"Fate... Control?"
Mark asked in a muttering tone with surprise
"C-can you explain something about that? What does E-1 mean?"
"I don't know what she's talking about"
Philip feigned ignorance
"What? But it's true! Why would you lie?"
E-1 asked innocently. Mark furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at Philip and Elaine started to get annoyed. Tenshi frowned and closed her eyes
Now, she understands why Philip is under the protection of the God of Light
"How many secrets are you planning on hiding from us? We asked you properly, you should answer properly"
Elaine voiced out in a deep tone. At this point, tension was created between both parties. Justine frowned and Philip began to get irritated, especially from Elaine's reasoning
"E-1, that is a secret. You shouldn't have told them about it"
"A secret? Why's it a secret? If everyone knew about your power, you'll be able to help everyone, can't you?"
"No! I am not God or anyone's savior. I am my own self and I don't do anything in someone else's favor"
"Huh? I'm confused... Why don't you want everyone to be happy?"
"Happiness is but a construct and it's temporary. At the end of the day, everything will reach destruction and death. There will be no happiness there"
"..."
"E-1, I am your friend and as a friends, I want you to never talk about Fate Control because you never know what might happen if everyone knew about it"
"EHEM!"
Mark audibly cleared his throat to catch Philip's attention
"Are you willing to share any information about Fate Control?!"
"No"
"Are you sure?!"
"No means no"
"Alright, I will remove you from the mission then. If you're not willing to cooperate with us, then we don't know if we could trust you. You still haven't revealed what ability you golden eyes is, including the white lines, the glowing right arm, and wriggling blood"
"I won't allow that. Chris recruited me with the Old Man's permission"
"They are not here, are they? As the leader of the squadron, I ask you to leave"
Mark stood up and pointed at the door. Everyone became agitated and Elaine was smirking, annoyed at Philip's attitude
Mark released a heavy aura that is directed at Philip. Sheena became restless and afraid while Celine is unfazed, uncaring about the situation that is happening around her
Philip also stood up and walked closer to Mark with closed eyes. His hands are inside the pockets of his jeans. He began to release an overbearing aura that spread around the small area. His annoyance and slight anger is leaking
Behind Philip, Justine is looking straight at Philip. She was circling her forefinger on her to circulate the negative energy leaking out of him. It was then that Pholip spoke
"Make me"
Philip opened his eyes and revealed the golden eyes. His eyes were piercing and Mark can feel his aura that is stronger than him
Elaine stood up but Justine pointed her finger at her, increasing the gravity around her to halt her from standing
"Judgement!"
Tenshi stood up and extended her right arm at Mark and Philip. A ring of light formed around her wrist and another ring of light manifested behind her. A crown halo then apprared above her head
"Philip will stay! He's extremely important in this mission and we can absolutely trust him!"
Tenshi shouted with anger
"Mark and Elaine, stop prying about the information on his abilities! It's a secret for a reason and he's only a temporary squadron member! Judgement tells me that we need to keep him!"
Tenshi glared at Mark and questioned his spontaneous decision
"See? You need me in this mission. Stop asking for my abilities when you, yourself, didn't even tell your squadron that you can create Unobtainium, you hypocrite"
Philip turned around and went back to his seat. He already calmed down and Justine stopped monitoring his negative energy. She also released Elaine and turned gravity back to normal
"Fine then! We just know that you have an ability called Fate Control. You don't have to explain your ability"
Mark sat back down and Tenshi deactivated her Heavenly Prayer. She also sat back down
"But according to Theory of Literallity, Fate Control can control Fate! Whether it's your Fate or other's Fate is unknown"
"Whatever you think of"
Philip didn't confirm Mark's deductions and just let him think. He then turned his head to look at E-1
"..."
She seemed to be smiling, enjoying the conflict. It's unknown whether she cunningly instigated the conflict or she's just innocent. Philip couldn't tell
"So, about E-1... What are you going to do with her?"
Philip asked
"Of course, we will take care of her, show her the ropes about the squadron, train her, educate her, and understand her ability and power more"
Mark answered
"She will be ranked at the bottom, lower than Elaine, for now, because her ability is currently mysterious"
"Squadron Enigma of Los Angeles Division, E-1!"
E-1 saluted and introduced herself with her codename
Everyone looked at her with confusion because they don't know how would E-1 know the division of the squadron and the proper way to introduce herself without anyone telling her yet
Just then, everyone moved on from the subject without dwelling more on E-1. None of them realized it and E-1 seemed to be creepily smiling again
"I think Tenshi and Elaine has some questions for you? Go on then, I don't have anything else"
Mark let the two girls talk to Philip
"I don't have anything to ask"
Elaine said as she forgot something
"You don't? We'll ask them about their status in the gaming community, right?"
Tenshi reminded Elaine
"Oh yeah! That's right! How did you guys do it?"
"Uhhh... Just skills and luck, I guess?"
Philip tried to be humble and not reveal that he and Justine has been using their abilities
"Hm..."
Tenshi hummed as she was thinking of something fun to do
Before Tenshi could speak, Celine already knew what she will say. She stood up and went to the gym to train her body
She changed her outfit into a maroon sports bra and maroon sweat shorts. She also grabbed a white towel to wipe her sweat off for later
"Why don't we play a game?"
Tenshi asked with a sneaky look in her eyes. Of course, Philip is interested since it's a game
"What game?"
"Just a casual one-on-one fighting game"
"Hmmm..."
"But there's a catch! If you win, you can do whatever you want with me. If I win, then I can do whatever I want with you. Sounds fair?"
"I was about to say... You shouldn't give away those kinds of conditions. You even don't know if you could trust me yet"
"I trust you with my whole life though?"
Tenshi tilted her head from Philip's strange statement
"Ha?! Alright, fine..."
In the end, Philip took Tenshi's offer to play the game
"Over here, come!"
Tenshi stood up and skipped over to the large UHD smart flatscreen and turned it on. She grabbed a controller and lent it to Philip
Everyone followed and sat on the couch in the living room. E-1 sat on the floor while wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees
Tenshi sat on a gaming chair and Philip preferred the floor
A few moments later, the console booted up and a splash of the game title showed on the flatscreen
[•Avenue Fighters Z•]
It was a classic one-on-one fighting game that has a health bar at top and a three minute timer at the top middle
The goal of the game is simple; take down the opponent and defeat them, best of three, for three rounds
Although, this game is not an ordinary game because of the complicated mechanics, controls, and hundreds of combo moves that is needed to be learned for months
Surely, the expert pro gamer Tenshi would win against a beginner amateur gamer Philip in this game
Tenshi smirked and sneered at Philip and he only ignored it, unfazed by her taunts
Sheena facepalmed herself and Elaine observed Philip closely. Mark only had his eyes closed and Justine had confidence on Philip. E-1 is staring at the flatscreen while being excited and Celine kept on training
Philip and Tenshi entered the character selection screen and there were 1000+ characters to choose from
Tenshi immediately locked on one character in less than a second. Seeing her face, her tension is slowly disappearing and she's having fun teasing and taunting Philip. Although her main objective is to test his gaming skills and ability
Meanwhile, Philip used his Definite Sight ability to see the most cool looking character. As he swept across the characters one by one and rapidly read their description, skills, and combos in just a split second
He went through almost 300 of them and he found the most suitable character for him
The character wore an entirely white outfit. White undershirt, white tuxedo, white gloves, white socks, white pants, white underwear, white necktie, white shoes, white mask, white earings, white bracelet, white rings, white top hat, white cape, white bandana, white chain, white necklace, white hair, and a white staff. The character's name is White-999
He only has one move and that is to copy all of the other characters' moves once. This means that there are multitude of combos that White-999 can do
Also, apparently, the difficulty of use on White-999 is X++, ten levels higher than SSS+++ difficulty and it's one of the two characters who are at the same difficulty
If this character is one of the two most difficult characters to use because of his versatility, flexibility, and variety of moves and combos, then it would be the perfect character for Philip
"Uhm, how do you play this game?"
Philip asked in an innocent tone
"You just fight and do combos and--- Bweeegh?!!"
Tenshi wanted to explain how the game works but she was shocked at Philip's character pick. The other squadron members noticed Tenshi's startle and looked at the flatscreen. They were also shocked after seeing Philip's character
"A-are you sure you want to use that?"
Tenshi asked with slight fear but confidence because she knows Philip won't be able use the character's full potential at all
Higher difficulty of use doesn't mean the character is more powerful than lower difficulty. It's all about mastering the character and demolising every character even if the difficulty is higher
But the situation right now is Tenshi's X+ mastery on an SS+ character, named Sariel, versus Philip's F- mastery on an X++ character, named White-999
"I just picked randomly and this is what I got"
Philip told a lie
"You want to practice first before we start our bets?"
Tenshi tried to be humble and let Philip get a hold of the game first
"Nah, let's just dive into it"
"Are you sure? If you say so..."
Tenshi was hesitant but she accepted it because she was confident that she will win against a newbie with no experience
Although, she couldn't help but be skeptic and hesitant because Philip is showing signs of extreme confidence, unusual when Philip knows that he will lose
"Alright, let's start!"
Tenshi shrugged off the feeling and pressed the start button
[Show them who's the master of the avenue!]
The game voice echoed as the characters landed on the ground
[Let the light baptize all evil and bring hope]
Tenshi character, Sariel, descended with a wand on his hand
[This universe... What am I in? Who are you people?]
Philip's character, White-999, walked in from a warp in space and stumbled around
'Cool'
Philip muttered in his head
[3 - 2 - 1]
The game voice counted down for the battle to start
[FIGHT!]