The sun no longer cast its light, and the chills of early autumn spread across the city in the sky — Nostra.
It was late in the evening when Cale was having dinner at a food stall, close to the edge of the inner city, when the brown haired youth noticed a discarded envelope on an old bench.
When he walked up to it, he couldn't see anything on its surface, no sender nor subject shown on the envelope; however, he knew both.
Thank you, Jhin.
There was some weight to the envelope, and with a swift motion, he tore it open. Revealing a stack of documents and a slim mobile phone with a small sticky note taped to its back.
"Something you can contact us with."
" — Much love, the family."
"Your family seems normal, lovely even… strange. One half of my memories know of them, but they are anything but that."
Now that Cale was close to the outskirts once again, Moonless returned from the space conjured by Covenant, directly sitting on his shoulder and reading the latter with him. At the words of the raven, Cale just looked at him without much of a reaction.
"They are monsters, so am I. Us being close doesn't change that."
Moonless wanted to press on for information, but even he picked up on the clues that Cale didn't wish to discuss the subject further.
With the raven on his shoulder, Cale opened and turned on the phone, which needed a pass code. Without much thought, Cale typed in four numbers: 8, 8, 6, 4.
The phone unlocked right away. "It doesn't seem to be a birthday, so what is it?"
Cale didn't want to bother with an answer, but Moonless would have asked until he received an answer either way. "It's how old we were when we came to the mansion."
"You can't possibly be that attached to that place." The raven cawed in surprise.
"We aren't."
Looking through the identification documents for his new life, Cale stayed silent for a long moment before finally speaking.
"Can you see outside from Covenant?"
The question made the raven pause mid-preen, visibly startled that Cale had initiated conversation. After a beat, he answered, "It's like sitting in a quiet lounge with a huge window. Speaking of, it's a comfortable place to stay at, bourgeois even, but it gets boring after a while; it's not that big of a place, so I watch what you see through that window, but now I also have a random door that showed up there, so at least it seems to be a place that slowly changes."
"Door?"
"Yeah, I tried opening it, but the body of a raven isn't really built for that… or I am a particularly weak raven, but I would rather keep my head high. So I just blame the door — it's a huge door by the way."
Cale took mental note of the door before looking back at his phone, seeing that he already had contacts saved in it.
— my dearest older brother, whom I very much respect
Cale had to click on for further information on t he contact because the text cut off from the third word onwards.
— Big Sister
— Little Brother
As he read through the contracts, Cale felt a small tug at the edge of his lips. He then turned off his new phone and put it into the right pocket of his oversized hoodie, along with the envelope containing the authenticating documents.
"Let's go." Without giving Moonless a chance to say anything, he made his way through the streets towards the outskirts.
Up ahead stood an outpost, its perimeter lined with electrified fences and sensors calibrated to detect even the faintest trace of Entities. Four Aberrant Corps agents guarded the post at all times, rotating in eight-hour shifts.
"Share your vision," Cale instructed tersely to the raven, who groaned before taking off high in the sky, sharing his vision with Cale, whose right eye twisted into the shape of a crescent moon.
Overcoming the initial nausea caused by his mismatched vision, Cale was gradually getting used to his sight being mismatched, but it was still a long way from him to utilize it effectively.
With the help of the bird's-eye view, Cale sneaked through the alleyways where the agents had no sight.
Moonless doesn't trigger the sensors… Initially, Cale found it confusing before thinking back on the changes his Aberrant power — Covenant underwent.
He is more like a part of me than an Entity. If I'm not considered an Entity. Neither will he.
And that's what worried Cale the most.
If a Wolf-class Entity could wreak so much havoc with contamination across the outskirts, what will the Crown do while placed inside Covenant?
I need to find a place for it before it's too late.
Without being noticed by the agents, Moonless and Cale crossed the checkpoint and found themselves back on the outskirts.
Once they were in the clear, the black and white feathered raven landed on the shoulders of Cale, "Someone is following you."
"I know."
Swiftly going through the narrow alleyways, Moonless continued to share his vision once he was back in the sky.
A man covered in a tattered brown robe, navigating the maze-like alleys of the outskirts with great familiarity, was approaching Cale even without having a clear line of sight on him.
He was just outside the range of the sensors.
The farther Cale got from the robed figure, the more hastened the latter's steps became.
Rising higher in altitude, Moonless began to feel worried. He isn't even trying to hide that he is tailing us…
Cale didn't hurry; he just crossed from one alleyway to the other while looking at his pursuer from a bird's-eye view. But that only troubled the raven further.
The identity of the one pursuing them long became clear to him.
Wolf of the Second Tier, Spawn of Greed — Oleander.
The estranged son of the Hollow King's right hand…
Shepherd of the Fourth Tier, the Shadow of the Past — Renoir.
At best, Cale could take on an Aberrant contaminated by the Wolf-class, but taking on the entity directly?
That was out of the question.
Should I warn him? But if I do, he will lose sight of him…
Moonless' mind was racing, but he couldn't come up with anything.
He is going to be caught!!!
His panic spiked when Cale stopped in a small clearing between several buildings. The space wasn't large — The distant lamplight didn't reach this place, leaving it in sparse light, small patches of light seeping through.
Leaning against the wall, Cale closed his eyes, sowing even more seeds of confusion for Moonless, who felt like he was going crazy.
Is he—
The words got stuck before he could have formulated them, and the raven was no longer looking down at the world below…
Moonless found himself back in the small but cozy room created by Cale's Aberrant power.
Without taking flight, the small bird hopped towards Cale and asked:
"What the hell are you thinking?!"
The tone of the small bird was filled with genuine fear and a small hint of worry.
"A Wolf is breathing down your neck; this is quite possibly the worst time to check out the decor!"
Cale looked at the bird, a bit confused, so he explained in an even tone.
"Even if I run, he's faster."
"Even if I fight, he's stronger."
"Even if I hide, he'll find me."
No matter how he phrased it, his situation seemed utterly hopeless..
And it was.
Except… he could try something completely different.
With how little time he had, Cale didn't bother with exploring the space created by his aberrant power; instead, he focused his attention on finding something.
And with how small this room was, it took him no time at all.
There it was, in the middle of the room, suspended in the air… a jagged crown, its bronze surface tarnished.
Without any hesitation, Cale reached for the crown, but as his fingers brushed against the cold metal surface of the crown, an image flashed in front of him like a jolt of lightning.
From the corner, Moonless could only hear Cale mumble under his breath:
"… Problematic"
It was a moment, etched into his mind, showing the king of hollows surrounded by shadows before all of them seeped into a singular figure…
It felt like the King of Hollows was directly looking at Cale, not the man made of shadows.
"Don't trust him."
***
Against the broken pavement, each step rang loudly.
It ran far too loudly in the barren outskirts of Nostra… but the outskirts were supposed to be anything but barren.
Life in the flying cities was hard, and those who fell behind could rarely get back up… they were all pushed to fend for themselves on the outskirts, where the watchpoints of the Aberrant Corps no longer watched over them.
There was no one to protect them from the things crawling up from the fog.
Now…
The outskirts of Nostra were mostly empty.
And the one leaving it in such a state was heading towards Cale with an oil lamp in hand, casting a warm orange glow.
But when he reached him, the Entity slightly tilted his head in confusion… but that feeling of puzzlement slowly twisted into something else.
In the small clearing, there was only a single shape that didn't belong to the young man he was trailing.
The outline belonging to this 'person' was visibly taller than the youth.
His clothes were elegant, with a black half cloak on his shoulder, and he slowly turned to look at the robed Entity. From the orange glow of the oil lamp, something on the figure glimmered.
The source of the glint was a tarnished bronze crown etched into the figure's head.
The Entity felt a chill run down his spine, and the world around him slowed down.
A pair of suffocatingly empty grey eyes stared back at him.