Chapter 44: Chapter 49: King against the council!

Derek limped over to the edge of a roof top, he surveyed below him, up and down the busy streets before he sat his back towards the edge and brought out his purlieu communication device. "C'mon, Setto, Set, Setty, I need you right now!" Derek thought to himself as he did nothing to fix the nosebleed but he wrapped his broken arm in a cloud of smoke to heal it faster than a week. "Whoa, you look like you barely escaped a wrecking ball swinging into you, dude!" Settembre shouted with shock once he laid eyes on his friend. "I'd have been able to dodge that wrecking ball, I could barely dodge this cult member, he calls himself the next heir of the cult and told me he knew who I was but he's leaving me guessing on how he knew where to find me. He came out of nowhere, we had a brief talk before he attempted to murder me." Derek replied as he rested and groaned. "The generation spanning war between cult and the Purlieu, did he spill out anything relevant or helpful to you while feeling talkative?" Settembre inquired as he sat back in his chair and decided to take a break from his work. "He— shouted, I heard him frustratingly shout that the cult will hunt the rest of our people and end us when they're finished with me." Derek informed his friend. "He can bring it on, Noa and her father would obliterate him, you know what has to be done." Settembre replied with a fierce tone. "I miss Gram's crab stuffed mushrooms right now—- Oh, no, no, no, absolutely no way, Alec the wise guy, I can do this without letting a man who has no ability to keep himself safe fight the evils. It's our duty to protect them from them, we defend the weak, not use them. Always peeping through unexpectedly." Derek assertively declares as he shakes his head in disapproval of his buddy's idea. "He's a conspiracy buff that happens to double as an investigative journalist who knows that place and you're a crafty vigilante with ambition and enough drive to clean that city up with his knowledge." Settembre reasoned with Derek. "He's a conspiracy theorist who happens to be right but he doesn't grasp the cult he's taking on, Set." Derek argues as he sat with his head down. "Sailing in the same seas as us and the Purlieu." Settembre responded as he was remembering the stories of the cult from before told by his elders terrified him. "No?" Said Derek with a low tone. "Answer this question with absolutely or not in the slightest, for me, please?" Settembre responds. "Not in the slightest, only some bad guy he called the worst thing to call somebody, a worm and that his name is Basa, the champion of the Enenra." Derek answered figuring out the question he was going to ask mid sentence. "I can respect anything you've decided but I've got to get back to work for the police. Talk to you lates now!" Settembre finished before Derek hung up.

On the verge of shutting his eyes, Derek heard knocking on his door once more, he wasn't expecting, he held his fist tight then opened his door and stood on the side ready to check the assailant's gut. "H—Hi, hello, hello there!" He heard from a familiar woman's voice which then made the hero force himself to calm down. "Barbara, aren't you?" Derek asked while attempting to skip over what happened. "The city's getting to you already?" Barbara asked as she looked past him and surveyed his room. "Yeah— yeah, something's happened earlier I'm pulling myself back together from, you know?" Derek answered as he invited her inside which he thought of after looking at her expression. "Tough thinking about what could spook a dude like yourself who rushed a guy who hid behind his gun, cowardly but real still." Barbara commented as she began blushing. "Sometimes, it's hard for me to come up with something then it leads me into trouble." Derek replied as cleant up his clothes. "This is what's going on, I'm truly sorry for aiming that gun at you and that I listened. I couldn't take my mind off the question, I can't keep telling myself that my sisters know best for my life and well-being, that it's about time I grow up and fix myself." Barbara shouted out with pride before signing a bit of relief. "And have you told your sister about this decision and how are they taking it?" Derek asked the young woman who moved her eyes away from him with her arms crossed. "Bad, very bad, terribly. They babbled and screamed words like ungrateful and who cares though?" The petite woman with red hair answered then asked him. "I do, I care and I can tell that you actually do, can you take me to them real quick?" Derek asked the youngest recent robber. Barbara sighed realizing that he was right and saw through it. "The kindest voice besides yours just now was from my older sisters and simultaneously the worst have been too." Barbara admitted as she looked away from him once more while blushing. "As the oldest in my home, It be like that sometimes. Ready to take me now?" Derek finished as she jumped off his bed and back on her feet. The pair walked up a floor to the room Derek's thief and her sisters rented in the hotel. Derek knocked then swiftly dodged a burning palm heading towards his face, proceeding to slip past a few more fiery swings. "You!!" The eldest with her anger turned took control of her and she shouted with a wrathful tone while she needed to catch her breath. "I only needed to put it on one sister's mind." Derek reminded himself as he looked past her and towards the other two. "You two came to petty?" The second eldest asked with her arms on her hips and eyebrows letting Derek know how she felt. "No. The opposite. I never wanted her to leave you two, are you two willing to change your lives around? Walk the straight and narrow?" Derek asked with a serious tone. The second eldest made the sort of face Derek wanted to see, one of interest. "Straight and narrow in this city don't take you very far. No." The eldest shouted out, before Derek could respond, the four of them heard further knocking on the sister's door abruptly. The eldest had opened it up for a young lengthy haired Hispanic man with a smile that made the two younger sisters become overwhelmed before asking for Derek by name, shocking the hero that he knows his last name. Derek's eyes flew open as he looked out the windows. "Let me finish speaking with these young ladies, I'll meet you—errr. Downstairs. Where we can talk." Derek couldn't finish without making the eldest feel suspicious about him as he noticed the expression she had on her face while struggling to come up with a name for the stranger. "You can call me Emilio. Just don't forget to meet me down there, I certainly won't forget about you." Emilio responded before walking away to the hotel lobby.

Derek met with the stranger with slick black hair, mustache which Derek found incredible and wearing a dark orange and dark blue jacket that looked uniquely made to the investigative minded hero. "Glad you made it away from that woman who looked like she was ready to have both of our heads upstairs, prowler that hides in the gas!" Emilio shouted with a congratulatory tone as he slowly clapped as he approached the hero closer. The hero noticed the gauntlets that appeared on him as he brought his hands from behind him to clap. "My educated guess? Another assassin like earlier sent by your cult's masters?" Derek inquired as he held his stance and lower half ready. "Not usually, not exactly. Think before you piss me off further by mocking master Enenra's most loyal worshippers again for my courtesy." Emilio calmly replied as he glared into his soul. "This fella isn't just some schmuck. He must be a comfortably ranking enforcer for the cult, he might have just the right answers I'm looking for waiting to be squeezed out of him?" Derek thought to himself as he paid close attention to his clawed gauntlets and silly grin. "You know, Amigo, since you won't be making it out of this city and back to anyone who could answer your screams, I'm a practitioner of the study of the sharp mind. Emilio, Successor to the Mistress of the sharp mind!" Emilio boasted as he moved a long piece of hair from blocking his right eye while his elbow touched his wrist. "Nobody would miss you when you're behind bars." Derek responded as he held another confident smile to mock Emilio. The self-proclaimed greatest student of the Mistress of sword practice laughed at the hero's comeback. "You must have just arrived, so welcome to the city!" Emilio shouted enough to irritate his target, thoughts of the day he saw how the city hit rock bottom was playing on repeat in his mind. "I was born here, raised here for eight years of my life, I'm taking my home back from your clutches. I guess it starts here with you?" Derek spoke and declared as he leapt into a cloud of smoke he placed in front of him and rushed at Emilio, to his shock, the hero was wearing something new. Emilio slipped past all of Derek's swings before pushing him away with a powerful kick and placed on a mask of his own with a sword symbol on its forehead. "Ask yourself, do it? first!" Emilio replied before Derek found himself surrounded by his own small gang of swords floating on Emilio's command, Derek found himself waiting to dodge the sword awaiting his assailant's mental commands. "I find myself tormented by Mistress knive's looks when she tests me and I show her that I'm not as sadistic as some of the others when I fail yet… stabbing others doesn't please me, usually, when somebody is as cocky as you when they're talking to me find themselves at my mercy, I can't help but love it. Please, smokescreen me already, c'mon, hero." Said Emilio as he held his mask and chuckled to himself. "Tough but It's still far less strenuous than my plan. Slightly riskier." Derek thought to himself before he listened and caused his half of the hotel lobby to become encased in smoke. Emilio couldn't see his target, he sent the blades that he had surrounded Derek with to hastily slash and soar aggressively and erratically within smoke filled half with the hope of being lucky enough to catch him hiding. Derek felt one of the blades coincidentally heading for the person he heard who worked at the hotel leaving the back room. He was waiting dodging Emilio's perfect luck before deciding to save the civilian. An hour later, Derek found himself on the edge of another building's rooftop, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream that he picked up to heal his hurt as he thought about the battle and what his assailant told him on repeat. Fenella flew down and rested on Derek's shoulder when he finished his ice cream. "I just miss Chaelb, Set, and you and Henny— and Nick— and Grams— and even my loud old Grandpa." Derek revealed with his voice low as he stared into Fenella's eyes while speaking. "He tried to warn you but that power trip you were on and how you were ready. Sounds like you're rethinking?" Settembre responded over their communicators. "I've got— I'm yeah— try your best to keep the Purlieu's leader convinced that I can do this. I'll get in contact with him. I can do this, just not alone." Derek stuttered as he considered many things in this moment before the hero stood back up on his feet, bloodied but enjoying the wind flowing past his face with Fenella on his shoulder.