A Fated Meeting 1

"Bzzzt... Bzzzt..."

The empty streets of a forgotten city echoed with a buzzing sound, interrupting the lingering silence. The uncomfortable and chilling environment heightened the volume of the buzzing sound, making it louder than it actually was.

The sun started setting, casting its majestic rays of light upon the numerous crumbling buildings and streets. Nature slowly started to claim them as its own once again, with trees and leaves growing along the cracks everywhere that seemed unlimited. This made the place seem as if humans had never ruled it in the past.

Each second, the sounds of multiple footsteps hitting the old ground accompanied the buzzing.

A group of four young people, wearing some sort of unusual and uniquely designed clothing that clearly stood out in that place, were wandering amidst the Debrese of the fallen buildings.

One particular young man, wearing a serious expression on his face, which was walking upfront slowly raised his hand to his ears level, where he was wearing a small black device, obscured by his neatly done hair, which was the one making the buzzing sound.

The others suddenly stopped, as the young man gently pressed against the device before he began talking in a calm voice "This is Vex, what's the matter..."

The little device emitted a cracked, subtle voice of an old man as he asked, "How is the patrol mission going?"

the young man raised his head and carefully watched the surrounding place, his sharp, blue eyes then focused at something in the distance before he calmly answered, "other than a couple of irregularities that we had to exterminate, district alpha is completely clear once again".

after a brief moment of silence, the old man's voice cracked again following a weary sigh "... Hmmmm... Dispatch the team and continue the patrol for a little while before the sun sets, if you are to find nothing, we will put the investigations on the district on hold for a while".

"Roger that," Vex answered, his calm voice echoing as he adjusted the glasses that were slightly below his eye level.

"What did the higher ups say?" suddenly, the Voice of a young lady suddenly echoed, asking with a curious look.

"We will continue the patrol for a bit more, if nothing is to be found before the sun sets, we will be stopping the investigation in this district for a while," Vex answered firmly, as he turned around to face her, the long coat accompanying his uniform swing along his body.

The young lady stood up, her black short hair slightly swaying along the gentle breeze. While dusting her clothes, she extended the other arm to grab the handle of a long, double-sided axe she positioned near her. As the black lashes of her captivating eyes focused on Vex, she added, "well, isn't that good? I was starting to get bored with being sent here every week just to find absolutely nothing..."

"Yeah..." another man of the team said. His slender and tall figure made him stand out among the others. Raising his hand to scratch his brown-ish yellow hair, he followed, "this place was starting to get really boring."

"Anyhow, we will separate and go in different direction to cover the largest potential area in this short period that we have," Vex, in a firm tone, spoke his orders to the team members, who swiftly nodded and took their leave.

Vex lowered his hand down to grab a large sniper rifle that he always carries with him in his missions and headed forward.

* * *

Not so long after, the place began to look dim, the brilliant rays of the leaving sun vanishing into the horizon, leaving the bright moon to announce the appearance of the night's sky.

Vex, whom had lost interest in the whole place a long while back, walked up a long, narrow, empty road, that was filled with nothing but debris and the lonely screams and screeches of the empty souls that refused to leave their lifelong homes, hoping for a change to occur, that might give them vengeance for them to depart peacefully.

As he neared the exit of that narrow passage, his sharp eyes were able to spot some dark figures, slowly wandering in the distance. Their shapes looked rather unusual, though, even with the limited light in the place, one couldn't identify them correctly.

Vex continued forward, unfazed, as if those were a regular occurrence in his eyes. Thier heads suddenly snapped, quickly setting their glowing eyes on the figure heading towards them.

Before anything else could happen, Vex broke his silence, and in an indifferent tone uttered, "more irregularities, huh?"

In a swift motion, they launched themselves forward, charging at Vex as if nothing could stop them, their figures moving in confusing patterns, making the normal eye unable to follow them.

With a long weary sigh, Vex calmly and tightly grabbed his rifle with both hands and continued forward, with each step making his movement faster and faster.

In a few moments, his figure began getting blurry, as if he was vanishing into nothingness, and before the irregular creatures could react or move, he appeared above one of them, taking them by surprise, with his eyes fixated on the irregularity, and foot in a perfect position to strike its head.

From this distance, you could see every bit of detail on them, even with the very dim lighting.

Their appearance couldn't be described with normal words, as they looked completely out of the picture for a normal human being. With a long figure, that hair covering some of it, and inconsistent thickness across the different parts of their bodies that were colored in a dark shade of purple, they looked rather... unsettling.

With a hue of red similar to that of blood, their weirdly shaped eyes glowed brightly in the darkness, sending shivers down the spines of anyone that their eyes fall on.

Vex, though, didn't seem to budge at all, leaping his leg down, blowing the neck of the monstrosity that is standing in front of him, slamming it to the ground with ease.

Before the others could move, Vex moved his sniper and pointed it at the irregularity's head, landing a bullet that completely blew and shattered it to pieces.

By the time they spotted Vex again, the corpse of their fellow brother was lying on the ground, with blood violently gushing out and spraying on the cold, unfazed look that coated this unusual human's face.

Looks of confusion filled their faces, as they couldn't begin to comprehend what had happened before their eyes, however, that quickly changed.

Suddenly, the human that brought the demise of their brother was menacingly standing amidst them, holding another one by the neck and lifting it in the air like a helpless doll, its eyes trembling in terror, and its body violently moving, trying to free itself.

Vex's hand moved up in a blink of an eye, penetrating the monster's body, only to pull its heart out with brute force, pulling everything that refused but to hang to it, before tossing the inanimate body to the side.

The others began to feel something, a sensation rather. While their minds only commanded them to kill and torture most of the time, it suddenly changed.

*RUN... RUN... RUN...*

Those are the only words that they could hear at that moment, but they didn't understand it.

For the next few seconds, they didn't move a single bit, even with their bodies urging them to go as far as they could.

They stood there, watching this unusual creature that made them unsure if he was a human or not, switching to another one of them, laying it down on the old ground with his leg and easily ripping its limbs apart.

However, this quickly changed, as one of the few remaining began running away suddenly, its movement hindered by the fear taking over it.

The others quickly followed, as they vaguely understood that this might be the only way for them to survive this massacre.

This took Vex by surprise, since it was his first time seeing this type of behavior and reaction coming from irregularities.

"Where they able to react this way from the start? Or are they..." the young man mumbled, his sharp look mixing with a hint of concern, "I must end this quickly".

In a swift motion, Vex threw the monster's limbs that he was holding to the side and grabbed his sniper before tossing it to his back. With unexpected speed, he launched himself ahead, before he stretched his arm forward and calmly uttered, "[Soul Lock]"

In the blink of an eye, the monsters running for their lives became motionless once their bodies fell and fumbled on the ground, and even if they wanted, they couldn't move their bodies a single bit.

Because of this, Vex could move his hands next to a belt that he was wearing, allowing him to unsheathe two long daggers that were hiding behind his long coat. With those, the young man didn't waste any time and quickly slashed the remaining numbers of the irregularities, beheading every single one of them with ease. It felt to him as if he was holding a heated knife going through blocks of butter.

And there he was, standing among the inanimate monster corpses once more, alone in the lifeless night, with the calm demeanor that everyone that knows him is used to see.

"Even though I didn't expect to use that ability here, that ended up feeling meaningless..." in a quiet voice, Vex mumbled to himself before he waved his daggers to get rid of the blood coating them.

He looked at the shining moon hanging high in the dim night sky and added, "Since everything is clear, I guess it's time to retu--"

Before he could finish what he was saying, he suddenly noticed something unexpected. The monsters' bodies began to disintegrate, and he felt a sudden gust of wind that began to carry the ashes in a weird pattern that ultimately led to one specific place, a store building that seemed to be in an awful state even compared to the other buildings.

Vex eyes widened, as he had never witnessed something like this happening before. With a look of surprise covering his face, he began to follow the ashes...