Straggling forward from the pain, the aberrant let out a painful yelp, almost falling to the ground, only stopped by the protruding metal rod deeply embedded in his feet.
Turning his head to cast a hateful glance at his attacker, the Aberrant hesitated for a slight second.
What stared back at him was a young man in an oversized black hoodie that hung loosely on him, paired with baggy jeans. He was trembling, his hands shaking uncontrollably as his lips quivered. His wide eyes darted back and forth between the bloodied pipe and his own stained hands.
"I… I— didn't want… didn't want to do this…" the young man slurred his words, barely keeping himself together.
"Why can't anybody leave me al—" He was ready to throw the heavy sledgehammer at his attacker, but his words were cut short; the sound of gunfire echoed throughout the mostly empty outskirts of the city.
The contaminated aberrant dropped the sledgehammer to the ground and screamed in pain, while the scarred youth in oversized clothing let out a terrified yelp of his own.
He put his hands in front of his face out of fear and tried to cast a glance at who fired the gun.
Walking out of the back alley, the man was playing with a gun that resembled a revolver. He had relatively long white hair neatly tied into a bun.
Continuously spinning his revolver, the man showed a warm expression to both the fearful young man and the contaminated Aberrant.
"I-I'm sorry!"
The young man glanced left and right in panic as the agent drew closer. His palms were slick with sweat, his face drained of all color. At the mere sight of blood, his complexion grew even paler, and he looked as though he might vomit at any moment.
Putting his hands in front of his mouth, the young man ran away from the scene without even looking back at the gnarly scene behind him.
The female agent looked back at the vanishing figure of the youth and back to her team leader.
In return, her captain only grinned. "Told you I'm lucky."
The agent just scoffed. "We are still two men down because of your stupid 'No Aberrant power' rule."
"They were just death row inmates dispatched here, who cares?" The team leader shrugged before helping his subordinate up from the floor.
"I'm… I'm not down," right beside them, the original owner of the sledgehammer, who now missed his hands, attempted to stand up. "I am still of use."
"Dear oh dear…" the captain shook his head slowly. "I thought you were dead as well. It certainly feels like your lucky day, doesn't it? But you know, I also feel quite lucky today."
The white haired captain jested while loading bullets into his revolver, only stopping when his gun was a bullet away from being loaded.
"Captain, I am still of use! Just give me the permission to enter the green artifact room."
"That's way too much paperwork, are you crazy?"
From the side, the female agent only reached for her broken shield with an exhausted sigh. "Just hurry up, Captain. I want to grab lunch before going back to the office."
"Sure, sure, I'm also craving some steak." With a jovial chuckle, he turned back to the death row inmate provided by the Hazard Control Division (HCD) of the Aberrant Corps.
Without a care in the world, he closed the cylinder of the revolver loaded with five bullets before spinning it twice.
Then, he put the barrel to the side of his head while crouching in front of the inmate.
"We are both lucky, but which one of us does fortune favor more?" He asked, cocking the hammer of the revolver.
Not even waiting for the answer, he pulled the trigger…
Click.
But nothing happened.
"I guess I am luckier."
"Wai—" But the squad captain already aimed the revolver at him, cocking it and pulling the trigger without hesitation.
Another gunshot echoed through the outskirts, sending a flock of birds bursting into the sky — among them was a raven with mismatched feathers
"Let's go. I'm staaarving~"
Tossing the broken shield to the side in annoyance, the agent waited for the Droplet to form on its own from the dead body of the contaminated Aberrant. "Shouldn't you call the cleanup team?"
The team leader let out an exasperated sigh, "I should."
"And will you?"
"Nah."
"Arghhh," She let out an annoyed growl and reached for her phone. "I call them if you are too lazy to do so."
"Thank you~"
The two agents walked away from the scene after the Droplet formed, but from a ruined building at a distance, a raven with mismatched feathers was staring at the two.
***
"I… I— didn't want… didn't want to do this… hahah," perched on his left shoulder, Moonless barely kept himself from falling off. "If you weren't a deplorable, scum of the earth, bloodthirsty assassin, you would have been an excellent actor."
With his left wing, the raven wiped away a tear forming in his eyes, even his missing one.
"But seriously, what the hell was that?" Asked Moonless through his stifled chuckles.
For a while, Cale remained silent.
Even before he returned to the flying cities, he had long thought about the kind of mask he wished to wear if he was to enter the service of the Aberrant Corps; after all, everything he needed to do in the flying cities could be accomplished by joining them.
For that, he needed to replicate a personality with which he was most familiar… this one.
The 'perfect mask' which Gilran mentioned, or this one, I just hope one of them will stick.
Me acting normal in a situation of such severity," Cale replied blankly. He had already slipped back into his usual demeanor, only to grab the raven as it nearly toppled from his shoulder, laughing too hard.
"Then try again, because that was anything but normal. My god, did you even interact with actual human beings in your life?"
"Other than my siblings, not really."
For a while, the raven stopped laughing, "That's pretty sad when you phrase it like that." Cale didn't bother to respond, and for a while, the two just traversed the back alleys.
The first to break the silence was Moonless, shockingly. "How would you describe your siblings?"
Cale didn't say anything for a while. "Weird."
My god, if even this madman calls them weird, I'd rather not meet them.
The lamb class entity called Moonless still retained the memories of both the Fallen Leaves and Deon, the Firestarter. From the memories of Deon, the assassins from the Red Mansion were never spotted, only the corpse left behind once their job was done.
The only time one of them was spotted was when Altair of the Red Mansion was caught by the Aberrant Corps.
"So, what are we going to do now? Shouldn't we try to find that beggar?"
"It would be futile; that wasn't a body under his control."
The raven blinked a couple of times while staring at Cale. "Sooo… aren't you going to give me an explanation or something? The silence gets really uncomfortable with you, and you are always silent."
As the raven chattered on, Cale felt an urge to push him back into the space conjured by Covenant, but ultimately, he didn't.
"It was contamination. A Wolf class shouldn't be strong enough to gain control just because of contaminating someone. He's not here."
Moonless tilted his head. "So, what are we going to do now?"
"Fly up again and share your vision with me." Instructed Cale without giving an explanation, at which the raven only scoffed before taking off and flying high, sharing his vision with Cale.
Back to square one.
This is still Nostra.