The smoke in the room where the explosion occurred gradually dissolved. Electro 28 and Ace McClain both entered the room with guns in their hands. They pointed their guns at the location Jacob was tied, but only pieces of him were left.
Electro 28 cussed as he used his hands to try and quickly dissolve the smoke the explosion caused to search for the two that were in the room. The White agent that went into the room to alert them about the situation was sent flying back by the wave, so he wondered what it had done to Miss Havishma and Storm 01.
"Miss Havishma?" He yelled out.
The smoke finally cleared and he found Storm 01 in one corner of the room. Miss Havishma was lying beneath Storm 01, unconscious. Storm 01 had used his body as a human shield to protect Miss Havishma from the explosion.
Joe slipped his gun back into its holster and pulled Storm 01 away. Storm 01 coughed and tried to stand but crashed back down, groaning in pain. Electro 28 raised Miss Havishma to rest her back on the wall.
"Havishma! Stay with me, Havishma!" He yells as he shook her continuously. "Where the fuck is the Blue squad?" He barked, getting impatient.
Ishary and two other agents of the Blue squad rushed into the room. They head over to Miss Havishma's side, placing a device on her chest. After a few minutes, Miss Havishma coughed and opened her eyes, breathing heavily.
Ishary left Miss Havishma for Storm 01. She helped him up and placed the device on his chest.
"Is she okay?" Storm 01 queried, gesturing at Miss Havishma. Ishary glanced at Miss Havishma. "She should be fine. No visible injuries. She must have passed out from the heat," she replied. "What about you? Are you okay?"
Storm 01 nods. "I feel... Why-- am I?" He tried to speak, but his body shuts down all attempts at human activity. Ishary held his head from falling as she tried to wake him up.
.
.
.
"Havishma!" Storm 01 shrieked out loud as he woke up from his deep slumber, breathing heavily. His vision was a little blurry at first, but when it cleared, he realized he was lying on a bed in the sick bay. "Of course," he mumbled, despising how often he ends up there, which he thought to be ironic because of his healing abilities.
He turned to his side and as usual, Ishary was there, walking up to him with a file of paper in her hands, she had just finished pairing her eyes into a microscope.
"You are awake. Miss Havishma just left a minute ago," Ishary stated before descending on a chair near his bed to type into a computer.
"Miss Havishma was here? How long have I been here?" Storm 01 questioned.
"A couple of hours, I think."
"Oh," Storm 01 exclaimed. He was rather shocked that Miss Havishma sat beside him for even a second. He used to label her as a heartless person that only cared about her job at Department H.
Ishary looked at him through her peripheral vision and smiled. "What? Are you surprised that the ambitious Miss Havishma spared a moment for you?" She giggled. "You saved her life, it's the least she can do."
"Or maybe she just stayed here to make sure her asset is okay," Storm 01 rebuked. "I mean, it'll be a great loss if I ended up dying."
Ishary turned to him with her brows up. "Seriously, Miss Havishma can't be that rigid. There's a bit of human in there somewhere," Ishary argued. "She was genuinely concerned when she saw you on this bed."
"Right." Storm 01 sat up on the bed. "What about Jacob? Did we get anything from him?" He asked.
"He self-destructed."
"Right, I remember that."
"So did everything the White troopers managed to get from him. We've hit a dead end," Ishary explained. "And Miss Havishma will announce her decision later."
Storm 01 raised his head to the white ceiling and sighed softly. "You still passed out even though you had your healing abilities, I'm still trying to figure out what happened to your powers," Ishary stated.
"No, no. That's not what I'm thinking about," Storm 01 chipped. "In the history of Winter Weir or Department H, I don't know. Was there a time when we used swords?"
Ishary furrowed. "Err... I don't know. But I could look it up." The arctic-blue-haired girl typed into her computer to search for the question asked by Storm 01. She stayed quiet for a while as she scanned through the information before speaking.
"According to what is here, Winter Weir used swords as their military weapons until the year 911 when the gun system was implemented," she read out loud. "Why the sudden interest in history though?"
Storm 01 pushed back his hair and sighed out loud. "I don't know."
Ishary noticed the defensive look in his eyes. She pulled her chair close and placed both her hands on his. "Hey, you can tell me whatever. I'm a real good listener you know," she smiled. She then interlaced their hands together and caressed the back of his palm with her free hand.
"It's just... Recently, I've seen seeing things," he started. "It began during the training for the last bullet, and then earlier when the explosion happened."
"Oh," Ishary exclaimed. "What did you see?" She quizzed.
"The first time, it was me after the competition. The recent one was a group of people, standing in front of me, each holding swords in their hands," he explained.
Ishary returned to her computer and scrolled down, reading out more of the things the internet threw at her. "In the year 911, after Winter Weir bought the guns from Tzeria and equipped it as their new military weapons, a group of people who called themselves 'The Poligon' rebelled against the state. They claimed to be 'worshippers of swords' and their sole mission was to destroy any other weapon other than swords. Every trace, of The Poligon, disappeared nine years later in 920. It was as if they never existed and if not for the internet, they would have been entirely forgotten." She turned the screen to show Storm 01 the image provided.
In the image, a man stood with his hand on the handle of a sword that was sheathed in his belt. He wore a long red hooded robe that reached up to his ankle and a belt around his waist. His face was entirely covered with the hood and on his chest, a circle was drawn with a sword through the middle.
Storm 01 shook his head no. "The people I saw, weren't dressed like priests, they were well dressed with body armor. And it felt as if I was in the moment"
"Like you were seeing visions?" Ishary questioned.
Storm 01 nods. "Like I was seeing visions."
...