Storm walked into the main hall of Phoenix Zero HQ.
"Yo, looks like you got yourself a pretty fancy outfit!" Robin said.
"You call that fancy, it's just a plain good ol style jacket on top of a minimalistic T-shirt!"
"So you're completely ignoring the dope as heck linear tilted double lightning design printed on top of your «GOOD OL STYLE JACKET»?!"
"Oh, that, I just said my Gear type is electricity. They gave me this. To be honest it's much better than what I was expecting!"
"No wonder why she is the best in this sorta stuff!"
"She? Who are you talking about?"
"The one and only Lora Carson, she's a living sewing machine, believe it or not, she really is one heck of a cloth maker and designer! Uh, she has all the qualities, but she's not really the babe type, she could have been something else if she was!" Robin closed both of his eyes, started fantasizing about his perverted creepy imagination about women and when he opened his eyes there were stars sparkling.
"Yeah, you really need to snap out of it man, by the way, I have to thank her the next time I see, I really like this jacket though, not gonna lie." Storm grabbed the jacket by his index finger and thumb and looked at it, smiling.
"Hey, when I saw you first, I thought you're a gloomy, cold-hearted, savage person," Emily came in the middle of the conversation, "but, now you seem to be a lot friendly now and a soft person."
For some reason Robin had his mouth left open and eyes widened like he's seen a ghost.
"I didn't have enough of a reason to talk before. Y'know, I'm not that talkative. But if a conversation starts, I'll be happy to join in if I find any interest in it." Storm cleared the basic details about his behaviors.
"Well, I gotta go for now, I will be going on my daily training session, I'll be here again when you're officially introduced to the Circle. See ya!" She waved her hand to say goodbye.
Storm looked back at Robin, only to see him completely freaking out, eyes widened, mouth wide open like he's asking to get fed, "IMPOSSIBLE."
"What is?" Storm got confused by the way Robin was acting.
"How was SHE of all people so friendly with you, you know how many times I got kicked or slammed by her?"
"Huh? What?"
"She has some personality issues, she's not that type of person who will wholeheartedly accept someone as her friend or to compliment someone. I tried flirting with her couple of years ago, multiple times, when she first joined the circle. And I got kicked each and every single time."
"That is actually fair. And since when you're flirting with girls? 13-14?"
"I'm hurt," Robin placed his right hand on top of his chest, "Besides, I'm not 16 year older, I'm 18, legal aged! So I have been flirting since 16, it's not that bad!"
"Uh, forget about that stuff, she doesn't seem that type, at least not to me."
"That's the strangest part, maybe she took a liking to you, oh yes, you guys are the future POWER COUPLE, confirmed." Robin got excited.
Storm blushed a bit,"Quit your nonsense, the thing I want to know what am I supposed to do now? Stand here and watch everyone, besides why there are only 5 more people here, I thought Phoenix Zero was one of the strongest and largest Gearer circles in the kingdom!"
One of the five other member, a brown haired male with well shaped figure, wearing an orange color jacket on top of a white t-shirt and also wearing olive color pants appeared from the back of Storm and Robin, "Because as one of the strongest circle in the kingdom our members are always on some either individual mission or circle appointed ones, and a lot of em are training in the training room on the third floor." He pointed his finger up above, showing Storm the third floor of the main HQ.
"So the question is, what should I do now, suck lollipop?" Storm asked.
"Not at all, come with me to the 2nd floor, you'll need to claim your Gear emblem to be a full fledged circle member."
"Yeah, go get one, I'll be in the game room, will be playing something interesting while you're gone. Meet me up there once you're done." Robin headed off to the game room as soon as he finished saying his words. Storm tried to say something, but he got cut off in the middle because Robin already was heading to his destination.
"What's a Gear emblem?" Storm asked the other brown haired guy with him.
"Oh, I forgot, you couldn't possibly know it if you're in the Gearer circle business for the first time, it's an emblem, a mark that goes to show that you're part of the circle, not just that, there are different types of emblems, it depends on a Gearer's Gear type, power level and efficiency as well. Lvl 3 gets a silver emblem, lvl 2 gets a gold emblem and lvl 1, the highest rank gets a platinum emblem. This emblem also allows Gearers to have special abilities. Common abilities are Gearer's….. Oh I completely forgot to introduce myself before giving the lecture haha, my name is Kiri, Kiri Neon." Kiri explained all that and introduced himself while he made his way to the 2nd floor with Storm through the curved staircase of the HQ.
They stopped in front of a wide door with a Phoenix, the circle's logo printed in the middle of it.
Kiri showed his emblem in front of the Phoenix logo on the door. The logo lit up in green as the door opened right after that.
They entered a room with RGB lighting. There's a circle shaped floor in the center of the room, the entire square sized room is surrounded by many digital equipment. Most likely Gear materials. In the right corner of the circle shaped floor Storm saw multiple triangle shaped, curved around the edges, emblems floating 6 feet above the ground.
He pointed his fingers at the emblems and asked Kiri, "I suppose those are the Gear emblems you were talking about earlier?"
"Yes, that's right."
"So you're talking about claiming one, how should I do it? Go and grab one randomly?"
"No, that's not how it works. Go stand there." Kiri showed him the center of the floor. "This floor is designed to fully scan a Gearer, his or her abilities and everything. And based on the results of the scan, an emblem will automatically choose the Gearer."
Storm stepped on the center of the floor, immediately a silver spiral laser scanned him up to down. It took about five seconds to complete the process.
After that a pitch black, shining emblem with golden double tilted lightning just like his jacket's design, chose him.
"What, that's not possible!" Kiri's eyes widened and he had his mouth open.
"Hm? Is there something wrong about it?"
"It is...Just… No, nothing at all, it's just nobody has ever got this emblem, ever, this is the only emblem which hasn't chosen anyone in the past 25 years, since the creation of the emblems!"
"So… what type is my emblem then? Sure doesn't look like the other floating ones!"
"No, it isn't, it's an arcane emblem. One of the 3 arcane emblems in this Kingdom. The lightning/electricity indicator is also really odd, just like your jacket, there must be something different about your Gear! No wonder you are given the spot of the leader of the Rising Three right off the bat!"
"Am I really that special?! I never thought of myself like that!"
"If you're chosen by one of the arcane emblems, then, of course you're special, no over exaggerating here!" Kiri crossed his hands in a 'No way' fashion to emphasize his words.
"What should I do about this now, keep it in my pocket, wear it?
"The latter one, it'd assimilate with your Gear, put it on wherever you like."
"I guess it goes well with my hand gloves, I'll put it in here." Saying so he wore the emblem on the back of his right hand. Instantly it assimilated with his Gear which he felt internally, after that it was nothing but a printed symbol on top of his gloves. A holographic projection popped up and showed some automatic and manual uses, such as how to hide or show the emblems when needed. "Well that now makes a lot of sense, this is why I didn't see anyone having an emblem on them, you can hide it!"
Kiri smirked, "Let's go down there, we're done here, Mr. Dawson will be back anytime now. We'll have an official announcement for your entrance in the circle. By the way, we're glad to have you among us!" He tilted his head while smiling with winking.
Meanwhile Emily returned from her training period, Robin was also done playing and Jade was being salty and sulking for all the time on the ground floor of HQ, sitting on the same stool as before. They all were ready for the official introduction of Storm as a full fledged circle member.
The door door didn't open, but Storm felt the presence of someone else. It was Van Dawson, the leader of the circle. "Good to see you again, so soon, it's about time you put on some clothes!"
"Hey, how did you get here? I saw you leave in an instant the last time as well!" Storm was almost shocked to see him suddenly and moved a couple of steps backwards.
"You see, I have spacial ability, which allows me to hop in between two dimensions and travel anywhere within 100 meters of radius!" Dawson closed his eyes while pointing his index finger and talking like a geek!
"Oh-" Storm didn't know what else to say but he added regardless, "That is kinda overpowered!"
"Not at all, I just know how to use it skillfully, that's all, other than that it's pretty simple ability in all honesty." Dawson coughed twice to clean his throat up, "Let us officially introduce as a member now, shall we?" He showed him the way to the HQ deck which is in the opposite direction of the HQ door.
Storm and Van Dawson got there together.
"I can see many of our members are not present today because of their missions, but I can see a lot of you present as well, so I'd like you to introduce to Storm Lecvolt, our new member, he also claimed an emblem." He asked whispering in Storm's ears, " Which one did you get?"
"Arcane!" Storm dropped the bombshell.
"Wait, what??!"
"Really!"
"No way!"
All the members including Jade too started talking about the surprising truth. Storm said out loud enough that there was a need for Dawson to rephrase that.
"Ahem, I'm also shocked, but let's finish the formalities here!" He tried to calm the members down.
"Leader," someone, a spiky black haired guy entered the hall, "Turn on the TV, that thing is rampaging outside!"
Someone turned on the TV, the news was showing a, a giant Spider was on the rampage!
"Quick, take them down RISING 4, I can tell by the looks of this thing, it's at least a level 10 mutant." Dawson said.
"Since when it was RISING 4?" A female with light orange hair asked.
"Since today, Rika! And Storm is the leader!" Dawson replied to the orange haired, full sleeved shirt and a short skirt wearing girl.
"Hey now, don't bring that up, please, anyways, how much is the power of a level 10 mutant?" Storm asked Dawson.
"Give it an hour, it can demolish a small town. Don't let the royal capital have damages. There could be a far more dangerous thing than that could damage the capital, not that thing, now go!"
"Might not need that, cz it's heading this way, towards the HEADQUARTERS!!!!" Kiri screeched out the final word as he was peeking outside through the 2nd floor window.
"That's odd, a mutant of lvl 10 shouldn't have any intellect, why is it heading towards our HQ? It should be rampaging, randomly!" Jade placed index finger and thumb in her chin while asking it to herself.
"It is almost here, gotta move it away guys." Kiri warned them.
"No problemo, that's where I come in, Activate- Meca Upgrade!" Robin chanted his special Gear ability based move. He got multiple glowy green lines coming out of his hand and speeding up to the elbow length, like some electrical wires running through his body. He balled both of his hands into fist and then released the fist and targeted the Gear energy of the spider.
On the 2nd floor Kiri saw a lot of Gear energized machines formed together to create a hand and that grabbed the 8 feet tall mutant spider. "Nice work, Robin, your Meca gear is really something else!" Kiri gave him a thumbs up.
Robin sighed, "I wish that those words of compliments were coming out from the girls' mouth!!"
"What did you do?" Storm asked Robin not knowing exactly what he was doing except for some sort of power activation.
"He got a hold of the mutant spider, no time to slack off, come on, Robin will take it away somewhere quiet and less crowded, although it's hard to find one in the Royal capital!" Emily said.
"Anytime now guys, I'm about to exhaust my Gear reserves, I'm almost out of reserves here!" Robin gasped while warning them.
"You are out of power, how, you haven't even done anything?!" Emily asked.
"Y'know, the newest RPG game, I played that before I got here, it was so hard to get through to the next level, it was so frustrating to lose again and again, so I-"
Emily's eyes went blank at his response, "SERIOUSLY, you were wasting your gear energy in some RPG game?
"Hehe!!" Robin laughed weakly.
"Whatever, hurry up and take that to the northern part of the capital, we'll be there, that's the most quiet place in the capital." Jade almost ordered Robin.
"Get on this." Jade created a big floating red winged bird type creature. "My Crimson eagle can take you there in a blink."
"IN A BLINK might be stretching the truth," Robin said.
"Just an expression, get on it now."
Robin pulled the spider and threw it to the target area.
4 of them hopped on the CRIMSON EAGLE and after 5 minutes they reached the northern end of the capital.
"That was 5 minutes, you call that IN A BLINK!" Robin again mentioned that while jumping down from the eagles back.
"You are still at it, I saved us 30 minutes of extra time by feet!"
They all went down and the Eagle disappeared.
"Now, it's my turn to show the mutant what I'm made of." Emily put on a smug face.
"AQUA SPIRAL" Emily chanted an attack which binded the spider instantly with an aquatic snake bind. "Now, AQUA HAND" a big hand made out of water grasped the spider and tried to make it suffocate. But Emily's all confident smug face faded once it got out of the grasp more easily than expected.
"Look out!" Storm came flying in and saved Emily from the spider's attacking legs, "Don't let your guard down!" Storm let go of her shoulders, she blushed a little.
"You don't need to tell me that, I know!"
"Lightning Slash!" It didn't do much of a damage, so Storm tried out, "Hammering LightningBolt!" That does seem to work a little bit.
"Crimson Blast" Jade also came with her bombing dark red energy blast on the mutant spider. The combo attack seemed to be affecting the spider and it wasn't able to heal itself from that slightly bigger damage.
"Sorry, I am out of enough juice." Robin apologized.
"No problem, but Emily, make something to trap him inside that water power of yours." Storm asked for her help.
"Maybe we can drag him to the river!" She pointed at the small width river.
But immediately after that the spider shot a chemical that decayed the metal in the pile of junk beside Storm.
"Yeah, that's gonna be far worse, we don't want it to spoil the river with its chemicals." Storm said. "I am gonna hold it, you create something effective, quick Emily!"
"Lightning whip!" He used it to bind the spider a bit and again he chanted, "If that's not enough, I guess I should go for another Hammering LightningBolt again!" Continuous attacks seemed to be the best way to restraining the mutant.
Seeing so Jade also fired some,"Crimson Arrows!" LightningBolts, the lightning whip and some crimson arrows did the trick, the mutant was not able to catch a break, but it won't be enough to stop it, without exerting their full powers it won't be possible, and who knows even if you throw a big pillar at this, it might still recover and counter attack so wasting energy is not an option, so combining powers and making it a big attack looks logical. If it works out, fine. If it doesn't they still might be able to do something about it because then they will still have some gear energy left in them.
Finally Emily prepared her attack, "Come Forth: AQUA BEAST!" she summoned a half draconic-half humanoid aquatic beast that took care of the spider. But it was a level 10 mutant spider (at least) for a reason, the summon was definitely impressive, but nobody knows how long it would be able to hold it. "Storm, if you are going to do something, do it fast, it takes a lot out of me to do a summoning, I'm still an amateur at this stuff!"
"Yeah, I'm on it! Now, LIGHTNING SUPERCHARGE!" He manoeuvred both of his hands and opened the palm of his hands towards the water grasp of the summon where the mutant was held. A massive surge of lightning struck the mutant and the water helped the electrocution to amplify. The spider fell off on the ground like a ragdoll.
"Did we get em?" Emily asked, she was exhausted and panting.
Robin stood in front of the spider, and it suddenly started to shrink to its natural tiny self. "By the looks of it, I'd say yes, you guys literally beat the crap out of this thing, I feel sorry for it now." Robin said.
"You should have some shame, while we were working, you were watching from behind like a coward!" Jade scolded him.
"Hey, like I could have done anything without my gear energy!"
"Yeah, you wasted your gear energy in useless exercise, so don't act like you are not guilty!"
"Guys, stop the fighting, everything's over now." Emily said to both of them.
"But I wonder, why the spider was so hell bent on fighting us in the HQ? As far as I know I have no enemy that looks like a spider!"
"You have enemies now?!" Robin said it with a faded facial expression.
"Why do you think it's only you who's the reason for the mess to start? It could be any of us!" Emily pointed out.
"Just assuming, we don't see a huge mutant spider everyday running on the streets! It feels way too convenient to me that I joined the circle today and something has already started chasing our HQ!"
Sun was almost setting down, it could be seen behind the under construction bizarre multilayered orange shaped building. As far as the news goes, it's going to be the HQ for the newest circle in the capital, it will make the count of official circles 3 in the royal capital.
Someone arrived in front of the building, on top of a pile of rubbles, "You are right about that BOY! somebody did send the SPIDER after you, to kill you for what you've caused me."
All four of them looked back. They saw a buffed up figure, wearing a black robe and brown pants. His chest was exposed due to him having no undergarments under the robe.
He was raging with anger, his eyes could not be seen for a while as it's under the silhouettes. His big figure wes almost covering up the setting sun in the background and leaking it's last lights and creating shadows on his face. When he finally showed his face and released himself from the silhouettes, he had the widened eyes of a killer, the pupils were almost about to disappear. "Now you'll see what you get when you mess with Don Ventus!!!"
Can our heroes take down the ferocious person in front of them, or will he crush them agonizingly?!
To be continued on the next chapter
Chapter 3: "Enter Electron!"