Chapter 15

Jester

Maria continued to scream while clinging tightly to Felix’s arm like a cat to a bath. As they got closer, Felix waited to pull the pin on his parachute. Maria hurriedly opened up hers and launched her upward, in the airborne longer.

Felix had touched down and lifted his goggles, stood in wait while Maria had slowly floated toward the roof, unaware of the mechanical eyes that had watched them floating from above.

As he helped her down, she glanced to the side with rosy cheeks and yelled in a shivering voice, “Sh-shut up!”

“I didn’t even say anything.”

Though as she opened her eyes, she noticed a glint in the distance. She pushed Felix to the ground, “Get down!”

The concrete ground was suddenly riddled with bullets. As the two got back up, Felix saw from the corner of his eye the armed drone floating above them while it prepared to fire once more.

On the ground, he drew out one of his guns and fired, but every round missed the small target and disappeared into the sky. Before Felix could reload, Maria drew out one of her knives and flung it towards the moving target. The knife spun and made a sharp turn midair, and struck the drone right in its center.

“That…” She said, looking to Felix, “…is what it means to be an esper.”

“But I didn’t learn anything.”

“Oh.” Maria looked to the side and pouted.

“Come on, no time to waste.”

The two agents walked to the door, Felix gestured for Maria to stop where she stood, “Wait, it’s probably boobytrapped.”

Maria snickered in response.

He stood at the side of the door as he reached for the knob while Maria waited beside him.

“Mhm?” Felix jiggled the knob.

“What?”

“It’s, uh, it’s locked. I don’t have anything to pick lock it with. Bring out your grappling hook, let’s look for another entrance.”

“Or break this one down.”

“Oh… right, stand back.”

Felix pulled out the gun from under his coat, but before he could take aim, Maria whispered, “The thing you need to know is that being an enhanced human, an “esper”, let’s you do things—”

He glanced over to her to hear what she had to say, but as he did, she came rushing towards the metal door. With a loud bang, the metal door suddenly crashed inward to the building. A cold sweat dripped through Felix’s face as he slowly turned and saw Maria’s leg steadily hanging from her kick.

“—No one else can.” Maria smirked.

”What just— How did you?”

“No time to waste, right? After you~” Maria replied with one hand on her chest and the other pointed to the entrance.

“Th-that’s not—We should try this again.” Felix mumbled.

“Aww, Felix. This isn’t a competition. If it were, then I’ve already won.” Maria answered sweetly, much to his chagrin.

As the two reached the hallway, Felix extended his arm in front of Maria and said; “It’s possible that they’ve set traps all over the building.”

“I suppose bullets are just gonna fly from all over the corridors?”

“They did earlier, didn’t they? Split up, cover more area, and be careful.” Felix answered as he put on his mask.

The two nodded to each other and took different directions. They dashed through the bright, peach hallways with a single bound. The two agents became nothing more than a dark flicker on the surveillance cameras, all while a figure gazed over them.

As Maria traveled through the corridors, she noticed a silhouette from the other corridor. She quickened her pace, but as she followed the shadows, she found herself at the entrance of the indoor parking lot. The air was damp, and the green lights were hazy.

She brought out her gun in one hand, and her knife in the other, and sought out the shadows that moved in between the wreckage. Yet as she took a step forward, there was a thick, metal noise that caught her attention. As she looked down, fires and shrapnel suddenly burst out right in front of her.

Felix, in his search, stopped as he heard a sound from one of the rooms in the hall. He approached the door as quietly as he could before slowly opening it.

Inside was the pale lights from the other buildings outside seeping into the room through the window shades. The scent inside was foul.

On the bed, where the sheets leaked blood, he found three bodies piled up above one another.

He hesitantly came closer towards them and saw that they were all riddled with bullets. He noticed something small glinting – it was a pin with a red bird symbol marked with a red ‘x’, hidden in the stains.

Felix put his mask to the side of his head and muttered, “Robins…what happened?”

A loud barging suddenly came from the white, wooden wardrobe from the corner of the room, Felix brought out his white gun and aimed it before walking closer.

He took two steps forward, and heard a crunch on his foot. He stepped back with a nervous face as he saw a crushed syringe on his foot.

A man burst out from the wardrobe and tackled him to the ground.

“What—?! Get off of me!” Felix yelled out in a panic.

The man’s face got up and close to Felix’s, with wide red eyes. His hair was messy, with dark bags under his eyes, and had a putrid scent on him.

He growled as he kept Felix pinned on the ground while a string of saliva began to flow out of his mouth, dripping against Felix’s cheek. In panic, Felix smashed his forehead against the man’s jaw.

As man moved back and clutched his mouth, Felix grabbed his arms and threw the man over the bed and slammed over the corpses stacked over it.

He quickly wiped off his cheek in disgust.

The man growled, foaming in the mouth, and rushed back at him. But Felix quickly grabbed his white gun and shot him, stunning the man in place.

“Who are you? Were you the one who did this?” Felix huffed out as he quickly got back up.

“M-more… give— give me m, more!” The man growled out as he pushed through and pounced back at him. “MORITZ!”

Felix instinctively pulled out his black gun, and with a big bright burst, the man was slammed against the wall, while the recoil threw him back against the other wall. The powerful impact caused the lightbulb to flicker and buzz.

“Tsk.” He clicked his tongue, still startled by the sudden assault. “Bollocks.”

Felix got up and he calmed his breathing before approaching the man’s body. He placed his hand on the man’s neck.

“Good, he’s not dead just yet… hopefully I could still get a few answers from him.” He sighed in relief, despite the man already bleeding out from his shoulder.

Felix put on his mask and slapped the man’s face. “Wake up.”

“G-guh…” The man mumbled out.

“Who did this to you? What happened?” Felix asked as he kneeled down to him.

The man’s face contorted with deranged anger and yelled, “M-MORITZ!”

He grabbed Felix by the throat, but Felix stared at him with cold blue eyes and placed his gun on his forehead. A pink and red mist splattered on the wall.

Felix holstered his gun, and noticed his hand quivering slightly. He clenched his hand tightly and got up.

“Moritz, huh?”

He glanced back to the three other corpses in the room. He walked to the light switch so that he could investigate. But as he flipped it open, a sharp metallic clink immediately quickly made him run through the door.

By the time he got out, the room burst out in flames. On the ground, he looked up and saw a figure of a young man standing on the other side of the hall.

A civilian? Felix thought to himself as he got back up. No, who is he?

He brought out his white gun before walking back to check, where he found a young man, and noticed a glint from behind the standing figure. His mask reflected on the small camera of a drone hovering in the hall.

With a loud whir, it began to fire at him.

“Damn it, damn it!” Felix yelled out as he swung his gun, fending off against the hail of bullets.

With each blow, his feet scraped further back on the floor, until his back was pinned against the bright peach-colored walls. Many of the bullets slipped by him and struck him straight in the chest and arms and legs.

As the drone ran out of bullets, Felix slipped to his knees.

His blood dripped from under his white metal mask. And his white metal mask, which was made of a material harder than titanium, had shown scratches on it.

The lone figure whistled out and spoke, “Whoa, you agents are something else. How are you still alive?”

Felix lifted his head up and saw a young man with bright orange hair and a black star tattooed underneath his left eye. There’s… a kid?

“Are you… who are you—?”

“Answer my question first.” The young man interrupted.

Felix answered between breaths with a slight smirk on his face, “Bullet-proof coat.”

“Oh, oh really? Damn, I thought you were just wearing that to look edgy. Well, you answered my question, allow me to answer yours, my name is Moritz Wulfe.”

“You were the one who did that to those people?”

“If the holes in their body and the drone I have didn’t make it obvious enough, then yes, I was the one who did it. Now tell me who you are.” The young man, Moritz, said as he pulled off Felix’s mask and threw it to the side.

With grit teeth, Felix answered “Blue Phantom.”

“Now that’s pretty edgy. Is it because your eye glows?” He asked with a mocking grin.

“It’s because you’re gonna be black and blue by the time I’m done with you.” Felix boasted before coughing out a stream of blood.

“Whatever you say. I’m a little busy with a business transaction anyway, so let’s make this quick. You said it was because of your bullet-proof coat that you’re alive, so what happens when I do this?”

He mused as he pulled up Felix’s coat and slipped a gun straight to his chest.

Felix tightly closed his eyes in panic, a voice echoed from his thought, ‘what it means… to be… an esper.’

The air around him crackled.

The young man’s black soulless eyes widened and looked at the faint blue haze that emanated from Felix.

He took a step back in shock of the sight of the burning blue man in front of him, but his eyebrows furrowed as he resolved to pull the trigger.

But as he fired, the bullet stopped in the air, trapped in the space between his gun and Felix’s chest, letting out a high-pitched ring.

Moritz stood there astounded, “Holy shit—”

Suddenly, Moritz became enveloped in a blue glow that pulled him towards Felix. And with a tightly clenched fist, Felix struck him square in the face. He was flung across the hall, slamming against his drone first, and the wall second and landing on the ground.

“…Son of a bitch… hurk… nobody told… that you’d had superpowers.” He grumbled as he worked his jaw.

Felix picked himself back up and wiped off the blood on his mouth. Small streams of electricity flowed around his wounds, patching him up.

The young man also got back up and clung to the wall beside him. The damaged drone could be heard revving up behind him. “Here I thought the only one I had to worry about was someone called the Black Hound.”

As it fired, all of the bullets stopped as it came in contact with the hazy blue fire that surrounded Felix. The bullets chimed a chorus of ringing, vibrating in the air.

Suddenly, a loud tremor shook the hall that caught both of their attention.

“Huh?!” Moritz mumbled as he glanced to the side, where the explosion had come from.

But he stepped to the side as he saw a blue glimmer headed straight towards his head. Blood sputtered out of his cheek as he dodged Felix’s burning fist. He quickly brought out a combat knife from his sleeve and swung at his throat.

Felix ducked and skid across the floor, escaping the slash. Like the last embers of a fire, the energy surrounding him vanished.

Moritz quickly fell back, “Whoa, I don’t want to fight…”

“You tried to kill me.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I was fighting you. I was just trying to kill you.”

“Same differen—!” Felix pressed against his throat. There was a shallow slice that started to bleed out of it. “How… I was sure I…”

“Anyway, you might want to check what that noise was. But, before I skedaddle, can I ask you something?”

“No.”

“I heard the twelve organizations had a leaderboard, and that the top ten was supposed to be a cut above the rest... Are you one of them?”

“You’re not leaving here.” Felix pulled out his gun.

“So you didn’t make the cut? That’s disappointing.”

Moritz waved goodbye, and his broken drone followed. As he walked on ahead, Felix pulled the trigger, with a loud bang, the bullet penetrated the wall, leaving a crater on it. Yet the young man continued to walk.

“Huh?” He blurted out.

Felix fired two more times, yet as if completely unfazed, Moritz looked back at him with a large smirk. It was like Moritz was skipping the space between Felix’s vision, the man vanished from the bullet’s trajectory.

Moritz threw his combat knife at Felix’s head. The throw was sharp, forward, and fast. But as Felix moved to avoid it, something struck him.

“Argk!” Felix yelped out as he found the combat knife had already dug into his shoulder.

Before he could properly react to it, he saw that Moritz already had his gun pointed towards his head.

The blue energy burst once more, and the bullet hung frozen in the air between them once again, but not from where Moritz had fired. The bullet was inches from his chest, and not against his head.

“What is this… what’s going on?” Felix said as he stared at the bullet next to his chest, completely confused.

He lowered his gun and spoke, “It looks like shooting at you is a waste of bullets, and I’m not as good at fighting like the others, not to mention I don’t have any superpowers like you. So killing you is more trouble than it’s worth.”

“I just spared your life, don’t go wasting my charity on you.” Moritz threatened as he walked away, disappearing on the other side of the hallway.

The light in Felix’s eyes faded. He dropped his knee and covered his mouth, letting out strained, heavy coughs.

Okay, so a bullet got to me… maybe a couple of bullets got to me… I have a broken rib, maybe two. All of my limbs are bruised, and some brat that wasn’t in the intelligence report just humiliated me.

Felix let go of his mouth and saw his palm covered in blood. He pulled out a small, red-marked bottle from his pocket and popped out one of its pills.

The last words Moritz said echoed in his ears as he swallowed it. An unwelcome memory invaded his thoughts. The vision of a hand drenched in blood, reaching upward while trapped in rubble. With eyes closed tightly, Felix muttered out, “prosperity… charity… redemption.”

Another explosion suddenly shook the building.

But what I should do now is look for Marie… He opened his eyes and he pulled out the knife buried in his arm.

As soon as he caught his breath, Felix picked up his mask and continued onward. A little bit of his blood spilled out with every step he took as he dragged himself forward.