Prologue - Part 1: Hot Lead in a Degenerate's Head

In the vast crater of Arachnia where eight sky-bound spiderweb-like-structured islands connected by railways, bridges, and shackled with magical giant chains … the marvelous skyline and prodigious citadel of the advanced Ymir Heart Piece-powered Kingdom of Athena stands above in prosperity.

It is a popular urban legend that the land is where the legendary Esper, Arachne, was imprisoned after her defeat in battle against the Goddess Athena — the crater land formation is believed to be the outcome of the severity of their divine ability caused by their great battle.

Underneath the levitating islands, from the giant sundering web sky off the ground, is a sleepless slum named Rachel where people live like trapped insects in a spider's web.

It was a shivering night in the neighborhood of Rachel Slums - District 4, a lone maiden in a white dress and ripped jeans wanders along the cold and dark road of the street.

!!

From the street's shadowy corner, two bandits with evil intent to victimize revealed themselves. They ambushed and threatened the young woman, surrounding her at gunpoint.

"Oh … what's this? Did a rich woman fall from the sky?" the bandit whose job is to mug the victim said.

"Move, scream and I'll shoot ya," the bandit with the Glock pistol warned the woman deliberately aiming the gun at her. "I'll only say it once, raise your fucking hands in the air, missy!"

Defenseless, nervous, and intimidated by the pointed firearm towards her — and the thuggish appearance of the hooligans, the young woman complied and did what she was told to for the sake of her life.

"Looks like we caught ourselves a big fish tonight!" the mugger said.

The mugger breathed behind the maiden's neck where the strap of her tank top underneath was exposed as he searched and snatched her belongings.

"That baby oil scent and fair skin, that cute face of yours — YOU'RE JUST LIKE A DAUGHTER OF THE RICH PEOPLE ABOVE, AREN'T YA?"

The mugger inhaled and exhaled in malice, sticking his nose on the maiden's skin as he scented it more intensely as he went.

"Hey, catch!" he tossed the woman's satchel to the gunman and began touching her body with both of his hands, running his fingers along her short wispy dark brown hair.

The young woman flinched in a cold sweat and whimpered. Her tears fell to her chin of losing her dignity, crying silently; trying not to piss off the mug.

"How about we have some quality good time together while we're at it, huh?" Suggested the gunman. "She looks like a very fuck-able — ha-ha!"

"It's not all the time you get to fuck a random rich girl from the islands — ha-ha-ha-ha! Such a waste to just leave her here unsatisfied and without a warm welcome from the slums. Come on now, a little threesome wouldn't hurt, right?" the mugger said.

"Ha-ha — let's stain those luxurious holes before giving you to our shitty boss, that is. That bastard never let us score, ya know?" the gunman added.

…

"—Damn, I hate degenerates like you."

They heard a lethargic male voice nearby.

"Huh, who's there? Who the fuck just said that?!" the alerted gunman swung his pistol all around. "Show yourself, pussy!"

The young woman put a dirty smirk on her face.

"I said, I fucking hate degenerates like you!"

She repeated in another male-toned voice, grabbing the mugger's arm behind and effortlessly dragging the man airborne from the back, slamming him in front of her, breaking his arm in the process.

*Bone cracking and pained scream*

The mugger screamed, holding his dislocated arm, wriggling on the ground.

*Kick*

The woman kicked the mugger's groin, crushing his testicles.

*Groan*

His eyes rolled over in pain, and his mouth bubbled in a sudden burst of saliva from the body shock he received. Immobilized, she stomped his head over and over with the power of a behemoth, laughing hysterically as the gunman watched the scene in horror.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" the crazed woman continued to stomp the mugger's head as she laughed. "You — fucking — piece — of — shit!" she said, pausing with every stomp.

"Stop, stop—" the mugger on the ground pleaded repeatedly for her to stop, accidentally biting his tongue with each stomp.

She didn't stop until it crushed his skull to chunks of flesh of his brain and his eyeballs popped out from their holes.

*Crush and splats*

"I feel awful for your mother for giving birth to you, treating women like that." the woman spit on his corpse.

She now turned her winter-cold blue eyes towards the gunman, morphing her whole body and emerging as a boy in his youth with a smug face — his original form. The gunman fell over on the ground spazzing in fear of seeing an Esper but holding on and pointing his shaky gun toward the boy. Slowly being neared, he pulled the trigger on the killer while crawling backward.

*Panicked gunshot*

To his surprise, the bullet dematerialized into thin air before it even hit the target.

He pulled the trigger, another and another and another, as the consecutive shots howled throughout the streets of District 4.

*Three-time gunshot*

"There's no way, you're that crazy Esper on the news — you are that fucking killer Esper on the news!" the gunman realized that they had victimized the wrong person and who the boy was, that it was no use; the gun was no use and the bullets were just dematerializing the same. "Molecular Genocide!"

The Esper is already so close to him that the gunman wet himself and puddled a golden on the ground in extreme dread.

"Just tell me where you hide the women." Briefly interrogated the Esper with a sigh. "You pissed your pants, I'll let you live and go change them if you tell me."

Jaw-dropped and unable to answer after seeing what happened to his partner-in-crime, the gunman points the pistol inside his mouth and shoots himself dead before the Esper gets to let him experience the same violence his partner endured with him.

*Self-inflicted gunshot*

And just like that, the hot lead bullet ricocheted inside the gunman's skull and melted his brain into liquid.

…

The boy stared at the flatlined bodies of the bandits.

"These guys have probably done those deeds with their past victims — should've just killed them on the spot, though ... " he took the pistol from the gunman's hand as his spoil and wore back his satchel. "Fucking waste of bullets."

The boy grasped the gunman's neck on the ground, concentrating, trying to breach his memories. He hijacked the intel that he needed about the missing women of the slums inside the remaining neurons in the gunman's liquified brain.

…

Colliding their consciousness together inside the gunman's mind, the Esper boy saw the whole life of the dead person flashing before his eyes:

Grew up without parents, living on the streets, snorting shoe glue to ease hunger on the sidewalk, early criminal life, intoxication, drug use, violence upon violence, sadness turning into mayhem, and uncontainable lust for flesh and riches.

Kill and kill, spilling blood, sex, more sex, tears of victims — and finally a scene of a hideout where a group of bandits kept the kidnapped women.

"BLERGH!" the Esper threw up in disgust, seeing all the filthy things that the man had done throughout his life.

…

"That place is likely an abandoned building somewhere in here on the outskirts of District 4."

Before he left, he pointed his hand at the head of the gunman which already has a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and obliterated it with a bone-crushing gravitational mass.

*Crack and splat*

Bloody chunks of brain flesh ooze from the crushed skull on the dark road.

"Crazy neurons you have in their pal," the boy puked as he lurched away, leaving the bloody scene behind and a trail of vomit.

***

*Magical accelerating sound of molecules*

Inside the criminals' hideout in the cartel's paradise of District 4, the sharp beaming sound of increasing molecular acceleration is heard one after another before the mix of gunshots and screams of tormented men, blood spatted all over the walls and floor; the Esper had already tracked their location.

*Gunshots and dying men screaming*

"Argh!", "Don't come any closer!" they screamed

*Smacks, thuds, and head splatting*

After clearing the area, the locked door to the basement busted open with ease as the bloodbath Esper in a robotic zigzag-teeth mask and knight visor came to the rescue.

*Door busting open*

Upon barging in, he saw the missing women of the slums, who were kidnapped by the same people. They are held captive in a dark, moldy room with an unpleasant stench of bleach. Undressed women are piling at the corner, crying and sobbing in fear on the cold floor in bare feet.

"Holy shit … " the Esper muttered in shock.

The faint look in their eyes of hopelessness tells us that they all have been violated for a very long time.

Among them is a little girl being protected in the middle by the women.

He realized that they were all traumatized by seeing a man and having heard the loud commotion earlier outside. Hence, the Esper turned his body into a young maiden once more to relieve their trauma and be more comfortable with her being around.

"I'm … " she paused trying to find the confining words that can help make the kidnapped women feel less in peril. "I'm here to bring you all back home," the woman said in a sweet, motherly kind voice, removing the mask and visor, revealing her face.

…

(I'll make sure to cleanse them and remove this shitty memory in their minds.) the transmogrified Esper boy promised, feeling discomfort in his throat as he witnessed the current state of the women and the situation they were trapped in.