The man in the trench coat slowly walked towards Adam. His pace was similar to a carefree swagger in his own neighbourhood. Adam could now see the mans facial features and complexion.

His face sported a black goatee and black hair blasted back1. His trench coat was the typical light brown colour and he was wearing matching pants and shoes. He was wearing some rectangular Ray-Ban glasses which glistened in the dim lighting of the factory. His left cheek had an ugly scar running from the chin to the glasses he was wearing. This meant that the scar went right through the left corner of his mouth, hence he described this mans smile as 'wickedly twisted'.

This man had reached Adam by this point, stopping about a metre in front of him. He simply stood there, sporting his wicked smile as he sized up Adam from top to bottom.

Adam started getting uncomfortable, there was definitely more to this man than first met the eye. Firstly, he knew his name. Secondly, he was right in front of him, almost as if he knew he would show up here. Then again, it was probably the aura that this guy exuded. It practically screamed 'Crooked Cop!'.

As if done sizing Adam up, the man got out his wallet and showed the inner side to Adam.

"My name's Leo Wesley. Commander Leo Wesley." The man briefly informed in a gruff and low tone while waving his Australian Federal Police officer ID in front of Adam as if it was an old toy.

The officer then continued, not even giving space for Adam to query his sudden intrusion into his most recent crime scene literally seconds after it had been committed.

"Now you see matey, you're in a bit of a pickle here." Commander Wesley looked Adam in the eye in the same manner an uncle would reprimand his nephew.

"You seem to have upset the order of things lately, and [The White Vigil] seem to be paying a certain amount of attention to the actions a certain little friend of mine is currently undertaking." Commander Wesley gave a little pause for effect.

"Now you see Adam, if [The White Vigil] were to hear news from a certain little bird I know that you've been here causing a ruckus and enjoying your usual activities then they wouldn't exactly take this lying down." The Commander gestured to Christopher's corpse with a little smirk.

Adam unsurprisingly started to feel threatened. That feeling when you are being backed into a corner, with [Awareness] Adam could find many shifting shadows in the corners of the factory, no doubt wielding various small arms, pointed at him doubtlessly.

This... Man. Adam couldn't get a measure of him. Commander Wesley seemed to generate a threatening atmosphere by merely smiling, the kind of smile you have when you have finally relieved a thorn by your side that had been present for far too long.

"What... Do you want?" Adam spewed these words from his clenched teeth, he was scared. He feared what this man could do to him.

Commander Wesley raised his eyebrows at my question, then casually pointed at a certain part on his ID that seemed quite conspicuous.

Adam swallowed the saliva that had formed in the back of his throat and spoke again, this time much more naturally.

"What do you want, Commander." A light had formed within Adams eyes, he had already decided that he didn't like this guy.

Commander Wesley seemed to not notice anything and continued with an extremely righteous tone.

"Now, whoever murdered this man before us must be an evildoer beyond saving."

"However, how shocked would the community be if they discovered the killer to be another righteous faction. Say the [Night Watchmen] were found to have committed a series of murders against members of [The White Vigil]."

"Wouldn't the two factions go to war, irrespective of the governments authority?"

An evil glint could be spotted in the corner of Wesley's glasses as he performed his villainous soliloquy.

However, what did they need Adam for?

"Now, your part in this is very special. [The White Vigil] already knows you as someone whom has killed various of their members. If they link your appearance to the [Night Watchmen] then it will only be mere moments before an all out war is sparked between the two factions of good alignment.

'Various? What?' Adam was confused when he heard the Commander claim that he had killed many other members of [The White Vigil]. However he just went along with it for now.

"Now, I believe that you will go along with what we say for now, won't you, Adam?" Commander Wesley stated since he already knew the answer.

Of course, that was the only answer which Adam could give at gunpoint.

...

The Commander had 'offered' to escort Adam home, and 'offer' which he 'gratefully accepted'.

On the way home, Wesley told many thing to Adam regarding the task the AFP would assign unto him, his responsibilities and the reward which would eventually come to him with the completion of the mission.

The ID cards of [The White Vigil] members were tracked by their organisation, thus Adam left all the gear from the vigilante in the factory, which was left to the AFP to clean up.

Adam also learnt a lot more about the state of the world after [The Second Renaissance].

Firstly, Adams speculations were right. In fact, they were far too conservative. In developing countries which the government didn't command prestige from the populace, factions and awakened organisations had already become the ultimate power there. This led to the rise of countless city states which weren't recognised by the current world powers. The situation was such that even in Russia, many provinces had ceded independence, although they were only the regions which had almost non-existent infrastructure rather than key industrial regions, they still managed to threaten the status of Russia as the biggest country in the world. The fighting in the middle east had escalated out of control, forcing the UN peacekeeping forces there to be withdrawn by their respective countries. Thus after a week of fighting the regions insurgent and militia forces had fallen and the lawful evil faction [Enter Sandman] had established de facto control.

The entirety of Africa had almost lost all semblance of governance with awakened warlords redefining the geopolitical borders within the continent, only a few stronger countries managing to maintain most of their strength against the turmoil such as South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia. With Algeria and Nigeria having already seceded into multiple city states.

Southeast Asia managed to roughly maintain its semblance of governance, this was only possible with nations like Australia, China and Indonesia directly influencing the running of the other countries to the point of deploying their troops in their soil for peacekeeping, thus these three countries became the biggest players in Southeast Asia. However, the evil awakened organisations and factions had been driven to piracy within the region, thus establishing various pirate fleets and essentially cutting off trade to the rest of the western world. This hadn't shown many effects thus far, however, since trade with China had become nigh impossible, the prices for many common goods would skyrocket in the west.

In Asia, China and N. Korea had managed to quell separatist movements because of their experience in quelling dissidents in the past. However it was a bloody affair and both countries were under fire by the international community. S. Korea and Japan were undergoing a certain amount of turmoil, however their society still functions normally as before. Eastern Russia is basically a conglomerate of allied states collectively referred to as

'Svobodnaya Kommuna' - The Free Commune.

More to the West, looking towards India. Considering the socio-economic situation in India, one would expect it to immediately fragment into anarchy, however a lawful good faction [The Golden Palm] which backed the government gained public support and steadied the country to become the most powerful country west of the Himalayas and East of Turkey.

South America was currently in the middle of an all out war. When the awakening first happened, the leader of Brazil had become corrupted by a devil from a lawful evil faction and led Brazil in a conquest of South America. Argentina was the first country to be annexed because they were unable to mobilise their troops in time to respond to the Brazilian advance, this was due to them taking advantage of the corruption within the Argentinian bureaucracy and bribing several key officers. The rest of the countries in South America, in emergency, formed the South American Union. The frontlines were fought by Chile, Bolivia and Peru. Thus the union was led by these three countries. The union also gathered the support of the lawful neutral faction [Scales of Balance]. The war was currently well underway and hadn't gathered any international intervention because of the events happening with the awakening.

In Central America, the drug cartels immediately got a hold of awakened troops and supplanted the government. This resulted in the lack of bureaucracy within the region and the creation of a drug haven. The drug trade is currently in full operation with estimates that around a quarter of the nation's population is currently involved within the actual production and smuggling of drugs.

In North America, the United States allowed the awakened organisations free reign in return for keeping to lawful activities. This policy has so far been effective in keeping the country together, however, there is intra-faction violence between factions daily on the streets. The situation has basically swept out of control for the law enforcement to do anything by themselves.

In Canada the emergence of a neutral evil faction [Winter Knights] has terrorised the populace. Managing to raid various outlying villages and towns, the group had already demonstrated their effectiveness in evading government forces and suppressing the growth of other factions.

In fact, the reach of the [Winter Knights] was rumoured to have spread from Alaska, since no news had reached the public regarding the Alaskan state, moreover, nobody could contact anyone living in Alaska. It almost seemed as if all the people in Alaska disappeared.

In Australia, the situation didn't differ. Under pressure from monster attacks and the evil factions, the government had succumbed to allowing awakened factions free reign. The strength of the factions differed but on the east coast, the biggest factions were [The White Vigil] and the [Night Watchmen]. They had gathered enough support from the public as for them to support their vigilante actions, despite their harm to a peaceful society.

The armed forces were fully deployed within Australia, this meant that the reservists were also forced to maintain the peace within Australia. The fact that monster attacks happened despite this was reason enough to warrant the need for awakened factions to control the amount of monsters.

However, the government wasn't satisfied with the growing influence from factions and thus established 'Operation Monarch'. This was were Adam fit in. He was meant to engage with a group of vigilantes from [The White Vigil] while they were training their new recruits. The plan after this was to let a few of the recruits escape 'accidentally' while the AFP would plant evidence within the scene that it was the [Night Watchmen] were responsible for the attack.

Adam also learnt that Commander Wesley was the one in charge within the AFP in regards to handling the awakened organisation and factions. This clearly demonstrated the governments stance towards these organisations thus far.

The convoy of black cars had finally reached Adam's residence by this point. Before going into his house, the commander stopped Adam. He handed him a brown envelope with a little smirk.

"This is just a taste for things to come, Adam. It pays to be our friend."

----

As soon as Adam stepped through the door to his house, the smile on Wesley was wiped off his face, only to be replaced by a very serious expression. The agents nearby the commander also sighed with relief, as if they had just managed to preserve their lives by the skin of their teeth.

Wesley could still feel the cold sweat within his clenched fist, he had a flashback of what happened a mere four nights ago.

The government was still in disarray regarding the awakening, not sure how to respond upon it. All they did was dump the responsibility on him and a few other officers from the Army and the State Police, made to be scapegoats.

This case was to be the first action by the AFP in combating the monsters. Wesley led a score of awakened to a plaza within one of the northern suburbs.

At first, one could hear the sounds of other cars within the freeway from within the Armoured Vehicle, however, slowly that sound turned into the distant screams of people. Eventually the screams also stopped, the only thing Wesley and the officers within the Armoured convoy could hear were the engines of the vehicles they were in.

After a seeming eternity of that nerve-wracking silence, the Armoured Vehicle convoy finally stopped, the officers within all rushed out off the vehicle and formed a defensive perimeter. They surrounded an old office building, a building which seemed to be composed of cracked and bloodied glass.

Everything until that point was just his men complying with orders. He entered the building alongside the score of officers with him. The entrance was exceedingly ugly, it seemed to be composed of concrete slabs. Every now and then he would see the corpse of a vigilante. They all had been torn apart. The blood was sprayed throughout the passageway in front of them. There was sometimes blood on the ceiling, sometimes on the wall. The floor was starting to pool with blood.

His troops reached a point in which appeared to be the lavatories of the edifice. The door to one of the stalls was suspiciously covered in a crimson dye. Before the stalls lay the corpse of a young woman, her head having been viciously ripped from her shoulders.

Going further up the staircase, the number of vigilante corpses they had seen numbered at about a dozen by this point. They eventually reached an office from which they heard the sound of fighting. Entering into the room for the first time, there was only one thing which Wesley could think of, 'How could there be so much blood?'

Everything was crimson, splayed corpses were toppled atop all the desks, bloodied weapons littered the ground. In a corner of the room was a young man whose face was covered in blood, he had bright, white hair and was dressed in a casual school uniform. There were at least a dozen vigilantes surrounding him, fear could be felt from their eyes, none of them were willing to step forwards and take that step towards that man, almost as if doing so would spell certain death.

Then, the youth moved forward, a seemingly simple swing of his arm. It casually slapped the cheek of the vigilante closest to him, his head spun three times around and tore off from his torso on the fourth, an incredulous expression plastered on his face. Immediately the vigilantes broke their ranks and ran, some of them so terrified that they jumped out the windows.

Then, the youth extended some sort of tendrils from his left hand, they were bright white, the same colour as his hair. The fastened around the people escaping and dragged them towards him. The constricted vigilantes were screaming in pain, some sort of corruption seeping into their bodies from the tendrils.

He wasn't sure which officer was the first one to turn an flee, but he wouldn't blame them. He would rather thanks them. If it wasn't for them, they may all have been stuck dumbstruck looking at the... Youth. Until it was their turn to be viciously eviscerated.

That... Young man, was the young man they were talking to just now.

-----

Adam stepped into his house and felt a great tiredness overcome his body, he felt like walking up to his room and collapsing on his bed, the time was already eight o'clock in the afternoon and it had been almost twenty four hours since he had slept.

He took the stairs up to his room and started undressing to prepare himself for bed, however, when putting his hand into his pocket he found some cloth fabric inside. Adam took it out and displayed it before himself to see what it was.

It was entirely black with the exception of a vertical sword and crescent which were coloured white, this was the vigilante's armband.

Adam had forgotten he had put it inside his pocket, so he decided to leave it inside the drawer he never uses.

Adam opened the drawer and was about to put the armband inside when he stopped.

Inside the drawer, were lots of armbands, easily numbering in scores. They were all some sort of white insignia upon a black background. Most of them were covered in blood too.