Shirakami Park, despite its location in the middle of a busting, noisy city, falls into a rather serene atmosphere at night. No longer are there an abundance of vehicles on the roads or people walking about. The noise pollution so prominent in the area is entirely absent, the only noise being the trees swaying in the light nighttime breeze. Such was the location of Essence Hunter Kurima Alkasar's (code name Nighthawk) first ever notice, one of the Overload category.
The clock had just hit 1am, and Nighthawk was setting up his portable analyzer near the stone water fountain in the center of the park. Trees rustled in the wind around him, the only other noise present aside from that of his work. After successfully setting up the small hut full of metal tools on a long table and a large box shaped like a projector, Nighthawk pressed a button on said box and began speaking.
"Overload Class A7S Notice. Time is 1:03 AM. I am now beginning the analysis process." He said while looking into the small eye of the box, where a small camera was placed. Afterwards, he pressed another button, which was located on the top of the box, flipped a switch, which was right next to the button, and stepped out of the way of the camera.
Immediately, the box began to whir, and a faint red grid hologram was cast over the area of the fountain. After around 20 seconds, Nighthawk stepped back in front of the box and pressed the button again, turning the scan off. He then read the small screen on the side facing him, his eyes ever so slightly widening at what was displayed. Another press of the first button to activate comms, and he spoke again.
"Uhhh… Overload Class A7S Notice. Time is 1:03 AM. Assistance required. Calling upon Saint-Class Vanquishers within the region. Estimated Priority: Semi-Urgent." He spoke in a monotone voice. His hand then went to the right side of the machine where he hastily inputted a series of numbers on a digital keypad with ease, then pressed a large button next to it. Then, he waited.
"This is all it is? Ugh… I wish I could've been a Vanquisher. Being a Hunter sucks, all I do is just press some damn buttons." Nighthawk muttered to himself. "There's not even any hunting! It's just setting up and boom, you're done."
Nighthawk groaned and sat down in a folding chair next to him that he brought specifically for waiting. As he leaned back in the chair, he felt the soft breeze on his skin and heard the howls of the wind, softly guiding him into a peaceful sleep as his eyes fluttered shut and his breathing relaxed.
And then, his slumber was interrupted.
"Hey, wake up!" A voice barked. Nighthawk was jolted from his slumber, his head flying upward to a sharp 90 degree angle. He turned to look at where the voice came from, a girl a small amount shorter than him with brown straight hair down to her lower back and blue eyes.
"Geez. Hunters are always slacking off." She said, giving Nighthawk a death glare.
"Uh, and you are?" Nighthawk asked in a confused tone, which prompted a sigh from the girl.
"I'm Calypso, a Saint-Class Vanquisher. You requested me, right?"
"Oh, yeah! Sorry about that! Guess I just dozed off." Nighthawk said, immediately standing up on high alert.
"You know sleeping on the job is bad, right?" Calypso fired back.
"I'm aware, but in my defense, how am I supposed to stay awake? All I do is set some stuff up and call for help. You Vanquishers do the rest." Nighthawk answered.
"Is this your first notice?" Calypso asked with a groan.
"Yeah. Why?"
"I figured. It's always the newbies."
"Hey, don't make fun of me!"
"I'm not making fun of you. It's quite literally the truth. Look at the statistics. Personally, I don't mind newbies, as long as they aren't braindead. You're just barely passing by."
"C'mon, you just said you weren't making fun of me!"
"It was a joke. You might actually be braindead."
"Oh, that makes sense. Anyways, what's your real name?"
"That doesn't matter. It's not like we'll ever be using it anyways. Checkpoint Oriesal doesn't allow us to use real names."
"I know that. I was just curious."
"Well, too bad."
Silence followed after the bickering between the two subsided. Calypso took a few steps towards the water fountain before turning back around to face Nighthawk with her hand on her hip.
"Well? Drop the details on the Overload." She said, tapping her foot on the ground.
"Oh, yeah. Uh, let's see…" Nighthawk mumbled as he quickly made his way to the analyzing device and checked the screen again. "The anomaly is covering the whole fountain and an area of 10 feet around it on all sides. The memory web is… extremely intricate. Zero weak points in the entire thing." He explained.
"Extremely intricate? What kind of collision was this?" Calypso questioned with a look of disbelief.
"My first notice ever is an EI? That's actually kind of cool." Nighthawk exclaimed.
"No, it's not. At least not for me." Calypso fired back, nearly cutting him off. "EIs are hell to traverse. This is going to be miserable."
"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to make you mad or anything." Nighthawk replied sheepishly.
"Dude, you didn't make me mad. I was just stating a fact. Don't be so… god, just don't hate yourself so much. You didn't even do anything wrong." Calypso said in a defeated tone.
"I'm just a bit uptight. It's my first notice, and you're the first Vanquisher I've ever talked to. And you're Saint-Class! Do you know how nerve wracking it is for the first ever Vanquisher I communicate with to be a Saint-Class?"
"You have a point. Let's just get this going, please. I want to go back to Oriesal and sleep, and judging by how this is an EI, we're going to be here for a while."
"Yeah, alright. I'm pretty tired myself. So, what now? You just do your thing with the anomaly?"
"Yeah. Remember, I'll be unconscious out here, so protect my body, okay? And connect to my Ultralink and tell me if something happens with the anomaly from the outside. Got it?"
"Yeah, I got it."
"Good. And rest assured, I'm pretty good at what I do. I'm not Saint-Class for nothing."
"Yeah, I figured."
"Alright, I'll go on ahead now. Be prepared to wait for a while."
"Okay. I'm ready."
"Catcha later!" Calypso said with a big smirk. She then held her hand out, palm facing the fountain. She steadied her breathing, keeping her arm as still as possible as she channeled her own essence into the anomaly. After 20 seconds or so, her arm went limp, followed by her whole body as she fell to the ground unconscious.
"I don't know if I'll ever get used to seeing that. It looks so bad." Nighthawk said to himself.
Calypso awakened shortly after her entrance into the anomaly. Surrounding her was a countryside home directly next to a large river, the water a bright blue. Few other homes surrounded it, making up a quaint village.
"So one of them is from out in the sticks, huh?" She said to herself before making her way towards the house. The scent of freshly cooked food emanated from the inside, catching Calypso off guard.
"This is probably a good memory. Now, where's the other one?" Calypso asked herself as she continued to walk towards the house. Eventually, she turned around behind her, and that was when she saw it, an enormous mountain in the sky colliding with the countryside landscape she was in, frozen in time. It was truly the sight to behold, one that solidified the belief that the job of a Vanquisher was one of the most visually rewarding jobs ever.
"And there's the other one. Whoa, that mountain is huge! Wait, no, I can't get off topic. This is a bad collision. No wonder it's an EI." Calypso stated, turning back around and approaching the front door of the house. When she reached the front entrance, she opened the unlocked door and walked in.
The background noises of a TV show. The laughter of family having fun together. The scent of fresh food coming off of the stove. Calypso watched as the family consisting of both parents and one little boy goofed off and had fun together. She was correct, this was a good memory.
"A happy family dinner and a giant mountain, huh? This is an interesting one." Calypso said with a smirk. "Oh well. Now, the hardest part: finding the epicenter."
Meanwhile, Nighthawk was standing guard outside with a sharp eye centered on Calypso's body. Although he was on the job, it was hard to stay on high alert 100% of the time, so he periodically would divert his attention to something else for a short amount of time. Luckily, it was the middle of the night, and there wasn't much going on in or around the park to warrant full attention.
Suddenly, a blaring (not exactly "blaring", but in contrast to the rather silent atmosphere outside, it was quite loud) tone rang out from Nighthawk's pocket. A phone call. He reached down and grabbed his phone out of his pocket, accepting the call and raising the phone to his ear.
"Hello? Are you there?" He asked through the phone.
"Ah, there we are. What's up?! How's it going over in Europe?" A voice asked back over the phone. An obvious lie told by Nighthawk. "Studying abroad in Europe," he said. He was smart, so the lie was genuinely believable as well. It would need to be in the first place though, as Checkpoint Oriesal or any of the Hulsteo Corp checkpoints were to be kept secret at any cost.
"Uh, good, good. No problems over here. How about you?" Nighthawk asked back, keeping an eye on the fountain in the process.
"Same here. You know how sis always makes way too much food for dinner every single time, right? Well, it's harder to store all of it without you here to scarf it down like you usually do. You were like our personal cleanup robot." The voice replied.
"Well I'm sure you can just learn to eat more. You have a fast metabolism anyway." Nighthawk pointed out. "Wait, why are you even calling me at 1 in the morning? Go to sleep."
"I could say the same to you."
"Whatever. Just leave me alone. I gotta… gotta sleep! Yeah, sleep. It's really late and I'm tired." Nighthawk exclaimed, trying to come up with a believable lie.
"Oh, alright. Just… come back soon. We all miss you." The voice said in a solemn tone.
"Yeah, I miss you guys too. I promise I'll come back as soon as I can." Nighthawk promised.
"You better. Bye."
And the call was over. Nighthawk stared at his phone, the bright light emanating from the screen almost blinding in the dark of the night. He wondered, why did I take this job? I didn't mean to uncover Hulsteo's existence, it was all an accident. I could've just chosen to leave and lose my memory of them, but I didn't. For some reason. I miss everyone. Maybe I'd be better off back home. With Mom. With Dad. With… with Nari. I wonder who's taking care of her now that I'm gone.
An ethereal energy radiated from the ground. A room came into sight, two lifeless bodies consumed with a dark haze laid on the ground.
"Finally. The epicenter." Calypso said to herself, groaning loudly and walking to the area in between both bodies. "They just look like regular guys, both of them. The usual." She muttered.
Calypso stood in the middle of the room, both bodies on either side of her. She raised both hands up, either one pointing towards one of the two bodies. She shut her eyes tight, and channeled her energy, causing ripples and waves of prismatic-colored energy to emanate from her hands towards the bodies. The power grew, filling up the whole room.
"I wonder what I'm going to lose this time." Calypso said, smiling softly.
And then there was no power.
Darkness filled the room.
And the unconscious body in the real world reawakened, alarming Nighthawk immediately as he watched Calypso stand back up.
"All done. We can leave now." Calypso informed.
"Already? You're fast! That was an EI." Nighthawk replied in disbelief.
"Yeah, the whole body of the collision was an EI. Luckily for me, the Needle Point was directly next to the epicenter."
"Damn, really?"
"Yep. All I had to do was go in there and-"
All of a sudden, the previously thought-to-be cleared collision erupted from the fountain, instantaneously knocking both Nighthawk and Calypso out cold. The field of essence spread, now under no control from any Vanquishers or Hunters. Nighthawk's consciousness faded slowly, but instead of a realm of nothingness on the other side, a bright light filled his vision.
A world rediscovered.
A new door had been opened.
A bright landscape came into view. A view of somewhere else. The sun shined bright in the sky, beaming down onto a sandy shore next to an ocean that went out as far as the eye could see. Rocky hills stood behind the beach, several paths going up the length of them.
Nighthawk fluttered his eyes open slowly, and upon fully opening them, was met with this view.
"Where… what…" He muttered, turning his head slowly. "The essence erupted… and now I'm here?" He added on. He blinked once, and upon opening his eyes, there was a child in front of him. A young girl around age 9 in a sundress bearing a floral design with red eyes and long silver hair. She stood barefoot in the sand, a large smile on her face.
And she spoke.
"Come on, Lori!" She exclaimed happily. "What are you waiting for?!" She asked cheerfully, leaning forward with her hands behind.
"What is this? Where… where am I?" Nighthawk tried to ask. But no words left his mouth. It was as if he couldn't speak.
Then a voice spoke.
From his own mouth.
It was not his voice.
"I'm coming, I'm coming! Let's go!" The voice said. It sounded around the same age as the girl. And suddenly, he ran.
Nighthawk didn't try to run, but he ran. As if he didn't have control over his body. Or his voice. As if he was a spectator.
"It's so pretty!" The girl yelled in happiness, dipping her toes into the water of the ocean. "I still can't believe we're finally here… and you're with me, Lori. I wouldn't have it any other way." She spoke again, walking very close to Nighthawk, or Lori, and grasping his right hand lightly.
Lori ran up to the shore with the girl, dipping his own toes into the ocean and feeling the cold water. His entire body shivered upon contact, making the girl giggle softly as she stepped further in.
"Pretty cold, isn't it? You'll get used to it, don't worry!" She reassured him gently. All the while, Nighthawk watched the scene unfold from Lori's eyes, unable to move or speak. As the scene went on, the two kids spent their time together having fun without a care in the world. But, all things must come to an end, and the whole world seemed to collapse around Lori after the girl spoke again.
"A beach free of Orion… free of plague… it's beautiful."
And then it was over. In a blink, Nighthawk awakened in a medical bed, in complete control of his voice and body, signifying that he was in fact now in his own body. Bright fluorescent lights shone from above, blinding him immediately upon opening his eyes. As he sat up and lifted his head, he saw two people sitting next to his bed - Dr. Callahan, and Calypso. As he fully awoke, we wondered what vision he had just seen, and who Lori or the girl was, and as he set his eyes on Calypso's relieved face and Dr. Callahan's smile, he realized he had allies who could help him with his vision and finding out what it was.
This is the journey of Nighthawk, newly born Essence Hunter of Checkpoint Oriesal and the greater Hulsteo Corporation, and bearer of mysterious visions.