"I'm exhausted!" Hunter said out loud despite being the only entity physically present.
[You've only been training for 15 minutes]
"Yeah, yeah. Thing is this new magic takes a lot of energy to use," he stated. "Speaking of, I think it's high time I come up with a name for it," Hunter added.
[I guess. What are you thinking?]
"Heffernan's new magic!" He said.
[Seriously?]
"Hunt magic!"
[No]
"Fine. Soul magic?"
[That's better]
"Of course, you agree to that," Hunter rolled his eyes. "Why can't I have my name in there? It's not like anyone knows about it except us both," the sprite pointed out.
[Fine. Call it what you want]
"Heffernan's new magic it is!" He exclaimed. "Seriously though, we need to figure out what this magic actually does?"
[What makes you think it's any different from the rest?]
"Well, all magics are distinct, no? Natural magic is pure and clean. Dark magic is unique yet pure. Black magic is evil and chaos magic is destructive. I think it's only fair to assume Soul magic has something unique about it," Hunter explained.
[First: those were just similes and not the nature of the energies but I get what you're trying to say]
"Wait, do you think its uniqueness is time travel? Merlin did mention he could take Joseph George back in time."
[Merlin was lying to the man. There was no way he would be able to turn back time]
"Oh," Hunter said surprised.
[Time cannot be manipulated. Merlin probably knew how much the soul snatcher cared about his daughter and used that to get him to work for him]
"But Merlin did take him back in time; I saw it in Joseph's memories,"
[That wasn't time travel. Merlin first looked into the poor man's memories and used that for his visual manipulation]
"So time travel is impossible?"
[Not impossible, more uncontrollable. Say: a gas station explosion kills a thousand people downtown and you go back in time and evacuate those thousand people before the explosion, time would find a way to kill those thousand people and a gas explosion would occur that would kill thousands and cause the very same reaction you prevented]
"I don't think I follow,"
[Let me make it simpler then: if Merlin had succeeded in his research and killed a councilor before being stopped how do you think the mystic world would react to that?]
"Not very lightly, I imagine,"
[Right. Let's assume they ban all research and put out a team to hunt down any black and chaos magic user. Let's call this assumption scenario A]
"Mhm."
[Now imagine you then traveled back and stopped Merlin before he succeeded and in the process prevented a councilor from dying - let's call this new timeline scenario B]
"Right,"
[Time would find a way to make this new scenario - B - into the first scenario, A, and thus create a new scenario where the events in A happen]
"I get it now. You're saying time would make it so the councilor I saved would still die in this new scenario and something else would happen that causes the ban on research and crackdown on black and chaos magic,"
[And since time is unpredictable, you could end up having two dead councilors and not one]
"Wow."
[Enough about time. I agree with you; Heffernan's new magic must have something unique about it]
"You said the name!"
Hunter rises to his feet. "Are you sneaking up on me?"
"Dear me, you're starting to sound like him," Jade said.
Hunter turned to face her, "what's up?" He asks.
"New mission," Jade replies. Hunter raises an eyebrow, "didn't you say to stay under the radar?"
"It's a secret mission that we can't let anybody else know about. What do you say?"
"You had me at 'secret'."
.
.
.
"... So basically you want me to walk into this building and make sure they don't contact people that might recognize you guys," Hunter said.
"Basically? Yes," Jade said as she finds a spot to park. The duo stepped out of the car. "That's the building over there," the vampire stated pointing to a building not too far away.
"Okay ..."
"Finally, you guys are here," A very beautiful, graceful, and fairly tall young woman with a slender yet curvaceous frame said. She had long, straight black hair reaching her mid-back with short bangs framing her forehead and upturned red eyes. Her hair was split into two parts and crossed over her head, which she secured with a headband and formed two thick locks of hair that reach below her chest. She was wearing a long beige coat with black buttons over her clothes.
Hunter turned back to Jade with raised eyebrows. "That's her," the vampire stated.
"Hi, I'm Hunter," the sprite said extending his hand.
"I'm agent Lovelace, but you can call me Camille," she said shaking the dark-haired boy's hand. "My partner over there is Agent Maddison," she added pointing to a girl who was walking up to them.
"Maddison? Isn't that also a house in the Drumalak family like the Archaeons?"
"Yeah, but we're the good ones," Agent Maddison stated before looking up at Hunter. "This is the guy you were talking about?" She asked her boss.
"Yes, you two met already?"
"Uhmm. That's my husband," she says with a small smile. Agent Maddison was Diana, the S Grade leader of the Elemental team the sprites had faced in the inter-order competition.
"Nice to ... er ... formally meet you too," Hunter says shaking her hand.
"So you know what to do?" Camille asked.
"Jade told me the gist of it; I'm to make sure they don't inform anyone that you guys are at the harbor," he replies.
"Great. Here," she said, tossing a medallion to the sprite who catches it in the air. "What's this?" He asked.
"A magic artifact. Comes with a pre-casted disguise spell just in case. Grab whoever you want to look like and you would look like them ... For an hour or so," she added.
"Got it."
"Good luck then," Camille says before walking away while Diana blows him a kiss.
"Would you like me to ask Leah to come with you?" Jade asked.
"I thought you didn't want this linked back to any organization in the Bureau in case it turns out to be a fail? Don't worry Jade, I've got this," he assured.
"Okay. Don't be ashamed to run, remember all you have to do is prevent them from making any communication, you can run away after that," she stated.
"Yeah, yeah. Rendezvous at the Sunshine bar?"
"Yes." Hunter shoots her a small nod before turning and heading down the road.
...
A lady with a seemingly petite frame, sporting gleaming purple eyes and lipstick of lilac shade and a single earring on her left ear sat on a chair juggling some knives. She had ecru-colored hair and was donning a peplum-like black blazer with a blue singlet inside with shorts complete with thigh-high grey socks of uneven length on both sides of her legs.
"Can you stop?!" A buff man with a bald head and full beard demanded. He was seated behind a table with sets of monitors.
"Got a problem with me, big guy?" She countered.
"No but keep disturbing my peace and we will," he stated.
The ecru-haired girl scoffs and continues juggling her knives, wordlessly daring the bearded man to do something about it.
"What's your name, kid?" The man asked.
She frowns but her expression softens as she sensed no hostility or hidden agendas behind the bald man's question. "Sasha," she responded.
"How long have you been in this business?" He asked.
"As a hired gun? Five years," she stated.
"And how often are you given bizarre jobs like this?" He queried.
"What do you mean?" She asks.
The bald man shrugs, "isn't it weird that they have three of us guard what is basically a watchtower? This is clearly a one-man job," he stated.
"I'm back!" A third person said walking into the room. The man was dressed in a dark blue suit.
"Took you long enough," Sasha exclaimed.
"Hey, is that normal?" The man in a suit said pointing at one of the monitors where a fairly tall lady with snow-white hair walks into the harbor.
"What the heck?! No one's supposed to be there except the guards," The bald man stated. "I'll call for backup," the man added.
"I'll do it, give me the card," the man in a suit said.
"Why should you be the one doing it?" The bald man queried.
"Because I have a computer degree and have you seen the damn communication device? It has an encryption on the encryption! That's not normal. Now unless you old geezer know how to decrypt an ISV with a NIQA server while overpassing the obvious hackers who use complicated R2 devices in --"
"Alright, alright. Here you go," the bald man said handing the card to the man. "That's what I thought," the man said taking the card and walking out of the room.
"You know how you were saying this job was bizarre?" Sasha asked.
"Yeah?"
"We are here because of him," she stated, rising to her feet.
The bald man's eyebrow shoot upwards, "what are you saying?"
"You've been doing this for long, haven't you? How many mercenaries do you know that have a computer degree?" She asked.
"Shit!" The bald man cussed jumping from his seat and chasing after the man in a suit. When he catches up to him, the man was already behind a computer typing.
The bearded man grabs the man by the collar, pulling him from behind the screen and smashing him into the wall. "What did you do?! What did you do?!" He demanded.
Sasha checked the screen and gasps. "What is it?" he queried.
"He locked us out ... Reset the password to some 32 digits," she stated.
"What's the password?" The man in the suit remained silent. Snapping, the bald man launches a punch toward the man's chest but his attack lands on a solid item instead of the natural portion of the body.
The man with the beard open the man's suit to check, the man was wearing a medallion around his neck. The bald man pulls the medallion and the man in the suit transforms right in front of them, turning to Hunter.
'She didn't say anything about me losing my abilities when I turn to the other person.'
"A disguise magical artifact? That must be really expensive," Sasha said taking the artifact from the bald man and looking at it.
"Who the hell are you?!" The man asked Hunter.
'I still can't do anything ... Waleed? Are you there?'
The third mercenary - the one whose face Hunter had taken - walked into the room. "Uhm guys, someone's in -- oh, I see you've already caught him," the man in a suit said.
"Where the hell were you?" Sasha asked.
"In the damn bathroom. This bastard snuck up on me and knock me out," he stated.
"Wait, I recognize you," Sasha said looking at Hunter. "You're the guy on the hit list, Hunter Heffernan," she stated.
'Crap! Waleed where are you?!'
"This is Hunter Heffernan? Must be our lucky day; how often does two hundred million just walk straight to where you are?" The bald man said pulling out a gun and pointing it at the sprite. "Wait," the man in a suit said.
"What is it?" The man with the beard asked.
"I'm a hybrid ... Before he knocked me out I looked into his head," the man stated, "he's with Jade," he stated.
"That fucking leech?" The bald man queried.
"Yes and I don't know about you but I don't want any problems with her," the man stated.
"Who's Jade?" Sasha asked.
The man in the suit raised an eyebrow, "you don't know Jade? Aren't you part of the Red College?!" he said.
"This one's still a rookie," the bald man said.
"Oh, I see. Jade's a legend, you don't mess with whoever she knows," the man explained, "whoever was paying for his head must have intentionally left out the part that this guy is a friend of Jade," the man added.
"Whatever, I'm sure this Jade can be beaten," Sasha stated.
"How? She's the oldest known vampire!"
"But two hundred million though," Sasha stated, "that's more than sixty-five million if we split it evenly. That's enough to buy an island far away where this Jade woman would never find you," she said.
"She'll find us," the man in a suit said.
"How?" Sasha asked, "we kill him right now, take his head to the College and leave the continent tonight," she suggested.
"That woman has been around for some time, do you know the type of connections she has? Someone in the Red College would tell her who the money was wired to," the man said.
"You're being ridiculous. The Red College is all about --"
"I've heard enough of your bickering," the bald man said. "The twins would kill us for not doing our job here and Jade would kill us if we touch this boy. We get killed in every situation, only difference is: in one situation we die poor and in another, we get a taste of paradise first," the bald man stated. "That leaves us with one option," the man continued, leveling the gun to Hunter's face.
'Shit.'
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