The vision came suddenly without any warning.
It was love at first sight. A once-happy couple broke up after a chance meeting.
The scene shifted, and a new happy couple who just welcomed their first child appeared, but the mother was kidnapped before the baby turned a year old.
The scenery changed to a basement. The first couple reunited in chains, held captive by a creature akin to an Oni and tortured on a daily basis.
The vision shifted once more to a dark room. The Oni had moved the woman to a different room and mounted her.
Everything went dark once more, and she awoke with only fragments of the vision.
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We have at least two hours to ourselves until it's time to go to my second location. Anything you want to do until then?"
"Tell me about yourself, well namely, your family situation. Is there anything I should know or landmines to avoid?"
His arms tightened briefly around her before he slowly exhaled.
"Alright Kitten, I'll spill," after readjusting us he continued, "in terms of family, my mother disappeared roughly seven months after I was born and my father raised me alone up until my tenth birthday, then he too disappeared. I was sent to an orphanage until I turned eighteen, and then I was on my own."
"Wow! Did you ever find out what happened to them when you got older?"
"All attempts ended in failure, so I just let it go."
"Well, did you at least know their names and remember what they looked like?"
"Miraculously I do. My parents' names were Miranda and Edward Presley and I keep their picture in my library as a memento."
"Not gonna lie but this sounds like an interesting plot from a drama or something."
"I guess that is one way to look at it," he said, laughing at her response, then stated, "All in all I don't have any other relatives, so no landmines to avoid."
"Great, less things to worry about. Is it about time to go yet or do we have to wait some more?"
"Just a few minutes more, and then we can go. It's not very far from here, so we can continue to cuddle until then."
"My pleasure."
During the wait, they continued to relax in each other's arms, enjoying the little moment of peace that they had. At the same time, she kept replaying that name in her mind. Miranda Presley. It felt like she knew that name for some reason.
When the time came to head out, Ethan led her across the street and made several turns before finally stopping outside a small village shop. Although confused, she followed along anyway and let him do all the talking.
"Hey, where's the general?"
"What's it to you?"
"None of your damn business; I won't ask again, so start talking."
"You think you're hot shit or something. Boys, let's teach him a lesson he won't forget anytime soon."
They'd been there less than three minutes, and a fight had already started. She looked at all of them like they lost all their marbles. He nudged her backward as four thugs approached him with nasty grins and cracking their knuckles. The first two attacked him immediately, aiming punches at his head and waist. He knocked the first one out with little effort while dodging the second guy. The third guy tried a sneak attack when he returned a blow to the second guy, using his momentum to knock the second guy out.
He easily took care of the last two after realizing they weren't that trained. The shopkeeper was left in disbelief that his little henchmen were defeated in five minutes. She clapped, impressed with his efficiency and rejoined him.
"Now where were we?"
They were able to get what little information they could get from the general within twenty minutes, so they wasted no time before getting back on the road. They headed to the last destination as it was late enough for them to visit. After fifteen minutes of driving, they arrived at a gated beach front house. Katalina wasted no time and sent news of their arrival on a magical wavelength inside. After a few seconds, the gate opened for them, and they drove in.
She barely took two steps into the entryway when something plowed right into her, almost knocking her over.
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"Cool. I will meet you there in an hour, and no worries, if I get lost, I'll hit you up for a rescue.
Ivan surprised himself with a laugh after his reply and playfully shoved him and agreed to see him in an hour before leaving. After sending him off in a better mood, Mist prepared to head out when he received a call from Paris instructing him to head home and trade information.
Thankfully it took him less than ten minutes to arrive. His parents also arrived shortly after, and they went in together. Martin greeted them at the door and directed them to the dining room, where Paris was waiting for them, snacking on the spread that was definitely laid out by Igor.
"Sup, bro," Mist greeted his brother, taking a seat closer to Paris while their parents sat at the head of the table.
"Micah Donohugh rubbed me the wrong way." Paris stated when everyone was seated.
"Well, from what I have learned so far, your concern isn't unfounded," he started. "His work life is squeaky clean, but his personal life has a giant red flag at its doorstep."
"Let me guess, Ivan's mother?" Titan asked, adding his thoughts.
"Bingo. He literally knows nothing about her side of the gene pool," Mist stated.
"He's hiding something and not just from the world, I believe from Ivan too. I mean, why else would he be unable to find out anything after all these years?" Paris stated.
"As it stands, our starting point is still the same, but it's only been a few hours, so don't lose hope yet." Desire chimed in.
"We also haven't heard back from Rainbow and Ethan yet." Titan mentioned.
"Either way I'll be going down to the lab with Ivan, it seems like there's been a small development," Mist started, "any later and I'll miss him so I'm going to head out."
"Okay, keep us posted," Paris replied.
He responded with a thumbs-up and headed out the door. Thankfully it only took him five minutes to get to the lab, so he stayed in the parking lot while waiting for Ivan to get there.
While waiting, he did some more digging on who Ivan's mother could be in order to eliminate the possibility that it was someone on their side that held a longstanding grudge enough to make everybody feel their pain. After cross-referencing the data, he found that two persons went missing around the time that he would've been born.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
After looking up during the second knock, he sent off a quick message to Paris about the missing persons and got out of his vehicle to greet him. After going through the formalities to get into the lab, they made their way to Lab number three to meet with the forensic tech to go over the new developments.
"Okay, we were able to assemble a few of the bodies, three men and two women, and found something weird," the lab tech started talking as soon as we walked in the door.
"Weird how exactly?" Ivan asked.
"In the way that other than being ripped apart, the women had no other wounds, but the men, they were all cut by a blade numerous times, like the massacre was a cover-up for something way worse."
"Are you saying that there is a strong possibility that all of it is just a cover-up for some ritual or something?" Mist questioned.
"It could be since we don't really know what we are dealing with, but thinking about it as a whole, it feels plausible."
"Alright, so we need someone who is an expert in rituals that involve being cut by a blade and in the event of failure, the body is ripped apart. "
"I'll let Rainbow know; she has more connections there than the rest of us, and Ethan is there in case anything happens anyway."
"No problem, thanks for your hard work; we'll head out now."
After shaking the tech's hand, we made our way outside to our vehicles. As soon as I was outside, I sent off a message to Rainbow letting her know what to look for in the family group chat. With that done I turned to Ivan to plan for the next step.