The hollows
Loc: Shadowcloud
Time: 11:40PM
Date: 31/11/2168
Late at night, there were dozens of people entering a club at once, the bar was not that big, but still famous. Why? You may ask, it's because 3 of the top 1000 heroes were there. Big freeze, Jungle Z and flame fists, 3 heroes who just made the top 1000 that very day. The other two were partying, not a care in the world, but Big freeze was lost in thought.
'Hey' Big freeze whispered to his neighbouring hero. 'Sup' Jungle Z said. ' Don't you think it's suspicious? The reason we were promoted is because the last 6 top 1000 heroes were killed, shouldn't we be more careful?' Big freeze asked. 'Why would we be more car-' flame fists yelled, right as he got interrupted, by a small case of death. The gunshot rang loud, then his body fell to the ground. It felt like a dream, but it was real.
When a bullet leaves a barrel, it travels fast, because a barrel is completely smooth. Because of the smooth barrel the bullet was able to travel at incredible speeds, but it also produced a loud sound while leaving the barrel, a sound that Star knew all too well.
Star looked rather small and unassuming at first glance, he had normal hair, black and in a side parted cut, he was not especially muscular or skinny, and was average height. If you met him in the street,you would probably never know who he really was.
'Fire fist has been eliminated.' he told the person on the other side, while reloading his sniper, 'Should I shoot the other two?' He said calmly. 'No.' The other person replied shortly, ' Abort the mission. If they could go down that easily there's no point in killing them anyway.' 'Okay' Classified replied, while packing up. 'Then I'll expect the money soon.'
He felt something was wrong, but he just decided to ignore the feeling, and packed up. And then a tree blasted him in the face.
Classified was suddenly blasted on the floor, his tool kit flying onto the floor next to him. He recovered fast though, in his back pocket was a handgun. Although he wasn't sure what was going on, he knew being armed couldn't hurt. Then he suddenly saw that where the bar stood, a mixture of huge bulging amounts of vines and chilling mountains of ice. His breath stood still for a second, even top 100 heroes would have been barely capable of this feat, yet too 1000 heroes did it this easily? It simply didn't make sense. Then, he saw 2 menacing figures right behind him. One was skinny and frail and incredibly pale, almost sickly skin, of course it was impossible for heroes to become sick, he was wearing a white suit with black stripes and a snowflake in the middle, he had an expression that was basically deadly already. The second one was even scarier. He was muscular and lean, with a suit made out of vines, and a big black Z in the middle. What he noticed most though, was the fact that both of their eyes were completely hollow, they weren't black, they were just….nothing.'So, I don't suppose we can talk this out.' He said, he meant to sound calm, but he was panicking inside. They were way too strong for top 1000 heroes, they were even closer to top 50 heroes then top 100 heroes, what could have changed in mere seconds?
Classified was perplexed, how the hell was he supposed to win against what was basically 2 top 100 heroes? Fighting 1 would already need an incredible amount of prep time but 2? Even with prep time it would be really hard. But, there was 1 obvious weakness, their echoes.
Echoes are the powers of this world, the sound of an echo indicated that the person who received the sound of an echo gained the powers of a concept, so the two people who were attacking Classified had the echoes of ice and vines, or in more accurate terms, cold and the jungle. Echoes could get stronger and be trained in 2 ways; getting louder or getting more pronounced. Both could be achieved in a variety of ways, but they had wildly different outcomes; an echo getting louder means that they became more powerful increasing fire power and ability to do damage, an echo getting more pronounced meanwhile, served to make mastery over the echo easier as and higher levels of mastery possible.
The 2 opponents in front of him were incredibly strong, meaning that both their echoes were incredibly loud, but thanks to the Wild nature of the bars destruction he could deduce that it seemed that the levels of how pronounced the echoes were, didn't grow like the loudness of their echoes had, or at least it had grown far, far less than the volume of their echoes. Of course, that didn't mean that it would be easy, their echoes were always fairly pronounced, and the loudness of their echoes was on par with, or even above top 100 heroes. How the hell was he supposed to win in a fight against 2 absolute monsters? As he was lost in thought, a tentacle made out of vines pierced his stomach, that would take, even with his accelerated healing, a week to heal. 'Ugh' he groaned, 'Can't you at least buy me dinner first?' He said it as a way to, hopefully, intimidate his opponents, because it would seem like he sounded unbothered. At least that was how it was meant to sound, in actuality it sounded more like a dog whimpering than an unbothered man gloating. Sweating, he grabbed his handgun with both his hands and pointed it at both of them, he knew there was no point at hesitating, so he immediately pulled the trigger while aiming at Big Freeze, but the trigger didn't move, it was completely turned to ice, and thus it wouldn't work, if he broke the ice, the trigger would break too, and if he didn't break the ice the ice would get in the way of his trigger. He decided to go for the former, maybe, just maybe the trigger wouldn't break, he said to himself. Just as he was about to touch the trigger, a vine slapped the gun out of his hand. Then, something happened that Classified could have never expected in a million years. The heroes with the hollow eyes, or the hollows for short, started to open their mouths and talk.' Classified, the lost one, join us and HE might let you keep your life, or fight against us now, and die.' they said, they spoke in a way that made his hair stand up, the Voice was not very threatening by itself, it was very smooth and sweet, in fact, it actually sounded somewhat pleasant, it was a mixture of everything else that put his nerves on edge; the fact that both of his opponents mouths were open, closing, moving and talking at the exact same time, in the exact same way, the fact that both of his opponents were probably not easily beatable by him at this moment, the fact that he was tired, beaten up, and gotten pierced by thorny vines through his stomach, and, most importantly, and terrifying, the words that came out of his opponents mouths. He had to think carefully about his next words, he started to speak, but nothing would come out. He was terrified. What could he do against them by himself?
************************************************
Loc:classified
Date:classified
Time:classified
The Hall was empty, cold and mostly lifeless, its walls were black as obsidian with red blood splattered on every second step you would take. There were few people who knew about this Hall and even fewer could hope to be here. There was a table made out of pure diamond and seats made out of gold. There were 6 members on each side of the table, whispering to eachother. Whispering about what? You may ask, the answer to that question is simple, they were whispering about the man at the head of the table. The air seemed to shake as he spoke.'So, how about we talk about our new star.'
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Loc: Shadowcloud
Time: 11:56 PM
Date: 31/11/2168
Back at the city near the bar, it was safe to say Classified wasn't exactly having the time of his life. He was gutted a few minutes ago, and now had to deal with the news that he got from the Voice he was slowly beginning to realize he was right, there was only 1 option, so he ran at his opponents, who were a second too late, he didn't try to dodge, he just took the hits straight. That didn't mean they didn't hurt thought, the feelings of vines striking his body, and ice turning his skin as frail as glass didn't feel good, but as he got closer to them, he didn't see even the smallest hunt of panic in their eyes, he knew they were too far gone, so he ran in their faces, and he exploded. Classified got shot out from the rooftop dropping to the hard pavement, his back felt as if it was gonna explode, well it already did, but still. His entire body felt that way, not because of the fall but mostly, because of the explosion.
Before he had something, or rather someone to help him, but now....
Well, it didn't matter anyway, all that mattered was what happened to the enemy. What happened to the enemy, by the way? Honestly, I had no idea, and neither did Classified, but all he knew was that their echoes were naturally weak to his echo, and that meant they were at best unconscious. Though, they were probably dead by now.
He was not worried about them though, if they were possessed by who he thought, dying was the much, much better option anyway.
I took the, whatever it was, in my hand, I knew it wouldn't open, I tried doing everything, breaking it, opening it, burning it and crushing it. None of it worked.
*Bang*Bang*Bang*
The bell rang loud, that meant a new year has begun. How long has it been now, 1 year? 2 years? 3? 10?
'Whatever,' Classified sighed. 'It doesn't matter anymore.' Putting it back in his pocket classified thought 'What the hell do I do now.'
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Loc: Shadowcloud, Abel's house
Time: 12:00 AM
Date: 1/1/2166
Abel stood in his house together with his family; his father, mother and sister. A few seconds ago, the clock struck to signal new years.
Abel drank the alcohol in his glass slowly, he was only 16, and too young for alcohol, but did it matter? Only a few more years, and he could easily drink alcohol legally.
{€$√•×€°✓€\∆
It was soft, barely a whisper, Abel didn't even know what it was supposed to mean.
'Did you say that?' Abel asked his sister, 'No, does it look like I said anything?' his sister replied
Abel stood still, wondering what he heard, was it just a side effect of the alcohol? But then a thought crossed his mind. 'No way' he muttered under his breath, 'I know stocks are so interesting!' his dad said
Abel ran to his room and whispered 1 word 'Echo.'