Kronesta ran faster than the wind, coils of lightning writhing around her. Her scarlet hair fluttered in the wind as her mind traced back to the past hour.
"The Marionette has been caught."
Kronesta paled at the report. "…What?" She barely eked out, her mood sinking.
Another agent, the one standing as straight as a pole, adjusted his suit and sat down, taking the seat next to the man sitting in front of Kornesta. He pulled out a file from the briefcase on the table between Kornesta and the two men, pushing it on the table.
Kornesta caught it with ease. "What is this?" She asked, flipping through the pages before the two men could respond.
"It's a report, the one that details the capture of the Marionette…I thought you might want to see it." The man responded calmly and professionally, his voice softening at the end of his sentence. A familiar air was present between Kornest and the man.
"So…he just surrendered?" Kornesta doubtingly said, scanning the papers. "Just like that? Nonsense! I've been on the trail of this criminal for 8 years now, and not once have I ever seen this bastard show any kind of intent to get caught, let alone surrender." Kronesta leaned back on her chair, hanging one arm on the back of her seat. "Besides, whose to say that that's even the real Marionette? It could be a fake for all we know…" Kronesta let the thought trail off, digesting it.
Hmm…
"Kronesta…" He stopped, letting the thought trail off. The man glanced at the other man on his side, and he nodded, leaving the room without a word. The door let out a faint clink as it locked automatically."I know how important this is to you. Really, I do. But this isn't my call to make. The higher-ups want this case wrapped up; they said that it gives the department a bad reputation." The man, Kronesta's superior officer, leaned forward. "There's nothing I can do."
There was a still silence as the both of them let the thought sink in. Kronesta had a hand to her chin, while the man across from her stared at her, trying to read her expressions. Then, she stood up, a faint aura of determination around her. She reached for the door, intending to leave.
The man asked. "Where are you going?" Kronesta could not see his eyes.
"…To interrogate this *Marionette* of yours, if that really is him." She muttered in a low, cold voice. Her eyes were alit with electric fury, and she did not wait for an answer as she opened the door and stepped through.
…
Kronesta took a deep breath, something she always does before an interrogation. She channeled mana to her nerves, electrifying it and steeling her nerves. Her let out faint sparks as it touched the door handle.
The door opened with a clunk, and Kronesta stepped in, her back straight and her brows furrowed. She took the seat opposite the only person in the room.
Kronesta eyed the man carefully. He had rugged features, a well-built body, and various stitches that littered every corner of his body—like a centipede that ran from his face to his appendages. The man was tall, a few inches taller than Kronesta, who was about 5 foot and some inches herself.
"What is your name?" Kronesta began.
The man did not respond.
"How old are you?"
"…"
"Which land do you come from?"
"…"
"Do you know of anybody with the alias of Don Merci?"
"…"
The Marionette's silence irked Kronesta greatly.
Kronesta paused for a second, took a breath, then continued. "Do you know of the name Alister Kronesta?"
This time, the silent hoodlum who spoke not a word since his arrival in the Hamaha Garrison, the workplace of many distinguished knights and former knights, having spent hours upon hours of interrogation, parted his lips, a crooked, wicked smile forming crudely on his face.
The man, eyes cold and lifeless, yet still contained unbidden malice and great maleficence, stared directly into Kronesta's eyes, boring all the way down to her soul, like freeing a raging beast from it's capture. The man's wicked smile sent electricity down Kronesta's spine.
"Ye—" Yet, just as the man was about to voice his response, just as Kronesta's long-awaited conclusion is about to come…a burst of mana exploded from within the man's chest.
Blood, flesh, and shards of bone flew in an instant, some of it piercing Kronesta's exposed skin. As soon as the bone shards hit Kronesta, her automatic spell, Reactive Lightning, immediately covered her exposed skin in tendrils of lightning, disintegrating any more bone shards that flew at her.
Kronesta blinked, her mind and body had enhanced by magic, making her think, move, and act faster, allowing her to move at speeds inconceivable to most people. A string of lime-green mana, faint and dying, caught her attention.
It was the very same string, color and all, that she saw on that faithful night—the very night that her father had been mauled, toyed, and killed—slowly—in front of her very eyes.
Her body moved faster than her mind could, dashing through and out of the Hamaha Garrison in the blink of an eye, following the faint trail of mana at her top speed. A thunderous boom echoed throughout the streets of Hamaha as Kronesta easily broke the sound barrier, her eyes alit with lightning as her flesh, blood, and soul melted into lightning itself, surpassing it.
The world became a blur, everything melting together.
The string, faint and segmented, dissipated even faster than Kronesta herself. Still, though, the Marionette—the REAL Marionette's maba had a rare attribute—the worst Kronesta could ever think of.
Unlike most magic, where the mana dissipates after the spell had been finished unless, of course, it was tampered to stay, the Marionette's were different. It lasted, much longed than usual, dissipating slowly and in a set manner. The Marionette's strings, flexible and deadly, is capable of manipulating muscles, nerves, and non-living things; the more strings are allocated to a single target, the more accurate and detailed an order is followed. This bypassed the often-seen restriction of verbal—loudly-spoken—commands that manipulative spells and magic exhibited by connecting the Marionette's mana directly with the target's, influencing it rather than manipulating the target to use it's own mana to move it's body in a state of complete puppetry. This unique characteristic has caused sleepless nights to Kronesta. Every time she thought she was on the trail of the Marionette, the wicked man's mana string would disappear as quickly as it disappeared, leaving her alone and depressed, two emotions that Kronesta felt the most ever since joining the workforce.
Kronesta grimaced as her mind went back to that night she had tried to forget so very long ago. No, this isn't the time, she thought to herself, trying to bury the incident deep down once more.
Her feet stopped suddenly, drifting on earth. She was on the outskirts of Hamaha, alone again, but not unexpected. She had traversed approximately a quarter of the country in a mere minute.
A large three-story building stood in front of her; a crudely-made sign stood on the entrance.
The Basford Home of the Unwanted.
The lime mana string stopped here, inside, and Kronesta watched as the trail of mana disappeared.
Kronesta took a step forward, and she appeared immediately in the middle of the first floor in front of a set of stairs. There were fallen bodies everywhere. Kronesta's squinted as she looked at the bodies.
None of them were breathing.
Then, sensing the urgency of the situation, she let out a burst of electrified mana. This told the enemy—or anybody that could use magic at a certain level—of her exact location, but she didn't worry about that. Once she finds the Marionette's location, it was only matter of speed—the one thing Kronesta is the most confident about.
Half a second later, before her spell could even finish it's activation, the quick pulse of a live, beating heart caught her attention, on the second floor, and she wasted not a second more, appearing in front of the owner of it with a brief flash.
Furious lightning coiled around her hand, and she immediately thrust forward, stabbing at whoever—whatever creature laid in wait.
Kronesta's eyes went wide as the face of young boy, no older than ten, is illuminated by the lightning at her fingertips. The boy's eyes were red from all the crying he'd done, bags were starting to form under them, and his lips were dripping fresh blood from self harm.
The boy looks like he'd seen death itself.
Kronesta instinctively redirected her strike, hitting the wall behind her. She tried to deactivate her lightning, and they dissipated, leaving her sluggish and limp, but otherwise alive. An instant wave of magical backlash washed over her. She powered through it she always does, but found her gaze lowering down to the spiteful lightning covering her hands.
No…
It was alit with her bottled-up fury and resentment for the Marionette, and her nature prevented her from disabling it. This realization washed over her like a bucket of cold water.
"No…!!" Her spell, Fury of Lightning, shot out for the boy's neck. Even Kronesta herself could not stop the spell. She closed her yes, but even her spell prevented that, or, at least, her conscience refused her to do so.
Lightning stretched out for the boy's heart in branching arcs, and Kronesta prepared herself for whatever was about to happen.
"…?!" Kronesta's eyes grew wide.
Just as the lightning was about to touch the boy's heart, an invisible force met her lightning. The two forces met, and either side refused to relent.
An ear-piercing shriek echoed in the hallway.
Sparks flew as Kronesta watched with wide-open eyes as her strongest and most powerful spell is rebuked by a small, lanky boy thrice younger than her.
That instant stretched to a couple of seconds for Kronesta.
Eventually, however, the boy's "power" dissipated, and upon noticing this, Kronesta did the best that she could to try and suppress her spell.
She failed, no surprise to Kronesta herself but the invisible force had already weakened the brunt of her spell, weakening it greatly.
Lightning struck the boy's heart and he fell instantly.
Kronesta immediately checked for vitals, ready to preform a defibrillation if necessary. Luckily, the boy's heart was still beating, albeit much slower than normal.
Kronesta pulled out a green crystal and crushed it, the mana contained flying in the direction of the nearest knight station.
She looked to the west. The sun had set long ago, making the orphanage all the more dark and grim.
The Marionette had escaped her hands once again.