Chapter 1: PROLOGUE
There was a goddess with ethereal beauty
She was mother of three, spouse of an immortal god and a wise man
The oldest son was the heir of immortality,
The younger twins were the heir of the wisdom of humanity
The firstborn was cruel and arrogant
With his power, he tormented his brothers
The second son roared up the sound of plea toward the heaven
Begging for mercy, justice, and power
Came the trickster, offering a craft
A craft to make him as powerful as his brother
The middle one mastered the craft
He challenged his brother to an unending battle
The youngest loved peace in nature
He, too, raised up the voice of plea toward the sky
Came again the trickster
"Your life would bring peace amongst your brothers," he said
The youngest, as naive as he was, believed the calling
He threw himself into the battle,
Soon his life was expired in the brothers' hands
The goddess cried in despair
Thus, she let out a curse
"You shall die protecting my youngest son's descendants," was her curse to the firstborn
"You shall exhaust your life for a never-ending thirst to seek more power," was her curse for the second
"...and you, I shall banish you to the earth. For eternity shall you deceive mankind and to be deceived!!" She screamed to the trickster.
**
The night sky was bright with the flame of fire burning down the castle complex one by one. The fire was blazing up to the sky, as if wanted to swallow it into its embrace. The high general Rae Lawran could only gaze dispiritedly as the castle building turned into ashes bit by bit.
It's all gone now...
The young general shook his head, forcing himself to focus. He had a very important task waiting for him to deliver, even if it would demand his own life. He tossed away his ragged cloak and took his defendere crystal. The crystal could provide protection from any attack for its user. Rae chanted the simple chant to activate the crystal. Soon after, his body was surrounded by a layer of water-like coating.
The young man took his steps to the Northern part of the castle where the king and queen's chamber was. He broke through a flock of fleeing ladies-in-wait and pushed away some eunuchs who were running with a bucket of water, some valuables, or with their body only. Some of his men saw him head toward the king's chamber and followed him. As he guessed their intention, Rae immediately waved his hand and commanded them to return to their post.
"But general," his captain protested, "Northern complex was the first part of the castle that got hit. There would be packed with Balins. At least let some of us go with you! We could assist you and assure the safety of the queen and the crown prince..."
Rae stopped and pushed that captain back, said firmly, "Stay where you are to help the king at the front gate. Help me to evacuate the ladies-in-wait and the eunuchs, so their flight won't disturb the defence that king had erected. Leave the safety of the queen and crown prince to General Lee and me. Do you understand me, Captain Kayene?!"
The captain clenched his teeth and nodded. He then returned to his original post, along with his men. Rae continued to move forward, casting some water magic to repel the fire that seemed thirsty for his life as he went. A couple of minutes after, the tall and well-built general had reached the corridor which connecting the Eastern part of the castle, where his original post was, with the Northern part.
He was frowning, trying to suppress the agony and anger when he saw before his eyes, the most beautiful part of the castle that he loved so much, had now laid in ruins. The originally painted sky-blue columns had now mostly blackened and cracked by the fire and the smokes. All the rare plants and beautiful flowers planted surrounding the corridor had now been burned and destroyed. He saw his men's corpses all over the marble floor where their blood had spoiled the white colour. Rae also saw some burnt Balin corpses. The offendere crystal (the crystal that could produce attacks depending on the kind of magic infused into it) which planted on the columns seemed to be working.
Rae caught a glimpse of movement approaching from the West, made him jump sideway to avoid the attack. He then saw a Balin crush a column not far from where he was standing before. Rae took a good look at his attacker. That Balin was two meters high, with a pair of muscled arms and body. Its skin was coal-black, while its face was pulled backwards when its teeth became large fangs and shark-like teeth, completely disfiguring its original face. The creature's skull had cracked open and showed its blackened brain. Its blood-red eyes glued to the young general, hungry for blood.
"That was Lee's doing, right? You should've just let her have her way with you, to cut your carcass brain into pieces with her Aoife sword..."
The creature growled when he attacked Rae with its claws. The black, eagle-like claws sprawled over in lightning speed to rip Rae's throat. The young general jumped once more(not to flee the attack, but to find chance to counter-attack. He pulled out his sword and then dripped his own blood on the yellow crystal implanted on the handle of his sword.
"Neara!!" He called.
Responded to the call, Rae's sword was glowing. Following the bright light, a beautiful woman appeared. She was radiant with the golden light surrounding her slender body. The woman had long, wavy hair that she adorned with a golden crown. She was dressed in golden robe like an Olympian goddess, made her beauty glow to the fullest. The woman locked her sight to the Balin before she shone once more and entered Rae's body. The young general felt a flow of strength in his body, pulsing along his veins, was ready to burst out. He knew then, that he had unified with his sword's soul.
Rae dropped fierce attacks to the Balin. His sword swung mercilessly, craving for its opponent's blood. The creature was trying to defend itself with its claws, before howling in pain when Rae's sword cut its whole arm. It did not take too long for the young general to eventually cut off the creature's head and put it dead once more.
After killing the creature, Rae continued to move on to the Northern complex, only to stop occasionally to kill any Balin that was trying to block his way. When he reached the throne room, he saw his best friend and partner, Arlette Lee. The younger woman was facing two Noble Balins. This kind of Balin was different with those that Rae just killed. Noble Balin had similar appearance to human and was equipped with high artificial intelligent. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell them apart with a real, normal, living human.
Rae grew up with Arlette. Rae's family line had always been serving in imperial army. The man himself was the twentieth generation of High General of the Annwn Empire. Arlette's family, on the other hand, was one of the queen's closest relatives. The girl was initially nurtured to be a sophisticated and elegant noblewoman, to be married off to a prince or other nobility. However, she had never liked it. She had always loved the thrill of a soldier's life, thus forced Rae to teach her all skills that any good soldier should have mastered. She, then, asked her parents to send her off to the Imperial Army Academy together with Rae. The two best friends graduated in the same time and smoothly made career as soldiers, then they became two of the court's best generals.
One of the Noble Balins cursed at Arlette when the female general drilled a hole on its stomach. Rae took a glimpse of victorious smile drawn on Arlette's ever inviting full lips that were hidden behind the curtain of her red hair. Her red hair was like the glowing sunset, warm yet stealing one's breath with its beauty. Usually, Arlette styled them in braids, pinned them securely like a crown on her head. But now they were unkempt(some were falling on her shoulders and back like orange velvet cloak, some were screening her beautiful face. The smile soon after changed into a victorious laugh as the woman eventually took the Balin's life for eternity.
"Having fun by yourself, Lee?" Rae jumped to join the female general in the fight.
It was then, when he took a closer look, that he realized how blood had spoiled his best friend's silver armour(both black and red bloods. Arlette's marble cheek had also scarred with deep cuts that were still dripping blood. The red flow of life was also dripping from one side of Arlettes lips. The sight made Rae even more furious. He prepared to kill the Balins into tiny bits that his sword could make.
"I could hold them off, Rae," Arlette whispered while swinging her sword toward the enemies. "Go find Queen Maeve and the Crown Prince. They should be in the crystal room..."
Rae hesitated, worried for his friend's safety. He could see that the woman was struggling even to standing firm. Wounds had scarred every possible spot on her slender, yet muscular body. However, he knew that she was right. The safety of the Queen and Crown Prince were of most importance. He killed one Balin that trolling over to help their comrade in one struck, then reached for Arlette's shoulder to kiss her on the cheek.
"'Till we meet again, my friend...," he whispered.
"Live on, my friend," replied Arlette. A faint smile cracked on her pale face.
Rae let go the woman's shoulder and ran to the crystal room where they put the core crystal of their empire. The core crystal was used for producing other crystals across the empire. Rae pushed the polar room's door. The door minted from mixtures of gold, bronze, and crystals from the core itself. His eyes were blinded for seconds due to the radiating and brilliant light of the core crystal. Rae needed another minute before he could get used to the light and started to cast his eyes around the room.
Crystal room hosted three meters in height and 1.75 m in width of a giant crystal. The crystal had always been radiating brilliant white light, thus the name Gwendolyn was given to her by the king. Gwendolyn was the polar that withhold the entire empire due to her tremendous power, made her the most desirable treasure to be claimed by others, especially by the creator of Balins.
When the Balin phenomena started to occur a decade ago, no one knew who created the animated corpses. At first, the court administrators thought they were victims of an infectious break out that transformed human into zombie. However, after several autopsies and researches, the imperial alchemists and physicists eventually drew a shocking conclusion. There was no deadly virus, only some sort of craft, a powerful one on top of that, which was cast toward corpses. The craft was a black magic. It required powerful employment of alchemy, of which was not for any ordinary man doing. The culprit infused the craft into a synthetic crystal and planted it into a corpse's chest, where its heart used to be, as the heart's replacement. The king sent Intels to search for clues, but to no avail. Even worse, not only that they grew in numbers, there were new kind of Balin being created. The new kind was a more sophisticated creation with artificial intelligence of their own. They were named the Noble Balin.
Then, those damned creatures finally strike a blow to the King and his family. A treason as it was...
Rae used his defendere crystal to create protection for his sight in order to reduce Gwendolyn's brilliant light that started to hurt his pair of black eyes.
"Your Majesty!" He called, dragging his eyes to the surroundings, keenly seeking glimpse of his mistress' trace.
Rae felt as if his heart were stop beating when he saw a sight of a woman in green silk dress laying on one of the corners. He ran circling the copper floor that was built surrounding the core crystal Gwendolyn. The sound of his boots stomping on the floor echoed all over the room, as he dashed away to check the body.
Queen Maeve was the most beautiful woman Rae ever met in his life. The sophisticated queen had a beautiful, long, and silky black hair, which she used to style elegantly into beehive. Yet now, her hair covered her body like a piece of black garment. The queen's beautiful face had always luminous with benevolence, radiating others with joy. However, now the beautiful face had turned stiff like a cold-white gypsum. Her forest-green eyes, which always full of wisdom and compassion, had now forever hidden beneath her shut eyelids.
"Your Majesty!!" Rae cried. He shook his mistress' body, as if by doing so he could call her soul back.
"Your Highness...," whispered another voice, so familiar to Rae like the sound of his own heartbeat.
Arlette wobbly approached Rae's side then kneeled next to her best friend. She reached for her aunt's, the queen, cheek with her blood-stained hand and stroke it gently. Rae could see Arlette's body was shivering, as the frigid air of death had taken over all the warmth that the queen had always emitted in her lifetime.
Arlette bit her lips, restraining herself to let out a cry. However, on the next second, as if reminded of something, she suddenly stood up, cast her eyes wildly, looking for something.
"Arlette..."
"Rae..., where is the Crown Prince?"
The words stunned Rae. He hastily let go the queen's body and followed his best friend to seek any sign of the Crown Prince's presence in that room.
"Rae," called Arlette. She now stood at the other corner of the room.
The young general turned his head and felt his heart thumping heavily. He saw Arlette stand in front of the control machine panel. The machine was used to control and operate any technology deployed by their nation, as well as by other small nations and countries that were surrounding their empire like satellites.
"Rae...," called Arlette once more, this time more as a whisper.
Rae walked across the room, to where Arlette was. He followed her sight and saw that two of the monitors had been activated. The machine informed that the last command inputted had now completed. Rae felt his stomach twisted into knots when he realized that the active monitors were the monitors to open portals between universes, while the other one was to activate self-destruction program for Gwendolyn. The self-destruction would not only set to blow the crystal into pieces, but also would put an eternal end for their empire.
Rae's eyes were fixated to the numbers shown on the monitor. He was bewildered, not knowing what to do to stop the running program. The machine had started the count down, showing the destination of the opening portal.
It was written, "Earth..."
Chapter 2: The Cornerstone (Narrated by Abel Lee)
The goddess stared at me with her gypsum eyes. Like other parts of her body, the corners of her eyes were adorned with spider's webs. The first time I saw her, I thought she was only an ordinary Hellenic-styled statue. However, when I paid more attention, I noticed that she was the goddess in the story I used to hear when I was a little kid.
"I've never thought the story was real," I whispered, still admiring the beautiful face of the goddess that was clouded by anger and to her long index finger which she pointed toward something, or someone.
Alexa turned her head, frowned. "What was?"
I pointed toward the goddess. "Her..."
Alexa's pair of blue-sky eyes shed confusion whilst she frowned even more.
"The story about this goddess," I explained. "She had three children from two husbands. The eldest was born from an immortal husband, and the younger twins from a mortal man."
"And you recognized the goddess from...?"
Seeing that Alexa seemed interested to hear the full-story, I dragged her closer to the statue. I pointed the goddess' hand.
"This pose was taken from the scene when the goddess put curse to her first and second son who accidentally killed their youngest brother. On that same moment, she also cast curse to the trickster deity who gave witchcraft to her second son and tricked the youngest to sacrifice himself in order to stop his brothers from fighting. I've heard about the story when I was a kid."
Alexa gave me a stern look. Her blue eyes locked on me, but with different intention as they were before. She brushed off a strand of her chin-long, straight red hair from her temple and put her hand on my shoulder. The bony yet strong hand of hers pushed me down until I bent my knee to level my height with her petite body. Her thin red lips formed a bow, which both ends nearly touched her dimpled chin.
I could only grin.
"Listen, Abel Lee...," she said. "The story, as good as it is, is a myth. Myth is equivalent with none-that-it-matter with our business here! If you do have some leisure to sightseeing and observing statues at this so-called museum, it would be better if you turn on your 'radar vision' and start to scan this place. Then, please..., please find that culprit Balin so we can return to HQ as soon as possible..."
"You said you wanted to know," I protested, but caved in for her plea.
I turned on my so-called 'radar vision'. I saw my own reflection on a silver shield of a medieval warrior statue, witnessing how my iris colour changed from black to silver with specks of green.
Please do not get shocked with this slight change. This was how my power work. To be honest, Alexa and I were not ordinary humans. We called ourselves Esper. We possessed supernatural or ESP power, to be exact. Alexa, for example, was an Animorpher. She could transform into any kind of animal shape, like any kind. In one transformation, she could morph different parts of her body into different kind of animals' anatomy. There was this one time when she morphed into a buffalo with a rhino body, yet had claws of a lion and a bear. Oh, did I mention about the gator's tail to complete her transformation?
I had had always think that she was a genius.
I, myself, had this 'radar vision'. Its function was more or less similar with the combination of infrared and thermal vision. The difference, however, I did not use it to have visual in darkness, but to see the 'other' sphere of this world. Well, maybe similar with spiritual world, but it wasn't packed with ghosts or spirits. Ordinary men might not realize that they were sharing their existence with creatures called 'Balin', a zombie-like creature. There were ordinary people who were not born with natural super-power such as ours, but were able to master alchemy and witchcrafts. They were sorcerers. Such kind of people were whom we deemed responsible for the creation of these so-called Balins.
History had always tracked record of some humans who tried to play god. After millennia of failure inventing technologies to create human or to properly clone one, some maniacs turned their attention to the alchemy and witchcraft. Eventually, a decade ago, one of them managed to create this Balin.
I had never witnessed the creation of Balin (which I preferred to call 'it' as it), but from the textbooks I read during my study at the Esper academy, I knew that a sorcerer could create a Balin by preserving a dead body which heart they replaced with crystal. This crystal was the crucial element. It wasn't your ordinary crystal, but a crystallized stone created from their magic power and knowledge of alchemy. Each crystal was crystallized using different methods, thus made each Balin unique. These Balins also possessed artificial intelligent, came from combination of the old memory of their past lifetime and additional intelligent infused by their 'creator'. Apparently, the crystal planted inside these Balins' body was not merely useful to make them came to life, but also to relive their brain cells.
Each sorcerer seemed eager to create the strongest and the most 'humanized' Balin. The stronger a sorcerer could be, the stronger super-power their Balin would possess, and their Balin might be hard to be differentiated from a normal living human.
However, there was no single Balin that managed to fool my radar-vision. This vision could detect the golden aura that was normally enveloping a sorcerer and which also radiating from the Balin's crystal. With that, I could tell-apart which is what. If their creator was strong enough, usually that aura would be weaker and clouded by yellowish (or bluish) aura that was normally surrounding ordinary human. Nevertheless, none could fool my vision. Even if it were only a tiny speck of gold, I would detect it out.
Before I continue, I thought it would be best to first explain about my and Alexa's line of work. We were partners in a task force called EOPID (abbreviation for Extra-Ordinary Phenomena Investigation Department). This secret task force was established by Alpha Law, the world number one conglomerate and businessman. He and his family were also like us, Espers, but they would only reveal the fact to the EOPID members. The world only acknowledged Alpha Law as a successful businessman that had wide-range of business network starting from home utilities to technologies and weaponry.
Alpha Law decided to establish this EOPID when a decade ago, a Balin was found dead next to his best friend's daughter. When the M.E. cut him open, he found himself looking at one already long-dead human remains with a piece of rock stuffed in his chest. After conducting series of investigation, Alpha Law finally discovered fact about these Balins. He discovered numbers of unexplained phenomena, which victimized many of civilians, were in-fact the doing of the Balins. The Law family had always been a guardian for Esper community, such as giving shelter to the abandoned Esper children, or to help them schooling their power. Therefore, Alpha Law decided to train some of these Espers as agents to hunt, capture, and/or kill any Balin. EOPID also had authority to track down any sorcerers that creating chaos or terror to civilians and to take any necessary measure in order to protect the civvies.
So far, EOPID had ten field agents and four technicians. The field agents, like Alexa and I, had to always be ready to go to any part of the world from our HQ. The said HQ itself was located at the basement of Law Inc. building in J City. Such as today, four hours ago I was leisurely sitting on my chair at HQ, sipping my coffee, minding my own business, before five minutes later my beloved boss, Brilliant Law (who was also happened to be the only daughter of Alpha Law), warped me and Alexa to an old castle served as museum for locals, that was located somewhere in remote area of Scotland.
Report said that there were two mysterious deaths in three months. According to Brenna, one of the EOPID technicians whose duty was to search such cases, the first body was a young man. Said young man was a John Doe. He was found dead and attached to one part of the castle walls, only from top part of his head to his waist. The rest of his body had transformed into creeping plant that had crept and covering the whole wall. The case soon became phenomenon and attracted many of scientific authorities as well as tourists, in and out the Great Britain. Due to the fame of the body which raised the locals' income from tourism, under the pretence of investigation in the process, no one was care enough to give the said man a proper burial.
The second body was found a month ago. This time, all villagers recognized her as the village chief's daughter. The upper part of the said young woman was bound by vines to the water fountain at the village square. Her death broke the chief's heart. He, then, finally realized that dead bodies were not exactly a healthy tourism attraction. He immediately took down his daughter's body and contacted law authorities in London to investigate the two cases.
Scotland Yard sent down their investigators to investigate said cases for three weeks, before they reluctantly gave up and decided that the phenomena were beyond their capabilities. Furthermore, England's top M.E. in London could not determine the cause of death of the two bodies. Miss B, aka Brilliant Law, agreed with Brenna that the two deaths must had been caused by Balin. Therefore, she dispatched Alexa and I to this dreaded place ASAP. We were dispatched using a warp machine created by Miss B herself. The said machine could transport object(s) through space and dimension, like a sorcerer's portal. The machine enabled us to arrive here in matter of seconds, around three to four hours ago. Pretending as a couple of tourists, we strolled around the village to gather information and 'scanning' with my vision. The information finally led us to this castle, where the first body was found. We were suspecting that the Balin might have been one of the museum workers. Still disguising as tourists, we then took a tour around the castle.
According to the pamphlet in my hand, this castle was once the residence of an eccentric Scottish nobleman. He loved antiques and old artefacts, to the extent that he devoted his life and almost all of his fortunes to collect said stuffs. At the end, the nobleman died a poor man with no living relatives. His castle and collections were ended to be given away for public display as museum. The museum was originally expected to raise the village income. However, I was quite pessimistic about that. The museum hardly had any visitor. Besides us, there were only three to five other tourists. The artefacts displayed here were in poor condition, and (as far as I could say) had no significant historical values.
We didn't find anything inside the museum. Moreover, my sensitive nose was allergic to dust. That was why, after a good half an hour sauntering inside the museum, I dragged Alexa to stroll around the outer parts of the complex. There was a small forestry next to the castle, which often used for camping site. At the back of the complex, there was a cluster of stone houses. I was guessing that these houses were used to serve as the housing for servants. In front of these houses, some statues were recklessly piled in rows. One of them was that goddess' statue. Judging from their appearances, they were initially the ex-occupants of the museum.
"That room is the curators' office," one soft voice stopped our steps, "Visitors are not allowed to enter."
We turned our head and I shut off my radar vision to have a good look of the speaker. This was one of my vision's weaknesses. When I turned it on, I would not be able to see my surroundings in their normal state. Everything just turned into clusters of colours, like when one was using thermal vision. I noticed that the speaker was a skinny boy with thick-frame spectacles. He seemed in the same age with Alexa, around 17 to 18 years old. His pale face was adorned with speckles and he had light brown hair that brought out his light-green eye colour. The boy was watching us with nervous glance, his slender fingers clenching and relaxing in unnerving rhythm. After I satisfied observing him, I turned on my vision once more, only to find something that made me grin in glee.
"Your eyes...," the boy stuttered when he saw the change on my eyes colour.
Alexa sighed, "See Abel, that's why I keep telling you to wear your shades, so no one would notice the change..."
"Oh please, who would in their right mind wear sunglasses in such foggy weather?! Moreover, its best he saw my silver eyes," I smirked to the boy, "'Because this pair of eyes will be his last memory before death embraces him for the second time."
Alexa fixated her gaze to the boy now, a mischievous smirk breached her face.
"Well..., well..., how lucky are we, to be able to catch a big fish without any bait...?" She said with glint of thrill flashing in her blue eyes.
The boy's body stiffened, before he suddenly ran into the forest near the castle.
"After him!!" I let out a command that was promptly executed by Alexa, even before I shut my mouth.
Alexa took off her clothes and revealed her special suit which she always wore beneath her 'normal' clothes. Alexa's slender body vibrated for seconds before her white legs turned into yellow colours blotted with black dots, followed by transformations on her torso, hands, and finally her red head. In matter or seconds, my cute, yet sassy partner had completed her transformation as a cheetah, picking up her running speed and dashed farther in front of me. I forced myself to chase the four legs of cheetah that could outrun a car. Fumbling, I stopped a couple of time to pick up Alexa's strayed clothing, to make sure she would still have something to wear when she changed back. Well, Miss B actually had made a sort of body suit for Alexa to wear, so she would not have to be completely naked when she transformed back. With her techno-craft power (which was a power to create new or modify old technologies), Miss B had made sure that Alexa's black suit could adjust any transformation she would make and also to duplicate the colour of the animals she would morphed into.
After a few minutes, I had lost track of them. I stopped in front of a big tree, catching my breath, while casting my eyes to the surroundings, in case my partner left me some signs. After some minutes passed, I finally saw disturbed grasses and faint track of a cheetah's foot, not far from where I stood. I was about to follow the trail when suddenly, I lost control of my feet. Before I realized what had happened, I had been hung and bounded on the trunk of the tree where I was resting under, seconds ago.
I tried to comprehend what was happening when I realized that I was bounded by creeping plants.
"Who...are...you?" A voice hissed from the top of the tree. It was a gravelly voice that could raise the soft hairs on the back of your neck. The voice was unpleasant and my body was shivering in their own accord upon hearing the voice.
I fixed my gaze and saw that the voice was coming from the museum-boy's mouth (or whom I should call as Balin). I had no idea that he had been watching me all this time. The boy's fair skin had been replaced with wrinkled blackish skin, as black as charcoal. He was like a freshly dug bog body after centuries of mummification process at the bottom of ancient bog. Yet, different with the bog bodies, his black skin didn't shrink into his bones, but bulging out over the newly grown stiff muscles. His clawed fingers and toes dug deep into the bark, giving him secure grip for hanging upside-down on the tree. The creature's blood-red eyes shining devilishly, shooting loathing gaze toward me.
"Animal indeed has animal-sized brain," I cursed Alexa, "How could she not even realize that she had lost her prey?!"
"Whom did you curse?!!"
I craned my head so high to see below.
"Alexa~~!!" I couldn't be happier to see that girl. I pointed the Balin and gave her a grin, "I was cursing it..."
Alexa raked her gaze at me with disdain. She had transformed her head back to her original human head, but still maintaining her rhino-skin, paws of tigers and four legs of horse's transformation.
"You're pretty...," I grinned and she sneered.
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU????!!!"
Uh-oh, apparently the Balin's patience had reached its limit.
The creature had decided not to wait for our answers and started to use its power to animate a tree. A giant tree next to us started to wave around its huge branches to attack Alexa. Alexa jumped side-ways with her horse's legs and held back the branches attack with her claws. The branches broke into pieces.
"Hey, be more careful, don't hurt the tree!!" I panicked. "Global warming!!"
"Shut up!! It will be faster if you help to kill it, you know?!" Alexa yelled back before morphed her head to one of a bull. Apparently, she was trying to horn down the tree to the ground.
The Balin jumped and crawled on top of me. I noticed that the boy's originally white cheeks had been drawn back, almost touching his now-pointed ears, to give place for huge fangs and shark-like teeth. The skinny body of the boy had now packed with stiff muscles and his brown hair had all fallen, giving place for thickened skull like that of a Pachycephalosaurus' bone head.
"S-stay away…!" I tilted or cocked my head to maintain distance from its filthy face whenever it tried to approach me. I had been an EOPID agent for four years and fought many kinds of Balin on the process. However, still, to see a Balin's face up-close would never be my favourite choice.
"A-alexaaa…!"
Alexa ignored me completely. She was still busy with her tree. The Balin was also disregarding my plea, simply kept approaching me. I felt the nerve system and cells in my hips and feet were thumping as if they were eager to find its new form, and to dissolve into the tree where I hung. Now I could tell for sure that this creature had been given the power to use or animate plants, including changing a human into one.
"You think you're great, aren't you?" I hissed. I was furious! "Do you think you are that invisible with this power, huh~?!"
I was focusing all of my power toward each cell and nerve inside my body. The Balin was initially still smiling viciously to me, but now it wore bewilderment on its face. I was the only one who was laughing now. I felt each cell and organ inside my body stiffened, followed by my skin that became as hard as metals and it started to glow. In matter of seconds, my body had been covered by metals layer, on the outside, as well as in the inside. I ripped the darn plants that bind me just before and stretched my hand as fast as I could to throw a bone-breaking punch to the Balin.
The creature was not ready. It was still shocked witnessing my transformation. My fist made a loud bang when it hit the Balin in the stomach and send him flying. Another loud 'bam' echoed on the forest when the creature crashed into a tree. I was ready to blow another punch when I noticed, from the corner of my eyes, a glimpse of a chimera's shadow had bolted forward to attack the Balin. It sank its teeth on the Balin's neck and tore the head apart from the rest of the Balin's body.
"They always taste bitter," Alexa morphed back to her petite body. She spat with a disgusted face.
"I'll ask Miss B to include that in the textbook of Balin 101 since it was only you who ever tasted it. Don't you feel sick? It was a corpse, nonetheless. A fucking human corpse..."
Alexa threw me a pointed look. "I don't have to bite him if you kill him faster, Ironman!"
"I was about to kill him with another blow if only you didn't interfere!"
"Why didn't you use your power earlier?"
I glanced over to any part of my body that I could see. I was still a giant metal creature from top to toe. I shrugged.
"Lazy..."
Alexa's eye-brows shot up into her hairlines. She said nothing but started to collect her clothes. She put them on quickly and without another word she started to swing her legs to the museum's direction. I immediately panicked and tried to stop her.
"Lex..., Lex..., please don't walk out just yet. You know that I need ten more minutes before my power wear off and I could change back. Please wait, OK...?"
And..., there you go. Beside the 'radar vision', I had this other ability to control and/or manipulate five elements. The said five elements were fire, water, wood, metal and earth. The concept of these five elements was originated from Taoism. The Tao adherents believed that this universe and everything in it was established based on these five core-elements. The five elements could strengthen each other or weaken one another. In every single beat of life, the five elements had to be balance. The lack of or the profuse of one element in comparison with the others would create imbalance that could lead to disharmony of the nature. Human's body, in principality, was also established from the harmonic coordination between these five elements. Once any imbalance of element occurred in one's body, then illness would soon be materialized.
However, although each human was said to have these five elements, there must had been one that was dominant to reign over their physic, especially in sorcery. The dominant element that was reigning over a sorcerer from the moment they were born would lay foundation for their mastery of magic. A sorcerer could not master any magic that have clashed element with their natural element. For example, a sorcerer that was born under water element would not be able to master fire element-based magic. As for my power, it allowed me to use one of the five elements to counter the enemy's dominant element. My 'vision' could help me to read my enemy's element, which was usually shown in their aura, then using its polar element to counter it. For example, if my enemy had fire element, I would simply use water element to neutralize it.
Sadly, different with Alexa's power, I could only use my power once a day, an element a day and only for a short 15minutes time limit. If I forced myself to use more than one element and/or more than 15 minutes, then (someone said), my internal organs would explode and I would die due to internal bleedings. Well, at least that was what being explained to me by the woman who raised me. I had never tried it myself. It was always better to be safe than sorry, right?
Alexa stuck out her tongue, pushed me away, as she walked approaching the Balin's corpse. As it returned dead, the Balin changed back into its human form. The skinny body of the boy laid stiff not far from us, while his severed head had also changed back to its original form, rolling next to my feet. I squatted down and gazed upon the now blank, green eyes. He was so young and looked so naïve. I bet he would've never imagined that someone would raise him back from death and turned him into a monster.
"Lex, lend me your connector," said I without turning my head since my petite partner was busy using her wolf claw to rip open the Balin's chest and dig out its crystal heart. I tried my best to censor that memory out of my mind. I still needed my beauty sleep after all this, for goodness sake!
Alexa threw her connector with a splash of the Balin's blackish blood. The thing was not bigger than 5-inches and looked like your everyday smartphone, black and sleek. Now, the corners of the glassy monitor were spoiled with the Balin's black blood, sticky and filthy. I was so grateful to have strong stomach. Swallowing down the disgust, I wiped the blood off with a fallen leaf.
"Bren," I called when a face showed up on the screen.
Brenna was a beautiful woman of Spanish and Javanese mixed-bloods descend. She had gorgeous tanned skin like the seductive colour of sweet chocolate milk. Her skin colour was a great combination for her bright, champagne-coloured eyes. As always, she braided her wavy, raven hair to the back, showing off her exotic, heart-shaped face. She also had a pair of dimples on both cheek, which clearly visible whenever she smiled. At that moment, her plump red lips were forming a sweet smile that lit up her beautiful face.
"Abel," she returned the greetings, "I thought you would never contact me and updating your situation. Miss B is unpleased you know?"
The name promptly made me cast my eyes to Brenna's surroundings, over her shoulders, looking for a glimpse of that scary boss of ours' shadow. However, I could only catch a sight of the free-duty field agents who were leisurely sitting and chatting around the vicinity. There was no sign of the boss anywhere.
Brenna giggled. "Just kidding. She went to attend a conference since the two of you being dispatched, and not yet return."
I felt relieved and sighed. I gave the woman a piercing glance for her prank, made her giggle once more.
"Bren, could you please find this kid's identity?" I pulled the Balin's head and shoved it in front of the screen, warranted a shriek of disgust from Brenna.
"Abel, take that head away!"
"Are you done scanning?" Revenge indeed was sweet. Brenna's cheeks flushed, clearly irritated by my prank. I could only grin and put up innocent face.
"Done, I've found his identification. I'll send it to you."
Brenna was a Brain, a kind of Esper who was born with high intelligentsia and able to manipulate any kind of technology. In Brenna's case, she could type programs and input commands to the computer merely with her mind. As I predicted, she could find information that I needed effortlessly. Alexa's connector let out a sound of 'ping' twice, giving cue of incoming messages. Brenna herself had severed the connection.
"Jonathan Cowell, born January 2nd, 1992, died July 25th, 2012. He died four years ago. He was from Edinburgh, and took History major at Edinburgh Uni. Hmm…, cause of death…, oh, traffic accident."
"No sign of fatality on his body," Alexa interrupted. She cleansed her hands (heaven knows what she used to do that), and peeked through my shoulder.
"What did you say?"
"There's no sign of accident on his body."
I let out a long sigh. In my book, that could only have one meaning.
"What?" She asked.
"Her master healed him first Lex, then changed him into Balin."
"So?"
"Have you ever seen any Balin that died from an automobile accident yet possessing a flawless corpse as if the accident never took place?"
"This is the first one, I guess."
"Right, why do you think it could be that way?"
"His master is a perfectionist?"
I resisted the urge to slap this petite girl on the head. I sincerely interested to conduct research on how far the type of certain super power could influence the index number of its user's intelligentsia.
"Have you read the manual about alchemy, which was a compulsory reading at the beginning of our training?"
Alexa nodded.
"So, you should've know that to return a deformed corpse to its pristine condition would require significant amount of magic energy and complex alchemy formula. Therefore, in our case, the Balin's master had spent significant power and time to heal him. In my opinion, the most perfectionist wizard or sorcerer would refrain themselves from doing so. They would rather discard the disfigured body and find another, less flawed corpse."
Alexa cocked her head, boosting her brain cells to comprehend my information. Seconds later, she bugged her eyes as she came to understanding.
"The master had close relationship with the Balin!"
Finally.... "My hunch on this matter is also getting stronger because the Balin did possess remarkably powerful supernatural power. Have you retrieved the crystal?"
Alexa nodded. She stretched her arm to pass the stone to me. The crystal was diamond-shaped and reddish in colour. Alexa cleaned it up, but stains of Balin's blackish blood were quite persistent. I used my index finger and thumb to get a grip on the cleanest part of the stone, then scanned it with my vision carefully. Precisely as I thought, the stone was glowing out sparks of green aura, the sign of wood element that once infused in it.
"The residue of the element aura was still so bright, no wonder that Balin's magic was so strong. Call Brenna again Lex, ask her to send us any data that she could find about this Jonathan. If his master was someone close to him, then the master should've been his own family member or one of his closest acquaintances."
Alexa sighed, but she was executing my command. "So, does it mean we'll be staying long hours in Scotland until we could track down the master?"
I grinned, before pain came to strike my body like wave. I felt my skin pulsing when it was returning to its original state, followed by my internal organs. I had used my power for seventeen-bloody-years, yet never even once I could get used to the agony that it was often inflicted.
"Ooh..., good gracious...," I moaned.
"Are you alright, Abel?" Brenna asked. She wore a worried expression when she saw my agony through the connector.
"Don't mind him, he's always like that when he returned to his normal state. From weird to weirder," my partner smirked viciously.
I gave her a pointed look while holding the urge to slap this sharp-tongued girl on the head.
"The only living relative of Jonathan Cowell was his mother, and she lives in Edinburgh," Alexa informed me, eyes glued to her connector.
"We'll visit her later if we must. Firstly, let's find the head of this museum. He may know a thing or two about Jonathan. Open box password 5531, user name Lee, Abel."
I pointed my gadget, shaped like a wristband with stripe of silver plate on the middle, toward the Balin's carcass. "Upload and save," I inputted the command. My gadget was glowing, and seconds later, the Balin's corpse had been transformed into digital mosaic. Afterward, the mosaic was sucked into the silver plate on my gadget.
This gadget was the original creation of Miss B and one of the basic equipment that was compulsory to bring by the on-duty EOPID field agents. Miss B called the gadget Pandora Box 00-I. The box main function was to save any evidence we collected on the field. It could digitalize any material into algorithm, then saved it into digital data to be downloaded and re-constructed later. We were also using this device to store the Balin corpses temporarily, in order to bring them back to the HQ, so the Law's lab-technicians could conduct research on them.
"Do you think the head of the museum would know something?" Alexa tried to keep up with my walking pace. Apparently, without her cheetah legs, it was hard for her to keep up with my long legs.
"Well, that man was the one who employed Jonathan. So, I guess he could give us some information about the boy. It's worth a shot, right?"
"Or..., he may be his master!"
That was certainly something I would not like to expect. At least, not today. If that man was Jonathan's master, then we would definitely get engaged in another battle. Meanwhile, I was still powerless until the end of this day. After witnessing the masterpiece of Jonathan's master, I knew he must be a powerful sorcerer. Without my power to back her up, Alexa would have no chance against him.
"Hopefully not," I mumbled, as far as possible from the reach of Alexa's ears.
We walked toward the entrance. The sun was almost set at the horizon. The museum visitors had left the place one after another. When we finally got back there, the friendly old cashier lady had left her booth and started to close one part of the museum door.
"Ma'am, please wait!" I called for her attention. She looked at us, waiting. A friendly smile breached her seamed face, accentuating the crow's feet on the corner of her warm, brown eyes.
"Ma'am, do you know where we could find the head of the museum?"
"His office is at the back, just next to the curator's office," she answered quickly, then resumed closing the door.
Alexa literally dragged me to the pointed direction. I stared at my partner's red hairs that were dancing in the air, in resonance with her running pace. I wondered what made this petite girl so excited with the matter on hand. Was she that hungry for battle and adventures?
We arrived at the cluster of stone houses where we met Jonathan earlier. In front of us, there were two maroon doors. Since Jonathan had warned us before, we knew which one was the curator's office. We walked straight to the left door and knocked. I turned on my radar vision, preparing myself to scan the head of the museum. I had decided, if that man was a sorcerer, I would drag Alexa away from this place and persuade her to confront the said man tomorrow.
After three knocks, the door was opened with a creaking sound. An old man answered the door. I let out a relieved sigh when my vision did not show any indication that the old man was any other than a good 'ordinary' senior citizen. I turned off my vision and acknowledged that the museum head had a sharp figure, bald headed, and had a tall nose that reminded me of a bird's beak. His tall build started to bend forward. His beady eyes gazed at us bewildered.
"He's clean," I whispered to Alexa.
"Excuse me Sir, we would like to ask you about one of your employees named..."
"Whose face's like this," I cut Alexa's words and displayed my connector's monitor in front of his eyes. Jonathan's picture was on it.
The old man looked at the picture closely, so close until his nose was almost touching the digital screen.
"Oh, you mean Nathan Rourke! I have not seen him again after the lunch break, so he might've going home. Well, he isn't really employee here actually. He loves antiques and offers a helping hand around the museum. In return, I give him daily paycheque and allow him to read any book or parchment on the museum collection. He is a diligent and a good kid, so eager to learn. I hope I could make him a real employee here by next year. Are the two of you friends of his? He rarely mentions about his friends, nor had one visiting him here."
"Well, you could say that. We are, um..., his friends back in uni. We came from Edinburgh for holidays, and heard that Nathan is working here, so we came to pay him a visit. We also wanted to ask him to be our guide and show us around," I ended my bluff with one enchanting sweet smile that was normally very effective to persuade any senior citizen.
The smile indeed was effective, because the old man's face beamed and he practically sung out the information we needed.
"Actually, Nathan came here just a couple of years ago with his older brother Liam. However, the brothers love camping and hiking, so I think he would be an excellent tour guide for the two of you, especially if you plan to hike."
"Brother?" I threw a bemused look toward Alexa, who was re-checking the information in her connector and shaking her head not long after. "Do you know where they live? We may as well visit their house...," I enquired, sweet smile was still on display.
Half an hour later, we arrived at the said 'Rourke brother's resident'. The brothers' house was located about two hundred meters from the village square where they found the chief's daughter a month ago. The house was quite big for two occupants. It was two storeys high, brick-walled house with white door and windows frame, as well as its roof. The windows were tinted black, giving out a stricken contrast with the frames' colour and its dark orange-coloured brick walls. The house, like other houses on its surroundings, had no fence. The only sign for the address was a white mailbox erected near the gravel driveways.
"Is this the house?" My partner checked her notes again. She tiptoed and tried to peek inside.
"This is it," I nodded. "We'll visit them first thing tomorrow morning."
Alexa's red head turned to me, as the owner glared bemusedly.
"Why would we want to wait until tomorrow?!"
"Lex, my gut is telling me that this 'brother' of Jonathan in fact was his master."
"Therefore, let's catch him now!"
"Lex, I have no more power left for today. We'd seen Jonathan's power earlier. Do you think you could handle his master all by yourself?"
Alexa came in realization and relented.
"So, what? We rent a room and wait until tomorrow?"
I nodded. "Unless, you have another suggestion. No? OK. Let's stay here for a night and ask for Miss B's advice for this case. Hopefully she could send down other agents to help us."
"This is the first time you are willing to have other agents to help you beside me."
I did not respond to Alexa's jeer. Honestly, I had bad feelings for this case, but I preferred to keep it to myself. My only hope was I could bring the two of us back home safe and sound. If I had to shave off some of my pride in order to do so, hell..., so be it.
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