บท 54: Chapter 59: Smoke clouds and Auroras!

Mack felt wrathful eyes spying, timing in his head, the distance between him and his gaseous assailant, he turned around and rushed a shoulder perfectly timed with his transformation back to his physical form sending Derek rolling a comfortable and painful distance. "I've been looking through this city, man, trying to find you for this rematch. Give you a chance to make it one to one, you know guy?" Said Mack as he held his right fist and he held his chin up with a smirk. Derek kept an irked expression on his face as he recovered. "Such a caring and considerate scumbag you are, just bring it on!" Derek angrily replied as he got back to his feet, as smoke flew around the combatants' shoulders, they rushed toward each other at breakneck speed. "Right. I just need to scour the city's cameras. And we just need to find him. Easy work, plausible work." Settembre responded to her but also doubled as a reminder to himself as he was busy searching on his monitors. "We just need to find him and hopefully bring him home then give him a very stern talking to for acting so recklessly. Don't worry, he's coming home, Set." Noa asserted and declared as she surveyed the building's lobby. Noa looked around her but struggled to find any clues. "You haven't lost my latest project, have ya, Noa?" Settembre asked as it came to mind when he paused for a moment. "The hat thingy?" Noa asked as she walked through searching for any plausible clue of their presence. "Style and utility. It's still experimental so right now don't use it for more than an hour and you only get one shot every twenty four hours. You temporarily become capable of taking advantage of my Psychometry. Wear it and focus very carefully on what you wish to know next to past events." Settembre informed Noa as he continued his search. "Sounds easy, it's not, I'm still going to need your help here with finding his room and coming up with what to focus on. Give me something, Setty." Noa replied as she continued exploring the darkened halls of the abandoned apartment complex. "Alright, I've written some things he told me that I figured would be fairly important on a sticky note because of my memory problems. My favorite part of being me. Give me a second." Settembre replied as he first checked the sticky notes on his third monitor then checked the rest on his computer's desk until he found the information Derek told him in the past. Settembre relayed the information to his and Derek's best friend for her mission to bring him home from the Heroics Purlieu and herself especially. Settembre gave a suggestion and Noa listened, she saw four male figures surrounding her with a turquoise glow, she couldn't believe her eyes when she recognized one of her best friends out of the squad speaking with no voice. She informed Settembre of this issue. "I'm ready for you now!" Derek shouted as he stepped one jab then the second and under a swift hook before stepping an overhead punch. Mack's confusion towards Derek's speed as he kept his distance from Derek's consistent chain tornado kicks halted any counterattack resulting in him becoming cornered and Derek able to deliver a spinning back kick on him which sent him flying and cracking the wall of a building. "Taekwondo fighter, huh, wouldn't have figured that for you, short stack." Mack commented as he recovered. "Wait until you feel my Ap chagi, you're not getting away!" Derek taunted and declared until he noticed he was being rushed by the unrelenting creatures, he dodged and stepped past their sharpened claws and their big fists. The hero halfway squat then threw out his arms as if he were in a box as he generated smoke to fill the area. In only a few seconds, each creature was no longer an issue and he saw Mack leaping up to a building. Derek transformed into his gaseous smoke form and flew past him on the building he was trying to use to escape from sight. "I'm already down the block from Master Basa. Servant of Lord Enotocin, born into this ancient feud and standing right in front of me right now to take his servants down, safe to guess that you know who he is, right?" Mack asked as he grinned. Derek looked down at the ground as he hated thinking about it. "Yeah. An ancient fart that I'm destined to kill one day, for humanity and to end the final trace of the evil he's spread, the source, him." Derek answered brute forcing laughter out of Mack after a moment of silence and comprehension passed two by like a tumbleweed. Derek stood with his stance ready and prepared. "Alright, I'm going to demonstrate why that's one of the most delusional sentences I've heard in a while for you." Mack responded after feeling so offended that his resolve to end Derek's life for threatening his lord allowed him to tap much deeper into Enotocin's gift. "This has been a long time coming and one of us is going down." Derek declared as he charged in. Mack began overwhelmingly throwing calculated chains of jabs, hooks and crosses to soften up Derek. "This isn't good, little set." Said Noa when she realized what she found after being led to a random rooftop. "Hey, I'm content with being five-five, alright?!" Settembre calmly replied over their comms. "two empty tubs of Derek's favorite icecream. Our graceful bird relaxes in high spots when he's in deep thought about something on his mind but there's two empty tubs of mint choco icecream, Set." Noa informed the worried friend which made the worrying worse. "Oh no, alright, I'm sorry to ask this but—" Settembre was interrupted but he felt relief. "I've been seeing Dr. Alan, it would take too long to search for answers from the store this comes from and follow the leads from there, I. HAVE. TO. At least try." Noa emphasized at least until the end. "No, remind yourself that you have to and you must, that your powers are like playdough, bend them to your will. Try repeating it in your head over and over without any thought of stopping until you find you've done it. Works for me very well to push past my limits, try it for yourself." Said Settembre calmly while his facial expression was serious. "Here goes every ounce of love for our hero!" Noa shouted with firm resolve but after ten minutes of nothing happening, her temper began flaring up as a rare occasion and she began attempting to demand that the trail appear in the sky to guide her once more toward her love. The trail in the sky appeared like it did for her ages ago as her mind was blown up, she began to think on her powers before she shrugged them off to focus on traversing to where the trail is leading. She threw her arms down to her hips, lighting up her shoes which made them glow green and pink like her jacket and mask before she began to form bridges the same color. "What's happening, what's going on, so did it work, check in, check in?" Settembre asked over their comms with a tone of urgency. "You're Lowkey a genius, Set. I still did things like I had, the expectation that they'd work for me but it wasn't getting me anywhere, all of these years, I could have just come to you?" Noa replied as she prepared herself for traversal then surfed green waves of Aurora through the city. She heard moans of suffering before she turned around then saw monsters chasing after her with a bloodthirst when she had looked behind her out of curiosity. She looked at the ravenous monsters with an unamused expression as they chased her down but was slightly lower than her Aurora surfing through the air. "No distance is too far to be next to him." Noa thought to herself as she sped up.