Although the Coalition agents held an absolute numerical advantage, the battle's result was anything but satisfactory.
There was an insurmountable gap in skill between them and Clef.
That scene—was like a max-level boss tormenting a party of low-level adventurers.
"Stop shooting! Clef, the Council of 108 requires you to report the reason for your defection! If you continue to resist and refuse to communicate, the Council of 108 will authorize a missile strike on this area!"
The surviving agent shouted, relaying the command from above.
The Council of 108—the true core of the Global Occult Coalition.
It was composed of one hundred and eight leaders: religious orders, divine knights, servants of gods, and directors of the International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology.
They formed the ultimate governing body—the central nerve of the GOC.
All major orders, missions, and world-scale resolutions passed through the Council's collective vote.
In political circles, the Council of 108 was often nicknamed the Deputy Secretary-General's Desk—because it was at this "desk" that decisions shaping the entire world were signed into being.
Launching a full missile strike or nuclear bombardment across an entire state was unrealistic.
But targeting and cleansing a district? That could easily pass the Council's review.
They had done worse before—in the name of "neutralizing anomalies."
The house fell silent.
The agents outside began to suspect that Clef had slipped away.
Then, from within, came his calm voice.
"In fact, I just can't execute certain termination orders on anomalies. It's… in direct conflict with what the GOC claims to stand for. I submitted a resignation. They rejected it."
To the agents, it sounded like another one of Clef's lies.
The man who'd killed hundreds of anomalies—now saying he couldn't execute one?
Ridiculous.
What was he known for, if not execution?
Just as the agent was about to retort, a new voice crackled through his headset—the connection was now linked directly to the Council of 108.
He switched the channel to a loudspeaker.
A hoarse, aged woman's voice filled the air—raspy, yet commanding. It was the kind of voice that conjured the image of an ancient witch sitting atop a throne of ash.
"Regarding the execution of the Goddess and the Succubus-class entity—You have failed to complete your mission."
Though phrased as a question, her tone left no room for denial.
"I couldn't finish it," Clef's voice came back, calm and cold. "I executed the Goddess myself. That's all."
The temperature in his tone dropped—colder than the night air outside, sharper than any joke he'd ever cracked.
"Those entities pose the greatest threat to humankind," the woman continued. "Destruction is the only way to ensure humanity's safety. Agent Clef, we believe your cognition has been compromised by the entity's memetic traits. Please cease resistance and return to—"
She never finished the sentence.
A gunshot rang out inside the house.
Clef had blown the speaker apart.
Then, without hesitation, he vaulted out the second-floor window and charged straight toward the bunker outside.
Gunfire erupted like thunder.
When it ended, the entire agent squad was gone.
Clef's left arm was grazed by a bullet. He tore his sleeve, wrapped the wound, and vanished into the rain.
He kept walking.
There was no destination—only the need to keep going. Until there was nowhere left to run.
A year earlier.
Clef had met her.
An anomaly in the form of a woman—beautiful, serene, impossibly pure. A being described as the Goddess.
She was perfect.
Kind, rational, gentle… and terrifyingly human.
She had a name once, but told no one.
Even Clef never learned it.
In GOC records, she was KTE-9927-Black.
In SCP Foundation logs, SCP-4231-A.
But Clef refused to remember either.
He erased them from his mind.
To him, she wasn't a number.
She was a person.
And strangely enough, she was the first anomaly Clef could ever interact with.
According to GOC documentation, the Goddess was a demigod-level reality warper—rated Class-IV Distortion. Her power manifested as the creation of a "paradise zone" around her, a landscape of radiant trees, luminous vines, clear ponds, and a quaint wooden cabin.
They called it the Montauk Cabin.
Any human who entered the boundary of Montauk lost all malice, becoming peaceful—good, even.
No external force, not even a long-range strike, could interfere within its boundaries.
And because of this unique nature—Clef was chosen as the perfect executor.
The man immune to anomalies.
That day, he entered Montauk Cabin.
And there, the two of them fell in love—a love the world would label twisted, forbidden, impossible.
In that love, they conceived a child. Not through ten months of waiting, but in an instant—for what is time to a reality bender?
It was, for Clef, the happiest moment of his life.
Until the order came down—terminate the Goddess.
At that time, she was weak, her power fading after giving birth. Montauk Cabin had begun to destabilize.
So, at the end of it all, when the flood came—she took Clef's trembling hand, guided the barrel of his gun to her own forehead, and smiled.
Bang.
Colors scattered like butterflies.
The paradise shattered.
Montauk Cabin collapsed into dust.
And her final act—was to transfer their child away, somewhere beyond reach.
That day, Clef killed the love of his life.
And lost his child forever.
It could have ended as a tragedy. A tragic beginning to a revenge tale. But reality, cruel as always, did not end the story there.
Her body was recovered by the GOC. They used it to construct Scranton Reality Anchor #4345. Her soul and memories were gone—leaving behind only the instinct to "stabilize reality."
Her last flicker of thought remembered one thing—the Montauk Cabin.
As for Clef—he was implanted with a Flood Neural Restraint, a device that suppressed human emotion and will.
And under that control, he continued to serve as an agent of the GOC.
Until recently.
A spatial quake tore through dimensions. And within that rift—something buried deep within Clef awakened.
His humanity.
He broke free of the Flood.
And defected.
The world would later say Clef was a "reality bender." But that wasn't true.
He was the opposite.
A counter–reality warper—the antithesis of distortion itself. Where chaos spread, he stabilized it. Where reality tore, he sealed it.
He was not powerful.
A single well-placed bullet could kill him. But no anomaly, no supernatural force, could ever touch him.
He staggered onward through the storm—wounded, exhausted, unyielding. Death didn't frighten him. Only the thought of never being human again did.
He might die in one of their sieges, but he would never serve them again.
The sky broke open.
Rain fell in sheets, born of the spacequake's distortion of the atmosphere.
Elsewhere—a dimensional rift shimmered open.
From it stepped Haruto.
He emerged into a parallel world—one ruled by elves. His boots splashed into a shallow puddle as he took his first step onto foreign soil.
He sighed, pulling a transparent umbrella from the Kamui Space, and opened it over his head. Even though the rain couldn't harm him—a simple activation of his cellular energy could evaporate it—an umbrella still felt… more human.
Not far ahead, a small park came into view.
The drizzle wasn't heavy, but dusk had fallen, and no pedestrians remained.
From within the park came a faint sound—
Tap. Tap.
Like someone hopping through puddles.