.

"I don't quite know…" Jafar admitted, his eyes scanning over the building, searching every corner, "I would normally do our usual strategy whenever Vanessa gets Transparency, have us go in the obvious way, and have her sneak in unnoticed, but with Vanessa lacking durability, and the fact that getting a group of hostages out of there would be near impossible to do unnoticed, I'm just thinking of keeping her with us, and maybe having her split off to at least try and locate the hostages, or pick off a few of the lesser strays."

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