Date: September 10
Place: unOrdinary Locations
[Rei]
How is it possible that we can't perfectly capture some samples to turn in?
It's as if wherever we go, we are faced with 'coincidental battles' in the last minutes even after scouting and calculating every step we would take. But we always had to kill them without a choice. Sure we did everything we can to not scratch it, but there was always an accident that'll prevent us from capturing it.
I agree that we do need to give the other three more times to finish their tasks but at this rate, we might end up returning after lunch or at dawn even.
[Cedrick]
Why do I feel like she's suddenly venting her anger to me? I can tell from her expression because every time that she looks at me, she gives me this grim vibe and then sighs every time we kill the unOrdinary.
* * * * *
I woke up to a noise. And when I opened my eyes to see what it was, Rei was constantly walking in little circles as she checks her map and was sweetly whispering to her earpiece.
"You're awake," she stopped everything that she was doing and went to where I was laying as if she didn't want me to know or to get involved with what she was doing. So I paid no mind to it.
And when I circled my vision to see where Noel was, he was laying beside me. He was the one who offered to guard us as we rest but look at him now, sleeping like a child who need not worry about his surroundings.
"Do you need to rest more?" she asked, sitting beside me.
"I think I've got enough rest," I shook my head and stood up to dust myself up. I woke Noel up and picked up all my equipment when I saw Rei already holding the mass teleportation device.
Noel was yawning as he cleaned himself up while I held his shoulder with my right hand and held Rei's shoulder with my left. And soon, we teleported to another location.
* * * * *
"Let's keep moving," as she said that, I and Noel held her by her shoulder and we teleported into an abandoned little village. We directly arrived at a big bush, where I instinctively dragged them down to hide.
I signaled them to quiet down when I saw both of them about to question why I did that. Rei looked confused so she insisted on taking a peek to see what it was. Just after a few seconds, a gun was shot not far from here, followed by sprinting footsteps running in an opposite direction, away from us.
"What was that?" I whispered but with a shouting tone when Rei returned to us.
"Some people," she paused then looked at us. "Hunting?" she even questioned what she saw.
"Shouldn't we help and escort them back to the headquarters?" Noel suggested. I just stayed quiet, waiting for her response.
"They can handle themselves," she shrugs. "Besides, I think they're with the recently established organization," both of us has no clue what she was talking about. "Don't tell me you haven't heard of the 'hunters'?" she asked and we just shook our heads to tell her that we don't. "They're a group of people who hunts either unOrdinary or people just to stay alive," she paused for a second. "Recently, some of our soldiers reported that his friends got eaten by 'hunters' and were planning to do the same to him next, but luckily, he escaped," she continue looking all sweaty.
[Rei]
I tried to make some excuse just to cover up what just happened. But I'm glad that Supreme's words could be helpful in situations like these.
The thing that I discussed earlier with the Supreme Commander was about the report from last night and the group of hunters that I've just told them about. It hasn't been made into public information so no wonder they didn't know, but that's all came to mind when I was thinking of a believable excuse. Because they can't know what I've been doing behind their back, yet.
[Cedrick]
Noel and I didn't complain when she pulled another mass teleportation device out of her pocket. Then just like that, we moved to another location.
We went to a lot more different places just to fail every single attempt. Because we were always ambushed right after we planned it with much consideration and always ended up killing them inside of capturing them.
[Noel]
We're at our eleventh place, but we still haven't captured anything. I was just also dead weight to them. Because whenever there was a fight, I'd always found myself as a damsel in distress or just shoved into a corner just to watch them lose every chance to catch any of those things.
Rei gave a long sigh while Cedrick was feeling uneasy about it.
"Whatー," she says taking her first step to reach Cedrick. "Did I tell you?" she rests her hands on his shoulders and angrily squeezes them.
"To not injure the unOrdinary," he mumbled, avoiding her gaze.
"And what did you do?" she asked.
"I killed it," he whispered, fidgeting his fingers.
We were shocked when Rei held us abruptly and we teleported to the next place in an instant.
"Drop your weapons," Rei ordered while facing Cedrick as she crossed her arms.
"What? But what about if something happens whenー," he stops when he saw Rei didn't utter anything back. He then one by one dropped his weapons on the ground. "Can I at least keep this?" He turned to her, holding both of the knives while appealing to her. "Please?" he asks, already about to cry.
Rei just sighed and nodded. "Suit yourself," she says, scratching the back of her head.
He knows what he was doing, I smiled when I realized what just happened.
"Let's be sure to make this our last trip, so pleaseー," she paused. "Do your part well," she warned us.
"Shall we decide by rock-paper-scissors?" Cedrick suggested and readied his hands.
"No," Rei looked at him with a pissed expression. "I can't let you be close to the target," she made herself clear. "It'll be Noel," she pointed at me.
"Me?" I replied, also pointing at myself. "But I'll need to do some field work too," I try to clarify but she didn't budge. "I was nothing but a burden earlier, so please let me have retribution this time," I blurted out what I felt, only to see her expression become more frustrated. "I mean, I think I can do that next time," I took back everything said. "So what do you want me to do?" I tried to laugh to ease the tension.
"Run and attract every target to our hiding spot," she explained while handing Cedrick the tranquilizer gun and bullets. "We'll try avoiding getting too close to the unOrdinary, so we'll hide in the trees and shoot them," she explained.
"What if something goes wrong again?" Cedrick asked.
"We'll be hiding all our things below the tree we're sniping from so it's easy to retrieve and we won't hesitate to kill it of course," she said in the transmitter while climbing up a tree.
Meanwhile, I was left here alone standing, when Cedrick was also moving all of his weapons down a tree that he was going to climb later on.
"You already have their locations, so get moving," Rei ordered as I just walked away from where they were.
I looked at my map and started marching towards the target.
[Cedrick]
We were all in positions and we were just waiting for the play to take place.
"Just remember, run to where we are that is marked on your map as orange," I advised Noel.
"Shoot your gun if the plan already failed and we'll come running to your location for backup," Rei said.
"Ok," was the only response he could give and probably proceeded to take action.
~~
(Proceed to read Prologue)
~~
And when we were finally and peacefully eating our lunch together, we were visited by another messenger.
"The Supreme Commander requests an audience with the three of you, immediately," he said. "It's about your other three members' investigation," when he said that, Noel couldn't hide that he was anxious and wanted answers from Rei but he kept quiet as we all followed the messenger.
But we didn't quite know until we saw for ourselves that they were in critical condition, hunted by Rei's past enemies.