The amount of new intel in that introduction was massive. Edwin stood there, puzzled.
"'Class Beta'… 'Remedy'…what are these supposed to mean?" he asked.
"Don't hurry, boy," said Dirac as he kicked away a little stone, "first, I want to see what you can do."
"Not in the mood to talk anyways," growled Edwin under his breath. His fist tightly clenched, eyes emanating the ghostly blue that signified his readiness to go all out, "I finally get to meet you."
"Make it enjoyable for me!" shouted Dirac with a loud laughter.
Space distorted around Edwin, whose field of view was once again filled with abstract shapes that unfolded and morphed. In the middle of the mad geometry, stood his target. Firmly stepping into the ground, he crossed the ten-meters gap between him and Dirac in an instant, shoving his fist at him in full strength. The target, however, simply moved sideways and cleanly dodged the offense, leaving Edwin stumbling forward.
"Too slow!" shouted Dirac, beginning his counter attack. Edwin covered his face, taking the punch as he retreated backwards. After that, he focused his hyperspace sight on Dirac: the shape of the enemy dissolving into a conjunction of layers and layers of shape-shifting geometries, revealing his internal structures.
"Got you." thought Edwin, grabbing for what looked like the bone in the forearm.
Just when he extended his hand into hyperspace, the spot he aimed for suddenly began glowing white – it was a fireball growing exponentially brighter every moment. Realizing what was coming, he quickly retracted his arms and threw himself sideways. He dodged the main blast, but the energy beam still grazed the side of his arm, leaving a sizzling trail of burnt skin, which soon darkened into a mixture of red and dark.
Seeing Edwin panting and trying to cover his arm with the other, Dirac smiled in content.
"Not gonna lie, you almost got me there," he said, while striding with his hands in the pockets of his oversized robes, "I would hate to lose my bones to an inexperienced brat."
Dirac then extended his arms sideways and pointed his palms back and fired a pair of plasma plumes. The blasts worked as rocket motors, thrusting him towards Edwin at blinding speed. Leaving no time for Edwin to react, Dirac amplified the beam in his right hand, creating an unbalanced torque that rotated his body, slamming his elbow into the chest of the boy. Edwin felt all the air in his lungs getting squeezed out of him before the burning pain spread from his chest – must have been a few broken ribs. He was launched into the air, then dropped to the ground in a solid thump.
"You know, I seriously don't get why my colleagues want you so badly. I'll be honest with you…" Dirac walked towards Edwin, who was lying face down on the floor. "…you are pathetically weak, kiddo."
Bearing the biting pain ringing in his chest, Edwin flipped his body around and sat up in a grunt. Reluctant to give in, he once again thrusted his hands into hyperspace, this time aiming for Dirac's leg. Having predicted his move, Dirac casually faced his palm downward and fired a blast at the ground between him and Edwin. The resulting explosion sent a Edwin's body against the tunnel wall.
"Don't sweat it, my boy," continued Dirac as he grabbed Edwin by the hair "it is only natural for you to lose."
Ignoring the boy's struggling, he lifting him up from the ground
"Unlike you, who merely needed to hide and steal to live…" Dirac pulled Edwin's head closer to him, then whispered to the boy. The forceful tone of his sounded like a suppressed growl of a caged beast. "…I, on the other hand, had to kill to survive!"
He then slammed Edwin's head into the ground, followed by a solid kick in the stomach.
Feeling as if his insides were being forced out of him, Edwin coughed heavily and spit a few drops of blood.
"You could've killed me in your first moves," said Dirac, suddenly switching to a calm voice as if he was a mentor, "yet you aimed for my limbs, not the heart. You are an esper, goddammit…why act with the morals of humans-"
Rounds of gunfire came from behind, cutting off Dirac in the middle of his "lecture". The latter was, as always, completely unharmed as the bullets were deflected away by a mysteriously force.
"Leave him!" Dan yelled in anger.
In response, Dirac rolled his eyes and turned around, ready to demolish the persistent officer into ash, once and for all.
Regaining his strength, Edwin tackled Dirac from the legs and made him stumble. The plasma beam shot at Dan, who was dashing towards Edwin, missed by an inch.
"Damn bugs!" yelled Dirac, trying to stop him from reaching Edwin.
It was, however, too late for Dirac as Dan had already lifted Edwin up on his feet.
It took no time for Edwin to regain his focus and teleported Dan and himself outside of the subway. Worried that Dirac would catch-up, Edwin immediately teleported again, this time ending up a block away, which was devoid of humans as it was already midnight. Dan was still unused to this new method of transportation and was having a hard time standing on his feet, so Edwin, using his remaining strength, dragged Dan behind the tires of a car.
Edwin peeked his head out in the direction of the Subway entrance, which was surrounded by the flashing lights of police cars and armed personnel – looked like they heard the noise of the battle.
Edwin turned around and saw that Dan still held the hard drive Dirac was after. Meanwhile, there were no sign that Dirac was chasing them. Looks like they successfully lost him.
Edwin sighed in relief, but then he realized that he might have relaxed too early.
"What the hell just happened, kid," said Dan while gasping, "are you an…esper?"
◆ ◆ ◆
Edwin tried to avoid eye contact and walked away, occasionally stumbling due to the pain from the broken ribs. Dan followed from behind, his voice filled with a mix of confusion, disbelief, and anger.
"Stop right now, kid!" he yelled, striding behind Edwin, "tell me what the heck is going on here. Just how much are you hiding from me!"
Without stopping nor looking back, Edwin kept walking in a haste.
"Did you not hear a damn word? I said stop!!!" Dan cried, then firmly grabbed Edwin's shoulder and brusquely turned him around to face him, "explain to me!"
"You have seen enough to know. Now leave me." Edwin replied coldly, eyes looking down, then turned away.
"So that proves it." Dan nodded his head, confirming his guess. "You are one of those freaks, huh?"
Edwin froze in his place, then tilted his head slightly towards Dan. "What did you just call me?"
"A freak. Yes, I said it," emphasized Dan, with no intent to calm down, "I've been working as an officer for decades, hunting down every last one of those bastards, and now I just realized I've been living with one this whole time!"
"Worst of all," he continued, "he is the one that I would throw away everything for! I trusted you, and this is how you repay me?!"
"Why do you hate espers?" asked Edwin, his voice trembling.
"They took everything from me, alright?! I took this damned job just so that these criminals could pay for their atrocities, for them to experience the pain I felt, and return it to them, tenfold!"
Dan took a deep breath after the ranting, and an awkward silence fell on them.
"I will keep doing what I do until I took revenge." Dan's voice calmed down a bit. He frowned into his palms. "Before that, I will show no mercy to espers."
Edwin tried approaching Dan, who raised his hand to stop him.
"Leave me," he said, supporting his forehead with his hand. There seemed to be a thin line of tears running down the old man's eye corners.
"Dan…"
"I said go! Leave me alone!" Dan's voice rose by multiple magnitudes, roaring at Edwin as he finally lost it, "I thought you could be saved when I first saw you sitting in the corners of the street as a lost, homeless, and violent young man. The last thing I wanted was for you to be a damn liar and a freak!"
"Out of all the disgusting people I met, I thought you were trustworthy!" Edwin shouted back.
"And I thought you could be saved from the hell you lived in! But you are an esper…there's no cure for that one. Now go!"
Though he hated to admit it, Edwin was on the brink of tears. He hadn't cried in years. The dream of actually seeing the day he could care and be cared shattered right in front of him. Nothing else could be said.
"Good bye, Dan." Edwin said it in the most indifferent tone possible, before walking away, disappearing into the shadows of the buildings, leaving Dan standing alone under a dim road lamp.
◆ ◆ ◆
The darkness of night had never felt so suffocating.
Even if the chilly wind of the night stung Edwin's face like icicles, the blood rushing beneath his skin heated his mind beyond any rational thinking.
Only one fact remains clear to him…
…He was all alone; abandoned, again.
He sat on a stair next to a closed store and took a deep breath. It had all been a dream: the past year, the rather joyful memories of company, and the illusion of finally being able to trust someone. It was time to wake up.
Ever since leaving his past family, he had drifted across countries without any family nor friends. He should have learned of the cruelty and horrid of this world: no one was ever worth trusting. Stealing, murder, betrayals – countless crimes filled his journey. Edwin thought he had already hardened his heart to stay indifferent and cold to every emotion, but his weak-minded self sought after chances to bond with others…to be cared by others. When Dan first came along, a grim of hope appeared. Looking back now, that was just one of the countless lies Edwin told himself.
Afterall, what does that stupid old man know of his life? What does he know of the pain of being hated for no reason? Of having to hide his true self for his life?
What does he know of being an esper?
Edwin grinned. The giggling kept going as he mocked his own foolishness and naivety.
"What was I thinking?" Edwin's train of thought kept rolling. "Did I actually think this world would be more forgiving, especially for a murderer and idiot like me?"
When he stopped laughing, he noticed his chest thumping up and down, while a thin stream of tears had appeared on his face. He quickly wiped them away and stood up, but the pain in his chest made him stumble.
"Guess it's the old way again," he murmured to himself, "time to move on."
"Time to move on indeed," came a voice behind the corner of the building, "finally realized how fragile that dream you were in really is?"
The familiar, coarse voice alerted Edwin, sending a powerful rush of adrenaline. The source of the voice walked out of the shadow of building, the shiny metallic rings around his forearms glimmered under the road lamp as he walked closer step by step. The brown robe drifted behind him, lifted by the biting wind of mid-night.
"Took me a while to find you." Dirac then cleared his throat as he turned towards Edwin. "Let's just talk, shall we?"
Edwin backed off in alarm as Dirac approached him. The latter then sat down on the pavement, cross legged.
"Please try to ignore the little conflict we had earlier," said Dirac, in a casual manner, "I must say, I'm rather impressed by your fighting…not bad for your age, actually."
That compliment was far from letting Edwin's guard down. Having expected that, Dirac sighed and continued.
"We have no need to kill each other, really," he continued, turning toward Edwin with a rather amiable look, "after all, we – the damned and hopeless espers – are all products of the same dreadful past."
"What past?" Edwin finally decided to elaborate on the conversation.
"The War, my dear, when the world finally learned about us," explained Dirac, "it's a scar left permanently on the history of mankind. But it's even worse for us espers…"
Dirac pulled down a skin-colored glove from his left hand – Edwin thought it was his real hand all along. With the cover gone, a ragged, burnt palm was revealed. The charred skin and blood red scars carved his hand like canyons stretching across a map. From the twitching face of Dirac, Edwin could tell that there wasn't a single moment when he could ignore the pain from his wounds.
"Though scars may remain on the surface, what is beneath it could heal…" Dirac sat up straight, then sighed deeply. "But to us, espers, it's an unhealable wound – it will keep hurting, and it will hurt even more as time goes on."
"Who are you then?" asked Edwin. His mind had calmed down a bit since, ironically, the person who tried to kill him might be the one that understood him the most.
"I'm a no one, kid," responded Dirac, "just a rusty old soldier who experienced the horrors of the front first hand."