This World

by Lee, TD

  “What do you mean Hag powers?” Ainia questions.

  “H-Hag like the one that almost caused the world ending event recently?” I ask. That was Hiro’s first time participating in a world ending event. All I can remember is Hiro getting hurt and how the outside turned all weird.

  Kirka looks saddened when I try to clarify. “The exact same.”

  I quietly respond, “How-”

  “That’s not important now. What we need is info,” Dom interrupts, a bit annoyed, “like, who is the mastermind? And where can we kick their ass?”

  “The Mastermind is King, weren’t you listening?” Ainia questions. “King hasn’t been able to be caught for years now. Why’s he striking such a big plan now?”

  “That I do not know. Mariana here was very reluctant to speak about anything. Even under the threats of Dom before you all arrived here, she still refused to speak until Kirika had used her Hag powers. However, we do know that the Seeker and Safety Mode are all a part of this master plan. We will need to discover this plan as soon as we can. Kirika, did you learn anything by using your powers?” Adele says, taking a seat on her desk.

  Kirika shakes her head. “No, I couldn’t see anything in her mind. It was just black, almost as if there was something blocking me from trying to lighten it up.”

  “That is rather unfortunate,” Adele sighs. “As far as we know it, we are faced with a master mind controller King. It will be very dangerous if King somehow acquired a way to get to the Seeker. That could spell out the end of our lives as a whole.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask.

  “Remember, the Seeker is a device used by telepaths to find or communicate with people all around the world. The Seeker itself can also amplify any telepaths powers so they’re even stronger than they normally would be. With someone like King who’s trying to get to it. That means the world is going to be so screwed,” Drake answers. “King’s mind control is through telepathy. Unlike controlling by pheromones or illusions, King goes straight to the mind.”

  “Precisely. I will warn HERO of the situation when they arrive to acquire Mariana. Our goal now is to find and locate King before he could cause this big moment as Mariana said,” Adele agrees with Drake. “Any other questions?”

  “Yup, one question here. Who’s the guy in black?” Ainia asks, pointing to Vesper with her head.

  “Oh yes, all of you are not acquainted with Vesper. Believe it or not he has been with us since the beginning.

  “Guy has the power to go into shadows, so it makes sense how we missed him, but why did he only show himself now?” Drake asks.

  “He has been with either me or Ridley to act as a protector. He is rather skilled in combat and is a rather good and unassuming person,” Adele explains. “He cannot speak, however.”

  Vesper takes a few steps forward and then turns to us. He manipulates his shadows to create a sentence:

  Hi everyone! Nice to finally meet you all, sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier even though I’ve been around you guys the whoooooole time. But hey what can you do? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

  “What in the?” Ainia responds after reading Vesper’s message.

  Vesper makes another message:

  You can rely on me! We’ll find King somehow or I’ll just (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

  “He sure has an interesting way of communicating,” Kirika says, giggling a bit.

  Mari’s voice starts to speak in a strange tone, it’s a bit raspy and mannish, “Well, well, well what do we have here?”

  “What the hell?” Dom says, immediately standing up off of Mari’s body.

  All of us stare at Mari’s body intently. She’s not sitting up, but her eyes are wide open almost as if they’re possessed. She continues speaking in the raspy voice, “Don’t be surprised, you all want to get me don’t you?”

  “King?” Adele questions.

  “The one and only,” Mari chuckles.

  “He’s using her body as a host to speak to us,” Drake remarks. His posture changed to be one ready for combat. “Why are you speaking to us like this?”

  “All I have to really say is, I’m not the mastermind. Just a pawn for the big moment,” Mari says.

  “Bullshit! How convenient that you show up as soon as we finish talking about you,” Dom grumbles, she looks ready to punch Mari in the face.

  “Oh, but I am telling the truth. Imagine this possibility. The mastermind is in this room right now,” Mari says with a slight mischievous smile forming.

  I look around and see most of everyone’s brows are risen. “What are you trying to get at?” Adele asks.

  “Oh, you should know, boss,” Mari says.

  “Boss?” most of us respond in question.

  “Are you attempting to implicate me?” Adele scoffs.

  Mari chuckles, “Boss, just admit that you’re behind all of this! You’ve played all of us for fools. I thought I was doing good too.”

  “What good could you possibly do?” Drake questions, I can sense him getting agitated.

  “If Adele really is the one in charge, why sell her out like this? It doesn’t make sense at all,” Ainia argues. She has a point. It doesn’t make sense to try to make Adele seem like the mastermind.

  “I’m just saving myself from being used any further. Adele is a dastardly woman who will do anything she can to get her way. Don’t you all think that it has been a bit too coincidental on how she acquires her information or just how informative she is? She does have information on all of you after all,” Mari explains.

  “What kind of information?” Ainia asks, eyeing Adele suspiciously.

  “Pay no attention to it,” Adele remarks.

  Mari speaks loudly, “See! Look at that, she’s trying to make it seem like it’s not important when it truly is. She has rather vital information. How else would she know that Kirika is capable of using her Hag powers? That is information unknown to the public. As well as you, Cutlass. She has plenty of information of your exploits while under Blind Justice’s entourage. Meteor, oh Meteor, you’ve suffered so much and have done so much. Adele has all of the details on the assistance your provided under mind control in those underground sex and crime rings. There’s lots of blood on your hands.”

  “How the hell?” Drake questions, a flame is starting to form around his fist.

  “How did you know I was able to use my Hag powers?” Kirika questions.

  “Yeah, and how did you find out about what I did for Blind Justice? Barely anyone knows that,” Ainia says, looking over at me a bit menacingly.

  “I-I didn’t say anything to her,” I say defensively to Ainia.

  “The public only knows of the surface things I’ve done under mind control, not the gritty. How would you have known all of that?” Drake asks.

  Adele starts assuming a defensive posture, “I assure you all, the information that King is saying I have were acquired through practical and legal means.”

  Ainai starts approaching Adele aggressively, “Legal or not, those are confidential information that no one else should know, especially a third party like you. How the hell did you get this information!?”

  It looks like Ainia’s about to strike Adele, but Dom and Vesper quickly step in between Ainia and Adele. Shiko even starts to growl. “You might want to reconsider attacking her,” Dom says.

  “How could you trust her?” Ainia asks.

  “She’s done more for me than any of you could know,” Dom answers, “Listen, Adele might know more than she should, but she’s not using this information in any way that’s bad. She’s helping! Look at how she helped the hospital or Ridley. Without Adele we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have.”

  “But you cannot deny that it is suspicious that she can accurately pinpoint potential victims as well as knowing a plethora of information,” Kirika says. I can tell that even she is angry, but she’s masking it really well by trying to speak in a calm composure.

  “Think about it, Vesper can hide in shadows. He
’s perfect for recon,” Dom tries to answer. I’m surprised this hasn’t resorted to a full on fist fight yet.

  “That only proves that she has the means to gain information on us, and that is most definitely not legal. Why does she need this sort of information on all of us?” Drake asks, backing up Ainia.

  “I-I,” Dom stumbles with her words.

  “King! Explain yourself!” Adele demands, quickly stomping her way to Mari’s body. “Why implicate me?”

  Mari doesn’t answer with words, just laughs. Mari’s eyes then shut and her body becomes limp on the ground. From what I can see, Mari’s back to being herself, but still unconscious.

  Adele clenches her fists in frustration. She turns around to look at everyone else. She tries to explain herself, “I assure you all, none of the information that I have acquired are being used against you. Do not let King fool you. He is merely attempting to divide our opinions.”

  “I don’t know, you have a strange amount of information and things have been a little to coincidental for my taste. You’re too calculating about it all,” Drake remarks. The flames around his hand keep swirling.

  “My job is a detective. I am to be calculating otherwise I am not doing my job correctly,” Adele attempts to reason.

  “But why get such sensitive information if all you need to know is what we’re capable of?” Kirika asks.

  “That…I just happened to stumble across the information,” Adele mumbles. That’s so suspicious. Why doesn’t she just come out with how she found out about all of this information on people. I did think it was weird that I read about everyone within the dossiers, but I didn’t get all of the information about everyone’s history.

  Ainia angrily scoffs, “Oh please! At least make something up that’s better!” Ainia turns and stomps her way to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Adele asks.

  “Away from you!” Ainia yells, leaving the room.

  Kirika follows Ainia, speaking before she leaves, “I have to think about all of this. Sorry, but I will not be available to you any time soon.”

  Drake almost leaves, but remembers that I came with him. “Kid, you know your way home from here right? I’m just going to go flying around for a while, you have my number if you need me,” he says before leaving the room too. I can tell that he’s frustrated and really conflicted.

  Left in the room are myself, Dom, Adele, Vesper, Shiko, and the unconscious Mari. I look around at everyone and Adele looks defeated. This is the first. I’ve never seen Adele look like she’s at the end of her wits. She’s usually so prepared, but she’s thrown off with King’s appearance today. She didn’t expect this and it screwed her up. Dom looks frustrated, so much so she punches a nearby wall, creating a hole. Vesper is looking around too and he breathes heavily. Shiko, of course, goes to Adele and attempts to comfort her.

  Adele notices that I’m still here and she asks without her usual properness. “What will you do Ridley?”

  What am I going to do? I’ve gone this far with Adele that I don’t think I can turn back on her. But with what King said, it does seem a little bit possible that Adele could be the mastermind behind all of this. She has all of this information somehow and one disclose how she got it, I don’t understand why she’s so secretive.

  “I-I…I don’t know. I’m sorry Adele,” I say quietly.

  Poor Adele, she looks so defeated and sad. She usually has such a face of knowing and pep that is completely gone. “I see. Please, consider staying with me until the end. I assure you I am not the mastermind. Please think it over and come back tomorrow if you so desire,” she suggests.

  “O-okay, I’ll think about it,” I say. “I’m sorry all of this happened, everyone have a good night.” I turn around and leave the office.

  As I’m on my way to get to Drake’s apartment, I hear someone call out to me, “Ridley!”

  I turn around and find Dom running up to me. “Oh, Dom, what is it?”

  “You’ve asked me before about, well, how I handle my opponents. You wanted to pry and I would let you. So here, let me tell you,” Dom says in between breaths from what seemed to be her sprinting to me.

  This came out of nowhere.

  Dom takes a deep breath and leans against a nearby wall. “You know this by now, I was part of a martial arts tournament not too long ago. I was also one of the people that was taking down the Kilmer Corporation. Taron helped among other people. But my intention for that martial arts tournament wasn’t just to prove how well I can fight, but it was to find someone.”

  “And this someone is?”

  She looks off to the side, biting the inside of her cheek. “His name isn’t important. This bastard was one of the Kilmer Corporation executives so I entered the tournament to get my revenge on him. Adele was the one that helped me with finding his whereabouts after so many years escaping my grasp. So I joined the tournament, rose to the top just to get close to the CEO and took my chance.”

  “You killed him?”

  Dom scoffs at me, “Do you really think I’m that much of a heartless bitch? Well, I did consider it for so many years, but the people at the tournament stopped me.”

  “Then what’d you do when you got to him?”

  She answers grimly, “Let’s just say, he took my everything, I broke his everything.”

  I have a very vague idea as to what Dom is telling me she did to the guy and it sounds very painful. “Um, so what about your leg?”

  “It was during the moments after meeting the CEO and taking my revenge where I was captured. They threw me in some cell and were going to perform experiments on me. When I retaliated they broke my leg and cut it off with no remorse. If it weren’t for Taron and some of the other tournament participants, I may not be here today.” Dom looks at the sky and takes several deep breaths. “Adele, really helped me out then too. She was the one that helped tip of Taron and everyone else about what happened to me so they could save me. She was watching my back even though she was hundreds of miles away.”

  “Sounds like Adele really has your back,” I remark.

  “Of course she did. Once she thinks you’re a good friend, she’ll do anything for you, even if it involves risking her own life,” she confirms. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a cigarette.

  “How do you and Adele know each other in the first place?”

  “We met a long time ago, before she even knew she wanted to be a detective. Believe or not, she actually wanted to be a teacher, but she wasn’t really ambitious for that career path. She left with some space police man one day and came back a whole new person. She became goal driven and determined. She worked hard and became the woman that you know today. That space man really helped her out in a time where she was lost in what she wanted,” she answers me.

  “So you’ve known her for that long?”

  Dom nods. “That’s how I know she’s not some mastermind of these murders. She wouldn’t be able to do it, she’s a helpful person. At the end of the day, even though she can get really passionate about a case and dive into insanity and lose sleep over it, she has good intentions. And you’ve seen how I can’t control myself sometimes when I fight, Adele has been helping me with that too.”

  “Why do you lose control for a bit?”

  She shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know, anger issues? Some sort of power trip? Listen I don’t really want to talk about that.” She becomes really defensive and changes the topic, “Just know that Adele is a good person, she wouldn’t stage some sort of master plan to take over the world or anything. She’s usually the one stopping people from taking over the world. The reason why she’s a detective with her own agency rather than working with HERO is because she can’t be within their restrictions of what she can and cannot do. She’s an extreme woman who is willing to do the extreme to get the information she needs, but she has morals. She’s helped more people than HERO is willing to admit, but she’s not looking for recognition, just truth. So
if there’s any doubt in believing in her, then there shouldn’t be.”

  “Why did you tell me all of this?” I ask.

  “I have never seen Adele be in such a state of despair before. She’s always more of the beacon of hope than the one in the dumps. If I can help her realize her goal, then I’ll do what I can. So I thought talking to you would help,” Dom says.

  “I-I appreciate that, but shouldn’t you be telling all of this to everyone else? They definitely need more convincing than me,” I respond. Sure I considered that Adele might have been a mastermind, but it just wouldn’t make sense with how much she’s helped a nobody like me.

  “I’m not exactly great at talking. I’ll just come off as threatening,” Dom answers, “besides, people seem to have an easier time talking to you.”

  “I don’t understand why,” I remark. It’s not the first time I heard that today.

  “You’re open to listen, or at least seem like it. People like that. Maybe it’s a trait you got recently, but if it work, it works,” Dom says with a deep sigh. “Anyway, I need to go check back up on Adele. Hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow.” Before I can say anything, she turns around and leaves.

  Even though she’s a pretty good distance away, I can hear her say, “By the way, I was forced to play beach volleyball on a stupid island funded by a lackey of the Kilmer Corporation. It was embarrassing as all hell.”

  Huh. Definitely didn’t think Dom would be so forward and honest with me. She was always trying to hide telling me anything before. I’m glad she told me about this stuff though. My belief in Adele is more solidified. King has to be up to some sort of trick. Maybe I’ll talk to Drake about it later. He left in a pretty angry mood. I wonder how he’s doing. I’ll just have to wait and find out.

  It starts getting dark while I walk to Drake’s apartment. The streets are a bit emptier and the lights are on. There are some places that look livelier once nighttime hits. It’s almost as if an entire separate life happens at night compared to the day. But I’m pretty exhausted, I didn’t get much sleep after all.