Realistic or Modern Prisoners of Introspection

[InfinityBeholden]

Prisoners of Introspection
~Part 1: Time for an Intervention~​

It was the home of The Agency, A task force designed with the specific intention of handling all situations related to The Emotion Force, both it's creatures and forces of nature. If there was a problem relating to the matter or was up to it's agents to handle the situation how they see fit, for only it's agents could handle such a threat. It was in this city that they resided - The City of Skyspeak. Its name came from its structure. While there were building on the ground level, there were buildings that touched and surpassed the clouds, meanwhile, those same buildings also imbedded themself into the earth and far underground. This was an intentional design to accommodate for elves, dwarves, and humans. The three races of the world. All united within one building. The Agency.

It was late at night. The clouds were coming together as if to say hello, but too shy to touch. Two police officers were doing a routine patrol around the empty streets. All of the inhabitants were fast asleep in their homes. There wasn't a sound. It was the dead of night. That is, until a rustling came from the bushes. The lean officer has jumped to his gun and pointed it towards the bush, and for good reason, in this world you could never be too sure what was around any corner.

"Boss calm down it's prolly nothing" said the jolly one.

"Y-you sure, what if it's an Motion thingy" he has mistaken himself.

An almost cute rat looking creature snuck out of the small forest-like environment within the town. It's fur was made out of the cosmos having a space appearance to it and had spinning gears for eyes.

"See I told you!" The lean one exclaimed.

The two of them created a violent harmony with the firing of their guns, laying waste to the creature. Once the smoke rised the creature laid there seemingly lifeless.

"You did it Boss, you did it!" The Jolly One said in joy hopping up and down.

"Not Exactly" a silhouette emerged from the shadows. He had a dark curly hair and the suit of someone from The Agency.

As he spoke the creature had gotten back up a snarled, as a que three more GearRats had joined.

"You see-" he paused to put a cigarette in his mouth "-Your weapons won't work. To kill an idea you must use an idea. You could say a clash of ideals" His chest flowers revealing a sigil, a sword with two angel wings sprouting from it. A trench coat formed around his suit. It was a dark grey. A way to show whom he was.

He reached for the space in front of him, the cosmic force gathered to his hand, a dark energy with colorful gas clouds and stars gathered to his palm, the energy slowly being constructed into water which formed into a sword. It curves like the waves from an ocean, and appeared like a scabbard. Then he swung at the air to threaten his enemies. But it was just an invitation, the creatures charged him. Fate had a sick sense of humor. The clouds finally got comfortable enough to embrace each other, creating one huge overcast. As the teardrops fell from the sky they met his blade causing it to melt into a puddle of nothing.

"Hmph. Fine, so be it, we'll do it the boring way" he reached into his coat and grabbed out his reliable revolver.

Bam! Bam! Bam! One by one the GearRats fell and dissipated back into the energy from wence they came. That was the natural order of things here. Ezekiel grabbed his phone and put it up to his ear.

"Mission Accomplished. Looks like low-level Emotion Force, they looked like cosmic energy, likely meaning they were born from weak feelings, not quite strong enough to have a unique look. They were simple enough to take out. Returning to Base"

~Ezekiel~
​

This is the story of the Prisoners of Introspection.......

 

[AudioBox]

KASSIDY FISHER

Location: Skyspeak Undercity, Level 1 - Smithy's Market Street
11 P.M.

Smithy’s market was a lively place when the shops were open. It was a very competitive environment for the local forgemasters. People came from all over to buy specialty goods from the craftsmen of the undercity. With every forgemaster at the Smithy's Market being legally forced to close shop by 8PM to avoid disturbances, the street should’ve been dark and dead quiet.

Some nights, however, a green, starry fog would crawl through the market’s empty tents and cold forges, snuffing out the lamps that illuminated the street. The pungent smell of sulphur would fill the air, making it impossible to move through without getting a coughing fit. Worse of all, ghostly figures would swirl in your peripheral vision, banging away at the empty forges in perfect unison, cursing under their breaths the names of every forgemaster in this section of the undercity. Those were low level envy wraiths, they were known to attack passersby indiscriminately, with zero tactics. The Agency had no practical way to stop them from reappearing in such a competitive environment, so they were forced to send an agent out to “clear the air” regularly. Tonight it was Kassidy’s job to do that. She rode the elevator to the undercity, only her dispatcher there to keep her company through the Agency’s radio channel.

“Oh jeebies, of course I get the creepy, empty street in the undercity. Send me to the aquarium or something, I know you can do it, Ezekiel got it last time! …over.” She complained as she got off the elevator, eliciting a few chuckles from her dispatcher on the other end.

She walked closer to her destination through the dimly-lit streets, until she arrived at an intersection. There, she noticed the lights begin to flicker, before going fully out. Barely a problem with her elven darkvision, but it still put her on edge. She continued straight past the intersection until she found what she was looking for - an interstellar green fog rolling though the street ahead. Soft clanging echoes could be heard. She sent one final message through the radio channel before putting on her gas mask and walking down the street.

“E.F. detected, it matches the reports. Engaging now, over.”

Kassidy knew this would happen from the stacks of incident reports that were sitting on her desk back in the office. It didn’t stop the chills that ran down her spine when she walked into the fog bank and the cosmic fog coiled itself around her lightly, only letting go after she continued walking through the foggy street. Her heart still skipped a beat when she passed by the spectral figure haunting the stalls and they stopped their hammering to stare directly into her soul. She could hear their whispers as they stumbled closer to her in opposite directions.

“My tools are so much better than his own, why do they buy from him and not me?”
“I have more decades working metal, why is she so much better than me?”

“Yeah, maybe just focus on yourselves next time, folks.” said Kassidy before lifting her gas mask and kissing the rapier-and-knife X tattooed on her right hand.

A sharp flash of cyan-coloured interstellar cloud covered Kassidy’s body, stunning the wraiths in place and pushing away the green fog around her. The wraiths sunk into the fog and lunged right at her with raised hammers, hoping to end her before her transformation could complete, but they were a step too slow. The cyan energies quickly coalesced around her body, so when their hammers landed, a loud clink echoed in the air. One wraith struck her armour, negating most of the damage she would’ve suffered. That wraith immediately dove back into the fog away from Kassidy before she could strike back. The other had gotten too close, so they now had a rapier thrust through their core. Their hammer was sent flying off their hand with a devastating parry. Poof, one wraith was gone.

There was an unexpected moment of silence as the second wraith circled her slowly while the green fog drifted back towards her. This was unexpected.

“...The reports don’t say anything about this-”

Then a hammer flew towards her. Cling, she parried it, and it sunk back into the fog. Then came two hammers at once, then three again in a predictable but fast-paced pattern. Kassidy was forced to dodge and parry with no end insight. As more of the hammers began gracing her and denting her armour, it became clear this was taking its toll on her stamina. She knew she had to take back control of the fight, so she took a risk. She gathered cosmic energy behind her backplate and waited. Just as the last hammer in the next rotation was sent her way, she lunged towards where she knew the next hammer should’ve come from. And as she expected, the wraith approached her from the exact opposite direction, its hammer aimed at her head. The wraith definitely didn’t expect the watery shark jaws that formed on her back and chomped right through it. Poof, the second wraith was gone.

She laid down on the floor, exhausted and bruised everywhere. She clicked her radio.

“The threats have been dealt with. Please send someone down to carry me like a princess, I’m like, way too sore to walk all the way there. Over.”

Again, a few chuckles from her dispatcher, followed by “You can take a breather Kass, radio’s detecting no cosmic force nearby.”

“Copy that. And don’t forget to say over! ...over.”

…

A few minutes later the night lights flickered back on in the street. She sat down by one of the stands, slowly healing her bruises with cosmic energy.

“What the hell was that thought? These were supposed to be low-level envy wraiths.” She thought to herself, before groaning into the echo-y streets. “Man, I’m gonna have to file an even longer report, this blows.”

She made her way back to the agency once she was less sore, wanting nothing more than to pick up some takeout and head to bed. She'd deal with that report tomorrow.

 

[InfinityBeholden]

It was early in the morning, the offices were flooded as usual, all the agents rushing around the place trying to get as much work done as possible. Ezekiel has gotten called in early to work, something about a new task force or whatever, he was too tied to even remember what they were saying. He wasn't exactly the "morning" type, but did have passion for his job, even if it felt like it was tedious at times. He walked down the high-traffic hall, making his way to the meeting room, it was nice and cozy, it overlooked the whole city.

Upon entering the room he only noticed his fellow co-worker Kassidy and a few members he was unfamiliar with. Towards the front was their boss Mr. Meawaton. He was an older man, had white hair, starting to bald on top of his head; but had a legendary beard that almost touched the ground, whiskers like a cat sprouting from his nose, feline eyes, and cat ears hidden beneath his head of hair spiking off to its side. He stood before the room waiting for everyone to finish up and take their seats. Once everyone did take their seats he started the meeting.

"As you know the rise in Emotion Force activity has risen. Its been quite a pain in all of our asses, that's for sure! With that I bring bad news - or good news - it really depends on you. Sorry, Let me continue, This surge in activity has got us out and about all the time, so the expert agents have their hands busy, so as of today I'm promoting you all for higher tier missions" He spoke

"Okay, That's cool and all but what department? Are we going to be taking out EF's as per quota?" Ezekiel asked, wondering what this was really about.

"Will you shut your mouth and let me finish me speech" He gave a death glare in Ezekiel's direction.

The pure presence of that man's personalized energy sent a shiver down his spine, even though it wasn't present, it felt like a predator was in the room, a fierce tiger, and the worst part - he was it's prey. So in conclusion he shut his mouth, it wasn't like he had anything to add after all.

"Thank you!" he was suddenly cheerful again, like a kitten. "Here's the thing, I know you all specialize in your department. But we need you to be flexible and do any job that needs done, reconnaissance, recruitment, mentoring, extermination, or phenomenon extinguish. And pretty much anything. It's that or janitor duty. Your call!" he taunted them.

But honestly Ezekiel didn't think he was kidding, so rather than risk it. The offer wasn't bad, even if he didn't feel like he was strong enough, it wouldn't matter he would be getting paid more to do the same job he's already been doing. It was a good deal.

After the place cleared up. Kassidy and Him were pulled over the the side. Everyone else had been paired up into teams, which consisted of about 3-5 members, so he pondered on what the agency will have them do. There were only two of them, there's no way they could make them a team, then again the agency has been so overbooked without the manpower to back it. Ever since the surge of activity they've all been getting overtime. Shit, this was making him feel queasy.

"I know there aren't any more agents here, but we've been run thin. So you're Team Shwark. Don't worry, I haven't blindly put you two together. It's just that out of all our lower ranked members, you two are by far the most qualified, its a surprise you haven't already been promoted with your skills. Today we will start your first mission as a team. It's a Nightmare-" he said.

Nightmare: An Emotion Force born from the fear of a child, these creatures are monsters in appearance, because kids typically fear them. They are above lesser, weak feeling EF. They have the ability off fear and grow.

As their mission debriefing finished they found themselves in the elevator, heading to the garage to drive to their mission. He grabbed a cigarette out of it's pack, guiding it to the space between his lips.

"Want a cig, Kass?" He slid another out of its sheathe.