Chapter 59: Smoke clouds and Auroras!

"You're in the last known area that I could dig up right now, he's gone M.I.A, he used to check in frequently with me but I haven't received an update from him in a while." Settembre reminded a friend and another member of the Purlieu of heroics: Noa Hayes known in Chicago as Aurora-shade on the field. Noa stood outside of the heroes' public apartment safe house. "Don't worry, Setty, we all had that conversation about this cult's monsters together, possibly in trouble yet Aerial Detective lives and is probably busy dodging something right now." Noa responded as she walked through the entrance of the apartment. Derek pets Fenella for morale and confidence before he lets her fly away and begins his sprint to the edge before he leaps from it with a backflip. 

Derek transforms himself back into a cloud of smoke and soars like a jet through JinJunyë's skies heading toward the Dojo Anthony made him aware of with a mission to stop the cult's plans. Slightly more than half an hour, Derek has Mack locked in his sight, walking carelessly through his birth city but with the monsters that he encountered earlier tearing innocent and ignorant civilians apart or rushing freely through his city's streets if there weren't any. 

Mack felt wrathful eyes spying, timing in his head, the distance between him and his gaseous assailant, he turned around and rushed a shoulder perfectly timed with his transformation back to his physical form sending Derek rolling a comfortable and painful distance. "I've been looking through this city, man, trying to find you for this rematch. Give you a chance to make it one to one, you know guy?" Said Mack as he held his right fist and he held his chin up with a smirk. Derek kept an irked expression on his face as he recovered. "Such a caring and considerate scumbag you are, just bring it on!" Derek angrily replied as he got back to his feet, as smoke flew around the combatants' shoulders, they rushed toward each other at breakneck speed. "Right. I just need to scour the city's cameras. And we just need to find him. Easy work, plausible work." Settembre responded to her but also doubled as a reminder to himself as he was busy searching on his monitors. "We just need to find him and hopefully bring him home then give him a very stern talking to for acting so recklessly. Don't worry, he's coming home, Set." Noa asserted and declared as she surveyed the building's lobby. Noa looked around her but struggled to find any clues. "You haven't lost my latest project, have ya, Noa?" Settembre asked as it came to mind when he paused for a moment. "The hat thingy?" Noa asked as she walked through searching for any plausible clue of their presence. "Style and utility. It's still experimental so right now don't use it for more than an hour and you only get one shot every twenty four hours. You temporarily become capable of taking advantage of my Psychometry. Wear it and focus very carefully on what you wish to know next to past events." Settembre informed Noa as he continued his search. "Sounds easy, it's not, I'm still going to need your help here with finding his room and coming up with what to focus on. Give me something, Setty." Noa replied as she continued exploring the darkened halls of the abandoned apartment complex. "Alright, I've written some things he told me that I figured would be fairly important on a sticky note because of my memory problems. My favorite part of being me. Give me a second." Settembre replied as he first checked the sticky notes on his third monitor then checked the rest on his computer's desk until he found the information Derek told him in the past. Settembre relayed the information to his and Derek's best friend for her mission to bring him home from the Heroics Purlieu and herself especially. Settembre gave a suggestion and Noa listened, she saw four male figures surrounding her with a turquoise glow, she couldn't believe her eyes when she recognized one of her best friends out of the squad speaking with no voice. She informed Settembre of this issue. "I'm ready for you now!" Derek shouted as he stepped one jab then the second and under a swift hook before stepping an overhead punch. Mack's confusion towards Derek's speed as he kept his distance from Derek's consistent chain tornado kicks halted any counterattack resulting in him becoming cornered and Derek able to deliver a spinning back kick on him which sent him flying and cracking the wall of a building. "Taekwondo fighter, huh, wouldn't have figured that for you, short stack." Mack commented as he recovered. "Wait until you feel my Ap chagi, you're not getting away!" Derek taunted and declared until he noticed he was being rushed by the unrelenting creatures, he dodged and stepped past their sharpened claws and their big fists. The hero halfway squat then threw out his arms as if he were in a box as he generated smoke to fill the area. In only a few seconds, each creature was no longer an issue and he saw Mack leaping up to a building. Derek transformed into his gaseous smoke form and flew past him on the building he was trying to use to escape from sight. "I'm already down the block from Master Basa. Servant of Lord Enotocin, born into this ancient feud and standing right in front of me right now to take his servants down, safe to guess that you know who he is, right?" Mack asked as he grinned. Derek looked down at the ground as he hated thinking about it. "Yeah. An ancient fart that I'm destined to kill one day, for humanity and to end the final trace of the evil he's spread, the source, him." Derek answered brute forcing laughter out of Mack after a moment of silence and comprehension passed two by like a tumbleweed. Derek stood with his stance ready and prepared. "Alright, I'm going to demonstrate why that's one of the most delusional sentences I've heard in a while for you." Mack responded after feeling so offended that his resolve to end Derek's life for threatening his lord allowed him to tap much deeper into Enotocin's gift. "This has been a long time coming and one of us is going down." Derek declared as he charged in. Mack began overwhelmingly throwing calculated chains of jabs, hooks and crosses to soften up Derek. "This isn't good, little set." Said Noa when she realized what she found after being led to a random rooftop. "Hey, I'm content with being five-five, alright?!" Settembre calmly replied over their comms. "two empty tubs of Derek's favorite icecream. Our graceful bird relaxes in high spots when he's in deep thought about something on his mind but there's two empty tubs of mint choco icecream, Set." Noa informed the worried friend which made the worrying worse. "Oh no, alright, I'm sorry to ask this but—" Settembre was interrupted but he felt relief. "I've been seeing Dr. Alan, it would take too long to search for answers from the store this comes from and follow the leads from there, I. HAVE. TO. At least try." Noa emphasized at least until the end. "No, remind yourself that you have to and you must, that your powers are like playdough, bend them to your will. Try repeating it in your head over and over without any thought of stopping until you find you've done it. Works for me very well to push past my limits, try it for yourself." Said Settembre calmly while his facial expression was serious. "Here goes every ounce of love for our hero!" Noa shouted with firm resolve but after ten minutes of nothing happening, her temper began flaring up as a rare occasion and she began attempting to demand that the trail appear in the sky to guide her once more toward her love. The trail in the sky appeared like it did for her ages ago as her mind was blown up, she began to think on her powers before she shrugged them off to focus on traversing to where the trail is leading. She threw her arms down to her hips, lighting up her shoes which made them glow green and pink like her jacket and mask before she began to form bridges the same color. "What's happening, what's going on, so did it work, check in, check in?" Settembre asked over their comms with a tone of urgency. "You're Lowkey a genius, Set. I still did things like I had, the expectation that they'd work for me but it wasn't getting me anywhere, all of these years, I could have just come to you?" Noa replied as she prepared herself for traversal then surfed green waves of Aurora through the city. She heard moans of suffering before she turned around then saw monsters chasing after her with a bloodthirst when she had looked behind her out of curiosity. She looked at the ravenous monsters with an unamused expression as they chased her down but was slightly lower than her Aurora surfing through the air. "No distance is too far to be next to him." Noa thought to herself as she sped up.

Derek feinted a right jab before switching up to combo of a low twist kick followed by a front kick, each was ineffective against Mack as he instead stepped the front kick before grabbing Derek's leg and tripping him off his feet forward, Derek used his gaseous form briefly to avoid Mack bashing him to the ground with both of his fists. As he flew slightly above Mack's head, the agent of the heroics purlieu attempted to drop on him but Mack held up Derek's weight with a forearm block after anticipating the agent's next move before Derek realized it for himself and leapt off into a butterfly twist. He remained calm under Mack's aggression and ducked under each of Mack's hooks before his eventual counter getting countered with a gunshot followed by a series of stepping knees before he grabbed his head and smashed his face into his knee, bloodying his face. "Vulnerable to an opponent that practices brutal simplicity in his fights. Some practicality beats style. I'm a little bit curious about the story behind this." Mack commented as he stood above him. Derek laid on the ground in the fetal position and groaned with his eyes shut but twitching. "Still conscious after all that?" Mack asked as he grew fascinated. "Heroes are meant to uphold Justice, right?" Mack asked rhetorically as he picked him up then pummeled him with more blows to his gut. Noa heard Derek's cries from not too far away and pushed her speed. Derek's ashen practice vanished as the council's successor held him up by his neck, shouting out praise to Enotocin. Noa was aghast, her jaw slowly began lowering while her eyes opened as wide as were possible from the feelings that hit her when she saw her best friend in the dire situation he were in, without legs and one arm remaining but as she surfed as fast as she were able to, Aurora-shade threw her hand upward when she reached a certain distance successfully conjuring a creature made of a form of glowing energy with shades of green and pink that shined so bright, it truly forced Mack to lose his sight, blinded and thrown off from his sense of balance with his bones weakening, she caused the council's successor to lose grip on Derek as he stood up stumbling until he couldn't manage and fell backwards.

Noa boarded her aurora bridging to surf the two agents of the heroics purlieu away from the Council's successor whom she was recently informed and warned about but knew she was beaten by and had no intentions of challenging. She left more of the volatile monsters inhabiting the city's streets in her dust as she surfed with Derek in her arms, learning over the years how to remove her bridges trailing behind her as she swiftly approached safety.

Auora-shade, Noa hayes, figured she'd surf to the two back to the safe house that Settembre's investigation led her into, then through the window and out of sight, Noa softly then laid Derek on the bed before unequipping her identity concealing helmet, she began staring down at him feeling completely lost for words, left with her thoughts. Noa backed away as a cloud of smoke descended on Derek that encased him for five minutes before he awoke with a deep gasp for air, his Ashen practice reforming his limbs as he got up from the bed.

Most of his major wounds were healed though he still felt some bruising on his ribs from the short battle. Derek shouted out her nickname with a shocked tone as he looked around him, eventually noticing her standing behind him with her facial expression eventually becoming relieved with hints of bewilderment, he saw.