We have been tasked with destabilizing this planet. Just a short decade ago this planet was like any other planet in the outer ring of Oviel's influence: Anything but prosperous, and dependent on help from the Ovielian government. Yet in the last few years this planet's economy has been growing rapidly, with no signs of it stopping anytime soon. Its biggest export is rare earth minerals, the official explanation goes that these minerals are found deep in the planet's mantel. Through an economic lens this prosperity would be a net positive for Oviel, and yet it has been decided that this planet has too much potential to revolt against the Democratic Alliance of Oviel. A planet so far away, all the way at the outer edge of Oviel, is simply too dangerous for the higherups.
This assignment seems like a huge bother. The minerals clearly aren't from the planet's mantle and the people behind the excavation are seemingly smart enough to keep the actual facts hidden from the CBP. There is way too much mystery, we aren't detectives. They should have those insects, stuck to their computers back at the headquarters, solve this. Instead Gyre, Farew, and me are assigned to this. Well at least we get a bonus.
"Sef get up. We aren't here to slack around." Farew speaks with a commanding tone. She's always so hardcore for manners and the rules. Well, I am currently sitting at the beach and enjoying the sun, something totally opposite of what we should be doing, but aren't we allowed a little break after the long journey we had to go through? We couldn't use the warpgate to get to a place as far away as this, so we had to take the intergalactic train. That's why I refuse to work today. The only good thing about this planet is its beaches. The rain in buldigst can make any person depressed, so this weather is a nice change of atmosphere. I push my sunglasses to my forehead and take a sip from my drink. "Gyre, help me out here. We should at least take this day off, shouldn't we?!" Between the three of us gyre is the voice of reason. If you had to put all our opinions on a spectrum, I would be all the way on the left, Farew would be all the way on the right, and Gyre would be right in the centre. Most of the time an argument between Farew and me ends up becoming a competition about who can convince Gyre to their side.
Gyre speaks up, but the sorry-like expression on his face tells me that he has taken Farew's side. "Sef we have two day to complete this mission." I sigh deeply. Why can't I enjoy things these days? Everything has been so boring lately, and yet I can't even be given the reprieve of sleeping. The CBP has been way too busy lately, they've have that prediction algorithm of theirs running with more effectiveness by the day, which only means executioners like us have more work that's getting assigned to us.
I leave my comfortable beach chair and pick up the guitar case holding my sword. As opposed to my Hawaiian beach outfit, Farew and Gyre are wearing normal summer clothes. Farew is wearing a tracksuit with short pants, a baseball cap, and a huge duffel bag over her shoulders. Gyre on the other hand has decided that wearing full length jeans in this weather would be a good idea. We're supposed to go unnoticed, but every person on the street will notice this horrible clothing decision. Well it's his own decision, we should just get this mission over with. "where are we going to first?"
As usual Noah has entrusted Farew with planning this mission. "There is a distribution centre at the far northern side of the city. It handles circa. sixty percent of exports that leave this planet and all of Minon trade corporation's export. It's the lifeblood of this city." Minon trade is the main party involved in the rare mineral mining on this planet. It's somewhat famous around these parts of Oviel, even before it became as big as it is now. Minon trade has somehow existed for the last six hundred years, making it one of Oviel's oldest companies. "System LFPM-7067 has predicted that a discovery of this mission by anyone of Minon trade has a 0,27 percent chance of upending the current order of Oviel. Both Noah and the higher-ups have personally warned for us to be extra careful." She glares at me. "That means no more enjoying the beach until everything has been dealt with. You can enjoy the beach in your free time." As if we have any free time.. How exhausting. "Through the distribution centre we might able to uncover more about the origin of the minerals."
"what's the protocol on killing?" This time Gyre that speaks up.
"Considering the short time allocated for this mission and the importance of bringing this anomaly to an end it has been decided that we are allowed to kill any person who discovered the CBP's presence on this planet and anyone directly involved with the anomaly. Any person outside of these classifications are only to be executed on my command. However please keep in mind that these are civilians of Oviel, paperwork must be filed for every person killed." What a pain. Every action we take has to someway go through bureaucratic channels. It's all a secret from the general public anyway, who cares? Well, Farew seems to care. Was she always such a stickler for the rules?
We take our rental car to a café a bit far from the distribution centre. This planet has a preference for the car as a mode of transportation, which means the drive was pretty easy. It helps that car dependent cities like this have so many lanes, unlike other cities in Oviel which are more bike dependent. I still have nightmares from driving a car in those cities.
The distribution centre is huge and can easily be spotted from kilometres away. It's somewhat of a spectacle to the people of this planet, as it's the only place from which spaceships depart. We'll be waiting for the next batch of shipments to arrive by truck, then we'll have a little chat with the delivery driver. Until that time arrives however, we'll have a little stakeout at this café.
"Tell me Farew, were you as much of a bore in high school as you are now?"
I try to lighten to mood a bit with some small talk, but the recipient doesn't like my attempt at friendly chatter very much. "Shut up and let me concentrate." She keeps her focus on the big building ahead of us, she seems to try and avoid eye contact with me.
"It's protocol, right? We have to keep light conversation during a stakeout in a public space." I take a sip from my cup of tea (which might not have been the best choice of beverage in this hot weather) and keep staring at her, waiting for an answer.
"Farew does seem to be the same person now as she was in high school." Gyres chimes in. You, however, have changed a fair bit since high school, haven't you Sef? Although I didn't see you much, you seemed innocent." Gyre attempts to insult us both (although knowing Gyre it probably hasn't even crossed his mind that his statement might insult us), I'm always surprised he still remembers us from that time, it's not like we were in the same grade or club. This little job is the only reason we know each other like we do now. Well, Gyre isn't a person who forgets someone's face once he sees them.
"Ha! Innocent is the least of it." Farew suddenly seemed interested in joining the conversation once insulting me started being part of the menu. "You weren't there because you already graduated Gyre, but during our annual school festival he suddenly burst into tears while a band was playing. The whole school talked about it!" I do seem to remember that. Yeah that was embarrassing, although I can't quite remember why I cried. Well I cried a lot back in the day.
I'm, however, not the only one with skeletons in their closet. "Well how about the time you fell in the school's water fountain?" Farew doesn't flinch. She was expecting my response. How boring.
"I do remember that one!" laughs Gyre gently. "I don't think I had anything as embarrassing as those incidents happen to me in school?" He wracks his brain for even a tiny sliver of anything like our situations. But of course he doesn't have anything similar, whenever I saw him in school he had that annoying smile on his face. A smile that pleased everyone. The most irritating thing about getting to know Gyre is that his smile is actually genuine. "I can't seem to think of anything.. Although it's not like you two care about care about these incidents anyway."
Farew continues to look towards the road far ahead of her. "Of course not. One's younger years are there for a person to make mistakes and be embarrassed, that way we won't make any mistakes when we're adults." Albeit slightly, Farew seems to sharpen her eyes. "Target spotted, it's time to go." Well If Farew is good for anything it's her eyes.
The distribution centre is a ten minute walk from the café. We're technically not in a hurry. Our current goal is to simply capture one of the truck drivers, so long as the trucks haven't left the facility we should be safe. From the information we gathered it takes about an hour for a truck to leave the building. Our only roadblock right now is our method of entry. I could throw my sword through a window and teleport us all inside the building, but there's a high chance someone will notice the noise. The best thing to do right now is to simply walk through the front door. And that's what we do. We walk past the security guards and the other employees and walk inside the building searching for our target. This is all made possible through Gyre's sword amazing ability to manipulate light. To any person or security camera we are completely invisible, all we have to do is to not be heard, which is pretty easy in a busy place like this. This building is manned by thousands upon of thousands of people who are all busy with unloading trucks, filling storage space, manning spaceships, and shouting at coworkers.
We keep walking through the ginormous building. This place must span multiple kilometres. We walk past machines that stock the endless shelfs made to warehouse the products until they're shipped off, huge spaceships, and even a breakroom for employees I so wish to use myself. Eventually we come across a man wearing a jacket with Minon trade's logo on it, standing next to a truck with the same likeness plastered on it. After carefully looking around Farew knocks the man out with a punch to the side of the head. She throws the man on her shoulder and takes hold of Gyre's hand, afterwards Gyre takes my hand, and a short moment after that we all disappear from the distribution centre.
I had one my sword planted in a building on the other side of the city. All it takes is my will and me and everyone who I'm in contact with teleports to the location of my sword. Farew throws the man on the ground and gyre proceeds to tie up the man's arms and legs with a rope from Farew's bag. Farew takes out a small machine resembling a crown from her bag, and puts it on the man's head. "Sef, go make the call?"
Sigh, why do I have to do it? Those people are so annoying to deal with. I reach into my pocket and take out my phone. After dialling the secret number I'm forced to go through the tiresome process of constantly having to identify myself and being reconnected. Following the mind-numbing CBP phone call experience I end up at the mind identifying department.
"Good afternoon Sef. You're an hour late, next time please keep to the schedule."
I sigh. "Please just do your job, you're here to support us, not to complain."
"And I can't do my job if you don't uphold protocol, speaking of which, the rapport written for this operation was too vague, if you aren't specific I don't know what information to gather." He continues to talk, but I keep silent. The best way to deal with these people is to just let them make their little speech. They're all a bunch of people who were high achievers in college and seem to think they are still on the top of the food chain.
After a while he stops talking and starts ticking away at his keyboard, that means he started his work. Their job is to collect all the necessary information from people's brain, how wonderful modern technology is, there's no need to get our hands dirty with torture. Although, technology concerning the brain is highly restricted, so far so that even the CBP can only get away with something small like this. Well maybe it's for the better, I'd rather not live in a world where I don't know what's real and what isn't, that sounds like a very tiresome world.
I keep hearing the loud ticking noise from a keyboard coming from the speaker of my phone. This is taking longer than usual. After the first fifteen minutes I put my phone on mute and start playing word games with Gyre and Farew, after thirty more minutes I hear a voice coming from my phone. "I'm done. This took longer than usual, some information was cleverly hidden by a third party." Well that's about what we were expecting. If every truck driver working for Minon trade knew their big secret it wouldn't have been a secret for us. "I wrote everything noteworthy in a rapport. I'm sending it to you right now." Those words sound like music to my ears. We don't have to talk to this boring computer insect anymore. I keep my long silence towards him. After confirming we got the rapport I hang up the phone.
Gyre looks at me with a stunned face. "Sef, you've got a special talent for communication."
"What about it? Nobody likes talking to them, not even Farew likes doing it!" It's not like this is first time I've done something like this in front of them. Well, I might have gone a bit further than normal this time.
"Sure, I complain about them, but at least I talk to them. You were completely silent. Are you sure this line of work fits you?" I did originally start working here because I thought it paid well and there wouldn't be that much work, both of those have disappointed me however. I'd rather stay here though, I cannot stomach another job interview in my life.
"We have what we want, don't we? Just go look if there is anything useful in the memory rapport." I sit down on the rooftop and look and look at Farew as she takes out her laptop from her bag.
After a few minutes of reading Farew summarizes the rapport for us. "It's quite a sophisticated operation. There are about fifty thousand rare earth mineral mines on this planet, the content mined from those places seems to be worth little. Contrary to our expectations it does actually get loaded onto the trucks. The only thing the driver knows is that somewhere along the road the content of the truck gets switched. Even the last part was hidden deep in the driver's mind by some external party."
"That's it?! This doesn't bring us a step further!" Gyre keeps his arms crossed and stays silent, but I can see from the expression on his face that agrees with me.
Farew gives me a stern look. "please let me continue talking." She looks back at her laptop and continues her little talk. "The driver is somewhat experienced in this operation, and has thought about the many ways the loadout in the truck could be replaced. Although he could not find the exact way in which Minon trading replaces the truck's loadout, he has come to the conclusion that it can only come from within the truck itself. He has come to this conclusion after multiple instances where he decided to drive to the truck to its end destination without taking a break and finding the loadout switched."
We hit somewhat of a dead end here. Before we even arrived here our research concluded that higher ranking employees of Minon trading are puppets who know nothing about the company's actual supply chain. That's why we concluded that someone directly involved in the supply chain might give us a hint in the secret operations of Minon trading. "So what are our options here? We have a day and a half left. Anything concerning the local government of this planet is out of the picture with our time constraint in mind."
"Our original assessment narrowed this issue to three potential origins for these minerals: A planet outside modern human's influence, unknown technology, or a distortion. Now that we know teleportation is involved we can guarantee at least one of the latter two is being used by Minon trading. One problem does seem to come up with this…" Farew looks at me with a mean look. "Teleportation takes up a lot of energy."
Gyre speaks up. "Yes, and there are no facilities on this planet that could sustain the use of teleportation even once. Coupled with the fact we'd know if they'd siphon energy from any other place in the universe, it seems almost impossible they actually use teleportation." There have been idiots in the past who have tried generating energy from an area outside of the human sphere of influence, but they were quickly taken care of. How is one so stupid allowed to accumulate enough capital to travel that far into space. Yet I can't even get a proper meal.
"So what are you trying to say here Farew?" she wouldn't bring all of this up if she hadn't already made some kind of conclusion in her mind.
"There's one place with an abundance of energy which we would never think twice about, isn't there?" She points downwards, not towards someplace in the building we're standing on, I see it in her eyes, further down, much further down. I have to hold myself back from grinning like an idiot. These people are insane. The core of the planet, that's where they're siphoning energy from. About a hundred years ago it was discovered that deep within the core of a planet more energy gets generated than a sun could ever dream of doing. It seems that's how a planet is able to sustain life. Many planetary municipalities, especially the poor ones, thought this to be the end of their energy crisis, yet nothing could be less true. A planet In the Oxward empire was one of the first planets to try and siphon energy from its core, this part of the core is unfortunately one of the fundamental parts on which a planet lives. Even a tiny bit of instability means total collapse, or in other words, a very big explosion. How the tale ended for Oxward's unfortunate planet doesn't have to be explained further. No other planet in the galaxy dared to try this method of energy generation again.
Gyre laughs loudly. "This is finally getting interesting, isn't it? Messing with the core of your planet.. Even a child knows that's a bad idea." Gyre keeps cackling. This is his weak spot. By his own admission he only joined our group because he wanted to meet interesting people. He puts a hand in front of his mouth and tries to temper the grin on his face. "So assuming you're right, what's the next course of action?"
"I do have an idea, but it requires some teamwork.." Farew looks at me slyly. It's a face she rarely shows, only when she comes up with a daring plan. This situation has brought out the worst from these two. The only reason she even is our team leader, is because she usually refrains from making daring plans. "Sef, how about you bring us there? By way of your own teleportation."
"That's not happening." I flat out reject it. In situations like this it's important to put your foot down immediately, otherwise she'll try to tempt you into it.
Gyre puts his hand on my shoulder. "we'll make it up to you sometime later." Even Gyre is on her side here.. I don't think I'll be able to get out of this one. Well then I won't have either of them come out of this unscathed.
"I'll do it for half of this month's salary, from the both of you."
"Yeah no way. We'll treat you to a meal tomorrow, nothing more or less." Well it was worth a try.
I sigh. "I'm taking you two to the most expensive place I know."
"Good. We can finish by today then. I'll prepare the coordinates and you prepare your little ritual." I'm already starting to regret accepting so fast. Maybe I should have asked for two meals. I take out the sword I had placed on this rooftop and push it into the floor. Then I make four other identical swords appear and, similarly, push them in the ground , forming a square around the first sword.
"This should work for the three of us." I look towards Farew and see her busily typing on her laptop. "Hey! I'm done."
"I'm about done as well. If they wish to siphon energy from their core and have a base of operations big enough to store it, these coordinates should save us from being burned to death by the earth." She walks towards the square formed by my swords and stands next to Gyre, she hold her laptop in one hand and her bag in the other. "Let's see…" she names the coordinates and repeats it twice after. "Can you remember that?"
"It should fine." I firmly grip the sword in the middle of the square. "I'll need support from the both of you."
"I wasn't expecting anything less from a miracle like this." Gyre takes out his sword that was hanging invisibly on his hip and speaks the magic words. "I, Gyre, will temporarily allow complete energy transference to Sef. He is a person that I cherish for as long as this short live allows me to." It's a somewhat tacky vow, yet it must be something only he will be able to think of. He looks me in the eyes and smiles softly. Those handsome eyes irritate me.
Farew quickly follows him. She puts her laptop away and takes out her sword, many times bigger than the bag she took it from, being almost as tall as Gyre. "Protocol code 001, time limit ten minutes, password: 01101111 01110010 01100100 01100101 01110010." While she's off her machine-like activation ritual she refuses to look me in the eyes, focusing her gaze up in the sky.
The sword in my hand starts to glow bright. Each of our swords are powered by a sun. Taking into account the large energy requirement of my sword, both farew and Gyre have the authority to allocate the energy for their swords to my own. I list off the coordinates Farew gave me and in a flash the scenery before our eyes get replaced by a cold metal room.
Fascinating. Although we may be in a cold metal room, it gets illuminated by the core of this planet. The facility seems to be built within the core of the planet. It radiates a warm orange hue. Farew's coordinates worked. The quick change of environment doesn't distract her however. She tightly grips my shoulders and looks at Gyre. "Gyre please make us invisible." He disconnects his sword from mine and follows her command. "Go ahead Sef." She releases her tight hold on my shoulder and I fall on my knees and puke all the contents of my stomach out. Normally I can only teleport to the location of one of my swords or teleport one of my swords to me. At the cost of some sacrifice however, I can teleport a short distance with only the knowledge of the coordinates. One of the consequences is the amount of energy it takes, and the other is a punishment for the user: The feeling of getting hit by a truck driving 200 km/h times twenty. In other words, it hurts a lot.
After a while of agonizing pain I wipe the filth off of my mouth and stand up again. "We'd better get a free day tomorrow."
"It all depends on Noah's decision."
"I hate that guy, If he's such a stellar employee, why doesn't he do all of this himself?"
"Haha Sef, that's just the person he is." Gyre wipes a lonely tear from my face. "Shall we explore a bit?"
We walk out of the storage space we got teleported to, into a place the size of a large city. This seems to be the centre area of the facility, connecting to every other place in the facility. Thousands upon thousands of trucks are zooming past us. This seems to only be a few thousand man operation.
Gyre taps us on our shoulder and points towards a huge door that can be seen even from kilometres away. A bunch of armoured cars seem to be heading that way. "That might be where our target is." He whispers. We jump on the back of a car that seems to be heading in the door's direction. It takes about thirty minutes before we arrive at the door, we jump off right before it enters.
"We need to be prepared for anything. Sef put down a sword here. Gyre you can keep it invisible right?" Why does she always try to be so careful? We've never had difficulty with a job.
"As long as we stay within a few kilometres of distance, my sword should be able to handle it."
I put down one my swords into the ground, it might seem visible for me, but for others it's like there's nothing there.
We're about ready to enter. The chills before the finale of a mission like this have long disappeared. Since recently I just sigh, just like now. These people always struggle until the very end. The fights are not particularly hard, and yet it's the part that exhausts me most. I don't need think about it too hard, after this I can go home and sleep, that's all I need to focus on.
We open the door to the unknown area. The bright light from the room blinds us for a second, but our eyes adjust quickly. What's lying in front of us is a creature from fantasy. As big as a skyscraper, stretching hundreds of meters across the room lies a monster not from a place within the human boundaries. It reminds me of a dragon from olden-world mythology, and yet it has wings like an insect and the head of something like a horse with no eyes. It looks almost completely rotten, it's a disgusting creature, I want to get out of here.
Gyre gets me out of bewilderment with a tap on my shoulder. "Guys, there is no one here." Strange. We saw hundreds of cars enter this space, but there's no sign of any human or machine in this space.
"No, there is someone." Farew's eyes focus on space far ahead of us. "Someone is sitting next to the creature." Those eyes are as reliable as ever. "It's the executive director of Minon trade. Before we can dispose of this distortion, we need all the information we can get about it, some distortions are an even worse threat upon their death. We need to scan the director's brain. All reports conclude he is no real threat in a fight, however be careful for any reinforcements."
"Take him out, scan his brain, kill the distortion, go home, and sleep. Let's get this done then." The director is far ahead of us, after a long walk both me and Gyre can finally see his face. He's sitting at garden table and reading a book, but the book is old, not of these days. Although a creature of nightmares lies next to him all his attention seems to focus on the book and his cup of tea resting on the table. What a weirdo. Farew signs us her commands. Gyre restrains him, I teleport us out of here and then we scan his brain. It should be easy enough.
And yet our plan immediately gets disrupted by the director. "People from the CBP I presume?" He looks in our direction with a cold gaze. "Although I can't see you, this area is like an extension of my body, I can feel whatever's going on in here, and I feel three people standing right in front of me." Farew and Gyre quickly jump into action and restrain both his arms and legs by pushing them to ground. He doesn't seem to have any intent to harm us just yet. He clearly has a trick up his sleeve. Farew seems to be thinking deeply about our next move. "Do not worry, I have instructed all personal to leave this room and there are no camera's installed, so feel free to remove that invisibility. However, before you take action, I do not recommend you teleport me away. You wouldn't want to awaken the beast." We stay quiet. If the beast awakens it could possibly wreak havoc on the planet and kill millions, that's the power of a distortion. Although both of her hands are occupied Farew tries to sign to me not to do anything yet. "It seems you have decided to stay silent. I will continue talking then, you don't have executioners of the central bureau of peace pushing you to the ground every day. Also, you really don't have to scan my brain, I will tell you everything you want to know." He tries to wriggle himself into a somewhat more comfortable position, but fails as Farew and Gyre just tighten their hold. "Okay, okay, I won't move anymore. Well where should I begin? This creature's origin would be the most appropriate. Long ago, before we humans even arrived on this planet, this creature was its original settler, intending to eat the core of the planet. As I wasn't there when it all happened, I'm not sure how it happened, but the creature died before it got to reach the core. Many years later, when humans first got transported to this planet, a young man with big ambitions – I'm talking about myself by the way – went through the tunnel dug by the creature. What an amazing journey that was, I still remember it as if it was yesterday. Although the creature died on its way to the core, some of its functionality still remains to this day. I studied its body for years and discovered within its heart a gate towards its home planet. With a little input from an experienced mage and some energy from the core of this planet it can open a gate towards any place this person desires, isn't that amazing? Although I didn't explain every minute detail, I hope the almighty CBP can figure out the rest on their own."
Yes, the rare earth minerals get harvested from the creatures' home planet and they're able to replace the minerals in the loading truck by way of the gates. This has answered a lot of questions we've had going into this, and yet it also gave us a lot more. Humans arrived on this planet thousands of years ago, how is it he's still alive today, and why has it taken him so long to make a move? "Although I can't see your faces nor can I hear any sounds coming from you, I'm guessing you are questioning my age and my motives. Immortality is a gift only available to the popes of the church, nothing about that fact has changed, I've just been able to extend my life through the help of my research on the creature. Its brain commands the cells in the body on a molecular level to slow down, it's a truly fascinating thing. I did say the creature died originally, didn't I? Well I lied, my apologies for that. When the creature was about to die, the brain subconsciously commanded the body to slow down, slow down to such a rapid rate that a thousand years is but a second to the creature. It's agonizing, but it keeps the creature alive for as long as possible, and isn't that what all organisms desire? Ah sorry, I seem to ramble. My motives, that's what you wanted to know. The research on this fascinating specimen took me many years, about five hundred years to be more precise. It was just me completely absorbed with this creature in this very space, and what do you think changed after I left this space? I'll give you hint, it lies very close to your heart." About seven hundred years ago contact between different planets had been made for the first time, and about six hundred years ago Oviel had completed expanding its sphere of influence to its modern state. This planet was already under rule of Oviel when he came back to civilisation. "I'm a very prideful and ambitious person, I wanted this galaxy for my own, I wanted people to praise me to the stars for my research. Yet, as I became more advanced through my research, so did the rest of society. Oviel had become too strong. It had taken away the satisfaction I had been dreaming about for five hundred years. Do you think I will simply accept that? For the last five hundred years I've been looking for a way to tip the scale in my favour against Oviel. Although he stood in the way of my own hegemony, Osel has created the opening I've been looking for. The universe is about to change, and I'll be the one to do so. I wish to get rid of the CBP first, the information you honourable executioners hold will be all I need. So please do forgive me for this."
As if made of mist, the director disappears. Farew quickly takes out her freakishly tall sword from her bag and stabs it into the ground. "I see him, he's inside the distortion." It's the least flashy sword in our team, and yet it comes in mighty handy in situations like this. Farew's sword has the ability to have the wielder see whatever's going on in the space they occupy. "We have gotten a sufficient amount of information, I hereby permit both the disposal of the executive director of Minon trade and the-" A horrendous screech interrupts Farew's commands. I have to stop myself from falling to my knees. I try to plug my ears with my hands, but it's too late. My ears are starting to bleed and all my other senses are starting fail. Although my sight is starting to blur, I can see the monstrous creature starting to awaken from its deep sleep. The effect of Gyre's sword have disappeared. Farew and Gyre must be going through the same thing as me, and yet Farew stands tall thinking about our next move. Our ears are ruptured and we can't hear a thing, but luckily we're all pretty sufficient at sign language. "Through magic he was able to hide his real body within the distortion, he's still in there, presumably to keep the creature alive long enough to kill us. From what we know its power comes from the heart, disposing of its heart should eliminate the distortion. This is however a distortion, there is a chance it will continue to attack after we dispose of the heart. I propose we take care of its limbs first and then finish it. I want myself and Sef to be in direct combat with the distortion, and I need Gyre to prepare an attack that could dispose of one of its limbs." Seems simple enough, both me and Gyre agree to the plan and take out our swords. Farew looks at me and signs. "Don't look at the distortion, just look at me, I will tell you everything you need to do." Put my life in her hands, huh? Seems easy enough, it's not like this is the first time I've done it, and it reliefs me of the effort to think.
Although muffled I can hear another scream coming from the monster, it has fully woken up it seems. That means it's time for us to start too. Farew commands me to throw a sword to the creature. I follow her command and my swords pierces its hide. She tightly grips my hand and we teleport to the creature. We end up all the way at its shoulder, hanging from my sword. I pull both Farew up to the creature's back and afterwards she helps me get on. But we aren't the only ones standing on the creature's back. Thousands of 'people' taking the form of the director are here too. Some hold a sword, others a fireweapon, and others even heavier weaponry. I look at Farew and she commands me to jump. Just as I jump as sword aiming at me appears from underneath the creature's flesh. These pesky insects are everywhere, even inside the distortion. "First we kill every one of these clones." I follow her command. I make nine swords appear and throw all but one into the creature's back, making them pierce the flesh of the monster. I teleport to one sword and cut off the heads of some clones, then teleport to another and kill some more, all the while I try to keep Farew in my sight. She seems to be going through this as efficiently as me, it's like fighting people made from papier-mâché. Then I receive a new command. "Jump off of its back." Once again I follow her command immediately. Not a second after we jump off, the creature starts to take flight and its back collides with the ceiling. A part of the ceiling collapses, but none of the debree hits us. The distortion seems to have begun targeting us, but it's too late. Farew makes another command, but not towards me, but far away from us, towards Gyre. He seemed to have been waiting for this moment, he swings his swords with a heavy motion. Space seems to distort around the area he cut and in an instant a bright flash shoots through the monster's wing. It's wing got cut off clean. The thing screeches once more and falls down to the ground. This should make it easier for me and Farew. We run towards the creature's crash site, but more of the director's clones are waiting for us, even more than we saw on the monster's back. "There's a lot of them, this time we'll be fighting closer to each other. Close teamwork should do the job for a threat of this scale." With a light hand movement I reprieve all my swords, and once again I throw them to the ground. We start our massacre again. I teleport her to one place so she can finish off a dozen clones. As I kill a few in front of me, she kills those trying to get me from the back. At one point I throw her in the air and she reflects an incoming attack from the monster's left arm, next she gives Gyre the sign to cut off its arm. We continue on and on all according to her command, all the while we are distracting the monster. Eventually I lose sight of my own consciousness, all I do is follow her command. At one point the creature fell down after having lost another limb. After about the ten thousandth clone killed Gyre gets the opportunity to destroy the monster's heart and kill it. At some point I got back the ability to hear a bit. Following the death of the thirty thousandth clone we are completely drenches in blood, nothing seems to be alive aside from me, Gyre and Farew.
We are exhausted. A single clone (or maybe even the real thing) solemnly walks from behind the monster's corpse with a sword in his hand. Just like us he's drenched in blood, this must be the real thing who nestled himself in the heart of the distortion. What can one director do what the others couldn't? It swings its sword, but not at us. It's a slow singular motion not directed at anything. The swords reaches the ground with an elegant motion and the director speaks in a soft singular tone. "I've got to thank you. This particular type of magic required one's enemy to kill a great amount of sacrifices." The corpse of the monster slowly begins to disappear. No, not just the monster, but also the corpses of all the clones. "Couple the unique qualities of the distortion with the inherent life energy of the clones, the will I implanted into them, and some magic, and a weapon like this is created." The swords looks the same, and yet from experience I can tell it's different from before. It's dangerous.
"Duck!" The director slashes his sword horizontally in our direction, but Farew manages to push me to the ground just in time. We barely managed to dodge that. I look behind us and the wall got hit by whatever that sword just shot from its motion. The hole it created is narrow, but it reaches deep into the wall. From the gap light starts to distort, and something akin to a portal starts to form. Hands try to reach trough the portal. The hands look disgusting, they couldn't be from a human, they look even more distorted then that anomaly resembling a dragon. These creatures must come from far. What is this guy planning on doing?! The creatures can't seem to enter this place through the portal just yet, but if he makes it any bigger he will destroy his entire planet. This is why I can't deal with these kinds of people at a certain point they get so mad at the government, they go crazy.
"Are you perplexed by this sword's abilities?! It can do so much more, just you wait. I'm honoured that such great people of the CBP will be the test subjects for my brand-new weapon." He starts laughing maniacally. His calm attitude from before has disappeared. He's trying to become the second Osel and gather an army of monster to overthrow the government, huh? Well too bad. He tries to take another swing, once again aimed at us. Blood gets shed, but it's neither mine nor Farew's. Gyre pierced the guys heart from behind. The mirage of Gyre next to us disappears.
"You created a sword greater than even anyone in the CBP possesses. I commend you for that. I will remember you." The director tries to say something, maybe he tries to beg for mercy, commend Gyre for his quick thinking, or even use a magic spell as his last resort, but he's too slow. Gyre removes his sword from the director's chest and cuts his head off. "May you rest peacefully and eternally in the depths of hell." Gyre sheaths his swords and I just continue to lay down on the ground. I might just fall asleep here. Farew seems to have a different plan however. "Get up, we're going home." She pulls me up from the ground and I sigh once again. I wish I could get a good night's sleep on of these days.
The aftermath wasn't all that interesting, most of it gets handled by another section of the CBP, we just rapport the happenings of our mission and then go home. After a long ride on the train we finally arrive at our home. Me, Farew, and Gyre all live in the same house, we found it to be easiest thing for all of us. "Anyone up for some fun tonight?" Gyre says as he scarfs down a meal he just made.
Farew raises her hand from the couch while laying down. "Count me in. It's the best way to relief some stress." She says while watching some weird romantic tv show.
"Where do you two get the energy from?" Well I can hardly say no if the both of them are in. I feel like I will be stuck to them forever. "I'll go along with it, but nothing too strenuous please."