-Chapter 01-
At a construction site, two police officers clad in blue stood in front of a gruesome body. In fact, it was hard to tell if they could call it a body.
The corpse seemed to have disintegrated beyond recognition. The corpse's face melted off its skull, flesh peeled off its body, its muscles were shredded as if by a meat grinder, blood streamed from the carcass, and its veins were lacerated at every centimeter.
The squishy human matter was all over the construction site.
"Taken any samples for analysis yet?" A male officer kneeling opposite the body, whose most distinguishing features were his blue hat and beard sticking out of his chin, asked the short female officer beside him.
"Yup, and they're already testing it and should come up with something soon. But sir, do you think it was an ability user?"
"I can't be too sure. This murder matches the attack from the last three weeks. It's more like in between both sides. It's like the killer is trying to send a message." And yet, there was one thing Logan, the town's sheriff, hadn't gotten yet: what was the message, and who was the message for?
"If that's true, shouldn't we contact the guild and let them know this is an ability-related case?"
"No, this has been going on for almost a month now, and still the guild hasn't sent any feedback about the case, and they call themselves professionals. Look, Bianca, I want to investigate this case myself, and I would trust you to keep this between us."
"But sir, that's against the law."
"I know, but just this once, this should be kept between us, okay?"
Without waiting for a reply, Logan walked away, heading for his police car parked by the side of the road.
________
A teenage boy in a black uniform walked down the sidewalks to school with his eyes focused on the Rubix cube he had been twisting and arranging.
Even with his mind completely focused on figuring out where each part would go, he skirted unbothered through the path in front of him like he had a third eye focused on the road.
Noah was the type of kid who always searched for a challenge, anything to break the boring routine of his young age, and that's why he loved Rubix cubes.
Unlike other kids his age who occupied their time playing video games and scrolling through social media, Noah read books and solved mysteries that weren't accounted for. He was like a computer, but with flesh and bones.
"Argh," a loud, piercing shriek was heard.
A girl was pinned to the wall by a boy, while four other boys stood behind the boy who pinned the poor girl to the wall as they laughed.
It was five in the morning, and mostly every day when Noah walked to school, it was quiet, and because of this silence, he preferred going through this road.
Noah wasn't that shocked because he was expecting something like this to happen someday, but for something to happen so early in the morning was just absurd.
Noah didn't bother lifting his head to take a look at what was going on because his initial reaction was to walk away and not get involved, especially since it wouldn't benefit him in any way.
After all, he was no hero, but merely a teenager. Besides, Noah found it disturbing to butt into other people's business when it was not called for.
The group of males laughed as they carried on with their sinful deed, around the back of an apartment.
At this point, when the girl turned her head, she saw a young boy walk by. The girl's eyes spotted something on his uniform.
It was her school crest, the boy went to the same school as her.
"Please help!" the girl yelled, and this earned her a smack to the face from the boy pinning her to the wall.
"Hey you, you're from Dragon High, right? what are you doing walking around here this early?" A boy with blue eyes who had dyed red hair asked as he saw the boy walking past them.
Noah didn't respond, he didn't even stop twisting the Rubix cube until...
"Done." He muttered and held the properly modified Rubix cube in his left hand, looking at it like it was a piece of expensive jewelry. "145 done and 120 to go."
All the boys paused their actions and all looked at each other as they saw what Noah just did. He just kept walking and muttering some words, like the group of boys didn't even exist.
"Hey freak, I'm talking to you.." the boy said, but Noah didn't respond to his words and kept on walking.
A boy among the squad with a tall and muscular feature ran forward and held Noah by the shoulder to stop him. Noah halted his step.
"You ability users make me sick, you think you're better than us just because you can do some fancy magic tricks. you've got so much confidence walking around here like you own the place, so you know, we've got weapons, dangerous weapons that can kill people like you," the boy said with a proud and threatening tone.
"Get your diseased hands off me, child," Noah spoke unfazed by the threat, and slowly turned around with a face that exhibited no expression whatsoever.
"Is this boy crazy? He would get himself beaten to a pulp." The girl thought as she watched the scene playing before her.
"Who do you think yo…"
The boy's sentence was cut short when he was sent flying through the air like a rag doll and landed several feet away from Noah.
"Jacob." The male boys exclaimed as they saw their teammate lying unconscious on the ground with blood oozing from his head. They ignored the girl totally and ran toward their friend to check up on him.
"What the hell just happened? He didn't even move." The girl thought as she stood astonished, totally forgetting she had been pinned to the wall some minutes ago. This action happened so fast that no one saw what had happened.
Only the girl managed to see an outline of his index finger flickering toward the boy's forehead.
Noah dusted his shoulder and carried on walking through the sidewalks like he didn't just send a boy drifting through the road.
"You monster, where do you think you're going?" The boy with dyed red hair ran forward, unsealing a pocket knife. He pointed the tip at Noah's back, fully prepared to stab him unaware.
"Watch out!" the girl yelled out to warn Noah, but he didn't stop. He just continued walking.
A smile appeared on the boy's face as he stabbed straight at Noah's back. With just a few inches from Noah's back, he suddenly disappeared from his current spot, causing the boy to stab into thin air.
"What?" The boy's eyes widened as he could no longer see the boy he was about to stab a few seconds ago. He held his small pocket knife tighter, ready to turn around, but he felt a sting on the side of his neck.
All the boy could wonder was why his vision was becoming blurry. He managed to get one more look at Noah's expressionless face before passing out.
From the others' point of view, Noah had disappeared and reappeared behind the boy and performed a knife hand strike on the boy's neck, causing him to pass out instantly.
"This guy is way faster than I am," the girl thought.
"You cocky brat. You might be stronger and faster, but let's see how you match up against a gun." The boy who had pinned the girl on the wall earlier drew out an old gun from his back; the gun looked like the guns used in cowboy movies, but black and way longer.
The moment Noah saw the boys' fingers pressing on the trigger, he arrived in front of the remaining three boys.
Boom!
A strange force suddenly blasted forth, sending all of them crashing into the wall. cracks appeared on the walls, where all three boys where slammed into. They were all unconscious and bleeding from several parts of their bodies.
"So lucky, if I had used a quarter of my strength, all of you would have been squashed like bugs. I guess killing is also boring too. " Noah said, then resumed his early morning stroll.
The girl who sat on the floor with her mouth wide open composed herself and showed her gratitude by saying, "Thank you."
"Who said I did that for you?" Noah replied and kept on walking.