SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2014

CONTENT WARNING

The following chapter describes a character getting magically lobotomized.

To make avoiding this section easier, it will be proceeded and followed by this symbol: ⛔

Director Inoue sighed as she made her way out the double doors of the complex. This was supposed to be a day trip to Los Eternos for public relations purposes, but now her test subject has escaped, and her subordinate is now stranded because he decided to go chase after him. He was unharmed, but perhaps losing a limb would have taught him a valuable lesson.

She headed down the solitary road in an jeep with a fake license plate. She didn't plan on doing any reckless driving and the law doesn’t care about what mages do to each-other. But that’s still something an enemy could use to keep tabs on her, especially since this was her personal vehicle.

The first matter of business was retrieving her subordinate. He had already committed to assist her for the duration of the trip, so it was just a matter of finding him. As soon as she pulled into town, she asked Alex for his location and drove straight to the park he described.

When Hikari saw him sitting on a bench near the front, He looked disheveled and shaken, but was otherwise fine. “You look well for someone who faced off against a mid-tier mage and an infamous vampire.” She teased.

“Yeah, I uh… We’ll, they didn’t want anything from me, so here I am.” He didn’t want to admit he couldn’t follow through with any assassination attempt, or talk about the conversations he had with either of them. And he especially didn’t want to talk about Sinclair. He should, but not today. Alex stood up and brushed himself off the best he could.

“You had no business doing any of that, you know.” Hikari stepped closer to him, as she smirked in an unreadable way, and Alex tensed up instinctively. “You disappeared without a trace, alone, with your only communication being a handful of texts. And you couldn’t even succeed in your self-imposed mission.”

Alex turned pale and started sweating as he locked eyes with his superior. He wanted to turn tail, but “Hey, I still learned a bunch of stuff! I confirmed Teach is still with the vampire. And, uh… I got their address.”

Hikari’s expression didn’t change as she kept approaching. She slowly and visibly raised her hand, and…

She placed it on Alex’s head and ruffled his hair, resisting the urge to scratch behind the extra set of ears on his head. “We’ve lost too many talented mages lately. Don’t do anything that moronic again unless I order you to, okay?”

Alex immediately exhaled and relaxed his body. “Understood, boss.”

Hikari shook her head. “Well, now that you’re here, you can help me over the next few days. Just follow my lead and do as I say, okay? And no more hitching rides from garbage trucks, or our enemies.”

She still didn’t understand why The Stray went to all of the trouble to bring him out here. But if Charlotte is that soft, then the next few days may be easier than she thought.

It was a long day before last light finally rolled around. A mage had to learn to adapt to an irregular sleep schedule, but that didn’t make having to spend daylight hours asleep any less of a drag. Hikari insisted that he must be in peak condition, ‘just in case’.

The duo was at city hall early, but immediately noticed they weren’t the first ones there. Both of them could feel a pair of eyes glaring at them from a lonely corner of the room, and while Alex noticed a sulking white-haired woman, his attention was quickly diverted to the two men at the opposite sides of the circular amphitheater. 

One looked like he didn’t plan on paying attention, and had his feet propped on the seat in front of him. The other one was shuffling through some papers last minute. That was The Patriarch, but he seemed so... normal? He wasn't some kinglike figure or out of touch politician, just a well put together but perpetually irritated looking man. 'Middle manager' was the phrase that came to mind.

“This is Alex, the researcher I told you about. Don’t mind him, he’s just eccentric.” Hikari turned her attention to James while gesturing broadly to her partner in an attempt to preempt any questions about his unusual appearance, or his somehow more noticeable behavior.

James nodded, clearly unconcerned with what he was seeing. “Good. We may need an extra pair of hands if things get out of control.”

Wait, why would things get out of control? Alex was on edge as the room filled up over the next ten minutes. Hikari was up front, directly in front of him, waiting politely, though she was also sizing up anyone who walked in. By the top of the hour, the room was about half full.

“Thank you,” James spoke up first. The acoustics of the room made every whisper clear, but the incubus’s voice was particularly bold right now. “I’ll get right to business. I had hoped I’d have some news on the killer, but there aren’t any updates.”

James crossed his arms while his eyes darted around the room. Most the attendees were on edge, but there were a handful that were bored out of their minds.

“Cool, thanks for wasting our time.” That long-haired man who was here early spoke up. Even though he was one of the first ones here, he didn't appear to be paying attention at all. He had actually spent a large amount of time looking at Hikari, and Alex wondered if he was just here to stare at women.

“Thank you, Ray. As I was saying…” James continued with a bit of sternness in his voice. “Our enemies on the outside aren’t taking a break either. I can try to keep relations civil with the natural world, but I can’t do much if there are immortals within my inner circle actively working against me.”

The room was in an uproar as everyone understood the implication. Everyone glared at each-other with accusatory looks. Hikari got a few looks, but those looked more expectant than accusatory.

“We’ve found documents going back at least two years that are completely falsified. Reports of feds in the city that were never here, false alarms that the National Guard would be deployed within city limits…” James crossed his legs and picked up a Manila folder that had been sitting in the empty seat. "Every incident costs us time and money, but more importantly, too many of them have resulted in lost lives.”

A few members grumbled disapprovingly, and the woman hiding in a corner silently stiffened up and slinked further into the shadows. After a moment, another woman stood up and glared at James. “And you’re just going to accuse everyone in the room?”

“Actually, Priscilla, I’m not accusing the entire room of anything. Just you.” James handed the envelope to one of his peers before gracefully rising to his feet and grabbing his cane. “You can whine all you want while you’re awaiting trial, unless anyone else here wants to step forward.”

The woman was almost foaming at the mouth with anger, maneuvering over the seats in front of her. Her eyes were fixed on James, but she was moving towards someone else; a scrawny and meek woman just a few seats from her. Nobody had time to realize what she was doing as she grabbed the woman an held a knife to her neck.

“If you don’t want to see this woman’s throat be sliced open, you will forget this business and let me leave.” She made her way towards the door, passing Hikari. As she drew closer, Hikari rose to her feet, and stepped back. Alex was also on his feet, ready to strike back.

“Alex, you heard her. Please step aside and let this lady through.” Hikari held an arm out to block his path, leaving him no choice but to comply, grumbling.

“I knew I could count on all of you to be completely spineless.” Priscilla gloated as she made her way past, hostage still in hand. She didn’t notice that as she was passing, Hikari was moving silently behind her, using magic to conceal the sounds of her heels as she quickly closed in. Before her target had a chance to notice, Hikari had deftly swiped the knife from her opponent’s hand.

“Such a weak grip. I’ve seen trainees who were more competent at handling a weapon.” Hikari didn’t let the woman react, instead tossing the knife to the ground as she pulled Priscilla close to her. “I felt that tinge of magic on the handle. Couldn’t tell what it was supposed to do, but you would have been better off not using a metal blade if you wanted to enchant it. Are you so inept that you had to resort to espionage to get ahead?”

At this point, one of her peers might have tried to stop their heart or put them to sleep, but her toolset was a bit more well rounded than that,and making an example of this woman was a top priority. Hikari was still going to augment her strength so she could easily push her opponent to the ground, but as she stepped on the sneering woman, she settled on one of the many ideas she kept in her head.

Hikari withdrew a small noisemaker and flipped the tiny ‘on’ switch. The rest of the auditorium started hearing a quiet but grating buzzing noise. The woman beneath her, however, heard a short burst of unbearably loud noise, and then nothing. She could still feel the vibrations of the noise, but she barely noticed as she was grasping her ears in pain. As she felt her heart beat out of control, she hyperventilated as she looked up in fear towards the small mage. 

The noisemaker was turned off. Hikari's hearing was damaged; there was no way to perform a feat without a little bit of sound leakage, but she could heal that later. Her victim was much worse for wear, but was able to heal her hearing enough to understand what Hikari said next.

"Now, are you going to surrender?" Priscilla was still quite literally under the other woman's heel, and still pinned down. She was crying in pain, but she wouldn't beg.

"Over my dead body!"

⛔

"I'm afraid that won't do. You have questions to answer, But I think I can make this easier on everyone. Now hold still, for your sake. " Hikari knelt down and ran her fingers across the other woman's forehead, before stopping on the space between her eyes. She took a deep breath before proceeding, this was risky for her as well as her opponent, but she needed to both display just how strong she was, and leave her alive.

It was one jolt of electricity. Hikari had made sure that it went directly to her brain, and kept it as localized as she could. She had always been warned to not use electricity as a weapon, but as a surgical tool? This method of lobotomizing someone had a much higher chance of success than normal means. The woman underneath her was still blinking and breathing, she'd find out just how well she truly did later.

⛔

"Are you ready to cooperate now?" Hikari asked as if she was speaking to a child as she stepped back and held out her hand. Her 'patient' simply nodded and took her hand, pulling herself up. They walked over to James, and Hikari gently motioned for the prisoner to take a seat a few chairs away from James before taking her own seat.

The entire room was in shock. Some were in awe at the display they just saw, but most of the room was just horrified. “That should solve the problem. Anything else?”

“There's nothing else to talk about.” James had mixed feelings about what he saw. He understood why she felt that such a show was necessary, but something very permanent was done to this woman without a proper trial or hearing. “Everyone’s dismissed. But if you two want to stick around, that would be great.”

Hikari understood what he really meant and stood by. Alex stayed by her side, and James looked at his underling and quickly texted her for the sake of discretion. Arabella read it, nodded, and escorted the suspect out of the room. With that, James could focus his attention on his guests.

“Look, I understand what you were trying to do, but this was the wrong place to try to prove yourself.” James crossed his arms and shook his head.

“The mob wants justice, and you wanted answers. I think I've resolved the situation neatly.” Hikari stayed composed as she defended herself. Alex was silent, but clearly had a hard time agreeing with her.

“That was barbaric and you know it.” James paced around her as he explained. "A mortal like you should know that people don't want to see that kind of senseless violence anymore."

“So your main concern is appearances?” Hikari was trying not to sound like she was mocking him, but she couldn’t help it.

"Appearances are the only thing that matter, Inoue." James stopped and turned to look Hikari directly into her eyes. "Governments change, attitudes change, and the only way to keep any of it under control is to give them a narrative and a spectacle that reinforces whatever might be going through their heads."

“No wonder the church keeps calling you a demon.” Hikari kept a lighthearted tone, but she was inwardly seething. The people want a strong ruler, that's what she was told time and time again. What did this old man know?

“You can think on that later. For now, I wanted to ask if you were serious about offering me assistance with the assassinations.” James knew she wouldn’t decline after a showing like that.

“I am a woman of my word.” Hikari smiled inscrutably. “What do you need?”

“Your underling.” James finally got to the point. “We’re down a mage, and there's too much magical equipment that needs maintaining. And I understand that you might have some personal errands to take care of.”

Hikari was relieved that she wasn’t asked to stay personally, but was expecting Alex to start whining. Instead, he chirped up first, trying to contain his enthusiasm. “I mean, sure. If the boss is okay with it.”

Hikari shook her head and her smile turned to a more sincere one. “He absolutely needs the field experience. Just get him back to me in one piece, okay? I'll be back for him in a few days."

After that agreement, the group spent a few more minutes talking to one-another about the logistics of the agreement before parting ways. All the while, James's black haired friend was shaking his head and muttering to himself yet again.

"Great, another chance to strengthen our bond with Eclipse. Hope this one isn't a psycho."