Multiple Settings [PRIVATE] Cyberpunk Fantasy Roleplay: Central City Welcomes You

[Late]

He could clearly remember the day when he first arrived at the city.

It was late at night, not a huge crowd by one of the entrance to the city but it was enough to make him wait for his turn to be granted entry to the city. The size of the borders were enormous, there being second level just above where he stood to allow aircrafts into the city. And just further down the way outside of the walls was another set of entries for small vehicles and trucks. He can spot the bots greeting the vehicles coming in or forcing a few to stop. As for the line he was in, they were full of different characters. He can spot elves, gang of goblins, a few dragon, a three-headed dog...just all sorts of creatures. Yet here he is, an average human with no fangs or claws and no capability of magic at all. He is, by all means, a boring human being.

The line he was standing in was moving steadily, and it wasn’t long that he was next in line. Taking in a deep breath, he walks forward and into the clear containment with the waiting sentry bot. The entrance was sealed off as soon he walked in and the bot behind a glass window gestured him towards a chair in front. After taking a seat and noticing just how bare the room is, he was pretty much forced to stare at the bot, waiting for it to say or do anything with him. The bot appears to be man-made but it moves almost naturally like a human. Almost.

“Good evening, sir. Are you a returning citizen?” The bot asked, its artificial eyes staring at him.

“Uh…no. First time here…”

A beat. “Are you visiting the city?” The robot asked next, its hands already moving around in the desk it sits in. It seems to be organizing some papers around.

“…No. I…uh, I want to live here…”

The sentry bot when quiet for moment before it seems to perk up. Almost as if it’s curious about him. Or was it confusion? He didn't understand it at the time but it looks like the bot was troubled by what he said. A couple seconds passed before it turns around to a small computer at the back. After a few keys typed in, the bot returns back to the window. It's demeanor has changed. Whatever bothered the bot before hand seem to be long gone. Now it appears to be relaxed and quite emotionless.

“Do you have a referral to live in the city?” The bot questioned, holding out a hand expectedly.

The question stumped him for a few seconds. “Uh…oh, uh, is this it?” Patting through his ragged coat, he pulled out a wrinkled paper slip from the inside pockets. It was from an old friend he met, someone who gave him a reason to come here in the first place. He hesitantly handed it over as the robot took it away as soon the paper touched its metal claws.

“Is there a reason why you want to live in the city?” The robot asked, grabbing a nearby stamp to the left.

“…I’m just looking for a new start in my life.”

And that was the truth. Before he came to the city, he was doing nothing to help himself. But now, with a change of heart and with a different perspective of things, he wishes to restart his life. He wants to live a life he always wanted from the very beginning. He hopes that the city will be able to provide that for him.

The robot gave him one last look over before picking up a slip from a stack, writing it briefly with a pen and giving it a firm smack with the stamp on it.

“I have contact one of the associates here to this post. Give them this slip and they should be able to know what to do with you from here on out,” the bot whirled, giving the slip to the man. Yet keeping the referral slip. "Assuming you don't have any furnitures or large personal items, you are all set to enter the city.

He looks over at the referral slip but it didn't seem like the bot would be willing to return back the piece of paper. At this point, that's okay for him. The slip it serves its purpose and he doesn't need another read on the small note that came with it. With a nod, he got up from his seat and the door on the other side of the containment opened up, revealing the city.

“Welcome to Central City.”

He will never forget the feeling of awe from looking at the city and the lights that coats over the buildings. Large advertisement signs posted everywhere, the sound of different creatures from different cultures walking together, and the numerous set of technology that just shows how advanced the city was. Not to mention the fact that the city was massive. He can't even see how far the city stretch out where he stands but it was for sure, the largest city on the planet. It will likely be the only one too, from the looks of it.

That event was almost 20 years ago for him. When he finally settled in a “decent” home after countless of hours of registering into the city’s database, he began to look for jobs. He wasn't looking too hard, however, as he already knows what he wants to do from the beginning. He wanted to be a cop, or at least take some part of the enforcement law. If he wants the chance to restart his life and atone for his sins, then becoming a police officer in a city that has no background check on him will be a great start.

It wasn’t easy, unfortunately, considering that 1. he is a human and 2. he doesn’t have any magical capability. Apparently, the city cares a lot about magic, and those who have the skill or talent have a better shot at winning in life. When it comes to enrollment for the police academy, magic capability was highly sought out. Being human, he tries to not let it discourage him. He likes a challenge either way. Years later, he managed to pull through in his training at the police academy and graduated with high scores. He was, apparently, the first human to graduate with high standings amongst his peers. He went to work immediately afterwards and became a valuable officer in District 20. More years passed, and now he got promoted and a new district to look after.

The city tends to move officers around constantly, and it all depends on their performance report. The best of the best tends to move in dangerous districts, assuming that the officers being sent there will be able to "fix" the problem. He thought this was exactly what he wanted from the very beginning, being recognized as a valuable asset in the law enforcement and tasked with a big responsibility as a citizen of the city... but by the gods, this was not he imagined his life will turn out to be…​

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Salvator​

“Goooood morning, Central City! It is a beautiful day on this lovely Monday, the sun is practically peeking through the clouds and all is quiet in District 244. Ain’t that right, captain?”

Salvator offers his partner a very annoyed look, holding up a cup of hot coffee in his hand. Like she said, it is currently a beautiful day today. Their district was starting to wake up and the residents nearby are already moving about.

“Aaand of course, can’t get him to talk until he has his cup of caffeine,” his partner sighed, rolling her eyes but offering a cheeky grin.

Despite the calm mood of the day, Salvator was very suspicious about this. They are in District 244 after all, the lowest of the low. Anything can happen here. Especially at the crack-ass of dawn. Salvator let out another heavy sigh and took a sip of his coffee.

“I hope you enjoyed your day off yesterday! You definitely deserved it after dealing with a handful of petty robberies in the past week. Also, we still haven't heard from our chief and rumors are already going around in the office that he is dead.”

“…Ruby…don’t you think it’s oddly quiet for a Monday morning?” Sal grumbled out, swirling his cup around to mix up the coffee at the bottom. He chose to ignore what Ruby said about the chief, the bastard showed up for one day and was gone the next. He wonders if their first day here put out the fire in their chief but the worse of things, the city haven't done anything about it. It's either that they don't care and they should deal with it, or perhaps their message still hasn't gotten to them. The AI they have back at their station is rather...slow.

Ruby, his partner, gave him a panicked look. “Man, don’t jinx it, dude!” Ruby said with a small pout. “Maybe we’re taken seriously for once in our district?” Sal sees Ruby as a unique character.

Unlike most officers, Ruby didn't normally sign up for the job. To put things simply, Ruby is known to be a demon. A demon with an extremely strong affinity with the fire element but something more. Based on her physical exam, she apparently has a second form that can be easily mistaken for a celestial. Not that anyone has ever seen it before, but the machine they were using on her were reacting strong enough to suggest that there was something more underneath her joyful personality. Compare to other demons, she happens to be the only one who has a second form. Or at least, the only one they ever heard of. Based on statistics, demons tend to be the type of folks who skip out on doctor's visits. No one knows why.

Either way, Ruby got a free ticket to join the law enforcement, even if she didn't plan to from the first place. But Salvator never catches her complaining about it. In fact, for most days, she appears to be having fun in her own way. She was the last officer to join their district and that was about a year ago or so. Salvator has no idea when they will ever improve as a district or when the city will sent them new recruits. On the bright side of things, Ruby is a good officer. Even if she sometimes drive through red lights.

“Doubtful,” Salvator scoffed, looking down the street they were standing by. A couple of dwarves walked by and gave them a sturdy scowl. "If they were, they would've at least say 'Good morning!'" Salvator called out. That seems to quicken the dwarves pace away from them. He can hear Ruby sighing next to him as he watches them walk away.

They both have their uniform on, weapon ready by their side or back. The citizens walking around the street seem to be in their own little world; either getting coffee, waiting for a bus to come by, or chatting up with each other. They were both ready for anything to happen but maybe, juuuust maybe, for once that this morning may be finally peaceful-

ZROOOOM

They both tense up as a vehicle came flying by the quiet street, the screeching of tires filling up their ears as it continues forward. The citizens moved away from the road in surprise or in fear by the sudden ruckus. Seconds later, they heard a crash further down the street and behind a building. Yelling soon came after.

“…you jinxed it…” Ruby said in a sigh.

“Come on, let’s see what this idiot is up to,” Salvator growled, throwing away his cup and the two running down the street on foot. Now this was starting to feel like a normal day in their district. A normal day ever since he started to work in this shitty district.

MementoDei Phant0m

 

[MementoDei]

Liore Rossa​

He and Sophia were riding across Central’s lowest districts. Their motorcycles easily swerved their way around trucks and cars alike, and no driver dared to honk. The lotus flower surrounded by a hexagon on the back of their leather jackets was instantly recognizable for most. And even for those who didn't know, the two of them were armed and let everyone know it.

Liore knew they were almost at their destination. A few blocks ahead of them, there was an old, private clinic. The man who managed it only opened his facility to members of their gang, and the money was good enough that he kept quiet about it. Doctor François, as Sophia called him, was a surprisingly patient for an orc. He didn't seem to hold any grudges, and he wasn't quick to anger, but perhaps that was to be expected of a doctor that worked for the underbelly of Central. Whatever the case was, both of them owed that doctor big time, and Liore suspected that the doctor called them to settle that year old debt.

They finally stopped in front of the clinic and parked their bikes. Sophia got to the door first and took her helmet off for the security camera to scan her face. The door unlocked, then opened. Liore followed her in and the two sat down in the deserted waiting room, where only the hologram of a human secretary was keeping them company behind a desk.

The AI turned its attention towards them and briefly vanished, only to appear in front of them. "Good morning, do you have an appointment?"

"We do," Liore said, looking around the property. Empty, quiet rooms put him on the edge. Things usually soured in rooms just like this one.

The woman nodded and smiled, "Understood. Do you have the confirmation code with you?"

"A784BQW-" Sophia began to spell out the code but was quickly interrupted.

The hologram disappeared and François's voice rang through the old intercom, "Don't bother with that old thing and just come to the second floor."

A door to their right opened, leading up to a staircase. The two hitmen looked at each other, knowing it was out of character for the doctor to call them out like that. They grabbed their guns and slowly made their way up.

"Hey, Liore." The dragonewt softly said. "How hard is it to replicate someone's voice to perfection?"

They were only a few steps away from the door leading to the second floor, and they both had stopped ascending.

"I'd say it isn't that hard. But the doc's intercom here is so old I don't know if it'd be that simple to fake his voice that well."

"What are our odds, fifty-fifty?" She asked as she unlocked the safety of her handgun.

He did the same and climbed the remaining steps past her, ready to shoot at the smallest of movements. For better or worse, his fake eye captured movement faster than his normal one. "Yeah, about that."

Liore kicked the door open. The man sensed something coming from his left and immediately aimed his gun at it, only to find an imposing green fist inches away from his gun.

He lowered his weapon, "Doctor."

Liore had to look up to see the orc's face. François towered both him and Sophia, standing probably at eight feet, and the fangs that protruded from his mouth made him even more intimidating.

The orc huffed, "Keep your weapons out of sight but don't let your guard down. I don't have much time. Some thugs might be above us."

Sophia smirked, "Then, allow me to deal with-"

The orc growled, "No. Both of you need to come."

François walked down the all to their right. It was so incredibly strange, but neither of them was confident in their odds against an angry orc. Not since they had lost their magic. Sophia managed to get some of it back, but it was barely enough to move a small object across a room.

The three of them walked to the end of the hall, and the doctor opened the door of the last room before letting them pass. The two hitmen went in and found a green-haired girl sleeping.

"Dao asked me to take care of her," François explained. "I got no idea where that nymph comes from, but there have been nasty people circling this place like vultures ever since she came in."

"So, you're leaving her to us?" Liore asked, looking at the doctor. "What kind of nasty people are we talking about?"

"Ryuu-kai types. As far as I know, they made some deal with the Goblin Mob, and they've been kidnapping and killing nymphs."

"And why's that our problem?" Sophia asked, glancing up at the ceiling. Liore instantly knew she had heard something.

"Dao wants her as an asset and you two owe me big time. So, take her with you."

The silver-haired dragonewt scoffed, aiming her weapon at the ceiling. "Deal."

She fired thrice and stepped aside. The corpse of a goblin fell. The nymph woke up in a panic, and the moment she saw the scene, she began to tremble.

The nymph looked at the doctor, then her gaze darted to the other two people in the room, "Who the hell are you people?"

Liore saw a shadow on the window and immediately shot at it. Another goblin fell to his death. "Your only shot at living another day. Come with us, girl."

The doctor did not even let her say another word before flicking his finger over the back of her neck, sending her immediately back to dreamland. Sophia walked up to the girl and unceremoniously carried her over her shoulder like a bag of potatoes. She glanced up at the doctor and nodded, "Thanks for that, doc."

The orc nodded back and ran out of the way to let the duo of assassins free reign to eliminate the incoming wave of knife-wielding goblins that had broken into the other rooms through the windows and the ventilation system. Had they been at their peak, it would've only taken them minutes to neutralize the thirty or so goblins that were rushing in like a wave behind them. Now, they had to make each bullet count.

Five shots. Liore killed five. Three shots. Sophia broke one of the water pipes. A shot of scalding hot water swept away a dozen of their pursuers. The others hesitated on how to cross beyond that. It left Sophia and Liore enough time to not only make it to the stairs but down to the reception room. The hologram appeared again.

"Good morning. Do you want to schedule your next appointment?"

Liore rushed outside first and saw a black mini-van rushing towards them. It was almost certainly the enemy reinforcements. He aimed and shot at the wheel. The vehicle spun out of control and crashed against a lamppost with so much momentum the post fell over it. Neither of them thought about putting their helmets on. They had an unconscious girl to deal with. Sophia put her on her bike and used the rope to secure cargo to tie the nymph's hands to her hips once she was on.

With all of that behind them, the two of them sped away as the sun was barely rising above them.

It was yet another sunny morning in district 244.

Late Phant0m

 

[Late]

Salvator​

“You gotta be fucking kidding me! I told you we should’ve upgraded the tires!”

Both Salvator and Ruby arrived at the accident and there was a group of goblins working hard and fast to get the tire fixed. Salvator noticed one of them with the flashy tattoo and he scrunched up his nose.

“Hell, the Goblin Mob,” Salvator mumbled before pulling out his weapon. “Aren’t you guys far out from your turf?” He called out.

The goblins immediately perked up at his voice and whip their heads around to see the two cops, Salvator already aiming his weapon as Ruby seems to be fishing something between her pockets.

“Shit it’s the cops! Ditch the van, we can’t get caught!” One of them yelled and each of them were about ready to drop everything and run.

“Ruby, you take right and I’ll go-“

“Found it!” Ruby cheered out, tossing out a small disc towards the middle of the scattering goblin.

In seconds, the disc activated and let out an invisible force that pulls the goblins in towards the center. The sudden gravity pull forced the goblins to fall over but unfortunately, the loose lamppost was tugged in a way that it began to fall over towards the two of them.

“Oh fuck.” They said together and immediately jumped out of the way from the lamppost and the incoming wires.

The lamppost fell into the building across the street and the wires were quick to tug the other lampposts they were attached to. Several more tumbled over into buildings but it didn’t go all that far down the street. Once the lampposts finally stopped falling over, Salvator slowly stood up from where he took cover and looked over where he last saw the goblins. A few of them were knocked out as several were tangled up in the wires. Some were trapped between their own vehicle and the lamppost, avoiding the sparkling electricity that seems to put them at bay.

“My god…Ruby, are you okay?” Salvator called out, now starting to look at the damage that has been caused.

“All good here!” Ruby shouted out from the other side of the lamppost, waving her hand out.

“Good, cause, what the fuck was that?!” Salvator glared angrily at Ruby and she offered an innocent look.

“Listen! I didn’t think the gravity disc would even pull the lamppost from that angle!” She argued, her tail whipping around in a frenzy.

“Not only you brought in an expensive ass bomb, you fucking ruined the street- oh my god, I could see the costs already,” he groaned out, rubbing his face into his open hands. Why does this always happen to him?

Ruby let out a heavy sigh, fixing her collar real quick before making her way to the nearest goblin. “Come on Sal, these guys won’t get into cuffs on their own, y’know.”

A couple seconds of mourning and Salvator eventually joined with Ruby to cuff up the goblins. He can already hear the civilians within the street complaining about the damages and it won’t be long until the blame is going to be put onto them. They could be cheeky about it and have the goblins take blame, but there were too many eye witnesses nearby who really saw what went down.

It took them awhile to get every goblin, no thanks to the wires being in the way. Ruby already called in a clean up crew as they started to finish up but she noticed a piece of note nearby that a goblin was trying to snatch with their tied up hands. She frowned, roughly pushing the goblin away from the paper and leans over to pick it up.

“What’s this?” She questioned, unfolded the note.

“N-nothing important! Just a shopping list, gotta feed the gang, right???” The goblin’s attempt to distract the demon away from the note failed as she began to read the piece of paper.

District 244

Private Clinic, Orc Doctor

Capture the nymph

“You wanna clarify what this note means, my dude?” Ruby questioned the goblin, who already averted their eyes.

They didn’t say anything else and Ruby clicked her tongue. “Well, good then. It’s been awhile since we interrogated a couple of criminals.”

“You’ll regret that. Once our boss hears of this, he’ll make sure you never mess with us again!” One of them shouted.

Ruby racked through her memory for a bit. “Wasn’t your so called boss, the Goblin King, already locked up away for good?”

Before they could answer, Salvator stepped in with an annoyed look and paperwork. “Let’s just get this done and over with the report. I already want this day to be done and over with.”

“Hold on, Sal. Look what I found,” Ruby quickly said, giving him the note.

Salvator, at first, didn’t seem all that interested when he got the note in his hands but after a second of reading, his demeanor changed. He offered a hard stare at the goblins before tucking the note away in his pocket. “That’s rather new…”

“Listen, I know we had a rough start this morning but this is probably the most interesting thing that ever happened to us.”

Salvator agrees with a nod, very curious on why the goblins were going after a nymph. He knew the mob was known for thievery and their obsession of wealth is never satisfied but for them to go after a nymph is…strange. Salvator begins to assume the nymph just happens to be rich, but why end up here in this district? Especially at a local clinic? Something wasn’t adding up.

“We’ll interrogate a few of these guys and lock away the rest of them. After…we finish up this report,” Salvator sighed, tapping his pen on the clipboard before handing it over to Ruby. “Best we hurry if we don’t want to hear the clean up crew bitch at your mess for today.”

“Man, whatever…” Ruby huffed under her breath, doing her best to complete the report and ignoring the ongoing comments pedestrians have been saying to them for the past hour or so.

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Sophia Gailis​

The moment they turned the corner, she heard the police sirens in the distance. They were cutting it really close, but if Dao really wanted the nymph as their asset, then their escape was safe from snitches. Not that many people would like to snitch on two hitmen for the Yama-gumi, but there was always that one suicidal idiot that Dao had to shut up by any means necessary. Sophia knew for a fact he had grown a reputation for silencing witnesses, which was why many called him The Crow.

The dragonewt followed Liore close, and didn't fail to notice he was driving faster than usual. She assumed it had to be because of their prisoner. In fact, it would perhaps be best to talk him out of whatever idea might be brewing in his head right now. If there was something they could not afford right now is to remain out in the open with Dao's property on tow.

"Oculus," The half-dragon ordered, and a small headpiece shaped like a monocle seemed to materialize over her right eye. "Call Baltic."

"Calling Baltic..." the computerized voice replied in her ear as the pictogram of a phone appeared on the bottom right of her field of vision.

"What is it?" Liore asked after one tone.

"That's what I wanna ask you. What's your rush?"

"The cops." His reply was brief and dry. There was obviously more to it than that. Sophia knew it.

"Right. Well, they have more pressing matters right now. But you don't plan on delivering the assets right now, do you?"

He sighed. It was all she needed to know that she was right. Liore accelerated as they approached a red light leaving Sophia no choice but to decelerate as a pick-up truck swerved into the lane as soon as there was enough space. The traffic came to a halt and Sophia spoke again.

"We can't go all the way there with the assets. It's not even a matter of fuel, you know?"

"I need to know what to do with it. That's all I'll ask at the warehouse."

Was he really going to leave her with their prisoner? That was unlike him. She put her helmet on, knowing by the tone in his voice that there was no way to make him change his mind. "I might be a woman, but that doesn't mean I'll handle this with as much care as you, you know?"

"You know better than to mangle his assets, Latvi."

She chuckled. "Touché. But still, don't give the keeper a hard time. You'll regret it."

"I know. Don't worry about that."

The green phone turned red and the voice of her Oculus came back into her ear. "Call ended."

The light turned yellow then green and the row of vehicles advanced. Liore continued straight ahead, while she, on her end, turned left.

"Oculus, shut down." She ordered and her gadget did as it was told.

***
​

There wasn't any safe place besides their apartment. At least, none that she knew had survived after the war against the CRNG. Sector 412 was at the heart of the Yama-gumi's turf. Nobody she saw asked her anything about the unconscious girl on her back; they knew better than to anger one of the members of the Death Squadron. She and Liore lived in an apartment tower that had seen better days since it was built almost thirty years ago. The wall near the entrance had a graffitied lotus blossom over it and the yellow paint underneath the graffiti was starting to grey out and crack. The dragonewt carried the passenger still on her back, and she took a deep breath at the sight of the staircase ahead.

Without her powers, it was very hard to carry the nymph up five stories, open the door of the apartment and drop the nymph over the couch. The entire ordeal left Sophia sweaty and almost completely out of breath. She looked at her prisoner, noticing the ropes binding her were coming undone. Best to replace them.

The dragonewt searched the pockets of her jacket and took out a small, retractable knife and began temporarily freeing her.

The nymph opened her eyes, squinting at the blinding morning sunlight that bathed the living room. Sophia grabbed her wrists together, where the rope had been and offered her guest a smile.

"Rise and shine, gorgeous," she sweetly said. "There are really bad people looking for you, so be a dear and stay put. Otherwise..."

She reached out to her belt and took out her revolver, "I'm going to have to use this bad boy to kill your pursuers. You don't seem like the girl who's used to seeing dead bodies, so I'd prefer to not scar your mind."

The green-haired nymph shivered, "Please let me go..."

"I wish I could, gorgeous," Sophia apologetically said, putting back her weapon around her waist. "But like I said, there are very, very bad goblins who want you dead. I'm your bodyguard from now on, okay?"

"You kidnapped me. I...I was rescued by that lamia and you and that other man appeared and..." she closed her eyes hard and pressed her lips together as if she was in pain.

Sophia raised an eyebrow. So this nymph had met Dao in person. And he had seemingly saved her life. No wonder he wanted her as an asset. Dao was not someone who saved just anyone. They had to prove themselves. François had said he only put this girl in their care to settle their debt...but this changed things. But still, she had to be sure of it.

"Is that so? That lamia guy's tall, rather skinny, has emerald and golden scales, green eyes, blue hair tied in a ponytail... that's him, right?"

The nymph nodded, but her fear only grew. "What did you do to him?"

"Me?" Sophia smirked. "I work for him And..." Sophia took her jacket off, revealing she only wore a tank top underneath. She pointed to the dragon and skull tattoo on her left shoulder. "I got a tattoo just like him to prove it. Whatever situation you were in, you saw that everyone who protected you had one just like this one, right?"

She looked at her tattoo for a moment and seemed to relax just a little.

"I don't know what kind of crazy situation brought you to Dao, gorgeous, but you gotta understand you got a target on your back now. Fleeing from this place is not in your best interest."

The nymph looked down and weakly nodded. "I get it. Can you just free my hands? They're burning so much."

Burning? Now that was new. Her skin did feel slightly hot, but nothing too unusual. The dragonewt let the nymph's hands go and looked, in surprise, that there were sparks forming at her fingertips. They died as the nymph brought her hands closer to her, giving herself a hug as she closed her eyes again.

Now it all made sense; this was a new recruit for the Death Squad. Whether she liked it or not.

Late

 

[Late]

Salvator​

The cleanup crew arrived around the time the two cops were done and finalizing the report. The civilians nearby finally moved away from the scene as more enforcements showed up, which was rather a good thing. Salvator saw a familiar face who was red in anger from the vehicle and all he can do is give him a small wave.

Reggie was somewhat of an recruit but not really. He is half human, half dwarf, with black hair and green eyes, and one of his leg is a prosthetic. That same leg broke a few of Salvator’s ribs a couple years back. Reggie is considered tall as a dwarf but short compare to average male humans. Besides his height, his skills as a mechanic is definitely top notch. Back then, Reggie was a getaway driver for lots of different gangs who perform heists. If they want a clean getaway from the cops, then Reggie was their guy.

Salvator first met him when he just happens to be coming through his district. Being the only guy in his department who knows how to snipe, he got a call from the officers on pursuit ahead of time before his arrival. It only took Salvator two bullets to put a stop to Reggie’s riding. The criminals didn’t put up much a fight as they weren’t prepared to be stopped so easily but Reggie…Reggie definitely gave Salvator a hard time. Not because he knew he was captured, but because he took down his tire with just two bullets. Granted, the bullets were modified to pierce through any shielding. If he had used normal snipe bullets, Reggie probably would’ve gotten away.

After Reggie got taken away and Salvator was being taken care of at the hospital, Salvator took the time to research about the guy. He had no family, wasn’t part of any gang or mob, and seems to only work with small groups of criminals as the getaway driver if they pay the right money. The money went towards to Reggie’s workshop he had in District 230, in which there were plenty of devices and tech sitting around, made by Reggie’s own hands. Knowing damn well that Reggie wasn’t going to get a harsh sentence due to the fact he has no affiliation with anyone and his life will go to shit for having a record, Salvator offered him an opportunity for a clean slate.

Everyone called him insane, Ruby said that it was love at first sight, but Salvator sees it as a way of improvement for their district. If the higher ups won’t give them any solid resources, fine, but at least let them have Reggie under their supervision and have him work for them. Salvator had to convince both the higher ups and the man himself, and funny enough, it was harder to convince Reggie. Eventually, he got what he asked for and since then, Reggie has either been fixing or improving their equipment. The only thing that hasn’t been fixed was his anger issues.

“Sal, when you said a couple of lampposts fell over, I expected…hmm, I don’t know, maybe three? Not this whole fucking street!” Reggie yelled out. Two other officers stands behind him but took a step away when he started to go off.

“Well, if Ruby haven’t brought in the gravity disc and use it for the first time, you wouldn’t be so mad,” Salvator huffed in response.

“Gravity disc? Wait…is it my gravity disc or….” Sudden Reggie’s anger was gone and replaced by curiosity.

“It was yours,” Ruby admitted with a small shrug. The guilt seems to finally sink in for her.

“…where did you placed it exactly and how big was the force?” Reggie asked, walking over to the rubble. “Like did it really cause this mess? Or was there another factor in play?”

“Seriously?” Salvator asked, unimpressed but Ruby was more than happy to show Reggie how it all went down.

After locking the goblins into the police van, both Ruby and Salvator were ready to go. Yet one of the officers quickly stop Salvator for a quick word. “Captain Salvator? I been wanting to tell you this from the start but you have a visitor back at base. He states he is from Center Control…”

Salvator stiffens at that news and gave him a curt nod before hopping inside the vehicle. He wonders what they could possibly want if one of them visits by in person.

Once they arrived back at their department, Salvator took a moment to stare at the building. It was an old building, one that seemingly blends in just fine with any other buildings. He noticed that their sign was once again vandalized and Salvator let out a heavy sigh. There were already a few stay bricks on the ground, likely fallen off from the structure itself but there was also plenty of broken glass scattered around, and a strange odor that Salvator recognize it as rotting eggs. That’ll be a pain to find but there were more pressing matters.

“I’ll call over any remaining officers to help you with those goblins, Ruby. I have someone waiting for me inside,” Salvator said to her.

Ruby only offer a nod with a smile on her face. Salvator wonders if there would be ever a day she doesn’t smile. He head on inside after climbing a set of stairs, pushing open the door. Inside was a bit more impressive than outside but still, not exactly what the usual police department should look like. They have a small reception right by the door and the whole floor is just full of desks and officers either typing away or just sitting ahead, thinking about their lives. His office was at the far back and he can see there was someone that just happens to be standing by the door.

“You two,” Salvator called out on the officers who were playing paper football against each other. They immediately stood up. “Go outside and help Ruby put twelve goblins in their cells.”

“Yes sir!” The two officers immediately ran out, probably happy to finally do something that wasn’t exactly life threatening. With them leaving, there were probably three officers left in the building, one receptionist, and one very important man.

He quickly walks over to the man, who seems to be looking through a tablet. “I heard about what happened. In fact…” the man hold up his tablet, showing off a news headline. “It’s on the news. You guys have gotten rather popular,” he said with a small grin.

“Commander Luis Lander…I wasn’t expecting you to visit,” Salvator said, opening the office door with a key. “After you.”

“Thanks,” Luis said, walking in without a second to spare.

Luis Lander, one of commanders of Central City, is a young man with dirty blond hair and heterochromia eyes. He appears to be human but the loose collar around his neck suggests that there was more to him he was letting on. For someone young, Salvator wonders how a kid like him got the position that takes years to achieve.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Salvator asked, offering a seat he can sit in.

Luis took the chair and waited until Salvator himself was also seated and he begins to clear his throat. “Nothing big in particular, I’m just checking how you been doing. Or rather…how is Ruby doing.” Luis was the one who allowed Ruby to join their district, a stranger that Ruby knows very little about but there must’ve been a reason for her to suddenly become a police officer.

“Reckless…but it gets the job done,” Salvator admits with a sigh.

“Yeah, I can see that. So over the time period she stayed with you, nothing strange has happened?”

“Not that I know of. She has been diligent to her work and nothing seems to really phase her. Is this something that have to do with her physical exams?” Salvator asked.

“Hm…yes and no. The other commanders have been wondering if there has been any changes since we put her and looks like nothing seem out of ordinary. I suppose it can be a good thing,” Luis said with a shrug. “…trust me, Sal, if I know what it is, I would’ve told you by now.” Salvator slowly nods his head, casting his gaze away to think for a moment. “How much do you know of demons?”

“Well, if they anything like Ruby, I can assume a lot.”

Luis smiled at that. “No, I’m afraid not. They’re…unique in their own way. Most of them have quite the temper but one thing that is certain: a good lot of them don’t like us. I’m sure you heard about the Demon King incident.”

“Wasn’t it probably the first incident that ever occurred in this city?”

“It probably was. A lot happened back then, but it was just around the time when monarchy are starting to become a thing of the past. It was rather a simple operation from what I read into; enraged demon terrorizing districts, multiple of casualties, and demons rallying behind their king. When the enforcements killed their king, the other demons were quick to back down. The report, unfortunately, never explained why this even started in the first place. Maybe because the system don’t recognize kings anymore? Maybe a dispute went down in their street and things got out of hand? Who knows. Originally before, demons were classified as dangerous individuals but as the city grew, the demons…lost their touch and were getting outclassed by every other species that registered into the system. But, it shouldn’t mean that they’re not dangerous anymore.”

“Then why have Ruby part of the enforcements?” Salvator asked slowly, frowning.

“Strange to say but we want to improve our relationship with demons. Hundreds of years passed since that incident and plenty of them still resent us. I suppose their parents have been passing down the story to their offsprings and it left a mark in their community as a whole. If they see Ruby being part of the law enforcements to keep the streets safe and treated as a hero, then maybe we can try to scrub away that scar. There aren’t any active demon mobs or gangs in the city as a whole, so let’s keep it that way,” Luis said and stands up.

“Treat Ruby as a hero? Really? You saw the damage today, right?” Salvator scoffed, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s in their nature to be destructive. At least she didn’t kill someone,” Luis sighed. “I’m sure she will get better over time. Besides that, I have a gift for you lot- well, two gifts. After that, I’ll be returning back to headquarters.”

“W-wait…something came up when we captured those goblins,” Salvator quickly stopped him from leaving, handing him a note. “We haven’t seen our chief in weeks so I’m not sure what would be the best course of action for this…”

Luis took the note to read it over and scratch the back of his head. “I guess the AI haven’t delivered the news. Your chief is dead, killed in some shady street. Reports said he was drunk at the time and I suppose he ran into the wrong group of people.”

“Oooh…”

“In that case, I’ll tell you the news. You been promoted as Chief of this district. Command it however it pleases you. I’ll get someone to fix the AI for you down here. Along with that, looks like you need to pick yourself a new captain. As for this note…interesting to see the goblins mobilizing once again after we took care of the Goblin King. A fake king, mind you. He was barely as big as the original king from long ago. Either way, it seems they have a new boss ordering them around, someone who wants this nymph. This is definitely the first I heard about this but I thought I heard a few talks back at base about nymphs disappearances. It looks like you got yourself some kind of lead.” Luis looked at Salvator and place the note back in his hand. “Best of luck, Chief. Cards are in your hands, choose how you want to play them.”

After the meeting, Salvator met up with Ruby by her desk who was enjoying herself a sandwich for lunch. It seems all the goblins are locked up underground.

“Come on, Commander Luis Lander got something for you,” Salvator said to her.

“Eh? For me?” Ruby asked, standing up and brushing away crumbs.

They head outside to see there was a shiny vehicle wait outside with Luis instructing a few men to be careful with the pod they’re taking out. He turned around and smiles at Ruby.

“Ruby, great work on today’s capture,” he congratulated her. “I know it was a mess, but you’ll get better overtime.”

“I do hope so, Commander, but what is that thing you’re bringing over?” Ruby asked, wary of the pod.

The men set it down by the stairs and Luis gestured her closer. “Just the latest model of our K9 units. You guys definitely been due to having one and it’s better off in your hands,” Luis explained. Ruby perks up in interest as she walked down the steps to the pod. Luis offered her to activate it on her own and with that, the pod was whirling into life and began to change forms. “With you activating it, the K9 unit will listen to your commands only. Salvator, I’ll be sure to get you someone to patch up your AI.”

“Is that the other gift?” Salvator questioned, his arms folding.

“You’ll find out soon enough, my friend. I best be going now, good luck.”

With that, Luis and the sturdy looking men left in the shiny vehicle. Ruby was busy being very fascinated by the machinery that finally took form before her. It was, as he says, a K9 unit. The body shape was sleek but strong on its own, its blue eyes staring ahead into nothing in particular with sharp ears standing tall. Yet as Ruby kneeled down to holding the canine’s face in awe, the robot appears to be more alive, ears drooping low and the tag giving a small wag.

“She is beautiful…look at those eyes!” Ruby exclaimed, excitement in her tone.

“Come on, finish up your lunch. We got a clinic to visit,” Salvator said to her.

“I’ll name you…Blue!” Ruby said and the K9 seems to hum in response.

“Very creative. Come on, now.”



It was late afternoon the time they arrived to the clinic. The door was busted wide open and there wasn’t anyone around the area as far as Salvator can tell. Blue found blood scattered nearby, identified it as goblin blood and it was enough for the two cops to hold out their weapons but keeping it low. Ruby had Blue to lead them inside and to scan throughout the building. Once they stepped into the reception room, a hologram appeared, asking them if they had an appointment.

“Chief Salvator Silver on duty, pause all operations,” Salvator said and briefly typed out something in his arm brace. It sent out a signal to the AI of the clinic and the hologram appears to be frozen in response.

“Doesn’t this place have a camera,” Ruby quietly asked. “…wait…Chief?”

“It should, once Blue confirms…” Salvator noticed a dead goblin body close by and frowns. “Once Blue confirms that no one here is alive, we should definitely check into the camera system and see what happened here…and yes, I just got promoted. Found out today.”

“Dude! We should totally celebrate!” Ruby said excitedly, pointing her gun down as she was happy by the news for her friend.

“We’ll see how things go by the end of the day,” Salvator said with a shrug.

Before Ruby could say anything else, something seems to come through her earpiece and she held up a hand at Salvator. “Hold on, Blue just finished investigating…”

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Liore Rossa
​

While Liore knew where Dao lived, he figured he would be at his establishment instead. If not, well, his mere presence in Dao's club would make one of his men call for him. Under any normal circumstances, someone with Dao's rank would not bother to go to such lengths for one of his underlings, but Dao and he had some shared history together. In fact, before Latvi clawed her way up as a hitman, Chronos was a four-man squad, and Dao was part of it. Back in the days when Sylnodel was still around and a close ally of the Yama-gumi, Chronos was the only squad that worked for two capos; one from the Yama-gumi and one from Sylnodel. Chronos was jokingly called "the marriage contract" by those at the very top of each organization. For those at the bottom, Chronos was the most feared Death Squadron.

After Sylnodel fell, so did half of the members of Chronos. Dao became a capo and inherited almost half of the Death Squadrons from his predecessors, including, of course, Chronos. As for Liore...he preferred to remain where he was. It was not that he did not have the connections or the leverage to aim higher it was simply that he preferred to kill his targets himself. That and it was the only position where he could go hunting down Myrlenn without causing any noise.

His ride through Central brought him to District 12; it was a completely different realm from the dirty and impoverished district where the clinic was. Skyscrapers rose from the almost impeccable streets. Women walked by with androids and jewelry without a care in the world, men, too, were distracted by their Oculus as they talked and made their way to and fro the sidewalks. He had grown up in district 24, a small suburb full of low-middle-class families who worked blue-collar jobs here or in district 14. If Latvi's file was anything to go by, she had been even more fortunate; she grew up in district 3, only a few houses down from where Dao currently lived. Liore sometimes wondered if she had even seen what any district beyond district 9 even looked like before her arrest.

He turned right, following the signs for the "Quartier Général". It was the party and artist hub of the district. There were almost as many galleries as there were restaurants and clubs. And one of the most exclusive ones out of them all was The Levant. That was Liore's destination. As expected, there was no way to easily park his motorcycle down the street, so after turning around a couple of smaller streets, he found a spot. Even considering the spot, fifteen bucks per hour was excessively expensive. Surely there was some event going on. He took off his helmet, his handgun and his jacket, putting the last two in the small storage box at the back of his motorcycle. Most people here did not even pay attention to the road, since their cars had all an AI to self-drive them anywhere. However, the last thing he needed was to be spotted as a member of the Yama-gumi by some cop on foot.

He wore a simple long-sleeved shirt and jeans; it was a far cry from the outfits of the people lining up for the last places at the Levant, but it was perfect to pass for some kind of security guard working for the club. The elven girl at the front door glanced up at him as he approached; she gave him a nod before excusing herself to the group of frat boys in front of her. A minotaur came out of a side door, making him a sign with the head to come in. As Liore walked over there, the elven girl was back at her post, finishing the transaction for the group of four guys.

"Those were the last reservations for tonight, ladies and gentlemen," the girl announced through her oculus, spreading her voice to the entire lobby as if speaking through a microphone. "If you wish to make reservations for a later date-"

The side door closed behind him and Liore saw he was now in the club per se. The stage where girls stripped down to their underwear was right in the centre, and a black marble counter occupied almost the entire length of the wall at the end of the room. Behind the counter, expensive bottles of almost all alcohol imaginable lined up on wooden shelves bordered with gold. Besides those eye-drawing features, there were some lounges spread out on the room's balcony, where he currently was. The rest of the room was laid bare, as expected to let people dance around. The minotaur huffed behind him and pointed him to the lounge at the end of the balcony. That was where he had to wait, then.

Liore nodded at the imposing creature and made his way to the leather love chair, stretching his arms with a yawn. It was obvious Dao had been expecting him, but it was almost as obvious that he would make him wait a long time. The door opened again and Liore turned his head towards it; Surprisingly, Dao emerged through the door, slithering down to where he was. The blue-haired lamia waved at him.

"Heya, buddy," he smiled. "Came as soon as I settled an important call."

Now, this spelt trouble. Dao was never this early to anything unless it was serious. Whoever that nymph was, she was crucial.

Dao sat in front of him, occupying the entire couch with his tail. "How's life treating you, Liore? Enjoying your little woman or still no cigar?"

So, Dao was in no mood for getting down to business. He would not let him have it his way. That nymph clearly was trouble and it was best to know exactly what he was stepping into ASAP. "You know I'm not interested in anything with scales, Dao. As for life, well, it sure sent me a lot of filthy goblins way too early in the morning."

"Ah, I see, I see. Heard the doc talk a bit about that. Thanatos had an errand to run, so I hope you don't mind me entrusting my little investment to you."

Thanatos. That was the five-man squad that took over Chronos's reputation as the most feared squad. Liore squinted at him, "Why are we taking over Thanatos' homework? Dao, Latvi and I are not-"

The Lamia raised his hand, "I know you two got neutralized as mages. But after a minor incident with Reveil, I can't trust Thanatos with this."

"What did that dwarf do?"

Dao took a deep breath, "He dug too much into the nymph's story. Rose handled it, in the end. What he found is nothing more than a vague dream he won't make sense of."

Liore rested on the back of his seat, "So, you don't want anyone knowing who she is and why you want her. We're only on babysitting duty, right?"

The lamia shook his head, "No. I want her to be Chronos' new member. Just think of her as the happy daughter of the Chronos family. You gotta teach her the ropes and Latvi can teach her how to be a good girl for the Yama-gumi."

Liore blinked, still not sure that he had just heard right, "You..." he sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. "Fucking hell, Dao. You want us, of all possible people, to train her? Make it make sense, brother. You don't need to speak in code with me."

The Lamia briefly pressed his lips, "My hands are tied here, Liore. Taking Reveil to Rose was not even my idea; the big guy took him to her himself. I have very simple but strict orders here, Liore. She can either make it or break it. If she has no potential, make Latvi slit her throat and cut her hands. If we can't have her, the least we can do is pin her murder to the Ryuu-kai."

The more Dao spoke, the least things made sense to him, but if he had to choose between just training a rookie or coming anywhere near Rose, he would do the former. "Understood."

The lamia smiled, "I knew you'd understand, pal. The nymph's name is Phoenix."

***
François​

The orc could only sigh at the mess left behind. He had managed to patch up the pipes and fix the door leading to the second floor, but as far as the bodies went, it was too much for him. The water, too, was still an inch deep in some places and would not go away unless he pumped it out himself. On top of that, the blood and the stench would need the help of a cleaning crew. It made little to no sense why someone like Dao would pull out Thanatos even though he knew the nymph was still unconscious. The previous night, the orc was sure he had scared off the little shit who got too close but calling Chronos was the right call. While that duo of hitmen was not exactly at their prime, they performed much better than the other groups of mages who lost their powers. If they were still good enough for Dao's Death Squad, they were still the right people for this job.

The small flame that came out of his lighter was almost the only light in the room, given that he had almost completely blocked out the sun with his blinds. He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, immediately closing the silver lighter as soon as he exhaled the first small puffs of smoke. The orc looked at the old phone on the corner of his table. Dao would call, once the cops were done here. He still could hear the commotion outside, but considering the rumbling of all the lamp posts falling over, François considered himself lucky. None of them had caused any more damage to his already damaged clinic. The orc got up and walked over to the small walk-in closet to the right of his office. He opened the door and turned on the lights, only to remain in the dark. Right. He had to cut the light off until the water was all filtered out. With a shrug, he lit up his lighter again and raised his hand just slightly to take a look at his cleaning inventory. His polyethylene buckets were big enough for three goblins each. However, there was only one bottle of hydrochloric acid left. That would not be nearly enough. What Goblins lacked in size, they made up for it in sheer resistance to any chemicals, even in death.

The old phone rang, and the doctor stepped out of the closet, locking the door behind him and glanced at the ID call. Private caller. Dao.

"You owe me hundreds of thousands in damages," he sighed, taking a long puff of tobacco as he sat down on his chair. "If you send a cleaning crew, a water pump and ten more bottles of acid my way, I'll consider reducing the amount you owe me."

The man on the other side of the line chuckled, "Fine, you old man. I'll send them your way as soon as you send those pigs away."

François frowned, "What do you mean, send them away? It's better for all of us if I jump ship."

"We can't afford to lose your location. Orders from the big man. I trust you damaged the records of Chronos ever getting there?"

The orc crushed his half-finished cigarette in the ashtray to his left, then pinched the bridge of his nose, "The CCTV is moot with all that water filtering through the floor. I had to cut almost everything to be safe. I don't think they'll salvage any data. The chips and circuits were thoroughly fried. Same goes for the files of all my patients here. But you got the back-up, don't you?"

"Of course I do. Still...everything got fried that badly?" Dao whistled. "If they sent so many that not even Chronos could handle it cleanly...That means I made a good investment."

"They were at least thirty. Half of them made it inside, but Chronos handled it well. The rest, well," he peeked through his blinds, and saw the last couple of patrols taking in the last two goblins, "the cops are taking them in."

There was a small silence on the other side of the line, "I see. By the way, did you tell Chronos about her mana circuits?"

"Not at all. There was not even time for that. I tried my best to keep them away until their arrival, but those sneaky little things were starting to make their way in from above."

Dao sighed, "Ah, so Baltic's probably coming. It would've made things simpler if you had explained why I need that nymph. Well, no matter. Keep the pigs off our trail, and you'll get everything you asked for."

"Got it."

The line cut. François put the phone down the phone. Best to start surveying the entire establishment to pass the exact amount to Dao's accountant.

Late

 

[Late]

Ruby​

After a short pause, Ruby pointed upstairs. “An orc is upstairs. He doesn’t appear to be injured or hostile, probably the doctor of this clinic like the note mentioned.” Ruby said, shoulders now relaxed.

“Still best to keep your guard up, Ruby, this is an orc we’re dealing with,” Salvator mumbled low, gesturing to her weapon that has been lowered.

“Oh come on, we can’t just keep constantly jump to conclusions with different species, Sal. Maybe he won’t be as dangerous as you think,” Ruby said, already walking towards the set of stairs. “How about this, leave it to me to do the talking and you just stand there looking cute.”

“…isn’t that my line?” Salvator questioned.

“…please let me do this,” Ruby pleaded, giving the good o’ puppy eyes. “You always do the talking and it always lead to…” It was hard for Ruby to say it.

Usually when Salvator talks to any kind of mythical creature or someone that appear more superior than Salvator himself, he gets self conscious of his own size and comes off very blunt with his questions and rather aggressive. Ruby sees it as Salvator trying to make up for his lack of…magical talents by being a tough guy. Yet, it always go south…

“Fine, fine, I get it!” Salvator growled out, shaking his head. He took in a deep breath before slowly lowering his weapon. “We’ll try out your way and if he hits you well…I’m sure you can take an orc’s punch.”

“Thank you,” Ruby cheered but the thought crossed her mind. Can she take an orc’s punch?

Seconds later, they were up on the second floor, meeting up with Blue who was sitting by and waiting for further orders. Ruby gave her a small pat in the head, still giddy about the gift. “Police. Sorry to enter this far in your clinic but the door outside is busted wide open and we spotted a few goblin bodies laying around…” Ruby announced, slowly looking around until she laid eyes on the orc.

He was definitely busy on his own things, seeming to not notice or care that two officers have entered in the building. That was when she noticed that there was more than a few more bodies laying around. They all seem to have a clean bullet hole shot in them. Then there was the obvious water and ceiling damage. “…well, we want to make sure you’re not hurt.”

The orc looked at her briefly, studying her carefully and glancing over at Salvator who stood behind her. He huffed and turn back around to focus back on his task. “How kind of you. Now go away, I have a clinic I need to fix up.”

“W-we just have a few questions to ask. Sorry to disturb you on your work. We’ll be on our way after these questions,” Ruby promised. The orc made no knowledge to the agreement, as if he haven’t heard her. Salvator gave Ruby a short shove forward and she cast an annoyed look at him. “Is there any particular reason why goblins attacked your establishment?”

“Dunno.”

Ruby wasn’t sure how to feel about that response. She looked at the goblin bodies once again, noting the knives they have but not any kinds of guns that could possibly cause their own deaths. Or maybe the orc have used a gun on them…but that would feel strange for some giant to use a small weapon instead of his own fists. None of these goblins were smashed to bits. They were precise shots too, the goblins likely died instantly as soon the bullet hit them.

“I guess you handle them off pretty well, but I’m surprised. You don’t seem like the type of guy to carry a gun on you. Plus…I don’t see any knife cuts on you, are you sure you’re not injured?” Ruby asked, taking a step forward.

“Are you done?” The orc growled out. He took a moment to look over the dead bodies and annoyance was written all over his face. He quickly went back to his inventor. “I’m a busy orc here, I need this place fixed before I have my next patient.”

Ruby took a step back, smiling slightly. “Just one more thing, big guy. I’m really sorry, but…do you happen to have any nymph patients, as if late?”

The orc whipped around and walk towards them. Salvator immediately start to raise up his weapon but Ruby hold out her hand and pushing the weapon back down. He resisted for a bit but paused when the orc is standing in front of them. He squinted hard at them and Ruby could only offer a nervous smile.

“…that is classified information of my practices. I will not disclose any information of my patients, unless you have a search warrant. So if you want to find out what kind of patients I take in,” the orc growled, leaning down to loom over at them. “Then best you go and get yourself a search warrant.”

“Got it, understood, I hear you perfectly clear,” Ruby said carefully, giving him the okay hand sign. “We’ll be on our way then. Sorry once again, I hope you have a nice day.”

With the orc glaring at their retreating backs, they were quick to leave the clinic. Once Salvator stepped outside, Ruby could hear the AI resuming operation before she stepped outside. From the street, they both sighed. Blue stays standing next to Ruby, looking around the street with ears alert.

“Looks like camera footage inside the clinic is also going to be out of the question,” Ruby said with a small pout. “Sorry, didn’t think he’ll be so…orc-like.”

“He is an orc.”

“Yeah, but a fucking doctor. Aren’t doctors supposed to be…I don’t know, nice?”

“Maybe when we’re not wearing the uniform…but its fine. We know he is trying to hide something. I didn’t see him having any knife cuts or bandages on him. You were right to question him about that, and the gun. If he had fought, we would’ve noticed it. It would’ve been a lot more messier than that. Something else might have happened at the clinic,” Salvator said with a short nod. “Not bad, Ruby Hellfire. Blue didn’t detect any other blood other than goblin’s, right?”

“Yeah but…I don’t know, he is a doctor after all. Maybe he did got hurt but did a really good job on healing himself up?” Ruby offered.

“Either way…we’ll see what we can get from street footage. We’re fortunate the lamppost in this area has not been damaged,” Salvator said, pointing up at the standing lamppost.

There was definitely a camera there, pointing towards the street. Ruby completely forgot about that being there but…she wonders just how good the footage would be? If they’re part of the lowest district, Ruby assumes that the footage they can get from the street surveillance won’t be so great. Not to mention, she have seen a couple of kids always throwing objects up in the air toward the lamppost. Were they trying to knock off the camera sitting there?

“If there is something going on, then we have quite an investigation to look into. Back to the office we go. Hopefully whoever Luis sent over got the AI fixed by now,” Salvator said, starting to walk away.

“W-wait, should we send someone over to clean up all these bodies?” Ruby asked, gesturing at the clinic.

“Leave it, we bothered the orc long enough already.”

Ruby sighed, rolling her eyes and follows after Salvator. “We still better have time to celebrate tonight for your promotion.”

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Myrlenn​

He cleaned up his glasses, standing on the corner of the street with a can of an energy drink. On the lampost next to him, a rusty bus stop sign was barely hanging on above his head. Myrlenn was an odd one, even for an elf in the criminal world. He had dyed the tips of his silver hair a neon purple, and while he kept his hair away from his forehead, it stood out in spikes as it fell over his shoulders. His ears were both pierced and a small chain went from a piercing on his nostril to the earring on his left ear, giving him an almost cartoonish punk look, regardless of his simple t-shirt and bleached jeans.

His arms, too, were tatooed from the palm of his hands almost all the way up to his neck, depicting a tiger devouring a dragon over his left arm and a samurai with a fiery sword on the other. He bore scars of erasing previous tattoos as well as a scar that matched with the bleeding neck of the dragon on his arm. At most, he looked like some low-ranked punk in some gang, but that could not be further from the truth. Myrlenn didn't really work for anyone since Sylnodel fell. For the right price, he'd lend his services to almost anyone. The only exception being the Yama-gumi. He saw an old yellow bus turn the corner, approaching the stop where he stood. He briefly flashed a smile and opened his energy drink. The yellow bus stopped and a group of four kids got off. A dragon boy, dwarf twins and a half-orc girl. Most of the kid's eyes lit up when they saw him, save for the girl. She only looked down and stayed outside the circle of her peers.

"Big brother!" the dragon boy yelled as he extended his fist for a fistbump. "Is the dare stilll on? I'm really, really close of knocking that thing off!"

"As if," one of the twins huffed, "We got it closer to fall without your help."

"Yeah," the other twin insisted, putting himself on the tip of his toes to try, rather in vain, to make himself as tall as his friend. "Those fifty bucks are ours!"

"Say what?" the dragon boy growled, showing his fangs. "Just you watch, I'm growing my wings and I'll knock it down first!"

Myrlenn put his hand over his head and sighed, "Now, don't show your fangs to your friends like that, Jason. It's not nice. Look, you scared Dahlia."

Jason turned towards the orc girl, who was still fidgeting in place, looking at her shoes. His expression softened and the group began to gather around her.

"I'm sorry, Dahlia," Jason softly said.

"Are you alright?" the twins asked in unison.

Dahlia shook her head, "I'm okay. You can go and try knocking the camera off, I'm tired. I wanna go home."

Myrlenn shrugged, "So the young lady says. Come on, let's escort the princess to the queen's castle, lads. On guard!"

He began walking, leading the group of kids. Dahlia looked a bit more hopeful, but she wouldn't be that way for long. Her father had to learn a harsh lesson today.

****
François
​

The cleaning crew had taken away the bodies, leaving him only with the pump running. Most of the water was out, but there was still some water he had been forced to swipe away in adjacent rooms. It was too much for a mop, but barely big enough for the pump to slowly throw it out into the back alley and into the sewers. He looked up at his ceiling. Those holes would take weeks to completely patch up, assuming he could count on Vanny to do the job. Even with Vanny's best men, the orc figured he'd have to figure out something to not scare his daughter off too much next weekend. As much as he wished to see her more often, he understood his lifestyle was too dangerous to raise a family. His wife, too, had figured it out rather quickly. It was for the best, all things considered.

He heard the laughter of some young boys from the front street, and the small clanging of pebbles hitting metal. They were probably Dahlia's friends. The thought made him briefly smile. Perhaps he should go greet his daughter as soon as he scrubbed the second floor a bit more.

A loud crash preceeded the haughty laughter of one of the kids.

"Told you we'd get it, Jason!" the kid laughed.

"You cheated, Lloyd! You cheater! Nick, tell your brother that doesn't count!"

François shook his head; those kids would be arguing at each other for hours at this rate. Well, that left him plenty of time. He turned the pump off and hoped they'd stick around for long enough.

"Big brother didn't set any rules. We won clean and fair," Nick replied.

"Bleh! You sore loser!" Lloyd taunted Jason, "We'll take this to Big brother Myrlenn!"

The orc froze in place. That was a name he hoped he would never hear again. He rushed back inside, climbed the stairs in long strides, and opened the blinds in his office to see where the kids were. He caught the three boys running to their left, carrying the only surviving security camera with them. He sighed with relief when he could not spot his daughter anywhere. If Myrlenn was around, however, that meant this was probably his final day in Central. It had not all been bad, all things considered. If he could change one thing about his life, however, it would be accepting that deal almost ten years ago. François calmly made his way back to his office, sat down, and lit his last cigarette. Perhaps he should've used some of his money to buy some cigars and fine whiskey. Then again, he hoped his Hippocratic oath meant at least something to those men. It clearly didn't. Should he be surprised by it? Maybe. The situation was in their favour, thanks to a miraculous fuck-up from one of Thanatos's members. It was the ideal situation...until some capo made the stupid choice to send mere goblins to take the girl. That was on them. He had a role to play for his biggest clients, regardless of what the others wanted of him.

Wood creaked above him, then it gave out, crashing over the floor before he heard a pair of boots land over the mess.

"Knock-knock there, doc," Myrlenn said as he nonchalantly walked into his office. Unlike usual, his hair was completely jet black, slightly curly at the edges. He took the only other chair in the room and sat down in front of him, arms crossed. "You fucked up, calling Baltic like that. I know you had other people in your address book."

The orc shrugged, "I told your informant the Yama-gumi has had their eyes on her for longer than you have. You should've told the capo to send better men."

The elf tilted his head left then right, "Hmm, maybe, maybe not. But anyhow, your head has to roll or else I don't eat tonight. Simple as that."

Myrlenn aimed his gun at him; it was a small calibre, far too little to do any significant damage. In his hands, it almost looked like a toy. At most, it would open the wounds from a few nights ago. The elf fired square to his right shoulder. The bullet's force undid his stitches, flaring up a burning pain he would have rather forgotten about.

He growled at the elf, his blood boiled and screamed for him to fight back. There was little he could do to contain his rage at his attacker; the orc slammed his fists on the table, crushing the phone as he split his desk in half. He got up, glaring at the slim, and minuscule elf in front of him. Myrlenn did not seem the least impressed. He merely smiled crookedly, his copper eyes gleaming at the promise of a fight against a colossus. François swung his fist at him, and the elf gracefully leapt back, throwing a dagger at one of his eyes. The orc was now partially blinded and only grew more furious, throwing his clawed hands around to crush and tear the flesh of the elf. Myrlenn, on his end, only chuckled, taunting him to hit him again and again. As François punched down, tearing a hole through the floor, Myrlenn jumped behind him his hands pressing against his eye sockets.

"Do you ever wonder what it feels to be electrocuted, doc?" the elf hollered as he pressed down and down his other eye. Try as he might to get the man off him, the orc was growing increasingly blind and the only hand he could've used to tear his head off was completely stuck.

"No? I thought you'd be curious what your patients feel. Well, you're going to find out soon!"

A flash of blue light blinded the orc. Then, he felt as if hundreds of red-hot nails were piercing his skull simultaneously, crawling underneath his every nerve, tearing it to shreds. He could not even scream for his tongue and his muscles would not even respond to any of his commands. His blood itself seemed to harden and crystalize in his veins, pouring out of his nose, mouth, and ears as painfully as he had ever felt it.

Somehow, through his torture, he relaxed, thinking of the day his daughter was born. The day he had married her mother; the day he obtained his license, and the day he graduated...all his life played in a flash before him, eventually stopping on the grim day where he found his brother dead in a back alley. He felt the cold winter breeze, and the snow clouding his vision. That day...was there even anyone out there to take care of his body?

*****
Myrlenn
​

As soon as the orc's body went completely limp, the elf knew his job was over. He jumped back onto the ground, careful to not move before whistling for the middlemen to come in. A couple of hobgoblins emerged from the hall. They had infiltrated the building first, taking advantage of the deafening noise coming from the pump. They were the insurance in case Myrlenn did not quite nail his execution a-la-goblin.

"So?" Myrlenn said, handing over the gun to his partner, "Pretty goblin-like execution, wouldn't you say?"

The tallest of the two approached, looking at the scene before taking the dagger out of the orc's eye socket and the gun the elf was offering him. "You nailed it pretty good. We got a couple of filthy traitors on the outside who use lightning magic, so you went above what we expected."

The elf bowed, "That's par for the course when you do business with me, gentlemen. If you have nothing to add, I'll be on my way to collect my payment."

"Actually," the second hobgoblin stepped into the room, "we do."

The elf raised an eyebrow, "Oh, is that so?"

The creature put a hand over his shoulder, squeezing it just a bit too tight, "The days for lone wolves like you are coming to an end soon. Pick a winning ship to sail this storm. It's a big one."

Myrlenn scoffed, "Why, thank you for your concern."

With that, the hobgoblin let him go and he walked away from the scene, using the ladder his partners had set up on another hole in the ceiling. The sun was setting down Central, and though the breeze was growing colder by the day, Myrlenn did not mind. Come what may, a big storm or a small one, he refused to tie himself down to just one organization. He leapt from ceiling to ceiling, seemingly going to one well-known hanging spot for the goblin mob, but only a few blocks away from the clinic he stopped. He had told Dahlia's mother a little something. It was best to watch if she had taken it seriously. Like her ex-husband, she was always on time for everything. The elf looked at his wristwatch. Any minute now.

Her scream echoed all the way to where he was; good thing he was far enough, or else she might have deafened him. She yelled for her husband, then the police. He sighed, a small grin on his lips. Well, that would deal with the little trouble-makers of the goblin gang. He looked down at his hands. He had burned his palms to never leave any fingerprints, as for his hair...he passed a hand over his head, taking off the wig he used.

"Another day, another great bounty under my belt" he mused as he continued his way towards the honeypot the goblin gang had prepared in case cops came looking for the perpetrators. Once he was there, he'd use the services of a changeling to teleport himself to his real destination.

Late

 

[Late]

Ruby​

When they arrived back at their building, the sun was already starting to get low. Unfortunately, not a lot of cops will be going home tonight. With them being short-staffed, plenty of them run on a 12 hour shift, with few days off in-between. Ruby can’t remember when was the last time she had a day off or even a night to herself but she never really complains about it. As long she sleep for a good amount, Ruby is usually back to her energetic self the next day.

Once they took a step inside, they were greeted by a voice through their intercom. “Welcome back, Chief Salvator. Welcome back, Officer Ruby.” Well, that was new.

“Hey shit heads, the AI is fixed,” Reggie announced out to them, stepping out from his own room. Reggie have his own workshop in a section of their garage but everyone was threatened by him to never go in unless he is supervising. Weird thing is that everyone listened, only because Salvator trust that the guy wasn’t hiding anything too suspicious.

“Yeah but it never greeted us like that,” Salvator commented, starting to walk his way over to the AI station.

Ruby followed close by and to her surprise, the whole table looked very new and sleek. It actually made Ruby not wanting to smudge the thing.

“Oh, not only they fixed it but they gave us a newer model. Amazing that it can even function in this building,” Salvator said under his breath, hovering his hand over it briefly to bring up a hologram of a keyboard.

“Eeeh, it’s running on something different. They didn’t really specified when I asked but for sure, it’s not using up our electricity here,” Reggie explained, joining them.

“Great, the electricity bill won’t increase.”

As they talked, Ruby watched how Salvator is bringing up the surveillance cams around District 244. There was a few offline due to their…earlier accident, but Salvator eventually found the one we were looking for. A live footage was already playing from the street.

“Here we are…now…uh…how do we look into the past footage?” Salvator asked.

Ruby looked over at the controls and to her surprise, there wasn’t the usual playback button. The new model was close to same compare to the old one, but it seems that certain functions were moved around. Ruby gently push Salvator out of the way and began looking through the available functions they have.

“What you mean look at the past footage? Isn’t there a button for that?” Reggie scoffed behind Ruby.

“No, there isn’t. I checked. You would think they would keep the interface the same with every upgrade,” Salvator grunted angrily.

“You probably missed it. Ruby, check again under the footage.”

“What did I said- it’s not there, numbnuts! Where’s the manual book?”

“Manuel book- seriously? We don’t need one.”

“Clearly we do!”

Ruby began to wonder if she will ever work with someone within her age range, or rather, have a friend who isn’t grouchy and taking things very seriously. In all her life, she has been moved around throughout the city: first being raised in an orphanage, running away from the said orphanage, living on the streets for a good while, and then sudden, someone noticed her when she got into fight with a couple of goons. It was a fight for survival to Ruby, and it was the first time she used her fire magic against others. Once the dust have settled and the fire sizzling away, Ruby found herself surrounded by several bodies and many police officers pointing their guns at her. That was when she met Luis Lander. He was first to find her and the first to see that she had potential.

Luis was probably Ruby’s first friend she ever made. Even though she didn’t know a lot about the guy. Besides that, she never really kept anyone close to her during her years of growing up. Everything was always temporary for her…maybe this career would be temporary for her but who nows. Ruby wasn’t planning on changing her career and she hoped that she actually have a place to stay, permanently.

But for sure, she needs to hang out with people in her age group.

“Wait, what’s going on there?”

Ruby was so deep in thought that she haven’t realized that the camera was shaking. She blinks a couple of times and had the camera to zoom in from down below. Ah, so the kids were trying to knock it off. Ruby smiled a little at the thought, but she soon realized that the situation won’t be so good to them. And just like that, another hit to the camera and it was suddenly offline.

“No fucking way, they actually knocked it over?” Salvator gasped, leaning in to stare at the screen.

Ruby could hear Reggie stifling his laughter at the situation and she casually looked over at her chief. “Maybe if you weren’t flirting so much, we could’ve got what we’re looking for.”

“Flirt?! That wasn’t flirting!” Salvator denied, yet Ruby could clearly see a distinct blush on his cheeks.

“Anyways, I doubt we can look into it now. Those cameras were only able to be connected to our system because they rely on wire connection. If we had wireless ones, this wouldn’t be a problem. Sooooo…we gotta go back.”

“For fuck sake,” Salvator sighed loudly.

“Heh! I leave you two to it then,” Reggie chuckled before walking away.

“Do you remember what they look like?” Salvator asked Ruby.

“There are three of them. I think…there was two children who appear similar from the feed. Maybe twins? You know any twins in the district, Sal?” It was a trick question, he doesn’t know. Because Salvator hates kids more than anything as for Ruby, she have a completely different opinion of them. “Anyways, we can go back and see if the camera is there on the ground. If not, then we can assume those kids picked it up.”

“Why would a bunch of kids want a surveillance camera…it’s practically useless to them,” Salvator grumbled, already putting back on his coat.

“Well, let’s ask them when we do find them!”



When they first returned back to the street, they found the remnants of camera wires around the lamppost and a few broken pieces here and there. It was only just the plastic shielding though. The camera should be fine but they couldn’t find it anywhere on the street. Ruby took a glance over at the clinic across the street, which appeared awfully quiet. Yet with Salvator tugging her along to find the kids, Ruby didn’t too linger on the street.

They start to ask civilians nearby about the kids. A lot of them weren’t cooperating, but granted, it did look a bit suspicious on why a couple of cops are looking for kids with a camera on them.

“Why won’t ya piss off already, haven’t you done enough for this district?”

They were currently asking a pair of centaurs, the two look very annoyed at them. With everyone turning them away, Salvator was becoming more irritated by the second but Ruby quickly started to improvised.

“We’re just helping a couple of worried parents to look for their babies. It’s getting dark and you know just how dangerous it can be at night,” Ruby explained to them. “You know how kids are, wandering off too far from home and suddenly becoming lost.”

The centaurs shared an uneasy look with each other before squinting back at them. “…I supposed…we did past by a few of them.”

“Jasper…” the other hissed.

“W-well what? Haven’t you heard the rumors? I would hate it to hear that if those kids died over night because they ran into that roaming werewolf at night.”

“That’s the first we hear of it…” Salvator commented, raising his eyebrow.

“It’s just a bloody rumor. Jasper been hearing nearby howls as if late and the folks been spooking him out that it was a werewolf. It’s probably the fucking dogs in the streets but he ain’t convinced…” the centaur replied, shaking his head.

“Those kids head south of here, just by that market down the street. If you run, you’ll probably catch up to them…keep them safe…” Jasper mumbled and quickly trot away.

His friend didn’t say anything else and followed up with him. “Dude, you seriously need to see a therapist for that…”

“Don’t tell me how to live my life, Jim!”

After receiving that information, they didn’t waste time to run down the street toward the corner market the centaur mentioned. Around the corner, they could spot three kids just up ahead, walking to…somewhere. Ruby felt relieved we caught up to them, finally but she knows Salvator is going to give them a hard time.

“Hey! You three! Stop right there!” Salvator shouted out at them, briskly walking towards their direction.

The kids stopped, first appeared annoyed but once they notice this man in police officer walking towards them, they suddenly appear nervous. In fact, one of them immediately ready a slingshot they have in hand. That was probably what they used to knock over the camera.

Ruby quickly followed after him, trying to appear friendly as possible in contrast to Salvator’s fury. “What make you thing you can just take down a camera and get away with it? That’s Center City’s property right there-“ before Salvator could finish his scolding, the dwarf with the slingshot accidentally let loose of the pebble and it hit him square in the forehead. Ruby had to move away because it caused Salvator to stumble back in surprise and holding onto his forehead. “Ow!”

“Kids 1, cops 0,” the dragon kid jeered and the three were ready to make a run for it but Ruby quickly stood in the way.

“Woah, woah, come on now. You just assaulted an officer of the city. That’s breaking the law right there,” Ruby said to them, raising an eyebrow. That definitely made the kids stop their tracks and look back at Salvator in sudden panic. He was just kneeling over, tapping his head if he was bleeding. “…but, just because that was such a clean shot, I won’t arrest you guys.”

“Really?” One of the twins asked, looking hopeful.

Ruby studied them carefully and there it was, the camera under their arms. She offer a smile and nodded her head. “You just took down a trained sniper, one of the top in his field. That’s quite an achievement, especially since he didn’t see it coming.”

The twin with the sligshot seem to beam at the praise but the dragon boy wasn’t sold. “What you want with us?” He hissed at her, glaring hard and trying to appear tough.

“Ease there, tiger, we just want to get back our camera, that’s all,” Ruby said, gesturing at the device.

“No can do, we were promised big money for the camera,” he huffed, folding his arms.

“Oh yeah? Now why would someone want a surveillance camera…” Ruby mumbled to herself, looking thoughtful. “Alright champ, how much they paying for it?”

“50 bucks, to whoever actually took it down,” the dwarf interrupted, causing the dragon to pout at him.

50 bucks for a lame old-school camera? That thing was definitely worth less than that. Plus, it was rather strange that it was this camera aimed at the scene of a crime. The camera that they need. The kids could easily picked out any other camera in the district… Ruby shook her head as she doesn’t want to think too deep into it.

“To whoever took it down? Doesn’t seem fair,” Ruby said with a shrug. “I mean…I can give you each 50 bucks just for handing it over to me.”

“F-for real?!” The dragon asked, suddenly excited as his tough-guy demeanor fades away. But the dwarf twin held up his hand as if to stop the dragon from agreeing to the payment.

“Wait…double it,” the other twin demanded.

“Yeah double it! For each!”

Ruby bit her tongue as the kids were grinning up at her, waving the camera around as if to tempt her. She find the offer ridiculous and in a normal day, she would’ve refused. But…they really need the camera.

“Huh, looks like we got ourselves a future gambler here. Fine then, 100 bucks each.”

Ruby, internally crying, gave them each 100 dollars for the camera. That was all the money she have carrying around. After bidding them safe travels and camera in hand, she helped Salvator back on his feet and assures him that he wasn’t bleeding. Well…not anymore at least. It was getting dark at this point and Ruby was starting to feel a bit exhausted for the day’s work.

”I fucking hate kids…” Salvator grumbled.

”Eh, I think they’re kinda neat,” Ruby replied, doing her best to ignore the fact that her wallet is now empty.

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Ren​

The nymph slowly brought the delicate, porcelain teacup to her lips, keeping a careful eye on the assortment of weapons her captor had put on the table. Two revolvers, a hunting knife and a flash grenade. All of these were laying like cutlery over the placemat in front of her. The half-dragon killer was surprisingly knowledgeable in things one would think were above her means. By all means, she dressed and acted like some mid-level thug at most. Faux leather, that...strange and clunky artifact around her neck where she had hung some kind of cross. Was that an Egyptian cross? Ren couldn't remember everything her granny had taught her.

She sipped carefully the infusion. Valerian. So, the dragon girl wanted her to relax. Well, she would need more than a cup of tea to make her completely lower her guard. Not that Ren would ever let her serve her another cup...assuming her life was not on the line over a simple cup of tea. There was a silver tray sitting between them, and so far only the dragoness had taken any of the allegedly homemade macarons from it. They looked very cute, but she still was very apprehensive about eating anything from her, no matter how hungry she was.

"You're not gonna serve yourself?" The white-haired dragoness asked her, her blue-green eyes staring very intently at her. Ren gulped, supposing that her question carried a thinly veiled threat behind her. The nymph slowly reached for the tray and took a green macaron. She tried to move her feet, but the rope only bit more at the skin around her ankles. Ren would've already tried to flee a hundred times by now, but the more time she spent here, the more she thought she had no real chance of going anywhere. Even if by some miracle she overpowered a dragoness who was almost a head and a half taller than her and got out...where exactly should she even go? She had no idea where that lamia guy could be and, those other, full-fledged dragons could come back for her again. Goblins...she was never chased down by any goblins.

The only reason she was relatively calm in front of this particular dragoness was that she knew the other dragons would beat and kill people like her for not being a true dragon. She had unfortunately caught their attention by getting too close to one of their purges in the district...what was it? 249? Perhaps it was that district.

She took a bite out of the pastry. It was sweet, slightly crunchy, but also fluffy. The sensation brought a smile to her face; it was the first time she had ever tasted one of these, let alone anything remotely sweet.

"What flavour is it?" she asked after swallowing her bite.

The dragoness smirked, combing her hair behind her horns. She still had no ears despite being half-dragon. Curious. "Matcha."

Ren raised an eyebrow, "Matcha?"

Her captor took the last Matcha macaron for herself and held it between two fingers as if it were a coin. "It's a powdered tea, originally from the far east. It has a long tradition in various tea ceremonies. I don't like its flavour outside deserts, to be honest." She took a bite, making half of it disappear. The dragoness seemed to quickly swallow her bite and she continued to speak. "What do you think I'd get out of keeping you as a prisoner here, gorgeous?"

The question took her completely by surprise. She straightened up in her chair, taking another small bite of her macaron as her newfound comfort food. The dragoness refilled her teacup with careful and precise gestures as if she had done it all her life. The dragoness took her cup, her pinkie sticking out as she took a sip. Those eyes of hers...they were still as cold as winter and as menacing as a blizzard.

"Uhm, well, you tell me since you captu-"

The dragoness rolled her eyes, putting her teacup down. "I told you I'm your bodyguard. If you refuse to believe me, then list the reasons why you'd think I'd gain anything from keeping you here as a prisoner."

Ren looked to the side, "Well, for starters, since you keep calling me gorgeous...you might, you know, take advantage of me."

"I'm not that desperate; but even if I was, don't you think I'd already have had my way with you and left you in some alley?"

"Maybe your partner-"

She guffawed, slamming her fist against the table. Ren was startled at the sound, but she told herself it was best to not take her eyes off the dragoness. She did not take any of her weapons and her laughter subsided after a moment. "Ahh, man. That's a good one. Liore going out of his way to make me capture some random nymph for him. It wouldn't happen in a million years, gorgeous. First and foremost because," she raised briefly her hand as if to apologize for what she was saying, "And no offence to you, nymphs are not my first choice. You're all too baby-faced for my liking. You're a little better than most in that department, but not enough to pique my interest. And most importantly, why would any of us go to such creepy lengths when we can pay ourselves a whore? We aren't that broke."

Ren blinked at how casually the dragoness had answered, "Pay yourselves a whore? Do you mean a three-"

The lock on the front door clicked and the door soon slammed over the wall. So, the name of that human was Liore. He was visibly taller than the dragoness, perhaps by a head or so. He had jet-black hair, but despite the bangs that flowed over his forehead and the device that seemed to have devoured his eye and ear, Ren supposed his hair didn't hinder his vision at all. He seemed worried, entering at a rushed pace and vanishing behind a door leading to another room. The dragoness didn't seem all that worried by it. She got up, but only to lock the front door.

"No, gorgeous. Liore has an aversion to scales. He'd rather die than getting it on with me or any other reptilian-looking creature," she continued with a sigh before sitting down again. "Weird phobia, if you asked me."

"Sophia," Liore said from behind the door. "Come here."

"You sure?" she asked, tilting her chair on its rear legs, "We gotta watch this girl before delivering her to Hypnos, don't we?"

There was a brief silence.

"You know what?" he sounded completely exasperated as he opened the door again. He had taken out a travel bag and some kind of walking stick. "She has the right to hear this, too."

He pulled out the third and last chair around the dining table and took the last macaron. However, he did not eat it, merely contenting himself to put it right in front of him before he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We're in deep shit and I don't know how deep the sea of shit we're sinking in goes. Fucking hell..."

For once, Sophia seemed serious. "What did Dao say?"

Liore looked at her, and despite the uncanny scars that the device left over his cheekbone, and his overall attitude, Ren found him a little less intimidating than his partner. "Tell me how you met Dao. I don't want any details. Just overall place and circumstances."

"Oh, well, uhm, I was watching some dragons flaying a half-dragon. A man, with black scales, I think. And-"

Sophia frowned, "Hold the fuck up. You saw what? Who were-"

Ren opened her mouth to answer, but Liore immediately lifted his hand up, asking for silence. "Too much context. What district? What was going on at the exact moment you saw Dao show up?"

"I was being chased down and I believe it was somewhere in district 249."

Her two captors looked gravely at each other. Sophia was the first one to take a deep breath, passing her hand over her face, "We're in deep fucking shit. Witness protection? Is that our job now?"

"Worse than that. Dao wants us to train her. It's a make it or break it kind of deal."

The half-dragon's eyes grew as wide as the pastries she had offered to her. "Did Dao go mad?"

"This was Thanatos's job. Reveil fucked up, got Rose'd, so we're the fallback option."

Sophia huffed, "Well, now I see why you wanted her to give you no context. I don't want to see that witch in my lifetime."

Ren could barely follow the conversation around her. They were indeed speaking the common tongue, but...most of what they were saying made no sense. Train her? Hypnos? Thanatos? As in the old personifications of death and sleep? Witness protection...That part made sense, but wasn't there a group called "Police" in Central that handled things like that? Were these guys part of the Police? Even where she was from, the vigilantes were more careful than to suddenly send their special ops to a hospital and knock her out like some common thugs. Perhaps Central's police were much more reckless with all their magical artifacts. It would not exactly surprise her, considering all the stories she'd heard.

"So, uhm." Ren said before clearing her throat. "I don't mind training to become an, uhh, officer? In any case, I'm just not very good at running long distances. But you guys in Central still do paperwork, right? I can start with that."

The duo shared another very serious look. Liore gave her a nod, "Yes. Of course. We might have to move somewhere else for now. People might be on our trail." He took his partner's knife off the table and cut her restraints off her feet.

"We're going for a hike, actually," Sophia continued with a small smile, "At least, officially. Commander Dao wants us to keep you in the safest place possible. We're taking you to another hiding of us. A nicer place up in District, uhh..." she looked at Liore.

"79. Tend to her wounds, Sophia. I'll finish packing and we'll head to Rai's garage. It's the closest place we got."

"You still got your friend in 79?" The dragoness crossed her arms. "I thought he retired."

"No worries there. I made new friends thanks to him."

****
Sophia
​

She rushed down the corridor and got out the first aid kit from the drug cabinet in the bathroom. There were still some pomade to soothe the redness of her skin, but where the rope had torn her flesh, she'd have to clean the wound first before bandaging her wounds. The more the nymph spoke, the more it seemed to her that their new student had a few screws loose. If only she still was in touch with his psychiatrist friends...but maybe François could tell her if this woman needed some kind of medication. Under what world would she conclude they were police officers? Let alone how she casually mentionned she saw firsthand one of the Ryuu-kai's lynchings.

By the time she came back with everything, she heard cloth being torn. The nymph was taking the medical robe she had over her dirty clothes and wrapping it over her ankles as if it was shoelaces. She was wearing only a black t-shirt and a khaki Bermuda with her worn-out running shoes. She had either stolen those clothes or...no, the other possibility was as likely as an asteroid smiting them from above.

"What are you doing?"

The nymph merely glanced up at her, "Oh, just taking care of it. I think I have enough cloth here to replace these fairly often. It's super clean, too."

No. It was not. She was bound to catch an infection like that.

"Take it off," Sophia ordered, bringing over the disinfectant spray, the pomade and two clean rolls of gauze and other bandages. "You're gonna get sick with that."

"Oh, okay. Are you a doctor?" the nymph asked, undoing the knots on her makeshift bandages.
Sophia glanced up at her, taking her left foot. "Yeah, sort of."

Her wounds were slightly worse than she had expected. She sprayed the disinfectant over the cuts, picking up with her pincers a piece of gauze. She put the nymph's foot over her lap and wet it with another disinfectant. That'd have to do to clean her wounds a little more thoroughly given the filthy cloth the girl had put over them.

"Huh. Makes sense why you're so armed. Are you putting water over my wounds? It doesn't sting at all."

Sophia tried to slide that comment under the rug. The least she wondered about where in the world this nymph had come from, the better. But still, it was so tempting to keep asking her questions about what kind of planet she had been living in. No wonder Reveil fucked up. She, too, had to contain herself from asking anything, especially about that lynching in district 249. The fact that it was a man gave her a really bad feeling. She hoped it wasn't Mist.

"It's not supposed to. We're not cavemen who clean wounds with hydrogen peroxide or worse. This bad boy here gets the job done gently." The half-dragon mumbled, finishing tending to the nymph's wounds. After a while, when she was done with both feet, she got back up. Liore had already finished packing.

"Let's go," he ordered.

Late

 

[Late]

Salvator​

When they returned back to their building, a few complications came up. They received a report of murder that occurred throughout the evening. There were officers already at the scene as Salvator was receiving in the information through a call. They think it was a goblin and some kind of magic user who can wield electricity magic, as the cause of death was electrocution. The victim received a few bullet wounds and was blinded in one eye which assumed to be a stab wound.

The whole room was trashed throughout the scene, making it clear that the victim was definitely trying to fight off their murderer. Salvator sighed through his nose when he learned that the victim was the same orc they met not too long ago. That orc definitely should’ve told them something, especially if he was in deep shit. If the goblin gang came back to the clinic to finish him off, then it’s definitely worth to interrogate the ones they have in their cells down below.

“Even though we have a reason that goblins are involved, we were unable to pick up any usable evidence to use against them. No weapons, no fingerprints, and a stray hair that is likely from the magic user,” the officer reported through the earpiece.

“Those little shits are getting bolder as if late. Do you anything about the new boss they’re working under?” Salvator asked.

“Not that I know of. We’ll keep investigating around here to see if we missed anything.”

With that, the call ended and Salvator turn to look at Ruby. “The orc is dead, it looks like the goblins came back around when we were too busy on our own shit here.” The news seem to damper Ruby’s spirits. “They found nothing that we can use against the goblins, so arresting the gang is out of the question. Here’s the plan…I’ll go interrogate the ones we have locked up here. You will look into the footage and see what happened in front of the clinic that caused that accident in the first place.”

“Alright…it’ll better that way. Can’t have the old people use the new tech and thinking everything is the same,” Ruby teased. “How about you take Blue with you? I’m pretty sure she got interrogation mode on her.”

At the mention of her name, the K9 unit came out from hiding, perking her head towards Ruby as if she mentioned a command.

“Eeeh, I guess it’ll make things easier,” Salvator agrees with a small nod.

“Blue, help Chief Sal interrogate the goblins. You’re under his command until he dismisses you,” Ruby said to the robot, patting its head.

Blue’s tail gave a small wag in response before turning to Salvator, looking up at him. “Alright…Officer Collymore, you’re coming with me.”



They took half of the goblins into the interrogation room. Salvator sits across from them as there was a table between them. The group were in chains so they won’t try to get a jump on them and even if they weren’t, both Blue and Collymore were standing by to stop them. Collymore is a griffin, probably their most bulky officer they have in the district. He mostly take care of those who fly around without a permit or have an expired license on them, Collymore doesn’t really work much on the ground. But his assistance is always appreciated, especially if they need more muscle.

“Now, I’m sure you guys are hungry since the capture…” Salvator started off. He didn’t get a reaction as the goblins stared back at him hard. “So let’s just keep this nice and short…if things go well, then I’ll get you and the rest of your locked friends some food.” Salvator fished out the note from his pocket and place it on the table.

“We ain’t telling you shit,” one of the goblins immediately hissed once the note was brought out.

“Oh? Already we’re being difficult?” Salvator said with a heavy sigh. “Why won’t you guys just give away your plan? I mean…even if you were able to escape alive, what makes you think your boss won’t give you a hard time? For all they know, you probably spill the beans to us…you think they’re gonna take your word for it if you lie through your teeth?” The goblins shifted uncomfortably in their seats, a few of their chains rattling. “Am I right? …You’re going to die regardless if we get the information out of you or not. Whether it’ll be our hands, or your boss’s.”

“We…ain’t talking,” the other goblin said, yet there was no bite behind those words.

Salvator shrugs and turn to Blue. “Blue?”

The K9 unit stepped forward and in a swift motion, bit a chunk of metal out of the table. The goblins shuffled away from the robot in surprise and Salvator couldn’t help but do the same. The actual fuck, the damn thing ripped off the corner of the table like it was paper. Blue wrestled for awhile with the metal piece before flinging it away to a corner. The table corner was crumbled and Blue took a couple steps forward to the goblins with a low growl rumbling from the chest.

“The fuck is that thing?!” The goblin demanded in panic.

It took a moment for Salvator to remember that he was trying to interrogate them. He quickly regain his composure and clear his throat. “That thing will rip you lot to shreds if you don’t explain yourselves now. What were you planning to do at the clinic? Who is this nymph you’re after? Who the fuck is your new boss?”

Blue’s growl increased in volume as it got closer to them, slowly becoming more of a snarl the longer they don’t comply. Eventually, the one closest to Blue got a nice front row view of her teeth and immediately broke.

“The nymph saw something it wasn’t supposed to see!” The goblin yelled out. Blue paused for a second, still keeping it’s stance over the goblin as Salvator took a moment to think. “W-we were told to take care of her, there can’t be any witnesses…”

“Elaborate,” Officer Collymore spoke up finally. He step towards the other side of the goblins, making them feel trapped. “What did she saw?”

“We don’t know! They just gave us a job to do!” A goblin yelled out angrily.

Blue apparently didn’t like the attitude the goblin was exerting and she lunged forward to snap it’s jaws around his arm. The goblin screamed in pain and eventually, the group started to panic as Blue was starting to tug on the arm.

“We swear, we don’t know anything!”

“Let me go you fucking dog!”

“Boss just told us what to do, he didn’t give away too much detail!”

“Boss met with the Ryuu-kai and gave us the job!”

The other goblins whipped their head around at their young one, either in shock or anger. Either way, Salvator called back Blue and she finally let go of the struggling goblin, stepping away from the creatures. The injured goblin held onto his arm, hissing in pain.

“Elaborate,” the griffin said again. “Why would the boss of the goblin gang meet with the Ryuu-kai?”

“Thought you guys were inclusive to your species alone,” Salvator commented, frowning them. “…just who is your boss?”

“…he ain’t no goblin,” the other spoke, sighing in defeat. “When the Goblin King got taken away, we were open for anything. Or rather, open game for anyone…” Salvator leaned back in the chair, carefully listening to their story. “He came to us in shape of a beast, taking care of those who were messing with us. When he saw that we were a gang with no leader, he took it himself to lead us. No one argued with it, especially if he is capable to smash our skulls in one go. Since then, we been getting back our reputation under his leadership…and then one day, the Ryuu-kai came to us.”

“Our boss seem to have some kind of connection with them, but either way, the visit wasn’t all that friendly. They were angry about something…we don’t know what. Eventually, we got the job to take care of the nymph, boss gave us the location. If the Ryuu-kai came to us for any particular reason, it’s to do the little jobs for them. Such as murder, kidnapping…”

“Boss mentioned that she witnessed something but he won’t specify to us, and that was last we ever heard of it.”

The goblins told their story and Salvator took a moment to think it over. “Ryuu-kai…that’s quite a dangerous group…”

So the scenario could’ve been like this: the nymph, seeing something that is likely a crime, went to someone she thinks can protect her. The police would’ve been a better option but if she was friends with the orc, then maybe she thought it couldn’t hurt to go to him. So she stayed with him and from that point…she must’ve went somewhere. If the nymph have seen something that is so crucial to warrant an arrest for the Ryuu-kai…then it’s worth to start looking for her. The streets will be so much safer with them off of it.

“So how did the orc fought you off? What happened at the clinic?” Salvator asked them?

“Tch, the orc had some friends apparently and ditched the scene. We didn’t get a good look at them if you’re wondering. Everything happened in a blur for us. But they took the nymph with them on their bikes and busted up our tire before we can catch up to them.”

“…alright…I suppose that adds up…and I’m going to assume that the orc died in the end because he protected the nymph from your gang, thus getting in the way, and there can’t be any witnesses loitering around…” Salvator said to them. A few of the goblins looked a bit confused at this statement but granted, they were here in the cells for the whole day. They likely wouldn’t know anything about the murder.

“Hm…thanks for that,” Salvator finished. “Sorry about Blue, I didn’t think it would be all that aggressive…either way, Officer Collymore, mind tending to the goblin’s wound? I’ll get someone to feed them later tonight.”

“Yes sir,” the officer answered with a nod. Salvator got up from his chair and leaves the room, having Blue to stay in case the goblins were acting up against Collymore.

In a normal situation, the goblins would’ve been charged for property damage and depending what each of them have done in the past could either lead to their first warning or worse. But since they were able to find connections with them to a crime scene at the clinic, and confessing for intruding a private building along with admitting to kidnapping or plotting against a nymph, the whole group they have with them are in deep trouble…

Ruby​

Ruby took a look through the footage and frowned at the quality of the video. Definitely not the greatest, she could barely see the facial features of anyone and small details like license plated were just a blur. But she can tell that two individuals left the clinic in a hurry, carrying with them was a limp looking body. They were shooting at something behind them, probably the goblins, before hopping onto their bikes. The goblins came out shortly afterwards but before they could even give chase, they shot their tire mid-driving. And so, that was the cause of the accident in the first place.

Funny how things can tie together. Watching where they went, Ruby’s only option was to go through the other online cameras and playback their feed around the time of the incident. It definitely took a lot of time and playing with buttons to get her exactly what she wanted. There came to a point that the two bikes split off and Ruby had to make a note of what camera to go back to once she figured out where each of them went. One rider went as far as outside of District 200. When she tried to go further into their options of camera, a warning popped up for her, demanding that she must ask for permission from The Center to view into other camera footages.

Ruby decided to leave that biker alone and she went back when they first split up. From this point, the camera quality was a tad bit better but not that all impressive. Either way, this rider fortunately stayed within their limits and finally, Ruby found where they located. She carefully looked through the whole video footage up until current time to see if they ever left the building they reside in. So far, the second rider came back and it wasn’t long that the camera was back into live feed of the street.

Feeling satisfied with her work, she was about ready to check on Salvator is doing. Ruby stretched out her arms before letting out a heavy yawn.

“Woah there, no rest for the wicked, remember?”

Ruby ended her yawn with a heavy sigh, turning around to see Salvator walking over to her. “Well, I found out that the nymph was supposedly taken by two mysterious riders. I traced them all the way to District 214. They haven’t moved out since then,” Ruby said to him.

“Do we know who they are?” He asked curiously.

“Nah, the cameras is shit for specific details like that.”

“Alright…so this whole situation is a bit deeper than we thought it is. The goblins told me some useful information…but I say we should split up from here,” Salvator said.

“Eh? What happened?” Ruby asked, frowning at him.

“I want to get a scope of how much the goblin gang has changed since we locked up their old leader. Apparently a lot has changed. Not only that but I want to check back the clinic and see how their investigation are going. They only found a strand of hair so we’ll see if it leads to anywhere.”

“Okay…where does that put me to?”

“Stakeout at that building where they’re staying at in District 214.”

“S-stakeout?!” Ruby can kiss her sleep schedule goodbye.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going alone, I’ll have someone coming in for the night shift to go with you. I want you to make sure that the nymph is actually there with the two individuals. See what you can find out from there and let me know if they started to move out.”

“…okay…” Ruby said, nodding her head slowly. Sleep was getting to her but if someone from the nightshift was going to come with her…then surely they’ll let her take a nap in the car.

“Chief.” They both turn their head at Officer Collymore, Blue walking with him and shortly joining Ruby by her side. “I fixed him up. They got their meals and back into their cells,” the griffin reported.

“Good…this is your nightshift, right? Ruby need someone with her for a stakeout,” Salvator said, nodding towards the demon.

The feathers around the griffin’s head seem to fluff up in response. “Of course.”

“Excellent, in that case, I’ll hear from you two later.” With that, Salvator let them alone.

Ruby sighed and look over at the griffin. He stood there, staring at her. Was he waiting for something? She didn’t know too much about him but there was an incident that she accidentally set his tail on fire when she was practicing with her fire magic. His reaction to it was…very strong.

Ruby gestures a hand between their police outfits. “Civilian clothes,” she said casually.

“…oh! Right! On it,” he stuttered and briskly walk away to get changed. With that, Ruby walked the other way to get changed herself in the girls locker room.

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Liore
​

It would not be long before the cops would be on their trail. In fact, he doubted they'd have enough time to even get to district 79 before being chased. In times like these, he envied Myrlenn's skills to disguise himself. His magic, too, made him almost completely untraceable. The veteran frowned at the thought of that elf. Despite everything he had done, he was still the best remaining member of the old Chronos. As for him, all the work he had put on to perfect his magic seemed to be completely worthless. He still had his military training, but even then, he had trained as if he was never going to lose his power. He wondered how Kuvira managed to do what he did after losing his powers. It was incredible, almost superhuman. Nothing seemed too great for him. But, just like him, Kuvira was only human. One day, the ace of Chronos, Kuvira Lacht, was assassinated.

Liore's thoughts came back to the nymph he had been tasked to train. If the boss was after her, Myrlenn would surely come after her too. The risk of getting arrested with someone that important in tow were great, but...

'If she's captured, let's hope that damned elf gets dragged down with me at some point.' He thought, 'It won't take me much to slit his throat in prison.'

Liore took a deep breath as he put a baseball cap on. With this, his grey hoodie and some sports pants, he could moderately hide the hideous magic suppressor from most camera angles.

He glanced behind him, noticing Sophia only had to quickly order her last android to quickly put some foundation and comb her hair to make her look almost like a completely different person. It covered perfectly the scales on her face, giving her more of the looks of a demon. She had a high ponytail, a neon blue windbreaker and tight yoga pants. It was near impossible for her to wear any kind of hat, but the hood on her jacket was there for that. She threw it over her head and adjusted it a little to let her horns completely through. As for the nymph...they couldn't do much about her clothes. Liore tossed a cap her way.

"Thanks!" the green-haired girl said before putting it on.

The three of them got out of the apartment, walking down three sets of stairs before reaching the ground lobby. The dying sun rays dyed the decrepit buildings crimson, cutting out long shadows that masked theirs. He led the group down the main streets, not wishing to attract much suspicion. There were more people coming and going with them, somewhat hiding them almost as much as any back-alley would. Rai's workshop was about twenty minutes away without using the many alleys that they'd take under normal circumstances.

When they finally made it there, there was a line of people getting their old cars from repairs, or buying filtres, magic condensers or other gadgets to do the maintenance themselves. The nymph looked around in wonder, sometimes tilting her head at the old cars that left the shop. They weren't anything particularly special, merely the first of a geneation of automobiles that used mana crystals instead of electric batteries or gas to move. If she had not seen one of those...it was not hard to figure out where she was from. Well, at least not if one had visited districts 299 and 300 before. There were some people who told stories or were behind some stories of what was beyond district 300.

"What's the matter?" Sophia asked, looking at their protegee.

Ren nodded. "Those cars are weird. There's no smoke coming out of them either..."

The dragoness frowned. So, somehow she understood it, too. Both of them knew better than to start discussing among themselves on what this girl was. If Sophia had suggested first to take the nymph to Hypnos, it meant she somehow noticed she had potential as a mage. Assuming she wasn't one already.

He glanced at the green-haired girl as the last customer ahead of them finished their business. All the pieces were starting to fall in place. Now, he understood why they were in charge of her training. It wasn't just a matter of developing her skills, like Hypnos would have. It was a matter of also teaching her loyalty and discipline from the very beginning. If she didn't learnt the latter...she had to die.

"Good evening!" The cyclops behind the counter said, nodding with a smile at them.

Liore had not seen him before, but he remembered that Rai's wife mentionned she was pregnant a month ago. Perhaps she had taken sick leave.

"Yo, new guy" Sophia advanced first, followed closely behind by the nymph. The half-dragon rested her hand over the customer side of the counter, "Do you know where Rai is? We need to talk to him about that red filter he sold us."

The cyclops squinted briefly at her before inviting them to come behind the counter. "Right this way, ladies and gents. His office is on the second floor, third door to your right."

"Third door?" Liore questioned, "why the change?"

The clerk shrugged, "It's been that way since I started."

****
​

Rai, as they all called Raicaeth Irisse, was one of the rare dark elves who delved with the Yama-gumi even after Sylnodel's fall. Not because he was coerced into it, but more because he benefitted from having contacts within the city's underbelly.

The second floor was technically Rai's home, but half of it was more of an office. The actual apartment he had was behind a heavy steel door at the end of the corridor. The 4th door, to be precise.

The third one was already opened for them, leading into a austere office with only the bare minimum to get any work done. It was very unlike Rai to receive them in his secondary office when his main office was far more welcoming. When they stood in front of the open door, Rai was typing something over his many holographic screens, standing up behind his desk. His crimson gaze went to and fro the text that was scrolling over a small window. Like most elves, Rai kept his hair combed back and long enough to tie it in a low ponytail that reached his shoulders.

Sophia lightly knocked on the door thrice and Rai immediately turned his attention towards them.

"Ah, Sophia and Liore incognito," he said with a smile as he turned off all his screens. He briefly glanced down at Ren, "And...a guest of yours?"

"We're on bodyguard duty," Liore explained. "Cops might be on our trail soon, so we're gonna need your old RV."

"You're not planning on bothering my in-law up in 79, are you?" The elf asked, arms crossed.

"He retired," Sophia interjected, "So, no."

Rai sighed, "Then, where are you going? 79 has changed. They've done a complete cleanup of their dirty cops."

"They only got those who were under the wrong payroll, don't worry." Liore explained. "CRNG money stinks from afar."

The elf did not seem very convinced, and he remained completely still for a while. Then, he searched the side pocket of his pants and tossed a set of keys into Liore's hands. "Come back for my daughter's baptism, guys. Selene is really counting on it."

Liore nodded and began making his way down to the main floor again.

"I hope to meet her soon," Sophia said before quickly joining him.

The nymph really seemed to only follow her. Hopefully this was her first signs of loyalty.

Late

 

[Late]

Salvator​

Salvator stared blankly at the piece of hair that his fellow officers gave him but they had unsure looks on their face. From what they said, they already ran diagnostics on the hair and nothing came up on the equipment. It was probably a fake piece of hair and Salvator doubt the dead orc had a piece of wig he carries around. Either a goblin envies for hair and was wearing a wig or the magic user who delivered the electrocution blow wanted to cover up their head. Either way, it was strange that they couldn’t find handprints or even the murder weapons. Whoever did this didn’t want to get caught…and it felt too clean for Salvator.

But with no clear leads, Salvator can’t just go around and start pointing fingers at anyone. With a sigh, he decided to take a look at the orc’s body. “The hair is useless to us, is there really nothing else we could use?” Salvator asked one of the officers who walked with him to the body.

“I’m afraid not. He definitely wasn’t sneaked up on, the fight demolished the office he resided in, likely by his strength alone. However, we did a quick body scan of him and found out that there is a bullet within his right shoulder. It’s a small one-“

“If the bullet is small, then the gun was small as well. I would suggest we could trace it back to any small registered guns within the city but knowing how these fucking goblins are, they likely are carrying an illegal unregistered weapon,” Salvator sighed out heavily.

Him and the officer stand in front of the body, Salvator studying it over as the officer shifted uncomfortably next to him. After a moment of silence, he turned to him.

“Who reported?” Salvator asked.

“H-his wife, sir.”

“Wife?”

“Yes, she came by his clinic and that’s how…well, you know.”

“Hm…so where is she? Maybe she know something…” Salvator asked, rubbing his eyes.

“I believe she is just outside, sir. B-but she is likely still mourning.”

“That doesn’t stop the murderer getting away. If she knows anything vital to his cause of death, then we ought to ask. Best to give her justice than sweeping this under the rug,” Salvator hissed out at his officer.

“R-right, sir. Sorry!” The officer meekly replied.

“Call in the cleanup crew. Let’s get this cleaned up before the sun come around again.”

“Yes, sir!” Officer immediately went to make the call as Salvator walks away and back outside of the clinic.

They set up a perimeter around the clinic with hologram of yellow hazard tape. They were glitching in and out every now and then, somewhat faded too. There were several civilians around the street, curious what might have happened to their local doctor. There was only one other office outside, making sure no one would enter within the perimeters and on the other side of the street was the EMTs who seem busy consoling with a woman. Likely the wife.

Salvator squinted through the flashing blue and red lights as he make his way over to them. He does his best to ignore the stares he was receiving from the civilians and eventually, stood in front of the wife.

“Evening…” Salvator said, thinking about his next set of words carefully. “Sorry to disturb you in your time of mourning…but I would like to ask a couple of questions if that is alright with you…”

The EMTs already moved away the moment Salvator showed up but the wife only offer him a short glance before staring down at the ground. He assumed that he could ask away.

“Are you aware that your husband has been…keeping someone safe recently?” Salvator asked.

No answer.

“…do you know if your husband has been mixed up in some shady business?”

Nothing.

Salvator fidgeted where he stands, racking through his brain on what he could possibly ask to get an answer out of her. “Do you know anything that can possibly help us to capture his murderer? Anything at all?

The wife looked at him suddenly, as if there was indeed something she could say. But at the last second, she bit her tongue and looked away. “…I’m sorry…I…don’t think I can help you…”

“Ma’am…if there is something you can possibly give us to serve justice for your husband, please tell me. I…we just want to do our job the right way. So please…is there anything?” Salvator pressed on. He knows just how the majority on this district and beyond hate the police and their practices but Salvator hopes that this can be the one time someone can finally depend on them.

Yet, the wife gave a sad shake of her head. “I’m sorry…I really am…I know he has been involved with some underground stuff but I got nothing to give. Even if I do…I don’t want to put my daughter at risk.”

“…do you feel like you might be in danger…?” Salvator asked, a hint of worry in his face. The wife shook her head no, and that was all she said. He sighed quietly, going through his coat pockets and gently place a holographic card next to where she sat. “If something comes up…or if you feel like you’re in danger, give me a call.”

Salvator always carry personal calling cards on him, he feels like it can encourage those to actually look at the police for help rather than looking into risky favors from others and get mixed up in an unescapable hell. Despite this, when he do get calls, they were prank calls. He assumes that the cards he hand out were always discard away in the end but that never stop him from trying.

With that, Salvator bid her a quiet farewell and walked away. It was emotionally draining for him, especially considering that he got nothing out of that other any her husband being involved with the underground world. The only possible course of action that he can do now is look into the goblin gang.

Ruby​

Ruby and Officer Collymore sit in silence, Ruby being the one driving. She usually use a motorcycle to get her way around districts but as this was a stakeout, a normal vehicle is all they need. Ruby was currently wearing her leather jacket with a redshirt under it, sporting with black jeans and combat boots. Old style of clothing compare to everyone else nowadays but it’s what she got used to when growing up. She’ll eventually change out her wardrobe…when she gets the money for it. If anything, she appears as if she belongs in District 275 or below.

Collymore was more modern like compare to her, wearing what seem to be a combination of a gray and black sweater vest with a hood over his head and wearing a black beanie. The clothes were fitted around his feathery wings, wearing black joggers with modified shoes. He was more fitting to society’s standards.

“So…” Collymore broke the silence, looking over at the GPS they were using. Currently they were at a red light but they were close to their destination. Just a little weird that the griffin was now talking after about 20 minutes of silence. “I don’t think I was briefed over why we’re doing a stakeout.”

“You want the long story or the short one?” Ruby asked, looking over at him.

“…short one”

“Well, goblins are acting up, a nymph is the key to the mess, and apparently they know something very crucial,” Ruby said with a small shrug. The light turned green but Ruby had to take a left turn. Immediately she floored it and cut off the opposite lane to get down the other street, ignoring the horn. “Hopefully this nymph is fine. At least out of the goblins’ hands. You do not want to be with them alone,” Ruby groaned out, shivering uncomfortably.

She looked at Collymore who gripped onto his seat, clearly not expecting Ruby to make a reckless turn. “Right…”

“Anyways, this should be fun! Just you and me, alone in a car, waiting for crime to happen.”

“…right…alone…together.”

Ruby didn’t comment on it as she was internally screaming at herself for being socially awkward. She stayed silent up until they pull up across from their destination, just out of place that no one would suspect of them but a clear spot for them to watch the building. So far, it was pretty quiet.

“…have you ever done a stakeout before?” Ruby asked. She always do stakeouts with Salvator so it was a little strange that she is doing one with someone completely different.

“Uh no, this is my first one,” Collymore responded, perking up. “How long do you usually wait?”

“Up until something happens, so we could be doing this for hours, days, weeks, at least until we catch something. My longest is one week but it wasn’t in a car like this,” Ruby explained.

“Oh…” Collymore mumbled, suddenly losing interest.

“But…if the nymph is wanted by a goblin gang, then surely they’ll move out less than a day or so, depending just how urgent it is, you know. They wouldn’t want to stay in one spot for too long.”

The griffin nodded, seeming to like the idea of a short stakeout and they settled in a comfortable silence. So comfortable…that Ruby felt drowsy and slowly fell asleep.



She wasn’t sure just how long she napped away but when she felt her shoulder being shaken out of nowhere, Ruby woke up.

“Uhh, Ruby…” Collymore said in a slight panic. “Reggie gave me a call. He tried calling you but uh…I guess you were sleeping.”

“…oh,” Ruby mumbled out, patting around her pockets until she felt her phone. She checked briefly, only to find it was in Do Not Disturb mode. “What he want?”

“Well…he noticed you left the AI station with the camera feed still on, the one here at this street…and he said that he already saw a group leaving the building.”

What? Ruby sat up immediately, alarmed. “How long was I sleeping?”

“About…25 minutes,” the griffin said.

“And now Reggie just told us?!”

“Well uh…” suddenly the griffin looked embarrassed. “He actually said how he didn’t really think too much about it but when he saw that we pulled up here…that’s when he figured to let us know-“

Ruby immediately kicked opened her car door to step out and stare at the building ahead of us. Their motorcycles were still there. She squinted to see if there was anything she can spot through the dark windows but there was nothing. Collymore quickly got out of the car once she got out.

“M-maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it was someone else who lives in that apartment building…”

“So should we wait longer or…” A small little idea form in Ruby’s head and she starts walking her way to the apartment. “Guess not…”

At the door, apparently it was locked but there was several buttons by the side of a small wall, each labeled by names. Names were either scribbled messily or barely legible but there was one that stood out to her of which the taping for the name was ripped off. Ruby began to pull out a small gadget.

“What are you doing?” Collymore hissed quietly to her, looking around suddenly.

“Gotta make sure Reggie actually saw them leaving.” The gadget was her own tool, something she still carries around. It acts like a lockpick but with a more kick to it. It can at least trigger apartment’s lock system that they usually run. With Ruby working around the lock, Collymore stood around uncomfortably to make sure no one was watching them.

Even if they were, it was probably nothing out of ordinary for them. Suddenly a buzz came through and Ruby got the door to open. She quickly put away her gadget and the two walk inside. They both head up the stairs up to the floor where Ruby saw the ripped name was location and took out her pistol. Collymore did the same, his ears perked up to listen for anything.

Ruby approached the door and looked at the griffin. Collymore shook his head, as if he couldn’t hear anything from the other side. She carefully tried the doorknob and was surprised to find in unlocked. Slowly, she pushed it open, gun first in front of her as she moved. Ruby moved carefully and silently as she surveyed the room with Collymore having her back. Once they noticed it was empty, they both let out a breath.

“Someone must’ve left in a hurry,” Collymore mumbled, looking over some tossed clothing and bags.

Ruby continued to look around and she stopped when she found some rope and bandages in a trash bin. She pulls them out to observe closer as Collymore took a look at the dining table. She can clearly hear him sniffing around. Better be him than her, at least his nose was keen. Plus, Ruby had to leave Blue back at the department if she wants this undercover cop thing be believable.

“They left some tea here, what a waste,” Collymore sighed.

“Door left open, clothes in disarray, tea left unfinished…maybe…” Ruby mumbled, dropping the items in her hands. “…fuck…”



“Imagine that, you probably drove right by them!” Reggie sneered from the other line.

“Did they move by foot? How many are they?” Ruby asked quickly, standing in front of the apartment with Collymore.

“They went by foot. A group of three…I think? I don’t know, they were moving too close with each other. Also they’re pretty covered up from what I’m looking,” Reggie replied. “But uh, I did you a favor and followed them. They went to a workshop, a couple blocks down to the left. That’s the last I saw them. Too many civilians moving in and out for me to make out of it.”

“Sweet, thank you! Let’s go, Collymore!” Ruby said quickly, ending the call and the two briskly make their way towards the workshop.

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Sophia​

Their current problem was neither finding their escape car nor finding a way to delay the cops, however slightly. The problem was not knowing how much time they had left, nor how much information the police already had on them. She had to be the driver for obvious reasons; one of them being that she could disguise herself more easily than Liore. She had loosened her hair and taken off her windbreaker, revealing a long-sleeved black shirt underneath. She had also taken the time to put white skirt over her yoga pants and replace her white running shoes by black ones. Of course, while she liked having the time to do this while the client's cars left one by one, there was also the chance it would not fool the police much. For that eventuality, depending on the gadgets the police had, her bullets would be meaningless. She looked at her purse next to her; the only thing on her favour would be the surprise factor. Two quick shots to their head from above them would not be hard point-blank. If it wasn't for the nymph she had glued behind her, Sophia might have just felt completely serene.

For some reason, she was poking around the magic-nullifier around her neck, tapping it, grabbing its edges and simply staring at it. She had heard the history of all the two hundred districts beyond district 300 and how they fell into disarray after the Demon King's attack, but she couldn't imagine anyone surviving in such conditions for more than two generations. That was generally the understanding of her professors as well. There were some old papers studying the effects of the "Dead Zone" on mages, which were later used to develop the magic nullifiers like the one she was wearing, but that was the extent of anyone's interest in the desolate land the Demon King had created. The districts bordering that zone were already gloomy and suffocating as they were, Sophia could not imagine any semblance of intelligent life living beyond that.

Until that orc left this Nymph in their hands.

She felt the back of her neck growing slightly hotter, until it soon became painful. With a frown, she turned at the Nymph. "Ouch! What the fuck are you doing?!"


"Ah," the nymph took a step back; There it was again, those sparks stemming from her hands. "Sorry. It's just that your magic artifact looked like it was scarring your neck. I was trying to loosen it."

"It won't loosen itself like that," Sophia took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a second before turning the RV on. It wouldn't be long before they left. Ah, if only she had at least her knife in hand, she'd feel more comfortable. She heard a zipper slightly open to her side. "Get to the back next to Liore. It's best for all of us if you hide."

"Right..." From the rearview mirror, the half-dragon could see that the nymph kept glancing at something to the side. Far too intently.

"What is it? Saw something?"

The green-haired woman shook her head, "Nothing worrying for you, I suppose. I didn't know your collar let you move things, that's all. I hope I didn't break it."

She stepped to the back of the RV, sitting on the armchair in front of Liore. Sophia raised an eyebrow at her words, then the realization of what the nymph meant hit her like a truck. Her gaze widened as she looked to her right. Her bag was slightly open. That was the sound she had heard. Her heart skipped a bit and her throat tightened as she reached for her bag, focusing to use her powers. She felt herself grow dizzy and her head pound as her collar tightened around her, choking her. She coughed, breaking her focus immediately. Her bag had not moved. Not even the zipper had moved an inch.

So, it only worked while the Nymph was nearby.

'If this nymph can do this for everyone who's been neutralized,' she thought as she looked back at the front and sighed. 'I'll do anything to keep her with Chronos for as long as I can.'

Though the windows were up, Sophia could see some people eyeing something or someone. From the way some people whispered, it was probably new people. While Rai was a local businessman, the neighborhood was very much closed onto itself. Most people knew one another, so any outsider was bound to cause some ripples. Sophia pulled her bag closer, sticking it between her seat and the small compartment for drinks to her right. She closed the zip and moved slowly.

"We just might have company, Liore."

His gun clicked. He was as ready as she was.

Late

 

[Late]

Ruby​

“Hellfire, are you sure we should be doing this without checking in with Silver first?” Collymore asked, doing his best to catch up with her.

“He trusts me well enough to figure out our next course of action, don’t worry,” Ruby reassured him. “I just didn’t think they would be moving so quickly.”

They finally arrived to the workshop and Ruby wasn’t ready to see it being so busy for the evening. Cars were moving in and out, civilians were talking around them about business and their vehicles, it was just a bit hectic for Ruby when she is in a real emergency to look for the group they’re after. Unfortunately, it definitely showed on her face. With both Ruby and Officer Collymore looking around within the garage and not trying to talk to the workshop’s employee, they simply stand out like a sore thumb. Eventually Ruby felt like all eyes were on them.

“Excuse me sir…”

Ruby whipped her head around to see Collymore asking a mechanic who seem to be on their break. The golem looking creature looked up at the griffin as he was sitting but slowly stood up. He towered over her fellow officer and tilt his head at him as if waiting.

“Sorry to bother you…but we’re looking for my cousin. She is a nymph and, well, I never got the chance to say goodbye to her. Got home late to cover some extra hours at work and I hope to see her for a couple of seconds before she move back into the main districts. I believe she was traveling with her friends,” Collymore said. Ruby was impressed that he didn’t seem to be phased at all by their size difference, but maybe Collymore was doing his best to sound sincere as possible.

“…a nymph?” The golem responded slowly. He frowns a little, as if thinking. “Dunno…lots of faces came by…”

“Please sir? I’m certain my mother would skin me alive if I don’t at least give her niece a wave goodbye,” Collymore pressed on but offer him a smile.

“Hmmm…” The golem hummed in response, looking real thoughtful.

Ruby continued to look around before she spotted a vehicle that would inch forward every now and then as if the driver was impatient to leave. She casually looked over the license plate and trying to get a look at the driver from where she stands. There was only one car in front of them getting ready to leave so Ruby didn’t really understood the rush. It’ll probably won’t even be long that they’ll leave the garage.

As if on cue, the car in front finally pulled out carefully to be mindful of the traffic and the RV slowly followed closely behind. It was a bit too close for Ruby.

“I think…they’re in the RV.” The golem finally responded.

“RV?” Collymore questioned in confusion.

Ruby turn her head to see the golem slowly raising an arm and pointing at the RV that Ruby was just looking at. Panic rose in Ruby’s chest as the RV was already entering the street to leave but Collymore immediately acted before she could.

“Thanks buddy!” He yelled out at the golem before rushing to the vehicle. “Wait! Beatrice!” Collymore shouted out, hitting the side of the vehicle with an open palm. Likely a random name for his “cousin”. The RV suddenly stopped with a jerk. Ruby quickly followed him but stayed behind as she was being wary of the vehicle. “It’s me, Pluto!”

Oh, was that his first name? It occurred to Ruby that this was probably the first time she heard his name and she bit her tongue from grinning. Pluto definitely was a strange name for him, stranger than Collymore. He managed to reach to the driver side with a friendly wave and his demeanor changed as he stared at the driver.

“Wait, you’re not Beatrice,” Collymore said with a confused tone, and yet his ears were perked up in alarm as he got a glance from inside the RV. His hands dropped to reach for his concealed pistol and Ruby was a little slow to act on his sudden drop of act.

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Sophia​

She almost muttered an insult at the griffin who suddenly put himself in the way. She had definitely not seen him around, but it wasn't long before all her worry dropped off her mind. Within the Yama-gumi, she was known to wear her emotions on her sleeve, until it was time to do the job. In that moment, a mask slid over her face: a small smile and a gaze that told nothing about her. Some saw it as gentleness, others merely saw in it politeness, and others thought it gave her a haughty aura.

"Beatrice?" she softly asked, lowering her window. "I'm not sure who you're talking about."

The griffin was reaching out for something. Sophia raised an eyebrow at him.

"Hm? You have a picture with you? Maybe I've seen her."

The griffin stopped, at least for a split second. "I don't."

"Then what are you reaching out for?"

The griffin gulped, then his gaze hardened, taking out his weapon. A regular gun. Thank goodness. "Police! Hands where I can see them."

Sophia slowly lifted her hands, only briefly glancing at the crowd around them. People were glued to the scene like moths to a flame. "Alright, officer. I admit I sped earlier today. Can I get my papers?"

"No need. You're going to let me in that car."

She scoffed, "Are you serious now? Look, I got this car's papers, my code and everything in my bag. It's easier if I just get them to you, no? I won't floor it now for a speeding ticket, officer. Promised."

He undid the security. Her eyes widened as she raised her arms even higher, "Oh my god! Why are you doing this? I'm just gonna get my papers, please!"

"You're a suspect in the kidnapping of a citizen of Central, and that's just the start of the list of the crimes we could probably pin on you."

"Huh? Why?" tears began to form at the edge of her eyes, and she soon began to sob. Her makeup, thankfully, was waterproof. "What are you talking about? I'm no criminal, officer. Please don't kill me. Please! I beg you!"

People were starting to grumble at the police officer. Some had apparently started to use their Oculus to transmit what was happening live into social media. The griffin had also realized this and his hand began to tremble.

"Fine." He aimed away from her, but the shot still fired, grazing her arm. She screamed in pain, putting her hand over her shoulder and collapsing over the wheel, wailing in pain. The crowd grew rowdier and a nearby colossus was the first one to put himself between her vehicle and the officer. The cyclops who greeted them, too, began to interpose himself. As she was down, she opened her bag and slowly grabbed her weapon. She had put a silencer on it in advance. As soon as there was the slightest chance the cop even aimed at them, she'd be ready.

"What's your problem?!" the cyclops shouted, echoed by many others who began insulting the griffin. The crowd was thick and there were even people now blocking those who were transmitting the scene to the entire Internet. Unfortunately, the officer who was on their trail only panicked further, discharging three warning shots that dispersed the crowd and injured the golem, though not grievously. She made as if she had been scared by the shots herself and sped up, steering into the street with one hand. The griffin ran her way, catching up with the slow speed she had to keep to not crash into the other sidewalk herself. They briefly came face to face, and as he took his shot, his weapon clicked, completely empty. Sophia took her own weapon out, a blank expression on her face, and shot him right between the eyes.

The RV sped away from the scene.

Late

****
Ren
​

She had thrown herself to the ground the moment she heard the first shot ring out. Liore was, for his part, crouching right where the shadow of the driver's seat could still completely cover him. He still pointed his gun to the ground, but Ren could tell he would not hesitate for a second. In fact, he seemed rather angry. Was he outraged at his partner getting hurt, or was it at the fact that officer, whatever he looked like, had blown a hole in the story they had told her? She did not dare to speak or make a sound until the commotion seemed to fade into the distance. The sky was completely dark now, and the car was plunged in darkness, less so around the driver's seat.

Ren managed to grope her way back into the chair she had sat before and took a deep breath, clenching her fists over her lap. "Who are you two, really?"

"We're friends of Dao," Sophia answered. "And we used to be mages. I don't know if you know this from where you come from, but for those of us in Central who were born mages, we only got two paths in life. And if we don't like one, God help us."

She remained silent, looking down at where she assumed her fists were. Sophia had had that weapon at hand all this time, but had not shot until fired upon. For the moment her act had lasted, Ren found herself believing every bit of it, or almost every bit of it. There didn't seem to be a front; it was too natural for that. If she had to guess, that mask held perhaps a fragment of who she had been, or someone she wished to be.

"I was born in District 3," the half-dragon continued. "Both sides of my family were almost as wealthy as can be, and until the day I turned nineteen, I was a normal rich girl. I found out I was born with telekinesis a few weeks after my birthday. And from the moment it was confirmed I had been born with it, everyone around began to pressure me to join the police district or the military. I could move bikes, make needles and other small objects fly like bullets, you name it. I could do pretty much anything to any object that was as big as a bike or smaller. But I was right about to become a surgeon at the time. I didn't want to use my magic to kill anyone. I wanted to use it to save lives."

A brief moment of silence floated in the air, before Sophia sighed, briefly slowing down a stop sign before turning left. "And because I stood by that choice, little by little, all my social circles began to unravel around me. Even my own loving family began to threaten to disown me if I chose to, quote-unquote, waste my wonderful gift. I decided to take it, you know? I took off my family's home, found some closet I could rent down in 28, and life wasn't too bad until someone I knew decided to destroy any opportunity I had until my only choice was to work for the local police department. And one night," she paused again.

Ren could see from the faint reflection the half dragon pressed her lips together. It seemed to her she was legitimately at the brink of tears, but once again, her gaze dulled to that blank expression she had carried with her after shooting that other man. "And one night he took it a step too far. I exploded, and I used a level of strength I never had reached before or since. And it killed people. I went straight to jail, of course. Of course, growing up where I did, most girls in there made me bite the dust. But I eventually found the strength to stand and a few girls who made me stronger."

There was another silence. Ren opened her mouth, but just as she was about to ask her question, Sophia seemed to have read her mind.

"You have magic, too. Magic people like them might want to force you to use for something you don't want at all. You don't know much of this world and people will take advantage of that, I guarantee it. I won't pretend that we're better than them in that regard, but I want you to know that you've been placed here to be my comrade and I'll personally treat you like one. I'd genuinely put my life on the line if it meant you and Liore got to live. That's more what the cops will do for you. Maybe the moment they figure out what you can do to their magic-nullifiers, they'll decide to imprison you for life before you can even understand what they're doing or why."

"So that collar of yours," she muttered, "is supposed to block your magic...Then, Liore-"

"I used to be able to slow down time with my eye." He answered, his red eye briefly gleaming in the dark, "They gouged it out and chopped my ear off just for fun before replacing it with this. No anesthesia."

"His implant is also over a century old. Those models killed those who wore them half of the time," Sophia added. "He would've died, too, if I didn't know how to adjust it before the thing did irreversible damage to his brain."

Ren took a deep breath. She had come here just to see all the wonders of magic this world offered, but, perhaps her world and this one were not all that different. She should have expected it perhaps. "Thank you for opening up your past like that, Sophia."

"Don't go about sharing much of it to people here. I'm dead to everyone who used to know me."

An artifact began to appear around Liore's human eye; some kind of holographic glasses.

"We have them on our trail," he said. "Okay. Veil in the Night it is."

He looked up at Sophia as the only real source of lighting in their side of the RV died out. "You heard it, right? Veil in the Night. Queen of Spades."

"Roger that."

And they were speaking in code again. Ren tilted her head at them. Liore turned towards her, "For your own good, and for ours, in case we get captured or worse, don't tell us your name. We don't know where you come from, who you were before coming here and why you're here in the first place. We shouldn't know that. To us, you're simply Phoenix, a new member of our group. Understood?"

Ren nodded. "I get it now. But you'll have to explain what's the plan from now on."

"Dao will help the two of us escape," the man with the metallic eye explained, "He has the power to make himself and people or things invisible. Sophia will turn herself in, leaving the van while the two of us follow him to a safer location."

"But, if she gets arrested-" Ren began to worriedly ask.

"I told you, didn't I? I'd lay down my life if it meant you two made it out alive. At this point there's not much of a choice here. I wish you luck, Phoenix."

So that was why she suddenly told them her story. She was not expecting to remain alive or at least not out of prison for long.

 

[Late]

Ruby​

It happened so fast that Ruby wasn’t sure what to do for the first couple of seconds. She have heard of their officers dying on the job in her district but she didn’t think it’ll happen right before her eyes. The moment when Collymore’s dead body hit the ground, she immediately rushed over to really check if he was dead. And so he was, with a bullet right through his head.

Ruby subconsciously made the call to report a down officer and the suspects escaping with license plate numbers in hand, but her mind was somewhere else. Was this her fault again? Granted, she didn’t know what the griffin was thinking to open fire like that, being surrounded by a crowd. They were always taught and disciplined to have nerves of steel for situations like this, so why did it all just go south? Were it to be better for them to call in for backup before diving into this head first? Or maybe she should’ve told Salvator what happened and listen for his next course of action?

As she continues to think about it, a swarm of emotions began to cloud her brain and it just occurred to her that the crowd was moving in on her.

“Hey, lady, your pal just fucking shot our mechanic here!” One of them yelled, anger is visible in all of their faces.

“You guys just always have to rain in on our parade!”

“Things were just fine until you showed up!”

There was a car horn going off and Ruby found herself having a difficult time to breathe. Usually she did fine with angry civilians but she was never surrounded like this, with their yelling mixing in with her distorted thoughts. Plus, having her dead colleague next to her was only making it worse. Don’t they care that someone just died? A familiar feeling went up her spine as she felt threatened, holding onto her pistol in her holster but not pulling it out yet.

“S-stay back,” Ruby stuttered out. “Just stay back.”

“Are you going to shoot at us too?!”

“Is this how the law enforcement handle things? Pointing at guns at anything that moves?”

“Fucking pigs, why won’t you just leave our street already!? You don’t belong here!”

With too many things going on at once, something was building up inside of Ruby. Someone threw a can at her and she had to hold up her hands to block the projectile. She start to glare through the crowd, wondering who just threw that, until she felt something small but hard hitting the back of her head. With the sudden pain, she finally snapped and cast a fire ring around her and expanding it out.

“God damn it, I said get back!” She snarled.

That did the trick, the fire pushed the crowd away, surprising them. The fire dissipated once the crowd was more spread out for Ruby’s taste but it did leave some civilians with singed clothing if they didn’t move fast enough. Or even some burn injuries. But Ruby didn’t care. The boiling rage inside of her was so built up, she can’t even think straight. She just might as well lose control, assert her dominance in this damn city. It was her who supposed to be the predator, not the prey.

“System offline. Please standby.”

Be the predator, not the prey…wait, what was that just now? It was so quiet the moment Ruby casted the fire ring that she was surprised to hear her earpiece cut through. Not only that but she noticed a strange wave that passed through the street, with lights flickering and particular vehicles veering off the road as if they suddenly shut down. The civilians with their phones out even seem to be bothered too, and that’s when Ruby noticed that their devices weren’t working anymore. The rage went away, to be replaced by confusion. What just happened? Was there a power outrage in the block?

Before Ruby could think more into the matter, she heard police sirens from the distant and they were fast approaching. Two vehicles pulled up in front of the workshop and four officers stepped out.

“Officer Hellfire?” One of them asked.

It took Ruby a moment to show her badge to them and they began to survey the area. The ordered the civilians to stay in place with weapons drawn, stopped all of the workshop operations. One of the officers was a white minotaur, who approached Ruby with a frown on his face.

“Chief Stoll,” the minotaur said. “We tried to ask you for how’s your current situation but…our connections somehow got cut off.”

“Huh,” was all Ruby could say.

“We’re gonna keep everyone here if we can, they’re all witnesses for whatever went down here. I already sent other officers and my captain after the running suspects with the license plate you provided. Justice will be served for our fallen comrade here,” Stoll said, looking over at the griffin’s dead body.

“We shouldn’t just mark them up as only witnesses. They could also be accomplices just for giving them a vehicle in the first place…” Ruby muttered.

“…we’ll look into the matter of things,” Stoll huffed.

“Hey! Officer! That demon fucking burned me and my friends, aren’t you going to do something about it?!” One of the civilians hissed out.

Stoll looked at the crowd and back at Ruby, frowning. “That true?”

“It was self defense,” Ruby gritted out. “They were surrounding me.”

The minotaur slowly nodded his head. He didn’t offer any words to her, but when the EMT arrived, he left her alone to help with his fellow officers to take witnesses’ accounts of the matter. With the excitement eventually dying down, Ruby left like she can breathe again. But as quickly as she felt relieved, anxiety slowly build up as she watched helplessly when the EMT was looking over Collymore’s body. She will have to report in with Salvator…eventually.

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Dao​

The situation with Phoenix could hardly be any worse. However, there were two silver linings: first, Latvi had played her role to perfection. The outrage among the short videos that were spreading online would play in their favour. Second, the few men he spread around the lower districts told him that Chronos would manage to cross the bridge between districts 213 and 214 before it lifted to let through a few cargo ships through the lock around district 180.

'So, the cops are still dealing with that dead man,' the lamia thought, scrolling through the few updates he got through his encrypted channel. 'that'll buy them some time. Good thing I'm already here.'

There was a knock on the door. Dao turned his Oculus down, eyeing the door with some curiosity. "Come in."

The door slowly creaked open to let through a banshee, with graying pastel pink hair and a mauve gaze that was too empty for the smile that curled her lips. The rids on her face were still faint, but her long, pale face made her look old. It was hard to guess her age, but Dao knew she had been within the Yama-gumi for a long time. The Lamia straightened up in his chair, showing her the chair in front of him without a word.

"What a surprise to see you here, Madam Rose. How have you been?" the young man said as the ethereal creature in front of him sat down. Her black dress looked to belong to another age, back from the days the people in central used to move with horses if they didn't have wings already.

"Oh, I've been doing quite well, Mr. Dao," her voice, was ageless, and her intonation made her seem like a foreigner from another nation. "You must be a very busy man, in light of some recent events, so I won't bother you for very long. I have some business with Chronos."

"Of course," he nodded, before clasping his hands over his desk. "What can I help you with?"

"I need you to take me to Latvi," she coldly ordered, "A bright, young girl like her might give the police a hard time, but I still need to make sure nothing will make her crack."

Dao smirked, "You talk as if she was still a rookie. I wouldn't worry too much about that, Madam Rose. She doesn't know anything about the nymph."

The banshee chuckled, showing her black and crooked teeth. "Oh, Mister Dao. Surely you're underestimating her. The boss didn't put her in Chronos just because she knew how to shoot, or have you forgotten her role against Ubermensch?"

Ubermensch. That was the alias of the so-called "chess player" of the CRNG. He was almost completely invisible, and as a capo, he was as efficient with the drug trade as he was deadly. Dao remembered how they struggled to even get a lead on the guy; and then one day, a twenty-three half-dragon girl fresh out of prison had not only narrowed his identity to five names but also gave them their daily routines in a matter of three months. Nobody knew much about her, save that her family had money, so while they had ignored her intel, thinking she was only a rookie cop in an undercover mission, the chess player suddenly vanished. And that time, it was not the usual. The Yama-gumi managed to claim almost entire districts that used to be CRNG turf along the usual headlines of cops dying in some shootings that went as far as district 75. Nobody had made the link at the time, but a good part of the cops who died had either worked for the representative of district 15 or otherwise held records about him. Not so long after that, the news was all over the disappearance of said representative, an old and smiling elf, admired by his district. The girl soon brought to them his severed head, impeccably preserved in a jar. The old elf was Ubermensch.

"Of course, I haven't forgotten," Dao sighed. "Are you saying you will lull her to sleep?"

The banshee shook her head, "Oh, no. My lullabies can be more damaging on half-breeds of any kind and the boss likes her as she is. I merely have to sing a little for her to test her limits. If she passes, then I shall not use my lullaby on her."

****​

The backdoor of the diner was already open, with two employees taking a smoke break. The night murmured with its usual club music in the distance as well as some cars passing softly by. Dao did not have much of a choice but to follow the best he could the fast pace of the banshee by his side, though, for everyone around them, they did not exist. To keep advancing that way, they really had to evade as many people as possible, which wasn't hard at all, considering how late it was.

Their meeting point was the public parking down by the other side of the bridge. It was only a few blocks away from the restaurant, and there was a park nearby where some punks were already smoking and blasting music. They were all low-ranking members of the Harukichi, a local gang and allies of the Yama-gumi. Dao had informed them on what to bring, and Latvi would know what to do. It had been a long time since Dao had used his powers on more than one or two people. At the very least, he hoped he would not be sick for more than a week after this.

Latvi was already out of the vehicle, leaving the door wide open next to her, a cigarette on her lips. As the two of them passed next to her, Rose put her hand over her shoulders. The half-dragon did not even react.

"Have a wonderful evening, young lady."

Another puff of smoke flowed from her lips; if Latvi had been remotely nervous, she didn't show it.

****
Liore
​

Phoenix was adapting to the situation relatively quickly, and Liore was somehow glad Dao had reacted as quickly as he did. It was hardly surprising, of course, but with the limited knowledge they had as hitmen, the Yama-gumi could have left them on their own. The man with the metallic eye saw her open the door and get out as soon as she parked. Her bleeding had stopped on their way here, but her shirt was still stained with blood.

"Have a wonderful evening, young lady," a very recognizable voice said from outside.

Rose.

Liore passed his hand over the nape of his neck. He hoped that witch wouldn't have to tag along with Dao, but it was also natural for the organization to shut anyone who could give away any important secrets. He saw Phoenix stretch her neck as the sound of Rose's heels and Dao's scales approached them. The cabin was still too dark, with all the curtains drawn for the girl to see much, and Liore could barely make their shadow. Sophia climbed back inside and took some bandages out of her bag before swinging it over her shoulder, heading back out to treat her wound. She had not even given them a glance. In fact, after telling her story, which Liore didn't even know about until that point, she had not said another word. She still had a role to play, and that required her to entirely ignore her existence.

"Hey, pal." Dao softly said. "We gotta go."

"Dao?" Phoenix asked. "You're back! Thank you for saving me back then."

"Oh, why hello there. I knew you'd be safe in my friends' hands. Just grab my shoulder like last time, and we'll be out without anybody seeing us. I brought another friend with me here, so-"

"I already finished what I had to do, Dao. I'll know if Latvi passes or not by the time we get out."

"I see. Well, in any case, we're out of here. The Harukichi will be in charge of erasing your presence here. And don't worry about the car. Rai will be compensated."

So the music they heard from here was from a group of Harukichi members. It didn't exactly surprise him, considering it was the kind of hip-hop written by former gang members and with the lyrics to boot. Besides, district 213 was their turf and the night marked their reign. The Harukichi was probably one of the oldest gangs, comprised almost exclusively of vampires. Normally, vampires had the etiquette to not attack the living, but considering Rose was here and that her ties to the Harukichi ran deep, Liore wondered if the test was not simply forcing Sophia to run right to her death without fighting back.

Ren had to get up first to reach Dao's shoulder, and as for Liore, he would have to grab part of the man's scaly body like the veil of a bride. He hated the feeling of the scales on his hands. This really brought him bad memories.

They slowly advanced out of the vehicle, squeezing through the door the best they could. Liore glanced to his right and saw Sophia sitting on the pavement, her gaze lost in the nightmares Rose had given her, but she seemed to be still somewhat aware of her surroundings, as she tied up the gauze around her arm with the same level of precision as always.

"She passed," Rose said with a giggle before they left the scene entirely, only now hearing the police cross the middle of the bridge.

****
Sophia
​

She had not felt this light-headed in a long time, and more worrying still were the soft whispers in her head. They ordered her to confess to everything, and more and more blood flowed out of her wound. For a moment, she thought that she had been injured somewhere else. Her collar began to beep deafeningly so, but somehow, she could focus on the wound more than on all the illusions Rose's touch had brought with it. By the time it all faded away, she was in front of some vampires, who had Molotov cocktails in their hands.

"Huh?"

Her mind was completely blank for a couple of seconds. She turned back; she had covered quite the distance without realizing it, and she had a bloodied map in her hands. The group of five did not say a thing, and the beeping came back with a vengeance. Quick, she had to focus on something. Anything! The map. Right. Roads. She would count the roads. Something made of glass broke next to her and the beeping became the wail of a siren.

"Freeze!"

Rose's spell completely left her mind, bringing her back to reality like a slap on her face. The RV was completely burnt and the group of vampires had already vanished. Sophia lifted her hands and put them behind her head. There was no point in resisting now, and either way, her new policy was to not say anything. There were a hundred things the police could get her for, but her current mission would not be one of them.

One of the cops yanked her arms back and the cuffs clicked behind her, biting the skin around her wrists.

Late

 

[Late]

Salvator​

Salvator was just head home, about ready to change out of his uniform to be in his civilian clothes. Already he was tired but damn it, Salvator wanted to find out more about the goblin gang. Things have changed over the years so last he checked, they no longer have their original hideout up in District 200. If these thugs were able to move around so quickly to the same crime spot, then maybe they are close by. All he have to do is force one of the prisoners to give him a location.

Yet tonight wasn’t the night that Salvator wouldn’t get his way of things. As he pulled up to the police building, he stared in horror that their entrance was completely demolished. He scrambled out of his car to rush inside, having his weapon out. The whole room was destroyed with desks broken apart and papers scattered everywhere. There was no sign of bodies anywhere but as Salvator surveyed the room, he noticed how the hallway toward the staircase to the basement was in disarray.

Claw marks were scratched all the way through the wallpaper of the hallway, and the metal door was broken in. Assuming whoever did this mess was still here, he held up his weapon and moved slowly toward the basement.

It was absolute bloodshed in the cells. Every single goblin was killed, with the cell doors being pried open. Tonight’s guard was dead just by the entrance and Salvator look down at his officer in pity, staring at his ripped face. He was missing a jaw and half his neck. And yet, there was no intruder here. Salvator slowly began to relax until he heard footsteps behind him.

“Woah, its me! Reggie!”

Salvator whipped around so fast with his rifle down at Reggie’s head and he mentally slapped himself for acting out so rashly.

“S-sorry,” Salvator apologized. “What happened here?” He lowered his weapon.

“Well, obviously we were attacked. I was in my own garage when it happened. Thankfully, our attacker didn’t even think about us. He went straight here and went fucking berserk on these guys. The only unfortunate guy here is this officer,” Reggie explained, gesturing at the unrecognizable body.

“Christ, we need better security system if a beast can just fucking walk right in like it was nothing,” Salvator growled out. “Did you know what it was?”

“Not a fucking chance, I didn’t want to risk my neck just for a peek,” Reggie scoffed. “It can be any beast-like creature with knives as claws and hits like a truck.”

Salvator grunted at this and looks around the prison cells again. His eye eventually caught a tuff of hair in one of the goblins hands. He went ahead to pry it open to observe the hair. It appears to be gray yet there was a blue tint to it. And…it felt soft in his hands.

“Anyways…we should call this in with the higher ups. An attack on the police building is-“

“A major threat to Central City,” Salvator finished with a sigh. “Whatever it was, it couldn’t wait to kill these goblins. Think you can analyze this for me?” Salvator asked Reggie, handing over the hairs.

“Uh, sure…” Reggie said, looking down at the hairs in his hand. “By the way…something happened with Ruby and Collymore.”

“Please tell me its good new?” Salvator asked, a tad bit hopeful that maybe this evening can finally turn around.

“…so…uh, Collymore is dead and Ruby is currently being investigated on after she burned several bystanders with her fire magic.”

“WHAT?!”

Ruby
​

“How many times I have to say it? It was self defense!” Ruby growled out in annoyance.

She was already pulled to the side to be questioned by a pair of officers. They just recently finished taking witness accounts and the workshop was forced to close by police’s orders to further investigate the matter of how the suspects were able to obtain a vehicle in the first place. Ruby hasn’t heard much about that part of the investigation because, well, she was now being interrogated on.

“We have several accounts that your partner open fired and injured a golem mechanic, disturbing the peace. Was there a reason that you two were pursuing a couple of civilians?” The officer asked, folding her arms. She was an elf and next to her was a cyborg.

“Listen, we were just following up a lead back in our district, it just led us to here. They are suspects and they have kidnapped a nymph!”

“From what we gathered, we heard that this nymph was coming along willingly. There doesn’t seem to be a reason to assume that she was kidnapped,” the elf sighed.

“W-well-“ Ruby struggled to find her words and couldn’t really finish as the cyborg interrupted.

“Besides this investigation, it seems you have lost control when the civilians were upset at your partner’s actions. Have you not undergo training at the academy to handle situations such as an angry crowd?”

“I-I have, but damn it, it all happened too fast for me!”

“Poor excuse to give as a fellow officer. Perhaps this is why District 244 is such a mess.”

“Fucking, say that right in my face, half ass,” Ruby hissed, jumping onto her feet as she was sitting on the curb. She was so tired of being treated like this.

The cyborg took a step back, glaring at her before suddenly, a man yelled out at them. “Hey!” They turn their heads to see Salvator arriving on the scene with his car left behind. “Damn it, stand down, Ruby!”

Seeing Salvator almost made Ruby feel a tad bit better but she held in place, still furious by the interrogation. “And you are…?” The cyborg questioned as Salvator approached them.

He pushed Ruby away, giving her a stern look which Ruby force herself to finally step away with her tail coiling around her own leg. “Chief Silver of District 244. I already got the gist of what happened here…”

Ruby refused to look at them at this point, folding her arms and glaring down at an empty can. “Your officer here has harmed civilians this evening, and might as well threatened my colleague here,” the elf said to him.

“I’ll fucking take care of her, just leave her alone. She had enough of today,” Salvator growled out.

“I’m afraid not.” Chief Stoll spoke out and Ruby had to look over to see what he meant by that. “If this incident happened in your district, then sure. You can handle it in your way. But Officer Ruby, unfortunately, committed a crime here in our district for harming those she meant to protect. It may be out of self defense, but there are better methods for this than inflicting pain,” the minotaur explained. “Plus…there is no video evidence of her ever being threatened. I’m afraid that she’ll have to come with us. We’ll have a trial for her set tomorrow.”

“That’s bullshit! They were recording the whole scene and we even have a fucking camera at that lamppost!” Ruby yelled out, pointing up at the lamppost.

“…this is strange for me to say…and maybe too much of a coincidence but all systems within this block strangely have a brief shut down. As far footage goes, there’s only of Officer Collymore acting out and getting himself killed. It’s several accounts against yours, Ruby…I’m sure you understand why we have to do this,” Chief Stoll explained.

Salvator kept quiet, frowning at this information. Ruby was lost for words at the moment and now, she felt even more tired. Perhaps the weight of the spell she cast was finally getting to her, along with a whole day of being an officer. She looked at Salvator to see if he wanted to add some kind of input.

“…guess it can’t be helped,” Salvator grumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“In other news…it seems we capture your suspect,” Stoll added, looking at Salvator this time. “We found her alone, no clues to the others that Ruby have been mentioning to us. Plus, the RV has been caught on fire the time the police got there. So if there was a nymph to this investigation…then sorry to say but we couldn’t find any leads. For now, we will keep the suspect with us in our cells, if that works with you, Silver.”

”Y-yeah…it works…” Salvator answered, scratching the back of his neck. “Someone just…ruined our basement cells and killed all the criminals we had so…we got no containment.”

Silence settled over them and Ruby eventually kick away the empty can hard. “Alright! Fucking, alright! Where am I going for tonight?” Ruby asked, tired and upset, yet somewhat glad that the suspect got captured at the very least. However, she was concerned about what happened to their police station.

“You can return home. I’ll have my officers come by to your place to pick you up for the trial. Just be sure to be awake on time for them, otherwise, it’ll only get worse from here on out.”

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Sophia ​

She expected to be dragged all the way back to 244, but somehow the policemen in place were arguing about the best place to keep her. The men from Rai's district were angrier at the dead cop and some "officer Hellfire" than at her. She was left completely on her own, cuffed hands and feet at the backseat of an open cop car. The radio was still playing, but it soon buzzed out into white noise. She heard a creaking noise next to her, and she turned around only to see an elven officer with short blonde hair and emerald eyes.

"Why, you're in quite the predicament, aren't you?" The elf said with a chuckle.

Though he looked very different from what she remembered, Sophia knew this was Kurlain. He was the mimic mage who believed in her intel and helped her kill Ubermensh. Though he did it without anyone finding out of his involvement and Sophia was not about to rat out her first true ally within the Yama-gumi.

"I ran out of luck, Kurlain," she shrugged. "I'm probably not gonna see anything outside of a cell for the rest of my days."

"Oh, for sure, for sure. How did you get here anyhow? You're smart enough to not get caught like this."

The half dragon scoffed, "Wouldn't you like to know, Ghosty?"

"Aw, loyal to your cause. As expected of you, Sophi-Sophi," He said with a sigh.

She had never particularly liked that nickname, but she supposed it was natural he replied in kind to the nickname he hated the most.

"That nymph you're carrying got Mist killed," the elf said. "Whatever you may think about her or her purpose, just keep in mind she could've saved him anytime but decided to just watch him die."

Without another word, the elf simply left,and as he vanished behind the line of cops, the radio returned. Sophia took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Kurlain had never lied to her before, but considering who he was now, there was a chance he wished her to betray the Yama-gumi. It would've perhaps been an option had she had her powers, but now, there wasn't much of an option. Even if what he said was true, what could she even do about it now?

One real officer came back to the car and his partner soon followed. It was an elf and a cyborg. They looked at her through the review mirror, but she contented herself to look at the window.

"We're gonna keep you in our district for the night, Miss. Welt. Tomorrow, you're the business of district 244." The cyborg said.

She only weakly nodded. Sophia made a point not to carry her real papers with her. Though the policemen in charge probably knew that already. Mist was dead and the nymph could've done something about it...No, it was best to assume that latter part was a lie. Or at least, only true in Kurlain's head. It's not because someone is given the means to defend themselves that they'll have the guts to so it.

Late

 

[Late]

Ruby​

It was a quiet ride back home for Ruby. They finalized the report of the incident for tonight and all they do now is wait until she goes through her trial and have their own prison cells cleaned up. Salvator was driving this time around and the two of them were equally tired of today’s event. This was probably the most they have ever done since Ruby joined District 244.

10 minutes into the ride, and Salvator finally decides to talk, “so much for celebrating later for my promotion.” His tone was light, as if trying to change the mood that settle over them.

“…I’m sure something else will come up to give us a reason to celebrate,” Ruby mumbled. “Whenever that will be.”

“Right, right…listen,” Salvator started, clearing his throat. “I know I wasn’t there when it happened, but just a word of advice? Play it safe for tomorrow’s trial. If all goes well, the least they can do to you is suspension for a couple of days.”

“Salvator I…I used my magic and broke the law. You know what happens when mages use their magic like that,” Ruby grumbled. She doesn’t want to really think about it but she believes that the most likely case for her is that they’ll slap a suppressor collar on her. “It doesn’t help that demons already got a bad rap in society. All of them at least got one record under their names.”

“…well…I mean, you’re right,” Salvator admits. “But that’s why you gotta play it safe. Don’t let your…um, emotions get the better of you. You and I know everyone in these damned Districts hate us, lets just not give them more of a reason. If you perform well as a fellow officer, who is a demon, in their trial, then who knows. Maybe you can…uh, make your species look decent.”

“Right…” Ruby rubs her eyes. When she was young, no one told her anything about her ancestors. It was something she missed out, apparently, as she was an orphan, but Ruby learned about the Demon King story when she was just 16, overhearing a demon parent telling their children from living on the streets. “Didn’t think they could still be so loyal to someone who’s been dead years ago.”

“They?” Salvator questioned.

“I never grew up hating on the system. I just…was never conditioned to be like that, I guess.” It was hard for Ruby to explain it, as she already have a fair experience between both sides of the world in Central City. From living a somewhat normal life since a child, then moving around between streets by committing to thievery to survive, and suddenly a cop, Ruby definitely have different opinions of the system. And society. “I can understand why no one likes it…just sucks that us cops are treated like nuisances even though we’re only trying to help.”

“…yeah, it does suck.”

The conversation ended there. Eventually, Salvator got to her apartment and quickly reminded her about the trial. She’ll have to be up and ready at 8am sharp. They said their good nights to each other and the chief drove away. Ruby figured he’ll brief her in tomorrow about the state of the station.

Her apartment wasn’t all that friendly looking, considering that she does live in 244. The lock of the front door doesn’t even work, so Ruby went ahead inside the building. After climbing up a few floors and searching around for her keys, she was finally home. Unlike the state of the apartment, her unit was as clean as it could be. This was only possible…because she have a roommate.

Her roommate is half human and half drake. They hardly see each other because of how often Ruby worked as an officer, but when they do, there was always a piece of wisdom he would offer to her. Ruby doesn’t know what was his stance about the system, considering he is just an average civilian living in the lowest of districts. He didn’t mind the fact that she was a cop, respecting her own set of privacy and always on time for his half of the rent, but he never really gave her a name to call him. The man was perfectly content with the set of nicknames she had for him.

“Welcome home.”

Oh, he was still up. Ruby passed through the living room and her nose scrunched up as there was something smokey in the air. Her roommate was sitting on a pillow, looking like he was meditating. She couldn’t get a look at him as the lights were very dim but she knows he was looking at her.

“What are you smoking in here?” Ruby asked, curious.

“Plum Blossoms incense.”

“Huh…”

“I’m actually done here, if you need the room.”

“N-no, its fine. I got something I need to do tomorrow morning so…I’m off to bed,” Ruby said, waving her hand off. Sometimes she forgets that this guy doesn’t smoke, just have incense burning here and there.

“Very well, I wish you the best of luck on counting the sheep.”

“Ha, sure, ace,” Ruby said with a light smile before walking away.

She got inside her bedroom and close the door behind her. It was a cozy place, just for her. Several stuff in here were actually stolen items she still kept from her youth, as others were just something she got with her own money. Not thinking to get changed, Ruby simply organized her pile of pillows around her bed and flop over. Sleep took her out faster than a bullet could probably do.

Salvator
​

“Must’ve been quite the productive day for you, chief,” Luis Lander chuckled through the earpiece that Salvator had on.

He was already back at the station, making sure nothing else had happened since he left. Everyone in the building were just about done cleaning up all the scatter paperwork and from what he heard, the goblin bodies have been gathered up for closer examination. Their fellow guard officer that died on duty will be given a funeral for later days to come. They just have to let their family know of his drop of service.

“Listen, we really need more help than what we’re getting here. If a beast can just fucking tore through this place and not get punished for it, then we need one hell of an upgrade,” Salvator mumbled in the call.

“And I hear you, but if I just let you guys have a free upgrade on the house, then the other districts around your area will be wanting one too. We only have so much money to spare. The least I can do is offer more men, especially since you just lost yourself two of them. Your station is growing small, chief.”

“No shit, and it doesn’t help that Ruby is going on trial tomorrow for her using magic against civilians. I don’t know what she was thinking,” Salvator sighed. It’s hard for him to believe in the witnesses accounts after he took a look through the report. Would she really get mad at them for interfering with their pursuit? Sure, Ruby can get angry easily, but not to the point she had to use magic.

“For a demon, I have to say that I’m impressed it took her two years to act out like that,” Luis said in wonder. “Oh but Chief Silver, you should really keep an eye on her.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again,” Salvator promised quickly. That was probably a mistake on his part, but he didn’t think Ruby would cause such a fuss because he wasn’t there.

“Good, good. Hopefully I can help on the matter of the trial tomorrow but it will be just little o’ me against 4 other commanders. Maybe it’ll be easy, considering the majority of the time the AIs of the commanders are in their place if they can’t make it to the trial personally but our tech is just too good. I doubt it’ll be a gentle punishment for our Ruby.”

“Right…in other news…we got the suspect who shot Collymore. Since our cells have been destroyed, they are currently residing in the cells at District 214. She is…supposedly the nymph kidnapper.”

“But no nymph?” Luis asked.

“…no…”

“…that’s a shame,” Luis sighed heavily. “It would’ve been good on you guys if you solve the case of this nymph problem, but alas, lady fortune is still not looking at you guys.”

“Once the cells are fixed up, we’ll have our suspect transferred over here and see if we can get her personal information in hand and get her to talk. Along with that, I did found some clues about our intruder here. Reggie already checked it through and it looks like we got a werewolf problem.”

“Sounds like fun, we actually have one in District 100, been causing some trouble I’m afraid.”

“Strange, I thought werewolves were forced to take pills to control their frenzies. We’re already looking to match the DNA with all werewolves registered into the city, but it’ll take time. I assume that this guy have beef with the goblins, or something.”

“Alright, sounds good then. I’ll check with you again tomorrow, once the trial has been settled.”

Salvator ended the call and he casually looked over at their main room. It was better than before, for sure. He decides to check in with everyone one last time before heading off and rest for the night. He have to be present for the trial tomorrow as Ruby’s chief so he better get some sleep hours in.

 

[MementoDei]

Myrlenn​

He looked back at the car Sophia was from above, with a pair of binoculars. The night vision was not top-tier, but it was miles better than most cameras all the way up to district 80. Sophi-Sophi had still some fight in her, alright. He took a deep breath, putting down his gadget as a light rain began to fall from above. He had taken his piercings off before talking to Sophia. The cop he had impersonated had taken a simple break, but that break would take a bit long considering how much alcohol he drank in his break. Now he was relatively out of sight, Myrlenn had burnt the fake uniform; he could return the badge and gun tomorrow and the owner would be none the wiser.

Right now, he simply watched the car roll out of sight, and the firefighters finish their job. Sophia's situation was almost as desperate as could be, but if there was something that would get her moving was finding out more about how Mist died. That dragon was the only real remnant of her old life, and she made a point to try to protect him from afar. It was hardly surprising, considering that despite the bodies she kept piling up, she still felt incredibly guilty about her first killings. He found that sentimentality rather odd; Her actions were purely out of self-defence, so why not brag about a few crushed cars, blown-out walls and grinding her aggressors to a mist of flesh? To hell with the bastards and their relatives.

It would be interesting to know how she'd evolve from now on, with nothing left to cling onto. Maybe once she tried digging a little bit around Mist's death, or simply read about it from the papers, she'd evolve into someone even better. If only she could spend her days on the outside...

"I should've tried to convince her to leave when I did," he said scratching the side of his head. "I thought that she'd come along on her own after the blast we had killing that old stinky guy."

"How adorable it is when youngsters reminiscence of their young love," the ageless voice of a woman mused behind him.

The elf turned around, barely surprised to see Rose standing nearby, hidden almost completely under her black umbrella. "Oh, but if it isn't the Madam of this district. I must warn you, I've been out of magic for a while and you don't want a taste of your own medicine here, do you?"

"Of course not, lad," She giggled, with that kind of old rich heiress that felt out of some old movie, "I just wondered if you'd be interested in a job. You'll have more to win beyond a bounty."

"Shoot your shot and I'll see."

"Quite demanding for an entrepreneur, aren't you?" she approached him, but still remain far enough away so he couldn't simply reach out to her. She was buying his bluff. Never would he have imagined the feared Madam Rose would watch herself like that. "The organization wants you back. As a freelancer, of course. You'll get to hunt heads as you please and get paid for it without Baltic even knowing you're here. And, as a bonus, we could arrange a prison riot to get a partner of your choosing out."

He chuckled, "Oh well that last part sounds too good to be true. We're gonna have to lay in that graveyard for years, won't we?"

The banshee nodded. "Of course. But that's your home sweet home, correct?"

Myrlenn laughed, "Sure is, but no matter how strong my partner might be here, most of what they know won't be worth shit even if we stay in 301. Your offer is garbage to me."

"I see," the banshee turned away from him, walking towards the staircase that led to the rooftop they were on. "Well, young man, I hope you take care of yourself before this war begins. It's hardly the best situation to be a lone wolf."

"Oh, don't you worry, Madam. I've been born ready to fight to the death at any time."

****
Ren
​

She had fallen asleep at some point, and the first rays of sunlight were tickling her nose. They were still on the move, though she could tell only because of the movement. It was weird to not hear any engine or the tires on the streets. She blinked a couple of times, realizing she was resting over someone's lap. She yawned and sat down, noticing her hair was a dark, almost black, kind of blue. She remembered Dao giving the order to a very pale, red-haired girl to mask her appearance and Liore's. The redhead had put some kind of device on her, but Ren had not really looked at herself since then. She just felt incredibly tired by the time they hopped on a black car with tinted windows and now here she was, still passing through the city. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms.

Clink

She recoiled in surprise as she clearly hit something metallic to her left. Ren turned to see she had just hit Liore's magic suppressor. However, she did not see it on him. His dark hair had changed to a chestnut shade, far paler than what she remembered, but it didn't look bad on him. His skin didn't even hold the marks of any kind of surgery. He was awake, judging from the way he straightened up and glanced at her. He had really pretty eyes. One was a pale blue-green, like an aquamarine and the other a grey that bordered on silver under the sunlight. Was this his disguise or was he something more than a mere human?

"Good morning," he mumbled before looking out the window. "We're on a slightly different route than before, but we have enough cover to buy something for breakfast."

"Oh, that's the egg meal you guys have, right?" She asked, before humming an old tune, already looking forward to her day. "It's gonna be the first time I have eggs in years~"

"Phoenix."

"Hm?" she turned around to face him. He looked rather tired. Did he not sleep? No, that wasn't it. He didn't have eyebags.

"We don't need to gather any attention until the safehouse in 255 is ready, so no matter what you see, I need you to act like you've been living here all your life. Everything you see, hear, smell, eat, whatever, that's mundane to you. Got it?"

The nymph nodded. "But I can still ask some stuff right now, or when we're out of sight, right?"

Liore did not seem very enthusiastic about her attitude, but shrugged it off, turning his attention back to the window, "Sure."

"I got one right now. I know my disguise is supposed to make me look human, but what about yours? Why the pretty eyes?"

The man chuckled, "My disguise here is merely a replica of what I used to look like, but thanks for the compliment."

"Are you really human, then?"

Liore shrugged, "Human as far back as I know. Which isn't saying much, in all honesty. My knowledge of my family stops with my parents."

Ren smiled somewhat bitterly, "Ah, that's really good. Most kids I grew up with didn't even know their parents. They were just under the care of Granny and it ended at that."

The vehicle stopped in front of a windowed place with a holographic sign that read "Lucila's Diner". Liore opened the door and held out a hand for her.

She took it with a smug smile on her face, "My prince."

He pulled her out of the vehicle with a small frown, "Don't make this weird."

 

[Late]

Ruby​

Ruby woke up when her alarm went off, and she slowly forced herself to sit up. It was 6AM, and around this time of year, the sun haven’t painted the sky blue yet. There was a bit of a chill in Ruby’s room but it was normal for her to wake up to. After minutes of sitting around and mentally telling to be ready for the day, she finally got up and decides to hit the showers first. But of course, her roommate was using it already. Where does he have to go at the crack ass of dawn?

“Heeey…you almost done in there?” Ruby asked, grogginess in her voice.

“10 minutes!” Her roommate yelled out from the other side.

Ruby pouts and decided to make coffee first. Once she got showered and dressed up, her roommate already left the unit. Not without leaving a note behind for her, next to her half empty coffee cup on their kitchen table.

Curious, she picked up the note and read it out loud. “A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks….wait, what’s that supposed to mean?” Ruby mumbled, flipping over the paper. Oh, another one. “There are three ways in life to become popular: be rich, be beautiful, or be funny. This…doesn’t help me for today…” She stated, talking to no one in particular.

Ruby decided to ask him later for clarification on these notes, that is if she remembers to do that the next time she sees him. For now, Ruby decided to use the rest of the time she got left to chill around the apartment and wait until it was 8 o’clock. Of which she began to clean around her bedroom. There was several junk that she no longer have attachment to and she been wanting to do this for some time.

After tossing away a couple of magazines, she found a card with a phone number on it. Ruby picked it up, racking through her brain to remember where she got his from. Eventually, she remembered going to a bar one night and have a run in with a cute looking human. One thing led to another and…

Ruby tossed the card away, feeling her ears burning as she clearly remembered how she got this number. “Can’t be thinking about that for today…” she sighed sadly.

It was 15 minutes before 8AM that Ruby was done cleaning around and she walked out of her apartment with a trash bag over her shoulder. She went around the building to throw it away and as she came back to the front, Ruby noticed there was a biker that pulled up. She thought it was a drake but as he got off his bike with his back facing her, Ruby realize it was a dragon. His wings were just clipped off but the jacket he wore got those jacket patches of wings on them with blood at the ends.

He turned around to look at the building and saw Ruby standing there, staring right back at him. The dragon definitely had their fair shares of fights, as scars was littered all over his face and bare arms. “Hey, aren’t you that police demon on the news?” The dragon grunted out, squinting as they continued to stare at each other.

“Uhhh what demon? There’s always demons on the news, haha,” Ruby laughed it off with a shrug.

As if on cue, a police car pulled up behind the motorcycle. Ruby bit her lip as the dragon looked at the car behind him with an intense stare. Two officers stepped out, being wary of the biker staring at them before approaching to Ruby. Thankfully, these two weren’t the same guys she was dealing with yesterday.

“Officer Hellfire?” One of them asked, looking friendly.

“…yeah that’s me,” Ruby sighed. She glanced back at the dragon and wished she haven’t. Now he was giving her an intense stare.

“Ready for your trial? We’ll be escorting you to District 240 to our courthouse,” the friendly officer said. He gestured at his partner, who didn’t seem to be all that interested with a lit cigarette in her hand. She opened the car door for Ruby to step inside.

“Yep…ready to go…” Ruby said, forcing a smile as she went ahead to get inside the vehicle. The two cops were quick to get back inside and they didn’t take long to reverse and drive away.

Ruby briefly looked back to see that the rider was watching them leave. What a strange guy. She remember dealing with biker gangs before but none were wingless dragons. She settled in her seat and took in a deep breath.

‘Just play it safe,’ Ruby reminded herself.

“Did you know that dragon?” The friendly officer asked, driving the car.

“No, he just kinda showed up outta nowhere,” Ruby answered. Now that she thinks about it, she never seen that dragon around her neighborhood before. What was he doing at her apartment so early in the morning.

“Oh good. It would’ve been weird if you had relations with the Blood Wings.”

“The who?” Ruby asked, confused.

“The Blood Wings. They’re a biker gang, dragons with no wings. Before, they were called The Sky Terrors. They once ruled the streets up in District 184, maybe even more districts until they were caught red handed for robbing a bank. Super dangerous back then but when they all got caught, we got rid of their wings and those glands in their throats so they don’t spit fire anymore,” the driver explained. “And so they became The Blood Wings, a group of wingless dragons riding on motorcycles.”

“They ain’t the shit like back then,” the other cop spoke, tiredness in her voice. “The worst they do nowadays are bar fights. I reckon we killed their spirit the moment the leader’s wings first got clipped.”

“That must’ve been painful…” Ruby mumbled. She can’t imagine losing something that is an extension of yourself.

“Eh, they were asking for it since they let a newbie in on their heist. Poor sap was horrified at the moment the doctors brought out the bone saw,” the cop chuckled as the driver was frowning at her.

Ruby fidget uncomfortably in her seat and silence settled over them until they got to the courthouse. With it still being early in the morning, there was a few civilians walking around. Ruby swore she saw Salvator’s car parked nearby but her car door opened up for her to step out. The two officers let Ruby out of the car and led her inside the large building. There is a courthouse in every 10 districts, and all courthouses have a very secured system when it comes down to letting civilians in and out.

When they walked up to the doors, a camera dropped down to scan in their faces before unlocking the doors. They stepped in the building and she was quickly received a pat down to make sure there was no weapons on her. One of the employees slapped a metal wrist band on her and she winced slightly at the cold feeling. It was a quick trip to get through the building, passing by many doors that were closed with a security pin at the side. Their room just happened to be closed by and Ruby found herself facing a metal door. The female cop walked over to input a 10 digit pin number before stepping back. The door opened up fast after a couple of seconds and Ruby swore she heard some kind of machinery humming within the walls.

In the room was dark but there was a lone podium for her to stand in. Ruby looked at the officer to her left and he only offered a smile, gesturing with an open hand toward the room. She hesitated a couple of seconds, feeling like something was off before finally stepping inside. The atmosphere changed the moment she stepped inside, it felt cleaner for some reason. When she was completely in the room, the door behind her shut immediately. Her tail got grazed and she jumped forward with her tail quickly wrapped around her leg.

That was a bit unnecessary. She quickly walk over to the podium, seeing that there was no other options for her in this room and as she settled in, the room started to light up slowly but not completely. Ruby could tell there were others in this room but she couldn’t see their faces all that well. Before her eyes can adjust to the dim lighting, five spotlights turned on in front of her and now she can see that there are 5 podiums in front of her, all elevated.

Immediately, she recognized Luis Lander in one of the podiums. He had a calm look on his face, staring down at her. Along with him, was a woman with white hair and dazzling blue eyes. She was beautiful to Ruby’s eyes but the demon did not know of her. Going down the line was a lean looking griffin with more of a vulture face and spotted fur pattern. Ruby heard of Luis talking about a griffin named Nicolas back then so maybe this was him. He didn’t like him all that much. The fourth commander was an old looking man, Ruby thinking he is human. He got this mean look on his face so Ruby can already tell that he’ll be a problem for her. Last but not least, was a cyborg centaur. The half of his body is machine but from his torso and up was mostly skin.

“Glad to see you here, Officer Hellfire,” Luis greeted with a small nod. “Our elder here didn’t think you’ll make it.”

“Shut your mouth, cub. Demons have the tendency to ditch their role in society the moment they get in trouble,” the human spits out angrily, glaring at Luis. Ruby squinted as she quickly noticed that the human commander was flicking in and out. This one was a hologram.

“Let’s just start this trial, shall we?” The woman spoke out, appearing annoyed for a brief moment. “Officer Hellfire, you are brought to trial for the following charges: using magic against your fellow citizens, threatening a fellow officer, and…open fire at an innocent individual. How do you plead?”

Wait, what? What do they mean by that? Ruby didn’t open fire at anyone at all except for Collymore…unless…they were putting his charges on her because he was dead. She tried to keep a still face but her tail whipped quietly.

“…guilty but not…guilty,” Ruby answered, not sure of herself. She never been at a trial before, so she wasn’t sure if her answer was valid. Plus, Ruby didn’t want to argue about her magic being used as self defense this point. After last night, it would be useless to bring it up here.

“I do not understand,” the cyborg spoke out, confused. “You admit to the charges, but deny as well?”

“Well…I never open fired on anyone. It was Collymore who hit the golem mechanic,” Ruby explained awkwardly.

The woman commander felt uncomfortable by this but the griffin leaned over. “That may be correct but someone has to take the blame for it. Can’t blame someone who is dead,” he said, as if it was the most casual thing in the world. “If we don’t, just imagine how the family of that mechanic would feel. It’ll make us look bad.”

“I understand sir, but frankly, its not fair to put a dead man’s charge onto me,” Ruby gritted out.

“And she is right,” Luis butted in quickly. “What Collymore did was a mistake and he already got his punishment. A bullet through his skull. I say we dismiss that charge completely.”

“And you call that justice?” Nicolas questioned quickly, frowning at Luis.

“…we’ll pay for the golem’s medical expenses and a paid week vacation, double his usual pay,” Luis suggested with a shrug.

“Agreed,” the human grunted out and eventually the other commanders agreed except for the griffin. Nicolas could only sigh in reaction. “Now, how should we pass judgment? I say we strip her of her title and give her a suppressor collar permanently.”

Ruby went pale at the suggestion and the centaur let out a dry laugh in response. “Are we sure Commander Trojan’s AI is fixed? He keeps suggesting the same damn thing whenever we have these kinds of trials.” Speaking of which, the centaur was also flickering.

“It’s accurate, trust me,” Luis sighed. “If he was really here, he would’ve said the same thing. Especially to a demon.”

“How particular that there is a demon who is an officer,” the woman said, staring down at Ruby.

“It’s a mistake to begin with,” the old man rasped out. “Demons as officers, it’ll never work. Its in their nature to be destructive, they are practically a ticking time bomb.”

“Sure, but Officer Hellfire did admit to her charges. She knows what she did is wrong, we shouldn’t punish her too harshly for the honesty. Plus, she been part of the forces for over two years. Chief Silver states she is a valuable officer of their District, that’s worth something,” Luis explained.

“He is just saying that because they’re friends,” Nicolas hissed out.

“Now don’t go doubting Chief Silver,” the centaur growled out. “I know of the man, he doesn’t sugarcoat his words. If he says that Officer Hellfire is valuable to District 244, we should take his word for it. It’s the least we can do for him for being a skilled sniper of the city.”

“Surely you didn’t forget Chief Silver shooting down the Goblin King from 4000 yards away,” Luis added in, staring at Nicolas.

The commander’s fur bristled. “No, I did not. I never met or work with the man, so I wouldn’t know him all that personally.” The griffin stared hard at her, before his fur eventually flattened down and his wings tucked in comfortably behind him. “As for my suggestion…she can stay as an officer. We’ll see how long you can last now that you have your first slip up. Along with that…I believe the suppressor collar is necessary. But for a month, along with having no access to the weapon’s locker room.”

“How can she be a cop for a month if she can’t have magic or weapons to support her against criminals?” The centaur scoffed.

“Shorten it to…a week?” The female commander suggested. That definitely sounded better to Ruby’s ears but the centaur commander didn’t seem to agree.

“Two weeks, but let her have the weapon locker.” Two weeks without her magic? Ruby wasn’t sure how to feel about that but it’s still better than a month. Or a lifetime.

“…agreed,” Luis sighed. He look over at his fellow commanders to see if they agreed as well. The female and centaur commander were already on board with this but the other two weren’t happy with the final verdict. It was 3 against 2 either way. “We’ll make sure the burnt victims are getting the treatment they need. As for you, Ruby Hellfire, your sentence will be two weeks of the suppressor collar. You will still be an officer to continue serving for this city, but know this; if it happens again, the punishment will be more harsh. Please keep that in mind before you start using your magic as means to assert yourself.”

That’s not what happened from yesterday’s event but Ruby bit her tongue to stay quiet. All she could do is nod her head agreement and like that, the trial was over.



“You did great, kid.”

Ruby was back outside of the courthouse in District 240. This time, she was with Salvator and a new piece of metal around her neck. It stings already for some reason, like there were needles prickling her skin but she know she saw that there were no needles. Was this the usual feeling for those who wear the collar for the first time? Not to mention that it was different compare to the other collars she have seen before. Black coated plates with a green light flickering. How can she even sleep in this?

“This thing is a bit bulkier than I thought…” Ruby grumbled, gently touching around her collar as she was afraid to set it off. “But…I guess it’ll do.”

“We can go get some breakfast if you’re up for it, my treat,” Salvator offered.

“…eh, sure. I can go for some waffles.”

The two walk on foot to a close by diner that Ruby didn’t know about. It looked to be family owned by a large set of dwarfs. On their way there, Ruby noticed she been getting stares from civilians they walked by. Not the usual stares she got used to but the ones of pity. She realized just how much she stood out with this collar on, and with her and Salvator wearing their casual clothes, people around here don’t know they’re actually cops.

They got to the diner, ordered some food and Salvator began to explain the whole situation to her about the station. Apparently a werewolf, named Zachary Evergreen, ruined their station and cells. He killed the goblins they held captive and one of their officer on guard duty. The interesting thing is that Zachary wasn’t city-born, as it shows his registration to Central City was dated only a month ago. It would mean that this werewolf came from the outside world, and with a clean record, it was strange that he already have a problem with them. Or maybe it was just the goblins he was after.

“We have his address in hand, he lives in District 289. I figured we can stop by his place once we settle over the matter of our suspect from last night,” Salvator said, playing with his plate of half finished eggs.

“Are the cells repaired already?” Ruby questioned. She had already finished her waffles, being awfully hungry the moment they got seated. The waffles here were really good.

“Only one, but it should be enough for now. When we’re done here, we’ll head to our station and prep ourselves for the interrogation. I, um…if you ever feel uncomfortable in that thing, just let me know,” Salvator added, gesturing at his own neck.

“I’m doing fine so far,” Ruby stated with a shrug. “This should be a breeze.”



After breakfast, they made it back to their station and got changed into their work uniform. Officers around her were curious about her collar, as if they never think it would be possible for their colleague to have one on and still be working with them. Ruby wasn’t sure how to feel about the attention she has been getting because of her collar but she appreciates everyone’s worry for her.

Even Reggie held back his bite when he saw her. “I modified the one cell we got currently to make sure it’s not easily breakable this time. The other cells will take time but it’s not impossible for me to do,” he said, rubbing his nose.

“See? We saved up money thanks to you,” Salvator chuckled as he ruffled around with the half dwarf’s hair.

“Ey! Not the hair!” Reggie hissed out, swatting away the chief’s hands.

They started the usual banter of the day, nothing new to Ruby as she rolled her eyes at them. She went ahead to take a close observation of their new entrance, wondering how Reggie could fix this part of their station. She touched around the bricks that stayed in place. As she was looking around, Ruby saw a police car pulling up in front of their building.

Immediately, she recognized the cyborg and elf from last night as they stepped out of their vehicle. Ruby felt self conscious of her new accessory but there was someone else sitting in the back of the car. It was their suspect.

MementoDei

 

[MementoDei]

Sophia​

The ride back to the precinct of 214 went by relatively fast, though, truth be told, she might have dozed off staring at the same old buildings of the lower districts. The buildings were always standing so close to each other but so crookedly, it had made her wonder if the buildings were not simply holding each other from falling the first days she got out of prison. Come to think of it, she had really stood out even with her most plain designer clothes and how politely she asked the passers-by for directions. She had grown into a different person in prison, but somehow as soon as she tasted freedom away, it was as if something within her wanted to flip the page back to who she was. It only took a week of not knowing where to find the hideout she was supposed to go, some creeps she had to scare away with an air gun and a nasty bar fight where some wingless losers spilt her drink over her before reality finally clicked for her. The outside world would be no different than prison, at least not in the lower ends of Central

Her door opened, and the cyborg pointed his flashlight straight at her. He squinted at the sudden blast of light, but there was not much she could do to block it. Her hands were tied to the chains that cuffed her feet. The light rain had grown into a thunderstorm; each droplet of rain was loud enough to seem like a shot fired with a silencer.

"Get out." the officer ordered.

Sophia rattled her chains, "I sure would love to, officer."

Her response made the half-machine sigh, then look up at his partner. "Let me keep an eye on her, will you?"

"Roger that," the elf soon came into her field of vision, standing to the side, one hand over his weapon. The cyborg took a key out of his left pocket, the kind that was made in obsidian and was useless to replicate since what made it open the cuffs was a small circuit of magic too complex to replicate without breaking the lock's ability to open in the first place. The officer had to practically lay over her lap to unlock it, but as soon as it clicked open, he backed away, grabbing her by the shoulder to take her out.

"What a rough man you are, officer," she said with a dry chuckle.

The elf took her by the other arm once she was out, the rain was quick to wet her clothes and her hair, even if the way to the station was perhaps only half a block. This kind of rain would be over in minutes, Sophia was sure of that much. Though, this much water would make it easier for the officers to take her makeup off.

"Welcome back, Officer Lang, Lieutenant Tovari." the voice of the station's AI said as soon as they crossed through.

It was exactly hard to figure out which officer was Lang and which one was Tovari. Elven names were always so exotic, it almost made her miss her first mission. There weren't many officers home, all things considered. Just some pixie fixing up paperwork, a couple of centaurs taking something out of a lab, and one unicorn trotting their way with a box from what she assumed to be some kind of archive room. The two officers took her straight to an interrogation room, tying her cuffs to the table. Sophia eyed the elf as he left the room behind the huge window in front of her, just a step or so behind where the tin man sat.

"I'll go straight to the point here, Miss. Welt. We know your papers are fake, and that the vehicle in flames you left behind isn't yours. It's a shame that you were shot at by that rookie cop, and I apologize on behalf of the force for that."

"Oh, no need. The crime stops with the perpetrator and said person is dead. Your department is quite impeccable compared to that little savage, so I hold no ill will against you."

He paused, leaning slightly back on his chair, "How kind of you. Still, you'll agree that your current circumstances are very odd."

"Indeed they are, Mr. Lang," she said with a yawn. "But if you did your due diligence, you'd find that I rented that RV perfectly cleanly. I was going camping, but it seems I landed in quite the magical forest regardless, so I suppose it's not quite a loss."

The man stared at her, perhaps only mildly amused at her reply, "You're not taking this very seriously, are you?"

"Should I? I mean, you can confirm my transaction was legitimate, leaving my anonymity aside."

The cyborg looked down for a moment, tapping the table softly with his fingers, "Of course. The rental was registered to your name alone, still, there are a few things I'd like to confirm. Many witnesses have told us you were accompanied by a man and another woman, possibly a nymph. We even got footage of you being together up until you entered the mechanic shop. What can you tell me about them?"

She shrugged, "Nothing in particular. We hit up a conversation at some point, and we were coincidentally heading the same way, so that was the end of it."

"Did they ever tell you where they were going?"

"Nope," she yawned. "If you really want to know, I saw them wearing caps of the T-Rexes," she looked at him as if to look if he got what she was talking about, but the cyborg only squinted at her.

She sighed, "Not a huge basketball fan, huh? Well, neither are most people here, so imagine my shock when I finally saw somebody who appreciated the local team. We hit it off talking about that, and that's about all our conversation was until they had to go do their business and I did mine. I didn't even really ask for their names."

The cyborg nodded, "I see. Well, that'll be all for me. Somebody will soon come to prep you for your photo and take your biometrics before I can take you to your cell."

"Have a great night, officer." She smiled at him as he left, barely able to lift her hand to wave goodbye.

The door slammed shut and only silence surrounded her. This was the most crucial moment for investigators. Any cracks and they'd come back flying. Well, not that they wouldn't do just that after they took their biometrics. Somehow, she suspected the paperwork pixie or someone here had already a hint on who she could be. Otherwise, why would they go through all this trouble to keep her in check? Sophia rested her head on the table, and softly closed her eyes. Her cuffs hurt so much.

"Tch, what a shitty day," she grumbled as she tried, in vain, to make herself a tiny more comfortable.

Only a few minutes after that, the unicorn guy appeared, shaking her shoulder with his hoof-like hands to wake her up. Sophia softly groaned at the interruption of the start of her deep sleep, but there was not much of a choice. She straightened up and watched him break her free from the table before she was taken to a very barren room with only a few androids and screens laying about. The robots sprayed a skin cleanser over her and cleared her makeup far more slowly than her little old android had put it on. Once that was done, they made her step next to another android that looked more like a lamp. It would fry most gadgets to modify one's appearance, as well as scan her for more weapons. Once the unicorn saw there was nothing else to her, he proceeded to send the remaining androids her way. They were about four, all of them the size of a big fly, shooting a scanning laser at her eyes as well as her hands. That was all they really needed to get her fingerprints and retina. The experience left her seeing blobs of blue light for a few seconds; god damn the old models were all made to make an already bad experience even worse.

Her file soon appeared on the holographic screen right in front of the officer's eyes, and she saw his eyes grow wide as he looked back at her.

"Oh, honey," she chuckled, "didn't your mama tell you that you shouldn't stare at girls like that?"

He seemed to want to say something to defend himself, but he found his cool and escorted her to a cell. On their way, there didn't seem to be anyone else besides your usual DUI offenders and bar brawlers. Out of the fourteen cells, only five had anyone in. She was taken to the last cell to the right, hidden away from the rest of the prisoners but also the closest to the two centaurs she had seen before. Both of them were very athletic women, with perhaps enough muscle to shame men who were on their way to see any muscle on them. Judging from the look of the clubs they carried, they had magical artifacts on them. The unicorn closed the door and took her cuffs off her, giving a glance at his colleagues, who only gave him a grave nod before standing to each side of her cell. Sophia rubbed her wrists and casually walked towards the door, leaning over the bars with her hands sticking to the other side of her cell.

She looked up at both of them. Both mares looked enough alike to be sisters, or perhaps cousins. The half-dragon whistled, letting her gaze linger over each one. "If I'm gonna have guards this beautiful, I'd like to extend my stay here. Would that be at all possible, ladies?"

The centaur to her left glanced at her. "You're leaving tomorrow, Miss. Gailis."

Cold and heartless. Just what made things more interesting.

"Aw, what a shame. Not even that Tovari guy has any say in it?"

The other centaur turned around, already putting her hand over her club, "You should consider yourself lucky to be relegated to that no-name department for just a kidnapping and a cop killing. You got a lot of things we could pin you with, Mrs. Verdengea."

Sophia smirked, "Oh, well that's a name I've rarely heard. Do I need to remind you that was the fastest marriage in the history of the world? Death did us part very easily. If you were to call me anything, call me Miss. Gailis, sweetie. It would sound much more graceful on your lips, compared to that hideous druid name."

The centaur took her club, but by the time it hit the cell, Sophia had already leapt back, completely out of its reach. The club had some kind of electric enchantment on it, judging from the small bolts that it left in its wake. The half-dragon sat on her bed, watching amused the other sister put a hand over the shoulder of the one that had tried to attack her.

"You're a feisty one, sweetie. I like that. Say, how about we find out what happens when that little gadget hits my collar? Do you think it'll break it? Because I'd love to play on equal terms with you. How long do you think it'll take me to grind your bones, huh? I've never taken on mares as strong as you before, and I do hope I'm not too rusty."

Her words seemed to instill some fear into the two, though they didn't let her see it much before returning to their guard posts, refusing to say another word no matter what she said. Sophia laid down on the bed of her cell and fell asleep rather easily.

****​

She sat alone at the Green Cobra, a bar filled with criminals of all sorts, from all the corners of the lowest districts she knew about. She had honestly a bit of trouble swallowing, but her throat felt like she hadn't drank anything in weeks. The air of district 299 was incredibly thin, though she had grown slowly used to it after the first few days. At the very least, she could finally get herself out of bed. The half-dragon took a sip of her whiskey. It tasted horrible, but the beer was even worse, surprisingly. Those Bacardi bottles were really just for show. No Bacardi would taste this disgusting. Rhea had told her there was a contact down in this place she could turn to, but the words "the Ghost is around the edges of the city" didn't exactly help much. The only place left to explore was district 300, and she really wasn't looking forward to more days of lightheadedness, vomiting, headaches and the increasingly painful sensation that her throat was completely dry. Nobody would answer her every time she asked around for this Ghost. In fact, the more she asked around, the more she felt people actively avoided her. On top of her sickness, meeting dead end after dead end just made her want to drink herself silly.

And that was how she had landed here.

'Maybe this Ghost guy won't be that much help,' she thought to herself as she downed half her glass of whiskey. She sighed. 'And here I was thinking I could find someone to count on to just lay low...'

Some loud music began to filter into the bar from the outside, and so did the loud jeering from a group of men before they kicked the revolving door open. The ambient chatter of the bar briefly stopped, and everyone gave a glance to the trio of...drakes? Yeah, they had to be drakes, who had come in. However, they quickly lost interest and returned to their games and usual banter. Sophia supposed the newcomers were small fry. Rowdy small fry.

Their leader made his way in and sniffed the air, "Hmm, I'm smelling something that's hella out of place here." he hollered as his crew advanced right behind him.

"Yeah, me too." another drake said.

"It's really ruining the mood here, boss." the third one added.

Sophia glanced up at them again. They were not drakes, but a very pathetic breed of dragon.

"It smells, to me," the leader said again before sitting in front of her, "like we got a filthy half-breed asking around for people way above her class."

The half-dragon put her drink away from her lips and set it on the table. "Is there anything I can help you with, gentlemen?"

"Aw, look at her." the third dragon said, "She speaks like she's rich too! Do you think that Nobu would like to have a whore like her?"

The leader shrugged, "I dunno. Nobu might like her, but Ryuu-kai might not let 'im keep her long."

"I'm not here for that kind of offer, gentlemen." She calmly said, "I have another set of skills that someone named Ghost might find valuable. Or so I was told."

"Another set of skills," the third dragon chuckled. He took her glass off the table and poured it over her head. "yeah, sure. We'll see about that once you suck me off, bitch."

These people were crass, but perhaps that was only to be expected. The language of the people around here was less than stellar. Good. She'll show them she could talk that language, too.

Sophia laughed at his words, looking down on the three men who had approached her. "Oh, you think I'm just gonna suck off some pathetic, wingless scum like you losers? Tell me, how much of a premium do you pay your girls to even let you touch them? Or could it be you three can't even find a dragon whore who'd even accept to be in the same room no matter how much money you throw at her?"

A group of dwarves from the table next to them began chuckling. The leader of the dragons showed his fangs, but not even smoke came out of his nostrils. The realization only made Sophia laugh even more. "Oh, and on top of that, you worthless bastards don't have any fire? Might as well put a little dress on while you're here. Do you want me to lend you my tutu, princess?"

Another man entered the room, but by that time, one of the dragons had smashed the empty glass over her head. She threw the leader with his chair to the floor and pinned him there, swinging the table to stop the two others from getting in her way. She went straight for the face, scoring two punches straight before the other two pulled her back. The leader got up, but not before Sophia kicked him on the stomach, making him stumble backwards, ruining the game of poker a group of hobgoblins were having. The group of four turned their anger towards the dragon, but the bartender, an imposing drake, got in the way before they could act. The hobgoblins spit toward the dragon but returned to where they were.

The guys who were holding her let their grip loose enough for her to twist their arms out of her way. Considering the way their bones cracked and they yelled out, she assumed she broke something. Nevertheless, they were now out of combat. She dusted her clothes off, seeing the angered boss approach from the corner of her eye. She stepped out of the way, letting gravity do its job as the man crashed. Only then did she use her powers again, pinning him from the head down. She stepped on his crotch, watching him cry out in pain.

"Oh, you still got one? It must be microscopic," she coldly said before sitting on top of him and throwing her third punch. However, when she was about to throw the fourth one, she felt someone hold her arm. She looked to her right and saw a silver elf, with eyes as blue as the ocean and white hair flowing in spikes down to his shoulders.

"How about you stop that, young lady?" the elf asked with a smile. "I think they've learnt their lesson."

His grip was solid as steel. Not to mention he looked far taller than her, as expected of an elf. She took a deep breath and got up, letting the man move at last. His other two friends were eyeing the elf with some apprehension, and so was everyone else. The elf helped the leader get up and patted his shoulder.

"Both the Ryuu-kai and the Yama-gumi would appreciate it if you took the L the cops gave you and left it at that, Will. You're only observants, got it?"

The dragon nervously acquiesced before dashing out of the doors of the bar. Now that she took a better look at him, Sophia could see a lotus flower circled in a hexagon tattooed over his neck. Little did she know, back in those days, that the elf that took her out of that bar was a Trader. He went back and forth from the Dead Zone and the lowest districts with goods that both served the small groups of survivors within the districts beyond 300 and the criminal world of Central.

That elf was also part of the deadliest squad of hitmen of the Yama-Gumi and Ghost was only one of his many nicknames. But she would only find about that months later when her plan against the world that let her down had finally taken form.

"Hey, wake the fuck up, cop killer," A man's voice hollered next to her as he violently shook her shoulder.

Sophia opened her eyes to the elf who had driven her here. She slowly sat down on her bed, "Good morning to you too, handsome."

"Give me your hands," he coldly ordered and, like the good girl she was, Sophia did so. He secured it even tighter than before.

"Ouch. You're being rougher on me than last night, Lieutenant Tovari. Mind giving me a little kiss to make it better?"

The elf huffed, yanking her by the shoulder to get her on her two feet. "Quit your banter and come with me. You're going to 244."

She looked outside of her cell, but the two centaurs were nowhere to be found. "Roger that. If those two beautiful mares aren't going to be watching over me, I'd rather go somewhere else."

The trip to 244 barely lasted over 15 minutes due to their sirens. Red lights, traffic, all of that bent out of the way as they sped away through the streets. If only she could feel the wind on her face, Sophia could almost picture those long, fast motorcycle rides she enjoyed almost every day before yesterday. It was a shame, but she could get used to it. To her surprise, the moment they stopped in front of the station, Sophia could see the marks of an attack of some sort. The place looked messy alright. Hopefully whatever made it look that way would not come very soon for her. There was a red-haired demon she saw in the distance, wearing a collar just like her.

She scoffed, "Oh, well that's certainly surprising. A cop on a leash."

The door opened and she stepped out, accompanied by the elf and the cyborg.

Late

 

[Late]

Salvator​

Salvator was just about done messing around with the half dwarf before Ruby walked over to him. He looked at her, a small smile on his face still until she vaguely gestured toward their very open entrance of a station. That was when he saw the two officers from the previous night and with them, was their suspect. His smile went away as he went ahead to approach them. The speakers of their AI stuttered in and out from their arrival but it wasn’t very clear to listen to.

“Morning…sorry for the…mess. We didn’t really get around to clean it up,” Salvator greeted the officers before looking at their prisoner.

“What exactly happened here…” the elf asked, having quite a judgmental look at the building. He can’t blame him, especially considering that they just transported their prisoner over to their building that doesn’t look all that stable.

“Uhh, werewolf, its hard to explain really…” Salvator answered with a sigh.

“I’m starting to think anyone below District 220 is just full of shit luck,” the cyborg muttered. “Not to mention…I’m surprised to see that demon still here. Did they really let her keep her job but with a suppressor collar on?”

“Well, I don’t know. She is here, ain’t she?” Salvator answered sarcastically, frowning rat the cyborg. “Are you two done here? We can take it from here.”

“Hm…we did some work for you last night. Gathered up her information and background, I’m sure one of our officers back at our district already sent over the details…that is, if none of your computers here are broken,” the cyborg mumbled.

Salvator squinted at him but didn’t make any comments. He knows at least a few working computers but at this point, he was done talking to them. “Officer Hellfire, why won’t you escort our prisoner into her cell in the basement? I’ll look into the information that these lovely gentlemen have mentioned to me.”

Reluctantly, Ruby walked over to them with Blue following along. “Yes, sir,” she answered, taking the prisoner from the two cops.

“You don’t seem all that happy to see us again, Officer Hellfire,” the cyborg commented. He glanced down to see Blue walking with her and let out an annoyed huff. “It’s no wonder you got let off so easily. You seem to have good connections with the commanders. I wonder what did it take for that to be a possibility,” he chuckled.

“Well for starters, maybe pulling out that stick up your ass will make you more likable,” Ruby casually suggested with a shrug.

The cyborg took a step forward, obviously angry at that remark but Salvator put himself between him and Ruby. He gave the man a shove and glared. “You’re done here, officer. Return back to your district,” he growled out.

The elf had to pull onto the cyborg’s arm for them to finally leave. Salvator made sure to stick around to see them getting back into their vehicle and leaving the street. Once that was done, he turned around to stare at Ruby.

“…I mean, come on,” Ruby started to explain herself, carefully. “How can anyone just let him run his mouth like that?” Her hand subconsciously tried to rub around her neck but with the collar in the way, she settled on scratching the back of her head. Ruby did seem uncomfortably for a moment.

“You’re lucky that happened here in our station. Now just get her to her cell. I’ll meet up with you down there,” Salvator grumbled.

Ruby nodded her head with a sigh and walked away with their suspect to the basement. Salvator went to his office to use his computer to check about what the officers have told him and there it was, a new message from the system and downloadable files. He went ahead to look through them, curious on what kind of person this woman was.

Ruby
​

Ruby wasn’t sure what to expect when she got to the basement. It was definitely…a mess but on the bright side of things, there was no bodies laying around like what Salvator mentioned when he first saw the scene. The only working cell just happens to be the last one at the end of the room, so Ruby gently pushed the half dragon along to her cell.

Once the cell door was closed and locked, Ruby stepped back to scratch around her neck. Last night did left a bitter taste in her mouth and it didn’t help that she just escorted Collymore’s killer here to her cell. When Ruby insulted the cyborg, her collar seem to act up on her behavior so there was just a strange itch sensation going on around her skin. She didn’t understand why this was the case, she thought the collars are only activated if they ever attempt to use magic.

Ruby glanced at the woman behind bars, who seem to be observing the damage of the room. She saw that she have her own collar but it seem to be the usual standard issue of suppressor collars. Maybe her’s was just busted? Whatever the case might be, Ruby figured as long she stays her in calm, happy self for two weeks, then the collar won’t be too much an issue for her. For now, she keeps watch over the woman as she waits for Salvator to join her.

MementoDei