One week had passed since then. Akira had become somewhat disciplined, and was able to make much better use of Syn's powers. His relationship with most of Blacklight's members was still... in its development phase, but they had all acknowledged him as a member eventually.
His Status right now was [Satiated] despite it being a week. Was it because he ate 5 people at once? He had no clue. When it came to the devourer system, as he's called it, he still wasn't sure how it worked, but his knowledge right now was good enough and he would only learn more as time went on.
Akira was also on holiday break, so he had plenty of time to waste for the next 3 weeks.
And so the time arrived when it was time for Black light's first mission. Operation: Hell diver.
**
The sun still rose as a roofless off road vehicle was driving on a dirt road, surrounded by nothing but dirt and half grown grass. There was nothing for miles, and the only signs of civilization was the small town to the east, and the numerous amounts of wind turbines in the ocean.
This was the Southernmost part of Babel city, the empty landscape.
Inside the off road vehicle were four people. Xander at the drivers seat, dressed in his usual outfit, with Shinomiya sitting in the front passenger seat. This time wearing a short white coat and a black catsuit, once again wearing her silver necklace. Behind her was Kim Min-so who was half asleep in the outdated headphones, along with Akira who had changed to a black and red jumper since his beige one got destroyed.
"We've been driving for 3 hours... are we there yet??"
Xander excitedly declared,
"Nope!"
Xander tried to light a cigarette with one hand, but Shinomiya flicked her finger as she fired a small blast of Aether, annihilating it.
"No smoking in the car."
Xander sulked while complaining, "But there's no roof??"
After some time passed, Xander sharply turned the car, causing it to go off road. Akira in his sleepy state, hit his head because of the sudden turn and jolted from the pain.
"Ow!? What the heck!?"
A black shadow leaked from the injured spot, healing it instantly however no one else seemed to notice it.
"What is this car made of??"
After driving for a long while, Xander parked the car in a seemingly random location.
"We're here, time to go."
Akira shook Min-Su awake, and the two quickly got out of the car. Shinomiya walked to the cars back boot, and removed a sheathed rapier from it. She quickly inspected it checking on it's quality before strapping it to her waste.
Xander then handed everyone ear bud like devices. Once Akira put his in, a loud pitched voice rang in his ear.
"Are you guys there yet?"
It was Soyuz. The comms device allowed all of them to communicate to each other, even if they were far apart, and Soyuz would act as the middleman between them all.
"Hey... why isn't Eva here? I thought everyone was participating."
Xander would be the one to answer as he lit another cigar,
"We found this city thanks to her, so we let her sit out for the rest of it. If something were to happen though, she'll be able to come to anyone of us anytime."
Despite the fact they were all teammates, they were all very personal with their abilities. Akira was somewhat familiar with Soyuz's teleportation, however he had no clue about the others.
"Anyhow, let's keep going. It's not that far away,"
And with that, the group simply began to walk. Only Xander knew where the city precisely was, so he took charge of leading everyone. Surprisingly, it only took a few minutes of walking to get there. Confusingly, Akira asked,
"Huh? Is this it?"
There was still nothing for miles. Soyuz had said the city was invisible, but he still had some doubts. Shinomiya just sighed, and let Xander show him the truth.
"Back then I told you there were 5 styles to Aether Manipulation. I'll show you the fourth one right now."
Xander took a fighting stance which caused the atmosphere to change. Suddenly it became a little harder to breath, but it was manageable. The wind began to stir as a light blue circle around 10 metres in diameter manifested around Xander.
"Flow control! That's what this style is called. It's the hardest of the 5 styles to learn, and even more difficult to master. Rather than controlling the Aether in your body, it controls and dominates the Aether in the atmosphere, bending it to your will. I'm going to use it to pry open a path through the Aether bubble, and create an opening for you guys to enter."
Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Aether was just another form of energy, so once it was brought into this world through a Borrower, it would never disappear. Because of this, Aether would slowly build up in the atmosphere over the years. Currently, Aether made up 5% of the Worlds atmosphere.
"Yeah... this ability is powerful, but the downside is that I can't move while using it. None of you guys are skilled enough to open one as good as mine, so you 3 will have to go in by yourselves."
Using flow control required incredible patience, and since this was a matter of undoing an Aether control which manipulated space, it would require even more concentration. This meant that it's current user was incredibly vulnerable to external attacks while being unable to use.
Akira began to panic as he expected Xander to kind of lead them through the whole thing.
"Shinomiya, you take it from here, kay?"
She just quietly nodded acknowledging the task.
Eventually, Xander was successful in his endeavour's as blue sparks began to crackle in the air. It then grew into a bright burst of blue flames, creating some kind of burning portal for them to enter through.
"Get in, I can't keep it open for long!"
Akira hesitated, as he wasn't sure if the flames would burn him or not but then he felt a foot kick him from behind, forcing him into the portal. Shinomiya and Min-Su followed in soon after, finally allowing Xander to rest.
He blew a heavy breath of exhaustion while falling onto his back.
"What the heck? Am I getting rusty? Or why was that barrier so hard to open?"
He thought about it for a bit. It was manipulating space so that could've contributed a great deal, but a gut feeling was telling him it was something else. This time he had to think was quickly cut short by a sudden vibration he felt throughout the ground. It was the familiar sounds of complicated mechanisms shifting, moving, creating something new.
"I thought I could rest for a bit, but I guess I could use a work out."
Of course, a group as big as the unison council would have some kind of fail safe set up around their biggest secret. The ground began to split apart unnaturally as dozens of square shaped holes surrounded Xander. From each hole, numerous different weapons and artillery revealed themselves.
In some there were machine gun turrets, others had large canons, while very few had large mechanical androids with smaller turrets for hands and rockets strapped to their shoulders. They were all branded with the unison council logo, showing it off as if it were their pride.
The androids and weapons all quickly locked onto Xander, recognising him as the only target. He cracked a smile at the situation.
Jumping up, he pulled out a plain black mask with a bloody eye painted onto it. He carefully put it on, while also discarding his cigarette.
"When was the last time I smashed some Unison weapons?"
**
Akira fell head first into the ground. His face landed into a murky black puddle, while the other two easily landed on their feet. Akira quickly pulled himself back up, while also spitting out some of the water from his mouth.
"Why did you kick me!???", Akira rightfully asked.
"I saw you hesitate. Xander was already struggling to open that barrier, if you took any longer then we would've lost our chance. If your upset about it, then man up next time."
He just angrily scrapped off the remaining muck from his face before observing his surroundings.
They appeared to be in another alleyway. Great. As if he hadn't gotten in trouble in enough of them already.
This one was wedged between 2 buildings, with water dripping from roofs above. The white light of sun seemed to poke down through some cracks, but it felt... strange?
Was it because of his body? He could just tell these things, and right now, there was something heavily wrong with the sun in this place.
The alleyway itself was abnormally filthy, with what seemed to be a homeless person sitting, laying on the floor next to a wall. Thinking that he had seen them break in, Shinomiya quickly went to check on him.
Surprisingly, he was dead. His body left to rot down here, alone in the dark.
Shinomiya simply nodded at the rest to follow her, which they dutifully did. It was best to just leave him be, and let someone else find him later otherwise there could be some misunderstandings. What kind of path he took to get here would remain a mystery, but Akira was sure he wouldn't be the last corpse he would see in this place.
Akira took note of the red armband he wore around his left arm, as it stood out from the rest of his dishevelled clothes.