"So you want to tell me that in 3 minutes not only did two surgeons get murdered with multiple stab wounds in their stomach and their throat cut open but at the same time the corpse of the perpetrator went missing in 2 minutes and there is no evidence left neither do we know how it was done without anybody seeing it?" Flame asked with a look that told that he didn't believe what he was just told.
"Y-yes! It sounds unreal, but we looked at the footage multiple times. The camera was well hidden, but because of its location we couldn't see everything well… and the guard was only gone for a couple of minutes, but when he was back it was already done!" The surgeon pupils were dilated, obvious fear in the voice of the surgeon.>>Did he never witness someone dying?<< Flame looked the person up and down and noticed how the skin of the young surgeon was quite smooth for a man. No noticeable scars. If there was one, it was small, likely caused by misusing a knife.
>>Rich kids thinking doing this work is easy or maybe a punishment by their family<< Flame held back the laughter as seeing fear in rich kids' faces was a rarity, but always amusing seeing their realization that life isn't as easy as they might have thought it might be.
"I see you go to your co-workers, my colleagues, and I will check it up, alright? We have a fairy with us, and she is quite good with cases like this. You go tell the others to just leave early or do other jobs, as we will occupy the entire room now." Flame slapped the back of the surgeon, sending him off.
>>Now that we are done with this, let us go to the room and see the mess left for us to clean<< Flame finally went inside the room. Having wasted time interrogating the surgeon who reported the scene. It was a hassle interrogating him and other surgeons, even the security guard, but it was necessary to cross-reference the statements and see if they overlapped with one another.
John stood outside the door, acting as a form of guard. It fits with his large physique and ability to overcome gravity. Even if he was a troublesome Übermensch, his ability made him a good tool that, if utilized well, could be the ace to capture criminals.
"Thanks for keeping watch buddy" Flame tried to be friendly with John even if he wasn't from around here. He went inside the room, and the first thing he saw was Licht in the middle of the room.
She had her uniform blouse unbuttoned, exposing a pair of green, translucent butterfly wings larger than her usual ones, which also took a lighter shade of green. Her hair became a dark shade of green, and her eyes, which were brown at first, became a light shade of green. Her skin changed to a green exoskeleton resembling that of a mantis, with green, thin wires stretching out of her forehead.
She looked emptily at the floor. Flame saw Aiden leaning on the wall, simply looking up at the roof. Flame walked and leaned beside Aiden, "Is she doing something mystical now or what?". He whispered to Aiden, who looked at him now. "There is nothing 'mystical' about it, Flame. She is simply using her powers to allow her to learn of the things that had occurred here; there is nothing mystical about it, but just one of the many things that can be explained."
Aiden scoffed at it and continued, "You should get that word out of your vocabulary, as that is unneeded. There is nothing mystical or spiritual that exists; the moment it can be explained, it is simply part of science. We can observe things and gain insight into them, even measure them." He showed his dislike for the mystical.
Flame rolled him from Aiden's words. He had forgotten how Aiden disliked anything that someone tried to explain in a non-scientific way. He wondered if Aiden was someone who believed in science, like the people of the Scientology group. Fanatics who praise and preach the word of science. They try to expand the scope of science and make as much progress as possible, no matter how unethical it may be.
"You need to be more flexible, Chief Inspector." He suggested, to which Aiden would scoff at. He was a firm believer in science even if not on the same level as fanatics, he would still think through scientific reasoning and deny the idea that anything non-scientific could exist. "Science can explain everything and anything it can't explain is simply too advanced for the current era" That is his motto, everything can be explained if given time.
>>What a narrow mind<< Flame wouldn't dare to speak that out aloud. While he felt they were close, Aiden was still his superior; not only would the higher-ups gladly fulfill some of his wishes if he threatened to retire. He is too good, like an ace in the hole, for the higher-ups. A detective who goes around doing the work of five men while solving cases. Even if he has been sent least over the years as he became a chief inspector, the fame of the many cases that he has solved still circles around, making everyone know about him, even newbies quickly get to learn who Aiden is whenever they join.
Licht would start to move, her fingers twitching, and the breath being exhaled was audible to the two. At the next moment, she would grab the table beside her as she leaned towards it, almost as if she was going to fall. The two reacted quickly and ran to her, helping her to stand up. She gasped for air as she reverted to her previous appearance. She breathed quickly, the surrounding wind was starting to move and accumulate, causing the small bottles of glass to fly around.
"DAMMIT SNAP BACK LICHT" Flame shouted, but his voice didn't reach her. They felt the surrounding air becoming heavy. It was John increasing the surrounding gravity. The two let go of Licht and walked away from the small range of his ability. The air was slowly calming, and then it subsided with Licht having come back.
"I'm fine now!" She shouted. John stopped the usage of his ability but was still looking at her with a threatening gaze. "Dammit, I didn't expect to lose my consciousness for a moment there" She exclaimed as she touched her throat. She buttoned her uniform slowly up, her wings now small again, fit at the back of her uniform, which had holes for her wings. Her forehead was slightly wrinkled because of the thin antennas that had come out.
"So, fairy girl, why did you go on a rampage with the wind and all?" John spoke casually with an annoyed face, even though he stopped glaring, he showed disdain towards Licht. In John's file, Flame remembered about him having dislike towards non-humans coming from a mission where he had lost comrades who were brutally murdered by a monster. Flame couldn't remember what species it was, but they had used elemental magic from what he remembered he had read.
"Stop glaring at me like I'm an animal, you gorilla," She said, glaring back at John, seeing it as a challenge with how he looked at her. She straightened up and made a cough before she started to talk. "It seems the perpetrator is still alive, as I saw him taking what was supposed to be his body away before killing the two surgeons who were going to perform the autopsy on him."
"Are you trying to say that a dead man is not only alive, but there are two of them? Please try to make sense of the situation, fairy girl. It is likely just an ability of one of those beasts, or maybe the corpse was a double who had fantastic plastic surgery to be the double of the actual mastermind."
Licht ignored what John had said and fixed her hair. "There is however another problem, especially with the information that you had given Chief, you told us that his hand transformed to a claw but there he used Fae magic to appear in the room" With the mention of Fae Aiden and Flame reacted with their eyes opening wide leaving John the only one confused.
"Are you sure that it was fae magic?" Aiden asked again. His eyes showed him being nervous and uncertain, now hearing the fae. It seemed like he was hoping that she saw it wrong and that it wasn't a fae.
"It was indeed fae magic, I was also shocked, but it seemed to be a mutant fae as he could strangle me even though I used 'Wind Zeit' to do my part, but especially Flame looked confused. Flame never heard of this technique of Licht he was already curious about what she was originally doing.
"What would this 'Wind Zeit' technique of yours be, then?" Flame asked it at the right moment, having a smile to hide his open curiosity towards it.
"Ah right, you and the gorilla don't know about it" She seemed apologetic that the two of them didn't know what this technique of yours did or how it worked. He couldn't tell if she did it just to annoy them or felt sorry for them.
"Then listen up well, as I won't explain it again." She made a smug expression as she felt proud about her power and this technique of hers.
Wind Zeit is high-end wind magic that allows the user to perceive the past of an event re-created by the wind itself. It takes place in a separate place, not in the past per se, but one where the wind has the form and shape as the things in reality hold. It is called the spirit world; unlike popular belief, it is the world of elements and where high-end magic is produced and originates from.
The wind re-creates the events of the past, making them as real as they can be. But no sound can come out, it is the craft of magic and nature, illusions as real as they can be, but unable to damage the user no matter how real it may seem as the user is like a ghost simply being an observer of the events that the wind itself tells them had happened.
"Wait, if it's like that fairy girl, then how come you got hurt? Doesn't that seem quite contradictory" John didn't hesitate to call out the obvious contradiction that was in her explanation and he was right. Her superiors also found it weird, if what she said was true, how come she was hurt there.
"As I said, he seemed to be a fae, and the faes are known to break the rules of things that are established to be absolutely true." She seemed angry with the mention of the faes this time, which confused John. He looked at his two, but by the look of it, they seemed to understand why she reacted this way. He wondered if he should ask it, but he didn't want to push her buttons too far, as he wasn't confident that he could take her on when she was fully aware of her surroundings.
"That isn't the important thing here," Aiden said loudly, getting the attention of the three. "It doesn't matter now whether her ability is contradictory or not from your perspective, but that we are dealing with someone showing a multitude of abilities. Seeing how he is tied to a cult, what is the likelihood that he is someone bearing dirty blood?" The question was directed to Licht, the one and only expert regarding the faes, thanks to her being a fairy.
"I wouldn't bet on it as they are into the idea of keeping ones blood as pure as possible which did led to some issues in their lineages where they had to call external races for help." She said it with a playful tone even grinning as she mentioned that part of the faes history.
"The chance isn't low however as they do like handsome human men and having a half-blooded fae that is even more handsome would be like a treasure for these abominations" Fairies and Fae two species who have been fueled with hate towards one another since the beginning of a long era even though they share the same ancestor it branched out as the blood of the species was diluted.
The faes believe in their superiority over the fairies as they are closer to the ancestor, while the fairies think of them as abominations who are hated by nature itself as they break its rules. That was the way the conflict started and the generational hate spread through.
"A dirt-blooded fae that wants to play mastermind with us." Aiden let out a long laugh. The sense of annoyance had long disappeared and was replaced with anger. It was infuriating how daring that dirt-blooded freak was, trying to play not only the people around him but himself like chess pieces.
"Right, that's the minimum one needs to do to get me worked up." The thrill of someone smart, they were toying around with the corpse, the death, and openly disclosing their ability. That is a play. >>A maestro, that's how he described himself while acting comfy with me<< A wide grin came on the face of Aiden.
"It seems I have a lovely fan, everyone." All three looked baffled at Aiden, and the smile gave them a slow realization of how Aiden felt and what his words meant. He wasn't someone to give a compliment, especially to criminals. He felt provoked, the chief inspector felt provoked by the criminals, and he let himself fall into it.
That wasn't about work anymore, and they know it. John may not fully understand it as he was new, but he even felt uneasy with the way Aiden had said that sentence. Flame and Licht, on the contrary, felt dread from it; they knew firsthand how Aiden acted when someone caught his interest. In all cases, he will show disinterest and only do the minimum, but when one provokes him, and it succeeds, that's when Aiden starts to put effort into a case and where he starts capturing criminals himself and himself alone, not letting anyone else capture them.
Like a lion, he stalks his prey, striking them at their weakest moment and ripping their throat open. "All the case and evidence tied to this case are to be sent to me, and anything unrelated to the case can be done by the newcomers. If they get into trouble, they can first-hand learn not to make any mistakes again."
He cracked his knuckles as he went to the door to leave the three alone. "Ah, right before I forget, I should ask it." He turned his head to look at John. "What would you give to a superior if you had a meeting with them regarding the death of a close acquaintance of theirs?" It was an unexpected question.
"I uh," John stuttered from the sudden question before he gave a proper answer "Chocolate filled with alcohol. They are sweet to hide the bitterness of alcohol and would make someone drunk to let their worry out" An innocent suggestion, more tame than what he expected he would assume a violent solution but that was more kind than the appearance and personality of his would give off.
"Good, I'd better go and buy some chocolate, better cheap ones, he may see more daring than Aiden walked off with Licht having a panicked face and shouting after Aiden "Sir wait I know you are interested in that case now but don't be rude to the CEO on the meeting!" John felt confused as to why Licht was reacting that way, while Flame was just sighing a lot and shaking his head with sweat dropping, seemingly out of fear, with how pale he had become.
"Hey, what is wrong with that girl to shout at her superior that way?" John asked, not hiding the confusion on his face. He was rather direct when he didn't understand things. Flame looked at John with pity on his face. He put his hand on John's shoulder, tapping it a few times, not saying anything.
He then gave him a weak smile "You are not married right?" instead of answering he asked a question one that was personal and felt out of pocket. John tilted his head to the left before he answered hesitated"Eh yes I'm not married at the moment but how is this related to my question?" he was too confused to feel even anger of this unrelated question.
"Then you can be prepared to deal with all the workload that our superior is doing normally. When you see him laugh but especially praise someone, just know that he will not do any of the work and instead go out of his way to make sure whoever piqued his interest either suffers or is satisfied in the best way possible, where they won't try piquing his interest again."
He walked past John. John looked absently, not understanding it for the moment, he would turn to Flame and walk beside him. "What is wrong with a bit of workload?" John didn't see the problem of the matter. How bad could a couple of documents be? He did hear how the chief inspector was a workaholic, staying in the office more often because of all the documents he reviews, but he was doing it all alone; that's what he assumed why he does it all alone and simply likes to work.
"Oh, you will see it tomorrow, why we call him a workaholic. We don't use that term just for anyone" Flame started to chuckle to himself as he said it. John would start to feel uneasy from it. Flame was someone easy going, cheerful around and friends with everyone, but the way he acted wasn't the usual way.
>>How bad could it be?<<