June slammed her fist into a head, brain matter spewed out to dirty her face in blood. Jeff ducked under a slash from a blade, exhaling carefully, his fist stabbed into the monster's gut, feeling all the skin fly back… the second he'd stood upright, he'd witnessed it. A knuckle covered in blood and a being with a hole in his chest. The embers of life faded with the Remnant's mind, and with just a flick, it fell onto its back with a splatter of gore splashing out the back of its head. Though he turned his flat rear to the deceased enemy quickly, he could've sworn, for maybe a split-second- there was the slightest semblance of a shriek that'd exited from the embers of its soul burning away. High-pitched to the point humans couldn't hear it with their naked ears, but despite that, Jeff turned his head at the sound... watching a ball of light blue energy wisp away, to vanish above the clouds.
"These things're human, right? Who turned 'em into these things anyway... and why did we fall for such bullshit? Seriously? These things are Celestial beings? We were such idiots back then," June admitted to herself, knelt beside the dead body of her prey, fiddling with its arm, sighing outward before tearing it off the motionless corpse.
"What're you doing?" Jeff asked, arms spread across his bust.
"I was gonna ask if you can copy the powers of any creature who's dead by touching them instead of being around them like normal living people," June replied in a surefire manner, standing upright, casually handing the torn-off arm over to Darnell, awaiting a response.
He sighed, "I can, but it makes me tired. Can't I just copy your strength?" He asked, raising his hand.
"Nah, that makes me tired. I'm stronger than you, so you do it and I'll protect you," June answered swiftly, leading the older man to roll his eyes and shrug.
"This is the one thing I didn't miss about having a kid- and a teenager at that."
Jefferson touched all five fingers of his right hand against the dismembered limb, his veins glowing alight with a crimson hue before he clenched all his fingers into a fist; knuckles cracking. June stepped back, throwing the arm to the side, tendrils contorting out her back, extending like putty to form a shield around them both, searching around the vicinity via rapidly-moving pupils.
'The second a human presence from the New World touches an Old World Artifact, the Remnants'll come runnin'. Make sure to have defenses ready if you ever locate new Artifacts.'
The words from her mentor with his hair tied into a man bun echoed within her mind as her tendrils continued to overlap themselves, leaving only June standing there with glowing emerald orbs of sight. With that, one hand on her hip, the tiniest glimmer of the moonlight hidden from the defensive bubble projected over their bodies, June scratched at her cheek, turning her head to the side, remembering even further when her uncle explained everything. The grunts of Jefferson in the background faded to snow playing on television as the time passed by unlike it had before, for the second she'd decided to turn his head, there he was, standing upright with a relieved breath out his nostrils.
"Got the goods?" June queried, one eye peeking out from the skinned lids hiding the signature green.
"Without a hitch," Jeff replied, revealing the metal Artifact locked between his fingers, charming smile over his lips revealing his pearly-whites.
What he held between his dark-skinned extremities hadn't belonged to the heritage of the Wilders, but their allies, for once the shield retracted and the defenses subsided, there was a blue shooting star just soaring below the clouds. The memories that came to her were not her own, for when she inched closer and touched her finger against the Artifact, she was sure of it. That unique smell and presence; without a doubt, it belonged to those Karlos.
A mechanical finger glowing green with cracks spread throughout- or, in other words: the leftover cybernetic finger of Ryder Karlo, better known as the antagonistic Outcast.
"Who gets this one again?"
Jeff examined the rusted metal of the smaller Artifact, scratching at it with a nail, receiving a slap on the arm, nerves jerking, eyes directing downward to her shorter build. Eyes rolling around the confines of the ball, a snap was heard as he remembered what she'd asked just a second prior.
"Uh, if I'm not mistaken, the first one we find is given to Kima. I'll bet she needs this one, too," Jeff commented.
Shoving it into his pocket, extending his right arm over his chest; bones cracking, he moaned slightly at the sensation, June standing beside, knuckles snapping with the slightest pressure from a finger's pressing.
"What was the first one's power again?" She questioned, rubbing at her hair.
With arms bent inward and elbows pointed outward, she could put them behind her head, the duo of them subconsciously walked the hole they were implanted into. Monument crumbling without the ancient presence preserving the engraved stones, they strolled through the ruins of the obliterated city, stepping over charred skeletons, bones flowing within the dry winds of the wasteland, the red eyes of inner demons started to peer out from below.
"I believe the original would've been the ability to 'stop time' but because we're giving it to Kima and it's incompatible, it'll probably change to the 'base.' Predictability," Jeff explained to his younger partner, eyes opening again at the mention of the ability,
"Remind me again why we can't just give it to Azazel or Katie so they can fully utilize it and we don't have to worry about anyone ambushing us when the time comes."
June held that nonchalant posture, Jefferson rolling his eyes as they continued to walk, for what she had as an answer from him was nothing but silence. Continuing to make their ways forward, the sounds of their voices grew distant as they turned to nothing but stick figures to the tall stalker overlooking their moving bodies from atop debris. Unlike the Jester, he wore a haori, engraved with golden patterns, cursed by his heritage, but even so, he donned the attire to feel the lower parts drag in the wind. A bolt of lightning crashed from between the clouds, illuminating the sky however momentarily to brighten his dark-skinned face.
Ryosuke Satoru, the Samurai of the Evolution Frontier, watched from the shadows, awaiting just the perfect time to strike... to claim vengeance.
To Be Continued.