Chapter 14: The City of Amnesia
Lucianna trembled, her knuckles white around the shaft of her father's lance, but she obeyed. She stepped back, though her glare could have cut glass.
Sai turned to the receptionist, who was still smiling that vacuous, empty smile, completely unphased by the woman who had just tried to jump her.
"We need to speak to the person in charge," Sai said calmly. "Now."
The receptionist blinked. Her hollow smile brightened instantly as if the recent experience hadn't happened.
"Ah, yes," she chirped. "The Director. I'll get him right away."
She stood up, smoothed her skirt, and walked into the back office.
The lobby fell silent. Drex nervously tapped the table, eyes darting around the empty hall.
A minute later, the office door opened.
The receptionist returned. Walking beside her was a man who looked like he had been chewed up by the Ending Times and spat back out. He was old, rugged, with a thick black beard and a face crisscrossed with deep scars. He wore the heavy, decorated coat of a high-ranking Commander, though one sleeve was torn and unpatched.
He stormed into the lobby, his eyes darting around suspiciously. When he saw the three strangers standing in the center of the room, he flinched, his hands curling into massive, scarred fists.
"Who are these people?" the Director barked, turning to the receptionist.
The receptionist stopped. She looked at Sai. Then she looked at Lucianna.
Her brow furrowed. The polite smile faltered.
"I..." She stammered. "I... I have no idea."
"You don't know?" The Director shouted. "You just led me out here!"
"I did?" She looked around the room, panic rising in her eyes. "I don't remember letting them in. How did they get here? Security!"
The Director spun back toward them, his body radiating a sharp, violent red mana. He didn't see three confused travelers. He saw intruders.
"The city is under siege by that abomination," the Director snarled, his eyes locking onto the blue glow of Lucianna's lance and the dark aura around Drex. "And with the kind of presence you three have... you aren't refugees."
He raised his fists, taking a combat stance. The air around his knuckles began to distort from raw pressure.
"You must be its minions!"
"Minions?" Sai frowned, raising a hand to de-escalate. "Wait. Which abomination are you—"
"Don't let them talk!" the Director roared at the receptionist, though she was already cowering behind the desk. "It plays tricks! It might be bewitching us through its voice!"
"Old man, just listen—" Drex started.
"DIE!"
The Director didn't hesitate. For an old man, he moved with terrifying speed. He kicked off the marble floor, shattering the tiles, and launched himself through the air, bringing a fist down in a crushing arc straight at Sai's head.
"Don't harm him," Sai said.
His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the chaos like a blade.
Lucianna, who had already leveled her lance to run the Director through, froze mid-thrust.
WHAM.
A sound rang out, but it wasn't the sound of a fist crushing bone. It was the sound of a heavy object hitting an invisible wall.
The Director's fist stopped three inches from Sai's forehead.
The old man hung in mid-air, his face contorted in a scream of exertion, veins bulging on his neck.
Sai hadn't even raised a hand. He just stood there, hands in his pockets, staring up at the frozen Director.
[Skill Activated: Gravity Lock]
"He is not an enemy," Sai said, stepping casually to the side.
He walked around the suspended Director, examining the man's frantic, terrified eyes.
"He's just scared," Sai observed. "And his mind is fracturing. If you kill him, we lose the only person in this city who seems to remember that there is a threat."
Sai snapped his fingers.
The gravity field vanished.
The Director crashed to the floor. He gasped for air, scrambling back on his hands and knees, expecting a finishing blow.
"Stay back!" the Director wheezed, backing against the reception desk. "Stay back, you monsters!"
"We aren't monsters," Sai said, crouching down so he was eye-level with the terrified old man. "And we aren't minions. We are the help you forgot you asked for."
Sai pointed at the bewildered receptionist.
"She doesn't remember anything. But you... you remember an 'Abomination.' You remember a siege."
Sai extended a hand.
"So tell us. What is making this city forget?"
"I... I..." The Director's eyes widened. For a split second, the madness receded.
"It's too late," he whispered, his voice trembling with absolute despair. "Everyone strong enough is gone. They went... they..."
He blinked.
The clarity vanished instantly.
His pupils dilated. The recognition died, replaced by a blank, terrifying slate. He looked at Sai, then at his own hands, then back at Sai as if seeing him for the first time.
"Who are you?" the Director roared, his face twisting into a mask of rage.
"INTRUDERS!"
Sai frowned. "Gravity—"
BOOM.
The old man didn't just attack; he detonated. A shockwave of pure, white kinetic energy exploded from his body.
Sai intensified the gravity field, trying to pin him down, but the white aura around the Director shimmered. It acted like a grease, letting the gravity slide right off him. The Director stood up, completely unaffected by the crushing force.
The Director roared, swinging a massive fist at the empty air. The shockwave cracked the marble pillars.
"Get out!" Sai grabbed Lucianna and shoved her toward the exit.
They scrambled back through the revolving doors, bursting out into the sunlight just as the lobby behind them turned into a blender of flying marble and steel.
They sprinted down the steps, putting distance between themselves and the dome, diving behind a row of parked cars.
The entire glass front of the Dispatch Office exploded outward.
The Director leaped through the shower of debris, landing on the street with a crater-forming impact. He stood up, shaking glass from his coat, his eyes wild and bloodshot as he scanned the silent street.
"WHERE ARE YOU?" the old man screamed, his voice echoing off the empty skyscrapers. "I KNOW YOU'RE HERE! COME OUT AND DIE MONSTER!"