It was mid-October when Iris Valentine squeezed a moist rag against her face, retracted her host aura from the water, and accelerated its evaporation using Phantom.
She viewed herself in the bathroom mirror and thought she understood why she had been picking up female attention at Urasaria. She was charming, fit, and rather handsome. Life had conditioned her to a certain frequency of sex, usually easily obtained.
She had not indulged in these opportunities since she met Amelie, though she still did not call what they shared a relationship; she felt fearful of doing so, as if it could not survive that slight name.
She went out to the living room where Natasha was. "I'm ready to leave."
"Sweet. We can go get breakfast around 8 and still avoid Viktoria."
Iris mused. "You don't think she would be able to help us with the investigation?"
"No, she's good at that, but..." Natasha rubbed the back of her neck. "Look, I don't dislike Viktoria, but I can't stand her critical attitude. It's enough to where I sometimes intentionally don't take her advice just to spite her. Especially if it's good advice."
Iris nodded and they set out to the previous address, after their usual breakfast. A car was in the driveway, so they knocked at the front door at 8:30am. A middle-aged woman answered.
"Hi, we're with Urasaria." said Natasha. "We were trying to find someone who lives here. Luca Rossa?"
"He's dead. He was my son. That enough?"
"You don't seem too distraught about it."
She looked at them with disdain, then sighed. "My son was a criminal. I know that. But goddamnit, crime's one of the few ways the poor can get ahead in America. I work a job where I'm paid crap and my boss is a little evil man who would just as soon see me dead as Luca's boss did him. They came to me the night they killed him, and they said he had died fighting off a few Revenants or something. I knew it was bullshit, but how do you expect me to react?"
Iris spoke up. "He wouldn't be dead if he worked an honest job that didn't involve killing people."
"Oh, don't you start. My son was no saint, but neither are you. You're just some punk with a Revenant and a sick country that supports you. He provided for me, especially after my hands got worse and his father got sent up to prison-"
"What the hell do your hands have to do to it? And if his father was sent to prison, then it seems like your son is even worse for seeing the path of evil his father blazed and still choosing to follow it. Now you see where it brought him. What a devious and stupid trap both of you created for your child."
"You can lecture me all you want about how I should've raised my raise my kid, or about morality. We've never had the money to be particular about where it comes from. It's sure easy for you to spout about honesty when you have the government behind you, you goddamn prick. The people he killed weren't saints, either, and he made good money doing it, unlike you."
"Oh, blame again and a lack of personal responsibility. At least you aren't alone in that, these days. That's all that ever seems to stream out from mothers like you. You build up resentment and become so insular that no problems exist but the ones that personally affect your family, and-"
Natasha placed her arm across Iris and held her back. "Sorry, my partner here is a bit of a powder keg. She had, um... someone close to her die to a Revenant, so she can get kinda touchy. Do you remember what day he died? We're trying to find his killers. You can use us to get back at them."
"August 7th. They came here and they fed me a bullshit story about him getting killed fending off a pack of wild thugs. I don't see how that'll help you. I shouldn't even be talking to students. I've got people who could be watching me and I get nothing but a migraine talking to you."
Iris was disgusted by her utter lack of loyalty to her son's memory, along with her admission yet abetment of evil. She thought of what she might be loyal to and said she would be getting something from the car. She took out the briefcase of money, then opened it as she handed it to the woman. "It isn't reported."
The woman took it and backed into her home. She examined it as if to think over it, yet Iris could tell she had made her decision instantly. "Well, come in, then."
Iris nodded and they went inside. She was not as ill-tempered as Natasha had believed, only disgusted. After months of fighting she had a fortress of an ego against civilians; she could not be bothered that which she could so easily maim. Her outburst against Little Alfredo's manager seemed foolish now. But such violence still needed to be given its due, lest she rage against such constraints; so the good beatdown of enemy hosts sufficed to never let her fist go too uncontrolled.
She sat down on her couch and they sat across from her. While Natasha questioned the woman, Iris tested reverting the money back to the car sans briefcase. "Why do you think he was killed?"
"I don't know." She sighed. "God, I know he was getting in a bit hot with the Luchesses, but he was just a low-level soldier. I thought they were overlooking it once they started putting him onto some of the more important shit. He muscled out a few local dealers, but he was a host kid. He's impulsive."
"Did he happen to have a friend he hung out with a lot?"
"Yeah? Rocco? He was a sweet kid, but they must've killed them together. I've been frozen out since they killed him. I don't even get a visit from Salvatore or-"
"Excuse me, Salvatore?" said Iris.
Natasha nodded. "That's who we're looking for."
"I don't have anything to say about him, and the only way I would is if you had a visa to Europe in that briefcase."
They sighed, and Natasha glanced to Iris as if to say she would stretch this woman if needed. "Alright. Did your son tell you where he was going the night he died?"
"No, he never did-"
- dark strings shot out from the right of the couch and around the woman's neck, strangling her and yanking her taut -
- until it ripped her head off in a geyser of blood; a late-wind arrived but only cut a dead rope, and in the next instant --
- the couch shifted and pulled itself to Natasha & Iris's left and they saw a sliver of their foe's figure in the window ahead; the couch's seats opened up and cotton spewed towards the two -
- that Natasha's wind swiftly cleared; ahead, they saw him rush across the window, and dark strings shot up from the floor to grab their wrists -
- yet wilted, leaving Iris confused for a moment as he swept across the window again; another dark string shot up and tripped at the ceiling fan's light, ripped & tore it out, still lit as it shoved the light in the two's eyes -
- and out of it came a brightness with such potency that both were blinded in an instant, before they could react, more cotton had embraced them, and in the next instant -
- they burst into flames -
" - Phantom!" shouted Iris, sending out Phantom's strands to manipulate the fire -
- but they were slowed by a set of dark strands; beside, she heard Natasha similarly falter, until she shouted at Iris to rot two holes in the ceiling; she did so and two pillars of snow fell upon them & embraced them, snuffing out the flames and keeping them safe.
The two were still blinded, encased within their snowy cocoons; superheated beams shot into their respective prisons and burnt holes into their skin, Iris wincing as she heard Natasha beside: "Iris! Make it go dark!"
A geyser of lava swallows the two, and as Meteorology beckoned for Phantom -
- time accelerated and cooled the lava into an obsidian cocoon; outside of it, Phantom felt a sandstorm begin, and waited for another invitation before it superheated it into glass -
- and they knew from their foe's scream they had chosen right, reflecting the superbright beams back upon him yet no killing them yet. They were still blinded, and would be for the duration of this fight; thus they stayed within their black opaque cocoons for some moments.
Iris rotted a hole in her's near her ear to better hear Natasha, who was whispering: "Iris, form an outline of lightning outside of every object in the room. I'll connect it to my own current of lightning; we can see that way."
Iris forgot they were both blind and nodded. "It'll take up almost all of Phantom's focus. Can't trust me to counter much."
Phantom set the work outside, peering at what currently was and attempting to predict what would be; she felt a host aura outside of the window they knew was still ahead, an outline of air she could not directly manipulate. She rotted away their glass & obsidian prisons, their eyes still open in the next instant -
- the ceiling light came at them from above and shot several lights into their eyes -
- which would have had an effect had they any sight left.
"He's rushing alongside the window." Iris felt Natasha's electricity join her network.
"It collects light and dark." muttered Natasha, then shouted: "Obsidian! Meteorology!"
A geyser of lava shot forward and blasted into the window, covering it whole -
- and Phantom supercooled it into obsidian that kept the window dark, keeping them safe from his sight for a moment. Phantom keeping it tracked, Iris felt something shatter the obsidian pillar from the other side and send pieces hurtling towards them; she rotted them away, but their shadows still lingered for a moment -
- and out of it came many dark strands that shot to their wrists & their hands, more joining from the shadows of furniture around, tugging at their ankles and pulling both backfirst to the ground; they writhed & thrashed in their blind manner, and as his shadow grew stee across the living room floor -
- more dark strands shot out of it and further tightened around their ankles & legs, keeping both tethered to the ground, even as Natasha's restraints were already beginning to fray. The light shifted within the room and each furniture's shadow deepened; the ceiling above them began to shift, dumping furniture & electronics from the second floor onto them from above, and as a swift wind went to meet them -
- cotton spewed out of the furniture and dark strands sewed a rapid blanket -
- that caught the wind like a parachute in war, dulling her counter as the enormous blanket swept away, revealing a single hole in the roof above that contained a slicing beam of sun -
- disintegrating a hole out of Natasha's left arm; she writhed and the beam swept up her arm, cutting deeper holes into it -
- but a swift repair & revert of Phantom closed up the hole in the roof; this could only earn them a few more seconds of time, still trapped & tethered backfirst to the ground despite their thrash.
"G-Gotta dip Phantom's sight." grunted Iris quick, feeling how the strands were arranged; there was one knot that tethered all strands around her body now.
She focused, and her spider crawled rapidly across her chest, leaving its own web in its wake, similar to how she performed her Timeline; these temporary webs could not ever leave her body but with that steeper sort of focus. The base of the knot was upon her skin as the strands continued to tighten & dig at her, until a single Phantom strand hung from its knot.
"You really w-want to make this strand versus s-strand?" grunted Iris.
Phantom hissed. An enormous pressure formed at the end of Phantom's strand, tugging the knot down with herself an insufficient counterweight; rivulets of sweat dampened her forehead as the dark strands began to fray, digging into her own skin yet its knot beginning to loosen, hundreds, then thousands of pounds of pressure being exerted upon it through a single Phantom strand -
- and the immense tension snapped the rope apart and smacked the dark strands into her face on the snapback; she winded but quickly rolled onto Natasha and did the same, letting both stand up afterwards but with no sight still. Phantom's electrical network appeared again and Natasha plugged connected, though they felt no new strands appear.
Ahead, Phantom felt the window open, and wrote in lightning a message on Natasha's back: 'FOE HERE'. She knew that host's advanced senses would carry this through for her, and felt an outline of what she could not manipulate pause ahead.
Electricity wrote on Iris's back: 'GOT STRATEGY'.
Iris wrote back: '?', and in the next instant -
- a sharp wind yanked them out of the house and to the front lawn; Iris yelped as Phantom was forced to adjust, yet they had unknowingly flown into the house's shadow -
" - goodbye, shithead!" shouted Natasha at her side; an earthquake shuddered Iris's legs and she felt the entire house crumbling ahead; geysers of lava spewed molten magma into the collapsing walls, disintegrating the furniture within the home; electricity and tsunamis hit the surrounding area with such frequency that Iris grabbed Natasha for safety, the curling waves so strong she dared not loosen her grip.
Ahead, Iris felt a still-beating heart become manipulatable for a brief moment before it was pulled away, and told Natasha she could stop now.
The heat deepened, then suddenly leveled as an enormous avalanche of snow swept over the home; all Iris heard was heavy hailstones smashing through the debris and shattering more volcanic rock into further electrified pieces; a stormcloud rained lava and the tsunamis deepened.
Iris wrote on Natasha's back: 'Stop!'
Another earthquake split their footing and Iris stumbled, feeling blindly with Phantom; cars & asphalt beside them were swept up in electrified tornados that shot through the home and spun its debris in its wake; fingers of wind blasted out superheated chunks of boulders as a hailstorm of lightning swept over the house, destroying sidewalks beside them.
Iris was frantically writing on Natasha's back and shouting: "STOP! STOP! STOP!"
Natasha stopped and Iris was scared shitless. She hadn't realized before that if Natasha wanted to, she had both the Revenant strength & physical demeanor to be truly intimidating. That she was not again made Iris feel Natasha was a template she might follow for herself, someone whose nature she liked perhaps more than her own.
"T-Thanks." panted Iris.
"Oh, I knew he was dead like two minutes ago." said Natasha. "Fuck, now I have to wait more time for Flickendecke to be ready."
Blindly, Iris repaired their car and they laid back in it until they could heal themselves with Flickendecke. They came back to the middle of the house, sighed and saw his corpse sans Revenant. Had they scanned it, it would have said:
[HUNTER: Collection of light, dark, and puppeted shadows.]
Iris reverted the house to normal and Natasha threw the corpse out the window, then with Phantom's assistance made chicken wings for themselves. After they ate, Natasha looked over the woman's corpse. "Well, shit."
Iris shrugged. "I don't mind the outcome, but I would've liked it delayed by a few seconds."
"Damn, dude. Harsh. Okay, there's two floors, so let's start on the first."
They discussed it for awhile and searched; Iris Timelined the first floor of the home, but could find no other evidence than the museum of a rough and brutal life. Occasionally he had brought what he enjoyed into this household; electronics, food or sneakers; a few hates in the flight of a thrown plate of food across the room, and the majority of the time he merely went up to his room and closed the door.
She thought it odd, for she wondered if he had only aided his mother because he could not live with her and not help. Even crime could not afford a house of his own. Perhaps she was being cynical.
They searched for hours, but found little; his non-host friend had never once been in his home. She watched as the son & mother's corpse bickered. Words and insults seemed to hurl from their lips, yet never made any imprint in their relation; they simply washed into the next. Perhaps had his life continued, it might have eventually reached a point of compromise; but she doubted so. As both grew older, they would not have grown wiser; merely older.
She knew that from her uncle.
"…you remember how the woman was drowned?" Natasha was sitting beside her on the couch. "Back at the diner."
"Yes. Her hair was wet."
"You think we'd be able to wring it out? I know it'll go back into her hair if you resume the Timeline, but keep it paused."
Iris nodded.
"If we can take a sample of the water, we can test where the water is from. City governments take samples of every body of water in their city, so they can test for water quality and pollution. She might've been drowned in a specific pond or river."