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“In a hostage situation, standing around with your thumb up your asses waiting for orders, or being hesitant to shoot, just gives the enemy more time to kill the civilians that they’ve taken captive. So no, we won't hesitate to pull the trigger.”
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—Andrew Taylor, on why Daedalus Contracting Incorporated has a “No Negotiations” hostage retrieval policy in an interview on March 15, 2031.
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Pyre went from rooftop to rooftop, hoping that he could at least help someone tonight. It got under his skin to no end that he couldn’t do anything more to help Jessica at the moment. Pyre was somewhere in New Hellensburge’s Midtown district when he noticed the klaxon blaring, like an alarm. Looking down, Pyre saw that the plate glass windows at the front of a jewelry store had been shattered. People were screaming, although Pyre couldn’t quite make out what they were saying over the alarm klaxon from across the street. Using the solidified fire catapult technique, Pyre hurled himself onto the deserted sidewalk across the street from the jewelry store and then hurled himself from that rooftop through the now shattered and glassless window of the jewelry store.
Immediately, Pyre saw five masked, armed men, all carrying pistols, in the store, and every one of them was shooting at someone dressed in all black, with a knife in his or her hands.
A pang of guilt and regret stuck Pyre as he spotted a woman in a security guard’s uniform, lying dead on the floor, with obvious gunshot wounds riddling the female guard’s corpse. Three more bodies, namely deceased robbers, also lay on the floor, and one of their corpses was riddled with gunshot wounds. A pistol was still clutched in the dead guard’s hand. The other two deceased criminals were clearly dead of various hacking, slashing, and stabbing injuries, despite the security guard’s corpse having no knife on it that Pyre could see. Pyre had to make himself push away the pang of guilt at his inability to save the guard’s life, bury it deep down within himself, and lock it away so that he could focus on the present situation.
It did not escape Pyre that the bullets from the criminals’ guns should be mowing down the knife-wielding figure, but seemed to pass through him or her without having harmed him or her. While not certain, Pyre thought the figure was a woman. The knife was roughly fifteen inches long, and the criminal’s target held it in her right hand, but Pyre had no time to dwell on the figure’s choice of weapons or her lack of bullet wounds.
So Pyre mentally noted it, as he sprung into action, which Pyre did the moment he heard the crunch of broken glass under his boots. Balls of fire spewed from each of Pyre’s hands, lighting two of the remaining five robbers on fire. They screamed as they collapsed to the ground, enveloped in the fire, the flames charring flesh as they licked over the bodies of the two, and consumed them. The stench of burning flesh—which smelled remarkably similar to burning pork—rapidly filled the air, as the other vigilante—his or her outfit was baggy, so Pyre couldn’t yet discern their gender with any degree of certainty, despite his suspicions that the figure was female—charged forward, now slashing at a further two robbers—with a knife in each hand—as the fifth robber proceeded to tackle Pyre, who’s back hit the ground, prompting the wind to leave his lungs.
My enhanced strength—it’s not keeping me up! This one has gotta be a Variant, Pyre thought, as his mind raced a mile a minute.
Pyre tried to shake the weight off of himself to no avail—as the enemy straddled Pyre’s waist with his pelvis—while Pyre tried and failed to block the punches. He no longer had the other vigilante in his line of sight, so he couldn’t use the solidified fire Storm of Shrapnel technique without the risk of the shrapnel wounding her. Three punches later, Pyre’s head had been repeatedly slammed against the ground. The visor of his modified motorcycle helmet was beginning to crack. As Pyre’s enemy pulled his arm back for a fourth punch, Pyre stopped his flailing, futile attempts to block the punches, raised his hands skyward, and sent a burst of flames directly into his enemy’s eyes. The weight of the other Variant proceeded to roll off of Pyre as the other man curled up into a fetal position, sobbing something about his eyes, and not being able to see. Forcing himself up, Pyre saw the last robber getting stabbed to death by the black-clad figure, who was now holding a knife in each hand. This figure was apparently another vigilante.
Finally, someone else is doing the necessary too, Pyre thought, before his thoughts turned back to the guard.
Pyre had suppressed any upset he might have felt until after the fight so that his emotions would not get him killed by distracting him, or impairing his judgment.
Still, I wasn’t fast enough to save her, Pyre thought of the guard, with a mixture of guilt and grief, before Pyre once again pushed those emotions down within himself, and locked them away, not letting them fully bubble to the surface, to prevent them from becoming a threat to his mission.
He could grieve for the life he’d failed to save later, but he could not let such emotions, however justified they may have been, negatively affect the mission—or his ability to recruit new allies to the mission. Pyre could grieve for the guard later and knew that he would, indeed, grieve later. But that would come later.
Sirens blared in the distance, on top of whatever alarm was blaring inside the store. The other vigilante, if that’s what she was, ran through a nearby wall before vanishing, somehow managing to do so without damaging the wall, or injuring herself—but Pyre didn’t question it. If word of mouth was to be believed, there were plenty of Variants with even weirder abilities. Using the solidified fire catapult technique, Pyre hurled himself out of the store through the now glassless shop window, then went straight to the rooftops, searching for this other vigilante. He could be a good ally if Pyre ever needed one. Or she. Pyre wasn’t sure of this person’s gender and was not going to judge them on that metric either way. As Pyre searched, the crack in his visor proved to be little more than a minor irritation. Nothing had chipped off, anyway, and even if it did, he wore a ski mask under the helmet to protect his identity in just such an eventuality.
Finally, Pyre found them in an alley, passing through a fence. Jumping down, Pyre landed on his feet, bending his knees as he landed, to avoid serious joint damage. This prompted the other vigilante to spin around and raise two knives, one in each hand.
“Wait! I want to talk to you,” Pyre blurted out.
The other vigilante stopped, before lowering the knives and saying, “You’re that Pyre guy those reporters have been writing about in the newspapers, aren’t you?”
Stunned, Pyre replied, “Yes, I’m Pyre. Didn’t realize that I was considered newsworthy though.”
“Yeah,” the black-clad figure, still holding a bloodstained knife in each hand, replied in a voice that seemed to be mechanically altered by the matte black, face-mask-shaped Vocal Disguise Unit she wore over another mask.
This Vocal Disguise Unit was shaped like a cloth face mask one might have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Her voice was disguised well, but it sounded more ghostly than demonic—unlike Pyre’s voice when it was filtered through his Vocal Disguise Unit. Likely because Pyre’s had been custom-made by Richard, and fitted to the mouth area of the motorcycle helmet he wore.
Shifting both knives into the grip of her left hand, and pulling out a rag from one pocket, the figure used the rag to wipe the blood off of both blades, as the figure continued, “The New Hellensburge Town Crier and the Saber Parish Sentinel both ran articles on you recently. Believe it or not, the first one to openly cover you was a reporter, whom one of those papers pays to run an investigative podcast. So now I guess I’m dealing with two surprises.”
“Wait—what two surprises,” Pyre semi-demanded, immensely confused.
“Firstly, you’re in the news, but you didn’t notice that you’re in the news. Secondly, I’m just pleasantly surprised to meet someone else doing what needs to be done,” Specter replied.
“Thank you,” Pyre said, embarrassed about not knowing that he’d made the news, “I don’t read the news too much, although I should probably fix that. So, you got an alias or something I can call you?”
“Yeah. Call me Specter,” the figure stated.
“Yes ma’am,” Pyre said, guessing the other vigilante’s gender, before hastily adding, “Sorry. You are a lady, right? Like, I’m not misgendering a dude beneath that mask, am I?”
“Yes, I am. So no, you don’t have to worry about misgendering me,” Specter replied.
“Okay. Good,” Pyre replied, somewhat relieved, before asking, “So, do you have a burner phone or some way I can contact you?”
“If you mean a phone I can use for this sorta stuff without risking my identity, then yes, I have one,” Specter replied, before asking him, “Do you?”
“Yes,” Pyre said, taking a slip of paper—on which he’d written the number of both his burner phone, and Reforger’s burner phone (in addition to having written their aliases next to their respective numbers)—from his pocket, and handing it to her.
“What? You carry business cards,” Specter asked.
If Pyre had to place a bet, he’d wager that she was amused.
“It’s useful to be able to contact informants. Where I need them. Or partners, like Reforger,” Pyre explained, “You could be one of the latter. Assuming you want to be.”
Specter nodded, saying, “Definitely. So, what do you want to work together on?”
“Finding Jessica Wilcox. I’ve been looking into the case along with Reforger, one of my more…discrete associates. Almost useless in a fight, but extremely good at digging up dirt on people, and finding data others want to keep hidden. The fact that he hasn’t managed to turn up a lead yet is…concerning,” Pyre admitted.
“Sorry to interrupt, but we should probably get going sometime before the police dragnet the area for us,” Specter stated.
“Agreed. Keep your eyes peeled for Jessica, and keep in touch, especially if you find a lead. Good luck,” Pyre replied, before using a pillar of solidified fire to hurl himself onto a nearby rooftop, and then repeating the maneuver to go from rooftop to rooftop.
After several blocks, Pyre called Reforger, with the smartwatch that was paired to both the Bluetooth earpiece under his helmet and the burner smartphone in his pocket.
“Hello,” Reforger’s mechanically disguised voice asked through the earpiece beneath Pyre’s helmet, “Pyre, you there?”
“Affirmative. I just solved a jewelry store robbery—which left a security guard dead—with some assistance from another vigilante. She calls herself Specter,” Pyre explained.
“Whoa, back up! I’ll look through what data I can find for a vigilante under the alias Specter, but without a legal name, it might not be as precise as a background check I could do if I had the subject’s government name. You’re trusting her too quickly,” Reforger stated.
“I gave her the number to my burner phone,” Pyre retorted as he hurled himself from roof to roof with more pillars of solidified fire, which melted away to ash after he was done with them. “That’s not the same as trusting her. I gave Allen Brown this number, and you know I don’t trust him,” Pyre concluded.
“Did you mention me,” Reforger asked urgently.
“I never said anything that would compromise your identity. I mentioned that someone under the alias Reforger helps me find information. That’s the full extent to which you were mentioned,” Pyre stated.
“Why would you even tell her that much though? Assuming that this Specter is a lady,” Reforger demanded.
“Because I think we could use an ally. Both while rescuing Jessica, and generally. If we can trust her, great. If not, we’ll deal with her. Either way, we should at least keep an eye on her,” Pyre dictated to Reforger.
Reforger sighed, before saying, “With the whole keeping an eye on her bit, I agree. I’ll look up any records of her, and email your burner phone the results. Also, I finished that eavesdropping app for your smartwatch, but I don’t want to leave any trace of it on a wifi network. Even though I could purge said traces from the aforementioned networks, it’d probably be wise to work smarter, not harder.”
“Okay. So what do you need me to do,” Pyre asked, trying to keep his irritation at the whole beating around the bush thing that Reforger was doing from seeping into his voice. Pyre then added, “Come on, Reforger—you know I don't do unspoken implications well.”
“No problem. I’m guessing it’s the diagnosis of your HFA,” Reforger stated, “After all, I’ve been looking further into the symptoms of Autism—in particular, the high-functioning variety—in the hope of avoiding any miscommunications in the field that may stem from it. Actually, it’s quite fascinating. Even with all the drawbacks of the condition, there are some advantages to—.”
“Sorry, but it’s not advantageous,” Pyre interrupted, his mood suddenly extremely sour, “The doctors that diagnosed me as a kid made that abundantly clear.”
There was a brief, tense pause, before Reforger nervously asked, “What did those doctors say?”
“They said what the outlook was. That I would never read, walk, talk, or write,” Pyre explained, “They told my mother to just put me in some backwoods medical institution and forget about me.”
“But you can do all four of those things very well! Besides, wouldn’t encouraging child abandonment violate the medical profession’s oath to first do no harm,” Reforger asked.
“Yeah, it probably does. Not like they cared, though,” Pyre told Reforger, “And I learned all those skills not because of my disorder, but despite it. It’s the same reason I’m so focused, and so used to working harder than everyone else, whether it's in school or elsewhere. I had to work far harder than anyone else just to learn how to talk, walk, read, and write. I didn’t speak my first word until I was four. More than two years too late. Eventually, I just got used to having to work far harder than anyone else. Doing twentyfold the work of my peers became normal for me, even after I’d caught up with the skills of our age group, and then surpassed them—at least academically—in most subjects. I’m defective, and I know it. I just really don’t like being reminded of it. So please, don’t bring up my diagnosis again.”
“Okay,” Reforger nervously replied, “Understood. I won't bring it up again. Please, do meet me at the scrapyard. I think it best that I install the app on your burner smartwatch and burner smartphone in person.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” Pyre said, “Goodbye. And…sorry I snapped at you.”
“No problem. It was tackless of me to bring it up. See you tomorrow,” Reforger replied.
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Lela Feris stood in her bedroom, stripping off the Specter disguise that she used to conceal her identity. Her room was, to say the least, ornate and fancy, although she would wager that such things were among the benefits of living in a mansion, located in the area that was known to New Hellensburge residents as Rich Man’s Row.
Regarding the room, it was a large, white-walled affair, with a high ceiling, from which hung a massive, ornate glass chandelier, and was filled with ornate wooden furniture. Ornate was probably the best one-word description of the room, to begin with. There was a small, round-topped, wooden table; a wooden desk; several wooden chairs; the ornate wooden queen-size bed frame, flanked by a pair of wooden bedside tables; and an old, wooden set of drawers. That’s before you get to the walk-in closet she had. Lela preferred wood furniture, and yet, Lela loathed this wealth, which many people her age would have killed and died for. Her mother had won that custody fight. Her mother’s death had been what led to this. If living in abject poverty would bring her mother back, Lela would gladly run away to the streets. But it wouldn’t, so Lela tried to at least somewhat enjoy the wealth she so loathed.
As Lela stripped down, she was watched from the bed. No, not by a boy or a man. And no, not by a girl or a woman either—she wasn’t sexually active at all, actually. Minors tend to be that way. She had, admittedly, sometimes wondered—silently and privately—what that would be like, but had never acted on such pondering thoughts. Rather, she was watched by an elderly Smooth Coated Collie—yes, a sheepdog, that kind of Collie. Well, there are multiple kinds of collies, but all of them are sheepdogs. He was curled up into a furry ball, with only his forepaws and his head jutting over the edge of the bed’s mattress, on which he lay. His fur was mostly black, with white highlights on the tip of his tail, and on his forehead. Further white highlights were coupled with light brown highlights on his paws, belly, and chest. There were areas—his face and ears, for example—where the dog’s fur was going grey at the edges. Just after her mother’s death, Lela’s father bought her this dog to ensure she wasn’t too lonely while he worked. That was seven or eight years ago. Maybe nine? Lela wasn’t exactly sure of when they got him down to the time of day. Either way, the dog raised his head, his pointy ears turning floppy halfway up to their tips, and cocked his head to the side in an expression that Lela believed meant that he was either confused or curious. Then, the collie jumped up from, and off of, the mattress, while he rushed—insofar as an elderly and arthritic collie could rush—to Lela, his overjoyed tail wagging wildly in what was a flurry of motion for such an old dog.
“Hey, buddy,” Lela told the collie, “How’s my good old man, huh?”
The dog, Zack, sniffed and then licked Lela’s hand, as she pet him—namely by rubbing him under the chin. Kissing the dog on his forehead, Lela resumed stripping out of her Specter uniform and gear—although to call it gear may have been overstating things, as it was really a couple of knives in sleeve sheaths, and a bunch of throwing knives sheathed on a belt at her waist, plus a burner smartphone.
Lela had been experimenting with her abilities for quite some time. She knew that every time Specter wanted to attack a target, whether it was with throwing knives, another type of knife, or even her fists, Specter had to briefly turn off her phasing ability, which—despite her enhanced strength and stamina—left her vulnerable to everything from bullets to a literal gut punch. She didn’t like being vulnerable to attack, just as any sane person wouldn’t like the possibility of getting killed.
That said, Specter would not use guns—not because they were unethical, but because gunshots were noisy, and tended to attract unwanted attention, whereas knives could be used silently. Besides, guns were more easily traced by the police.
Lela stripped off the Specter outfit, after emptying the pockets of her burner smartphone and removing the belt of throwing knives, plus the knives in the sleeve sheathes. The outfit itself consisted of a black trench coat; a tight-fitting/long-sleeved black shirt with a high collar; a pair of baggy black cargo pants; black combat boots; black work gloves; a black fabric mask with silver lenses over the eyes; and a matte black Vocal Disguise Unit worn over the black fabric mask with the silver lenses over the eyes—the last item of which was shaped almost like an industrial N95 face mask. By way of weapons, over the long-sleeved shirt but under the trench coat, there was a razor-sharp knife, in a sleeve sheath on each of her arms. Additionally, there were a total of eight throwing knives on her belt, four sheathed on each hip. These throwing knives were just longer, fixed-blade knives, with rings at the bottom ends of the handles, to provide a better grip when using certain throwing techniques. Lela always removed the gloves last, to avoid leaving fingerprints.
Putting the knives, and other equipment she used as Specter, into the locking trunk at the foot of her bed—except for the uniform itself—Lela locked it and went into the adjoining bathroom to shower while bringing the uniform into the bathroom with her. She needed to wash the uniform, but if her father saw her covered in that much sweat at night, it would just attract unwanted attention. Assuming her father was home, which was rare, although Lela still figured it would be unwise to risk discovery unnecessarily. After closing and locking the bathroom door behind herself, Lela dropped the uniform down to the bathroom’s tile floor and proceeded to strip off the undergarments she had been wearing beneath the uniform.
Once in the shower, Lela lathered up with soap, and let the warm water course over her body, washing up as she delved into her thoughts.
Pyre wants to work together. I don’t know how he operates, or what ulterior motives he might have—hell, even if they aren’t ulterior, I still don’t know his motives. Or Reforger’s, for that matter. I should proceed carefully—but I should proceed. And that kid he mentioned, Jessica Wilcox…I should look into her.
After showering, Lela toweled off, then got dressed in a nightgown with slippers, before stuffing her Specter uniform undergarments into a laundry sack and setting out for the laundry room.
Zack followed her, sniffing at her, with his tail still wagging in as furious a joy as his old joints would allow.
It was late at night, so Lela was alone with Zack as she walked down the hallway, her slipper-clad feet shuffling over the hardwood floor. The trim separating the wall from the ceiling was made up of ornate wooden carvings, while the baseboards separating the walls from the floor were carved, but not in nearly so ornate a fashion. The walls themselves were dark green, with an off-white ceiling. In the hallways were various expensive paintings, some of which were commissioned recently, hung up alongside older painted portraits of family members, and various ornate statues. The family portraits had been there for as long as Lela could remember—but the other paintings were comparatively new, as were the ornate statues. If her memory served, the first of them had been added just after Lela’s mother had left—during the custody battle between her parents—with more having been added by the time she moved back in with her father, after her mother’s death—and even more were added after that. Some would have suggested that the sudden accumulation of ornate decorations—in conjunction with Lela’s father, Alvin Feris, having thrown himself into his work, and becoming something of a workaholic—was her father’s way of grieving, of numbing the pain, or perhaps of distracting himself from the loss of his beloved wife. It was no secret that he still loved Kathrine, even after Kathrine had served him with divorce papers. But Lela made no such excuses for her perpetually absent father.
Descending to the first floor of their mansion, down an ornate, ballroom staircase, Lela walked through an ornate ballroom, and down yet another hallway, before entering the laundry room. It was a slightly larger affair than most laundry rooms, with two washing machines, and two drying machines, so that Lela and her family weren’t left high and dry if one broke, and couldn’t be repaired immediately.
Emptying the laundry sack into a washing machine, Lela poured some detergent into the machine, closed the machine’s lid, and turned it on, before putting away the laundry detergent. Now, all that was left to do was wait for the machines to finish with the laundry. It wasn’t like Lela was alone though—Zack would keep her company.98Please respect copyright.PENANATgQO9e43Re