INT. MIDDLE OF THE CITY STREET - MORNING, NOVEMBER 3, 2025, 5:00 A.M.
It was almost comical for Gabriel in a way to see Rayen doing her best to remove her head from the door. Though he also has to admit to himself that he's ready to just go home, to go back to sleep.
He didn't expect to be spending his Monday morning before work fighting a lady who uses birds. Honestly, just thinking makes Gabriel feel like the whole thing just doesn't make sense.
"Ugh, you got to be kidding me", Nadia whined, stomping her foot on the ground. "This bitch seriously just won't stay down."
Gabriel nodded his head in agreement. In truth, there wasn't much for him to say. He watched while Rayen eventually pulled her head out of the metal frame, now standing straight up.
She brought her hand, a strong guess surrounding her fist before she punched the car.
Rayen took a few seconds, taking a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She slowly turned around, head down as she calmed her anger threatening to spill over.
Eventually, she lifted her head, her eyes glared at the duo. No one uttered a word as the tension hung heavy in the air.
Rayen took one step forward, her body turning into a flock of birds, then reappearing in front of Gabriel and Nadia.
"I grew tired of these games!"She cried out.
Rayen waved both of her hands, a dark black sludge coming off of her body before forming a giant crow head.
"And now we have to deal with a giant bird," Nadia complained.
"Speak for yourself! I already got captured by one prior." Gabriel grumbled to himself.
Rayen looked at the duo, her eyes widened in anger. "Do you guys take everything as a fucking joke?"
Gabriel shrugged in response. "What can I say at this point? I dealt with so many situations where I almost died. Now I cope by having a sense of humor."
Gabriel turned to Nadia, whose eyes were starting to drop as she stood there. He lightly bumped her with his shoulder.
She quickly locked up, narrowing her eyes at Gabriel. He pointed at Rayen standing directly in front of them.
"Haha sorry, I forgot we were in the middle of a fight.", Nadia stated awkwardly.
Looking around the area with a guilty expression, her eyes threatening to close again.
Rayen's right eye slowly began to twitch. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the duo. Her hand's clenching and unclenching, her body shaking.
As if feeling her emotions, the giant bird let out a giant caw in the background. "I'm sick of you stupid, fucking assholes!"She growled, her tone venomous.
Nadia cocked her head to the side. "I resent the stupid comment!"
"Die!"She yelled, pointing her hand forward. Following her command, the giant's bird head flew forward, a black aura surrounding it as it charged at Gabriel and Nadia.
Nadia turned and looked at Gabriel. "Giant bird, attack, save now."
Gabriel let out a sigh, but followed Nadia's command, anyway. Snapping his finger Echo flew from behind him, going to the front and producing a giant shield that surrounded them.
The giant bird's head, colluded with the shield, but instead of collapsing or stopping. The giant bird's head broke down into smaller crows that flew around the shield and tried to attack them.
Thinking quickly, Gabriel summoned a gun, shooting at any crow that got close to their location.
"Ugh, that's cheating! You're using small birds to attack us so uncool.", Nadia whined as she ducked, allowing Gabriel to shoot a bird that was flying over her head.
"Less talking, more fighting!"Gabriel demanded as he shot down another bird. Lowering the numbers from fifteen crows to eight.
"Yeah, yeah", Nadia groaned, now back to standing position. Nadia began moving her arms around her body, her purple aura kicking in as flames began to circle around her arms.
Gabriel stepped back as the flames began to grow, a vortex surrounding Nadia's arms as the birds in the air slowly began to get sucked in.
Within seconds, the purple flames turned the birds into ash and then died down. Holy shit!"Gabriel 's eyes widened in shock. "Since when could you do that?"
Nadia cocked her to the side, a puzzled expression on her face as she looked at Gabriel.
"Huh, I've been able to do that the entire time." She admitted before tapping her chin on her finger before perking up once again. "I forgot to mention that with my chi, I can control all different kinds of elements."
"And you can call me a cheat", Rayen yelled, throwing her hands up in the air in annoyance. A huge frown on her face before she disappeared in a thing of feathers.
Gabriel didn't get a chance to reply as he dodged out of the way of the kick Rayen had aimed at his face. Gabriel could feel the force of the attack as it slowly went by his face.
Rayen was still in the air, disappeared in a flock of feathers, appearing behind Nadia, claws outstretched.
Nadia quickly reacted by dropping to the ground. Rayen had to jump over Nadia's leg sweep because her claws completely missed.
Ryan quickly disappeared before reappearing in the distance, breathing slightly heavily in front of the duo. "You guys are so annoying to deal with.", She gasped, steam coming off her head in the chill morning air.
"Honestly, just saying, I'm good with ending the fight here.", Gabriel offered, Echo floating from behind his back to floating protectively in front of him.
"Yeah, I'm cool with things ending here as well.", Nadia agreed, stifling a yawn. "Seriously, it's way too early for any of this."
Rayen didn't reply, for a moment just staring at the two as her breathing slowly began to go back to normal. Gabriel mentally began to prepare himself for anything, he already figured out mostly how her teleport ability works.
So can only teleport with visual sight, if she is attacking on the ground, it's a flock of bird feathers. When she is going for longer distances, or attacks with her feet not touching the ground, it's a flock of birds she turns into.
Very slight things, but it makes it easy for him to predict where she is going to end up. Though one of the biggest things once they either catch the killer or get at least some break in the case.
Gabriel really once trained like way more if he wants to be effective. Not even in just combat, but in how he uses his abilities.
"Are you two dumbasses even listening", Rayen yelled, breaking Gabriel from his thoughts as she glared at the two.
Gabriel glanced down and saw Nadia, slightly snoring with drool starting to come out of her mouth.
Gabriel let out a sweat drop at seeing her snoring and somehow staying on her feet. "Right, sorry about that.", Gabriel stated awkwardly as he bumped Nadia.
"Wha..what", She said quickly, her head looking all over the place before looking at Rayen once again. "Haha sorry, we're in the middle of a fight."
"Ignoring my friend here, can you repeat what you were saying?"Gabriel asked, rubbing the back of his head nervously.
Rayen clenched her hands repeatedly before taking a deep breath to calm down. "My boss I work for wanted me to test with someone close to your level."
Gabriel and Nadia shared a look before Gabriel spoke up. "What is the point of the test?"
"My boss hates the person she's employed by, I can't say I don't share the same sentiments.", Rayen answered, taking a pause here as she gathered her words before continuing on. "You should have enough strength if working together to at least bring down the boss. Using the note my boss left you there, striking tomorrow would be a good time to go after him."
Gabriel tapped the side of his leg for a second with his right index finger. "Your boss is Grace, isn't she?", he asked her.
Rayen didn't say anything, just nodded her head in agreement. Nadia went to go speak up but Gabriel gave her a look that made her go quiet.
Seeing her close her mouth Gabriel went back to speaking, "Why is she setting us up to fight her boss if we couldn't even beat her?"
"Because tomorrow is the full moon, Grace has been studying our boss. On a full moon is when he is at his weakest, at least weak enough for you guys to win against him in a fight.", Rayen answered truthfully.
Gabriel just looked at Rayen in shock at the revelation, not knowing how to reply. Even Nadia decided to stay quiet with the truth of the revelation feeling the air.
Even the slight chill of the air couldn't stop the feeling of nervousness he had with everything going on with this case.