"And use him like a shield?" Leader Lux said with a frown.
"And a sword," Pinky added.
Bazuka Lady began massaging her forehead, thinking of a way to explain sarcasm to Pinky. She knew it wasn't Pinky's fault. After all, no one from her time understood sarcasm. Not to mention, teaching an old dog new tricks was easier than teaching a broken soul a new concept.
"We need his overpowered artifacts -- not him," said Psycho. "Wait here. I'll go scrape up his body this time." He reached for a bloody shovel and bucket.
"No!" Lux growled. "You." He pointed at Pinky. "Go scrape him up. And don't forget to get all of him this time around." He said, ignoring Psycho's psychotic ideals. "Once you figure out how he made those artifacts, maybe I'll give you my title. Lead away—If that ever happens to be the case!"
"Why me?" Pinky's complaints fell on deaf ears. She pouted and turned her frustration toward Bazuka Barbie and DJ Rizz.
"We all did it a couple of times, yo!" DJ Rizz rapped. "Once you, then me, later wee... we all go round and round. The kid doesn't learn. Doesn't seem to grow. What else can we do but shove, shove, shove!" he started dancing to his beats.
Pinky tried her best to imitate him, but kept failing in the cutest way possible.
Bazuka Barbie had summoned her Buzzoka beforehand, prepared for just such a moment. She was ready to swing it at anyone who got too close and had blasted DJ Rizz's face to kingdom come a few times already, perhaps more often than she'd scooped up poor Zack.
"He did show some resistance before Psycho psyched him," Bazuka Barbie said, twirling away from the dance floor with the grace of a ballerina.
"True, true, true. Psycho be psyching people out, staying true to his name. But ain't that who he really is... or is there something more sinister, deep below?" DJ ended his rap with a dramatic pose.
Pinky comically posed beside DJ Rizz, her limbs tangled in a knot. "Don't belittle a member just because it rhymes better."
"Do you want a zombie on our team again?" Lux's words sent chills down the trio's spines. "Scoop him up before that's the only option left." He sided with Psycho, clearly more interested in the kid's artifacts than the kid himself, who, after all, was his friend's son.
"Why doesn't he let Psycho?" Pinky pouted.
"Because we don't want him to become his puppet," Bazuka said firmly, and Pinky nodded, accepting the premise.
After several revivals, spanning throughout the month—and a bit of manipulation—they finally got Zack to accept his circumstances and gave him a gist of what true reality held.
"My parents aren't the Templetons," Zack said, looking at Pinky for confirmation. And when she shook her head, he continued. "They were the most powerful Soul Hunters, masters of a vast array of skills that ranged from shapeshifting, emotion manipulation, reality bending, and whatnot..."
Leader Lux gave a hesitant nod, agreeing only halfway. It was painfully apparent to Zack that he held back his full confirmation due to some lingering reservations.
"And how are people who aren't supposed to die... dead!?" Zack was adamant to know the answer.
"That's..." Lux looked around, hoping to pass the tedious explanation onto someone else, but no one met his eyes for the very same reason. With a resigned sigh, he deflected the question for another time. Preferably, one of their Sponsors could handle this.
Zack relented and moved on to another nagging thought. "What kind of cruel initiation is this? Lost your humanity fighting demons?"
"Broken souls," Pinky corrected, earning an annoyed glare in return.
Faced with yet another question no one wanted to answer, Lux tried his best to formulate something reasonable.
"Well... in a way, you now have the choice to resist the effects and live a normal life. Without this training, you wouldn't even have that."
"And the second choice?"
"Initiation." Lux shrugged, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
In his defense, it was—for them—as mundane as a Monday.
"You think I'm going to hand over mind-bending truths, overwhelming power, and a shot at reality-warping freedom to a nosy brat with a streak of dumb luck?"
The tables turned. From the questionnaire to being questioned, Zack suddenly found himself under scrutiny.
They bombarded him with questions—about the locket, the soul artifacts, the locked memories they hadn't touched. Most of it, Zack didn't understand himself. His birth parents had sealed many of those memories, and the group soon began to realize it.
"Say what, kid?" Psycho growled, powering up.
Right on cue, the rest of the crew unleashed their unique auras, blasting them into full throttle. They stood like a perfectly posed comic panel—imposing, eccentric, unshakable.
"Want in?" Psycho stretched his hand forward.
Lux caught the tiny sparks flaring in Zack's eyes. Still, he downplayed the display of energy and potential. "We might not be the flashiest bunch," he said, cracking his knuckles. "We don't hit the perfect balance, tick the clean-cut boxes, or follow the standard quota. But when broken souls picture Soul Hunters? They picture us."
'There it was again.' Zack raised an eyebrow. 'That word.'
Many spiritual guides, ancient scriptures, myths, and holy books speak of the soul, our true self. But these people… they spoke of it in an entirely different light.
"What does a Soul Hunter actually do?" Zack asked. "Catch or hunt souls? Demons?" He shuddered, remembering their last fight. "Doesn't that make you myth hunters?"
Lux spat at the name. "Don't compare us to those bozos," he said with visible disgust. "Myth Hunters are low-grade wishers who wouldn't recognize real power if it weighed a ton and kicked them in their pompous little faces."
"Quite literally," added Psycho.
'Myth Hunters are also a thing… why not?' Zack noted silently.
"So you people... quite literally hunt souls?"
"Broken souls," Pinky corrected him again.
"A soul is a soul!" Zack snapped, frustration leaking into his voice. "Why do you keep adding broken?"
Lux gestured for Pinky to stay quiet. An internal dialogue passed between the group—one Zack couldn't decipher—before they collectively decided to wait for their Sponsor.
Zack waited the entire day, even joining in their mundane tasks, to earn his keep while awaiting the meeting. Yet neither their Sponsor nor a sleek, shiny car came to visit their crumbling hideout.
Pinky claimed too much concentrated power had eaten away at the structure—a cryptic statement that, like everything else about them, only hyped them up without offering real answers.
Days flew by. Zack, ever observant, took mental notes of the strange group that called themselves Soul Hunters, despite their Sponsor allegedly laughing at the name 'Soul Snatchers,' telling them they sure knew how to dream.
What struck Zack the most was that not one of them had a Social Security number, bank account, cash, or even a proper legal name.
Their very existence was absurd, and somehow invisible. The rest of the world—from the barkeep at a five-star hotel to the neighborhood milkman—ignored every red flag as if these people were ghosts... or worse, normal folk.
During their very first proper encounter, Zack realized they were immortal and could toy with the emotions of lesser beings.
He also vaguely recalled another group of Soul Hunters mocking this crew for their lack of skill.
"Maybe the 'power of manipulation' beats the power to manipulate?" he mused.
Pinky called their group 'Division X' and proudly showed Zack the organization's group text on an ancient, outdated phone. The phone itself looked nearly indestructible, likely reinforced with magic, but the simplicity of the communication method threw Zack for a loop.
"Reality-bending powers, but no long-distance communication?" he teased. "Seriously?"
Leader Lux nearly snapped, and his rage flared into a tangible creature, but he caged it, locking the emotion away like a beast on a leash and turning the fury onto Pinky.
He scolded her for revealing classified information and warned the others to keep quiet until Zack was evaluated correctly and vetted into their ranks.
Psycho Pass—the group's outlier and habitual dissenter—refused to comply. He threatened to leave the group if Zack wasn't included in their next mission.
They were already short one member, he reminded everyone. If another left, it would mean certain death.
How does an immortal die?
Still, the biggest mystery Zack hoped their elusive Sponsor would one day clarify—if he ever bothered to show up.
Lux shut down the rebellion with a calm, brutal dismissal. "Leave your powers behind and go on your merry way," he said without blinking.
Among this circus of psychos, Psycho Pass was the most power-hungry of them all. A broken soul obsessed with growth.
More than once, he confided in Zack about his deepest desires, his boundless ambition, and the terrifying simplicity of it all.
"People go mad," he had whispered once, fear visible in his eyes—the only time Zack had seen real fear in him.
And how could a crazy person go more insane?
A simple problem, really.
Just ask your imagination.
Exactly what to ask?
That was a memory long stolen from Zack's mind.
He had only managed to safeguard a few fragments by recreating them through vivid imagination and the words he used to scribble behind bathroom tiles.
Thank God or whatever higher power was in charge these days, that immortals didn't need to use such facilities.
———<>||<>——— End of Chapter Six. ———<>||<>———