*Knock* *Knock*
The man sitting on the black, cussioned swivel chair raised his head up and looked at the wall in front of him, "Come in."
The door burst open to reveal an average build, man, his foreheads were sweaty and his breathing unstable, it seemed like the man ran all the way towards the office, "Deputy Director Charles..."
Deputy Director Charles motioned the man to sit down on the empty chair in front of him, "Speak."
Charles is the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Though, he was only the the director of a small branch in S city. Although it is called a small branch, it is part of the FBI nonetheless.
The man took a few seconds to catch his breath before he began to speak, "Th-There was a sighting of a giant eagle in Paddington road. From what the winesses states, the eagle looked to be about the size of a small house. We can ignore all of the monster sightings for now, what we need to focus on is the giant eagle."
Deputy Director Charles let out a small chuckled before he looked at the man with a mocking smile, "Well, can you bring the witnesses here for interrogation, Agent Luke?"
They receive sightings such as these in a daily basis, but there were no proof nor any other witnesses that could prove the claim to be true. From Bigfoot to the Lochness Monster, they receive it all. They only chose to ignore them since the sighting has already been proven false by the upper echelons.
He didn't laugh because he was mocking Agent Luke, but it was a laugh with hidden meanings. Deputy Director Charles has a somewhat high position, so he has insider knowledge since he has visited the HQ once and immediately believed what Luke had said.
"It wasn't just a false claim like other ones we received. There were four witnesses and they said the same thing. It also couldn't be a prank since I have already checked their information in the database, the witnesses weren't close whatsoever." Agent Luke replied with a grave tone.
Deputy Director Charles looked at his surroundings warily before he pressed a button under his table. He leaned in closer to Agent Luke, "Have you said this to anyone?"
Agent Luke shook his head profusely.
Deputy Director Charles breathe a sigh of relief. "What about the witnesses? Have you erased their memories?"
Not only would the sighting of a giant eagle make the witnesses paranoid, there was also the possibility of them spreading it around, so erasing their memories is the only way to prevent that from happening.
Agent Luke nodded without hesitation, "Then... What about the giant eagle? Do we let the hunters take care of it?"
Hunters is the name they called the task force that specializes in dealing with monsters such as the giant eagle. What they do is simple, they would trap the monster so that they could bring it back to the HQ for testing. If the trapping of the monster went wrong, such as a trap being activated too early or too late, they would have to kill the monster by themselves, or if they couldn't handle the monster, they would signal the sniper that was stationed before hand and let him kill it.
The Hunters departments deals with all sorts of creatures, from mermaids, to giant, furry, big feet creatures such as a being called 'Bigfoot', though, it doesn't end there, the list goes on and on. They get people in the Hunters department in the Heroes Association or retired mercenaries that were willing to work for them.
Of course, to know what hunters to deploy, they were given ranks. The ranks were the same as monsters, but typically, a D rank monster could easily defeat a hunter of the same rank. There were six known ranks, S, A, B, C, D, and E with S being the highest and E being the lowest.
Creatures such as Bigfoot is ranked D and mermaids C. They were ranked based on their battle prowess. Bigfoot being a muscular, tall figure, he was ranked D. Mermaids were ranked C since they specialized in the water and has a hypnotizing spell that would hypnotize a Hunter that wasn't prepared.
"Don't be rash. We don't even know where the eagle is, we need to gather intel first." Deputy Director Charles replied. Even if there was a sighting, they couldn't do anything since they don't have enough information. Furthermore, they don't know what rank the eagle is, all they know is that it's a giant eagle. If they sent Hunters that they thought would suffice in dealing with said eagle, there was a chance that they would die in vain.
...
"Have you found her yet?" Levi waited for an hour before he contacted Aquilla again. Since he was in Hong Kong, he couldn't do anything but wait for Aquilla's reply,
"Don't worry, she only has a few dozen broken bones in her body. After a few hours in the Mountain, she would be good as new."
Levi didn't know whether to be happy that Val is still alive or to be angry about Aquilla's nonchalant attitude about her injury, "If she dies, you will have to face the consequences."
"O-Okay." Aquilla replied weakly. Even though he's much much stronger than Levi, he couldn't do anything to him since he's the first disciple.
Their telepathic link later disconnected after Levi knew of Val's condition. Wasting any more time talking would fatigue his mental strength. He later came back to the dining table and sat back down.
Wiping his face, Zhang Ye said, "You still have problems until now, huh?" he later changed the topic as it was a bit uncomfortable to talk about it, "We're going to an auction later, want to join?"
Levi was a bit tempted to join Zhang Ye and his escapades, but after remembering the items in their vault, he shook his head.
"Are you sure? In their pamphlet, I saw that they were auctioning the Crimson Dagger you've always wanted to buy." If it was anyone, Zhang Ye wouldn't pursue the matter any longer, but since it was Levi, he did so.
The mention of the Crimson Dagger perked Levi's ears up. The Crimson Dagger is said to be owned by the legendary Rose, but those were all just rumours and were not proven to be true. Even though the dagger is broken and only half of the blade remains, it was still a formidable blade.
"Is it really the dagger? Don't tell me you got all of this intel from that psycho."
Zhang Ye let out a chuckle, "Don't worry, I didn't get this from Drey," he leaned in closer to Levi and whispered, "I got my intel from Keith."
Levi's body trembled at the mention of Keith's name, "T-that legendary hacker? He's alive...?"
In the underground, mercenaries are not the only one with power, there were also hackers. Although hackers don't have any physical strength like mercenaries, in the cyber-space, they are the emperors. There are three types of hackers that are usually known, White Hat, Black Hat, and Grey Hat hackers.
White Hat, white being the go-to color for good, is what they are. White Hat hackers are basically the good guys in the cyber-space. They are people that test internet infastractures and to search for loopholes in the system. They are basically lock-pickers in the cyber space, although they have the power to break in, they don't do so because of their morals.
Black Hat hackers on the other hand are the bad guys that roam free. They break into the systems freely and with negative intentions. From stealing credit card information, to altering websites, a Black Hat hacker looks to gain fame or money by exploiting the loopholes in the system.
Meanwhile, Gray Hat hackers have neither of those. These types of hackers don't have any good intentions, nor do they have bad intentions. As the color code implies, they are in the middle of White Hat and Black Hat hackers. They are the neutral types.
Keith was the name spread throughout the underground. He made his name by robbing the rich and giving it to the poor, the typical robin hood trope. But that wasn't the only thing he does, he could also gain information and sell them to people. Of course, such information is difficult to find from a bystander's POV, but to him, it was as easy as eating and drinking.
"I thought he retired?" Before Zhang Ye could reply, Levi interrupted him. He was on good terms with Keith, Keith was even the one that helped him gain information on how Ezra's HQ is built and how to counter the security system. But after two years of working together, Keith suddenly disappeared.
"After you lost contact with him, he hid in another country to get away from Ezra. But even after he went to Asia, he was still helping you behind the scenes by targetting him and spreading all of his vile deeds in the internet. That plan still backfired since he got caught after a month of doing that. Since Ezra's basically dead now, he came back." Zhang Ye wasn't close with Keith and would only go to him for information, but since Keith was helping Levi behind the since, he supported him by giving him allowance once in a while.
*Ding*
Zhang Ye grinned when he heard a notification sound, "See?"
Levi took out his phone and found a system message that displayed.
[Your phone is lacking in security, might want to fix that. I'm back at the US by the way, do you have any job for me? :)]