The trinity had expected a hostage situation tonight but instead they were face to face with a bunch of thugs on stained aprons.
It was a lot to take in for the thugs too. From their perspective, three weirdos in overly religious superhero costumes just busted a hole through their workplace.
"what's going on here, and where are the hostages??" Josephine's eyes burned gold with rage.
Realizing their low level crests would not be of much help against these angry missionaries, the dealers took to the next best idea and simultaneously pulled out their guns.
Meanwhile a much younger boy among them named Noir instantly recognized the bunch.
"Guns, you can't be serious don't you know who these guys are, might as well just mail them the bullets." said Noir to an older thug standing next to him. His voice high-pitched with worry.
"Get off me." The older thug shrugged the boy off.
They fired, muzzle flashes lighting up the warehouse.
Cavin's eyes flared brilliant emerald, and a small mark of the same color just behind his neck began to glow.
The bullets stopped.
Three feet away from its intended targets and spinning lazily in midair.
Looks of different varieties, from scraerd to surprised could be spotted on their faces when Calvin tilted his head and the bullets dropped to the concrete floor.
"Guns, really?" He's tone was conversational, almost bored. "Might as well have just mailed me the bullets."
At this point, the thugs have begun stepping back and the Trinity were still trying to make heads and tails of the situation.
"It's clear you're doing something illegal here but I've been trying to be more open minded lately. So Why don't you guys surrender and we can all get to the bottom of this."
Calvin's words also served to stop an aggrevated Luna and Josephine before they could pounce.
Everyone was confused now(maybe even the reader), but the thugs knew they'd be committing suicide trying to fight back.
A much needed voice cut through the awkward silence, it came from the side of the thugs.
"The outfits, knowing we'd be here at this time, the crushing force of their pneuma." A defeated Noir muttered, sitting helplessly on the ground.
"All the things that make a vigilante, and none of you idiots can see it."
He held his chin high and and looked to the stars through the hole in the ceiling. A desperate attempt to hold back the tears in his eyes.
"And one thing is sure about these vigilantes, they are all cold blooded murderers." He flashed back to a previous job he was lucky to escape. "I mean,I've seen.... him. What he does to people."
It was evident the event left scars.
"Look, I don't know where you got that assumption but we didn't come here to kill any—"
Noir's cackle cut Calvin. He went quite. Then he started laughing again
He thiwrled on the ground, swinging his hands and legs.
He was throwing a tantrum.
"we're absolutely fucked, I know what all of you guys go around doing but I'm not ready to die."
"I thought this was gonna be a simple job. I'm only here to provide for my family. I'll talk, I'll tell you everything I know."
The sound of the bullet echoed through the warehouse and Noir's lifeless body hit the hard croncrete. A gaping hole etched into his skull.
The shot came from a man at the other end of the warehouse. He was walking rather slowly towards the party huddled at the center.
"That was weird, and you guys.... you guys must have questions." Said the man, he spotted a vintage shirt. He was up close now, so you could tell he's only about five feet.
"I'd recognize that stupid mustache anywhere. Montez." The way Calvin called his name, it was clear their relationship wasn't on friendly terms.
"Luna!!." He motioned to the nun and she moved swiftly but before she could do anything—
Mr Montez sensed they werent ready for the conversation and held up some kind of remote and with a grin on his face pressed a button on it.
....
The cuffs had turned to ash, His hair tussled and his robe flapped to sound of the wind.
He held his right arm up and turned the back of his palm to his foes. A small glowing circular blue mark with two smaller circles in it, burned onto its surface.
That same palm became engulfed in flames and in an instant, the flames got hotter till they turned blue.
His foes staggered back, confusion with a sprinkle of fear written all over their faces.
But the flames weren't intended for them. He dragged the palm over the lower half of his face and black angular mask with blue highlights appeared on it.
"That's—" They didn't need to see the full get up, they already knew the moment they saw the lifeless glow in those blue eyes. The mask only served to confirm their assumptions.
Everywhere from his neck down suddenly went up in flames. His foes took defensive stances, the heat was taking a toll on them.
The flames only got hotter yet again till they finally turned blue.
And then they dissipated.
The first thing that came down was his robe, but it wasn't red anymore.
A pitch black coat had replaced it,
Black tactical gear could be seen underneath it.
Oh, but he wasn't done yet is.
He stretched his gloved right hand out,
A small black portal emerged just in front of it.
His foes felt an ominous aura and fell to their knees.
He dipped his hand into the portal and drew a blue-hilted katana from its depts.
drapping the hood of his coat over his head was the final touch on the transformation.
It was complete and now the 12 knights of round were face to face with—
"The vigilantee with 87 recorded kills and a two million credit bounty placed on his head by the empire...." Mordred who was the only one not on his knees laughed at his luck.
"The Blue Reaper"
He took a single step step forward. The knights cowered in fear.
"Pneuma is the breadth of life. The basis on which every living thing in this world exists. Humans above a certain amount of pneuma are considered blessed by God himself and develop abilities called crests to battle against the evil of the rifts".
Mordred's eyes had darkened and he was sweating profusely now thinking about the sacred doctrines of the church that had been etched into the minds of every single person on this planet since childhood.
"Yet this man, no he his no man."
"has no pneuma"
Mordred panicked, going into rampage.
"Ha ha ha, I was a bit flustered for a moment but I just had to remind myself that you're nothing more than a pigggg". Mordred screamed out materializing hundreds of projectiles, from swords to chains and saws.
The Blue Reaper simply unsheathed his blade.
Mordred felt, no rather he saw something . It had horns and a wicked smile he couldn't tell what it was but before he knew it.....
The Blue Reaper was already behind him and now walking toward his men.
"What, I can't feel my..." Mordred felt something missing and shifted his eyes downward, only to see a pool of blood just beneath him and that both his legs had been sperated at the knee. "When did he."
Mordred convulsed from the loss of blood and went silent hitting the pool of blood with a thump
"What, what are you gonna do to us" It was Kissinger who spoke.
The blue reaper stopped walking and looked Kissinger dead in the eyes, quite literally infact.
"Kah, kah, kah, kah." Kissinger tried to speak but only coughs, and blood came out
The Blue Reaper had already thrown a small knife at him precisely targeting his vocal chord.
One of the knights disheartened from seeing the sorry states of Kissinger and his boss spoke up.
"Comon boys give it everything you've got, he can't take us all at once".
He may have been right, unfortunately only four of the 10 remaining ten knights could even move under the sheer pressure of the Blue Reaper's power.
They flared up their crests.
But he wasn't, It was the same instance all over again, before they could attack, the Blue Reaper barely unsheathed his katana...
And sheathed it back.
One decapitated, the second through the chest, the jaw of another shattered with an elbow to the lower lip.
And the one who spoke up?
He was split in half.
All this occured in a matter of seconds.
The tension in the warehouse had risen through the roof. Those still alive could only wish that if this was a dream, it should end quickly.
But the nightmare had only just started.
"It's Mordred I have a bone to pick with." The Blue Reaper finally spoke for the first time on the night. "Whatever the rest of you do with your miserable lives is none of my business."
The blue reaper walked toward Mordred the sound of his boots quite distinct from the tap of Huey's loafers.
"You might not die, so long as you don't get in my way" He engulfed his hands in flames, crouching down to meet the face of Mordred with it.
The heat from Huey's flames woke Mordred up and he looked to his men for camaderie.
He was unfortunate, in that his men took to the vigilante's warning and took to their heels at the same time, not givimg their valiant leader a second thought.
In that instant Mordred was faced with the cruel reality of man.
"My men...., they" mumbled Mordred through the pain.
"Why do you look so surprised, I'm sure anyone including you would do the exact same thing if you were in their situation."
Huey looked up at the retreating knights and sighed, keeping his flaming fist just over Mordred's face.
A larger portal than the other one from earlier opened just behind Huey and emerged from it were what seemed to be....
"Variants?? but how, what is this. What are you?".
Echoes, they were of the lowest class. Hounds made out of plasma, their structures shifting and bending at intervals.
The echoes rushed at the knights who could only welp in pain while the monsters tore them apart from limb to limb.
"It's clear your power is not of this world. You are—
Huey took of the mask, focusing his attention on the immobile knight, his own words drowned out Mordred's final ones."I've never burnt a person's face off before, wonder what that's going to feel like".
A few minutes passed. Huey stood outside with his hood down, and eyes pressed against the stars while the glow in the glow in them intensified slowly.
"Successfully retrieved financial records, communication logs and several samples of the blue substance. They have been stored in the zone."
A voice came through Huey's head. It was his personalized AI, Jazz.
"We need to make our move before you lose control sir, your mental capacity is at below 12%"
Huey materialized another small black portal, intending to drop his katana into ithe zone.
But all over a sudden, he closed it and started moving toward an area near the warehouse. he was apppoaching an enclosed space just behind a behind a building,
But then—
He looked to the sky, A tear had opened somewhere over sector 7 of Via del Pianto. It enveloped the area In a red forcefield, no doubt it was a.....
"Rift sir, the area will be swarming with topplers in a few moments."
Huey halted his motion and turned toward an electric pole. His body dissipated into blue particles and he flowed through the line leaving the scene.
Meanwhile a figure pressed themselves against the wall of the area had just left.
Their hands trembling.
Was it fear?? No.
Their eyes glistened while they fiddled a phone with a video of the blue reaper in action playing on it.
It was Thrill.