With widened almost disbelieving eyes, Miss Luna exclaimed, "That thing… that thing is him? The one from the news? How did he turn into this monster?"
But there was no answer from Vlad.
In all this, the beast did not respond, it just stared back, its breath now steadier, its wounds had long healed.
If one looked at its fingers they would notice that it was still shimmering, the glow intensifying slightly, but it dared not move for it knew it was not a match for whoever these people were.
Meanwhile, Sir Vlad said to Luna without turning back, "Stay back."
At his words, which sounded like a command, Miss Luna's brows furrowed. "Excuse me?"
"I said stay back," Sir Vlad repeated, voice flat as metal. "You not involved in zis, like I said before—zis is my territory."
"Ha, a territory you can't even keep," she shot back before adding, "do you know how much damage this kid would have caused if I hadn't interfered, he almost killed two of your men, hell if this kid isn't the Skilion that means the real beast is still out there."
Ignoring every word Miss Luna spoke, Sir Vlad moved, excluding himself from her company.
"Whoosh!"
In an instant, the man vanished—no, he blinked from sight and reappeared in front of the beast with a thunderclap.
Vlad then struck the creature with a single fist, sending it slamming through two walls of the building.
The shockwave blew out every remaining window within a mile radius, and the sound was deafening.
The force was too much for the beast to bear as it soon screeched, rolling violently on the ground after having burst through the wall.
It was in an alley.
If one paid attention, they would notice that a large cavity has formed on its chest, but it did not heal; rather, the glow at its fingertips intensified even more, its form struggling to rise.
It would not take a genius to figure out that it was charging something, maybe a special attack of sorts.
Meanwhile, Vlad, who was walking over the rubble of the walls he had shattered, noted this glow.
He then noted the cavity he had caused and raised a brow, "I thought vhatever you did to yourself vould vithstand zis much, ahh... I expected too much. Heal yourself. Now!"
He commanded, but the beast did not respond—not that it could—and its silence seemed to peeve Sir Vlad.
"If you not vant to heal, I vill force you," he suddenly said as he kicked off the ground.
"Bang!"
In that exact moment, the concrete floor between Sir Vlad and the bestial Mr. Valen imploded, a humanoid figure appearing from below.
Said figure appeared at just the right moment to take the hit Sir Vlad had thrown; its form shot backwards, hitting Mr. Valen and sending them both through the wall of the next building.
"Bang!"
Both Mr. Valen and the figure were forced to a room, crashing violently on what sounded like wooden furniture, their gaze obscured by the dust.
"Cough!"
"Cough!"
"Cough!"
The sound of a person coughing could be heard, and as the dust settled, one would discover that they were in a dark and gloomy living room.
To the side, a young man with long blonde hair could be seen crouching, taking cover by his sofa.
He wore a company shirt with the name tag Maxwell seemingly about to go to work before being interrupted by this whole fiasco, but as his eyes registered the beast which had crashed in his room, he scooted back.
By beast one was not referring to Mr. Valen this time, rather, one would be forced to observe a hunched figure that was much taller.
Said figure trembled visibly, black blood dripping from its maw, as its body faltered.
It was not able to endure the dominating strength Vlad displayed.
The disgusting smell of sewage coated its form, and as it stood defensively in front of Mr. Valen, its large eyes were fixated on the approaching threat.
Like before, Sir Vlad stepped through the dust billowing from the hole he had created, one hand in his pocket as his eyes registered the gold-clawed Skilion.
"So you finally decide to show," he said with a growing smile before adding, "Zis saves me trouble of looking for you."
"You will not harm this man," the beast slowly spoke as soon as Sir Vlad finished speaking, his words causing a visible reaction of shock from Sir Vlad.
Brows raised with a certain expression on his face, Sir Vlad frowned, "Did you just speak—"
"Schreeeeee!"
A sudden sickening sound jolted Sir Vlad, and the Skilion to attention.
The whimpering blond man was also forced to look up from his hiding spot.
Looking at the source of this sound, they noticed that the glow in Mr. Valen's fingers had dimmed on all except one, which shone brightly.
With this glowing finger, he clawed at thin air, and the moment he did this, the sound started, along with a powerful suction force that began draining the air from the room.
The suction grew in the millisecond and Sir Vlad felt it pulling him in.
Not wanting to find out what it was, he stepped back with sheer force, quickly exiting the building.
As Mr. Valen's hand slid down one would notice that he was creating a familiar slit in reality.
One that distorted the reality around it, like reflections of shattered glance.
It was a passageway.
Meanwhile, as the blonde man observed this passageway being formed, his eyes widened and his already flushed face paled even more.
Suddenly, he felt an invisible force around his form, a force so great that it pulled him into the air despite his best attempts to grip at the sofa for support.
"Shit!"
"Shit!"
"Shiiiiiit!"
The man yelled before being pulled into the slit, his voice disappearing into the abyss.
The suction didn't seem to affect anything but air and living organisms, it also did not seem to affect the hideous beast which stared in awe as Mr. Valen opened a temporary passageway, something that was only possible for Skilion's.
"I knew you were different," the beast spoke in awe, but it received no response, as the object of its attention could care less about consciousness at the moment.
Rather, after observing the rift for a bit, Mr. Valen jumped in, the rift quickly closing behind him.
But just before the rift could fully close, the gold clawed Skilion jumped in as well, taking the plunge into the world from which it had come from.
Simultaneously, as soon as he felt that suction fade, a figure flashed in from outside, with another figure floating in behind.
It was Sir Vlad and Miss Luna.
"W-was that a rift I just felt?" Miss Luna, who was evidently shocked, intoned gravely, her voice faint as she observed the empty space before her.
Sir Vlad was quiet for a moment before turning back, his voice trailing behind him, a hint of loss coating his tone, "Da, da... it vas, Miss Luna."
For a moment, Miss Luna was short of words, a grave expression on her face, "W-what do we do, we should report-"
"Aren't you tired of being a slave Luna?" Sir Vlad suddenly interrupted, his voice deep as he stopped walking. "Aren't you tired of rearing your own people like cattle?"
There was a brief, lingering pause as Miss Luna floated down, landing on her own two feet. Her voice soft, as she began.
"You know all too well that feelings like those will get you killed. We have it easy; all we have to do is look pretty, attract attention, and fill our quotas. There's nothing we can do."
"There's nothing you can do, you mean," Sir Vlad responded before saying, "You've seen firsthand vhat that boy was able to achieve with just a tank of stolen blood, don't you have hope? Right before your eyes, he just toppled our understanding of what we thought possible."
"All the more reason to report it," Miss Luna responded resolutely, her gaze faltering as Sir Vlad gave her a look.
"I thought that you vere a rebellious person by nature," Sir Vlad intoned while walking away his voice trailing, "vhile you sit there and rear your people like livestock, I have unleashed chaos in their world, knowing him, it is only a matter of time before he breaks the entire system."
--------------
A few hours later.
The streets were still dust-choked and broken, concrete bleeding steel as responders in bulky hazard suits moved through the aftermath.
Drones with glowing underbellies hovered across the cratered skyline, giving live news coverage to the news stations which were quick to respond.
Sir Vlad was gone, Luna was gone and so were the creatures.
But the city remembered, it always does.
Above the chaos, surveillance balloons floated like oversized jellyfish in the dusk.
Sirens echoed, only half audible under the electronic whine of dissonant frequencies still pulsing from ruptured power lines.
Reporters in armored vans barked shaky updates through mouthpieces, while headlines scrolled across city-wide billboards.
"THE FIRST EVOLVED BEAST IN OVER A DECADE SUCCESSFULLY CONTAINED!"
Among the wandering, shell-shocked crowd, a familiar woman moved with purpose, an unreadable expression on her face.
She had short brown hair tucked behind one ear, her eyes darkened not with grief, but something quieter.
It looked like emptiness, evident in the eyes of no woman other than Lia.
Lia's boots stepped around shattered glass and broken concrete as she looked at the mess Luna had caused.
She then stared at her phone, again, her thumb hesitating just as she was about to dial a number, stopping above the screen.
The number belonged to Aiden, and beside it was a parenthesis with the number 100.
She had called a hundred times, yet there was no response.
Suddenly, a soft burst of static caught her attention as she walked past a disheveled old man hunched beside a rusted cart, a radio crackling in his lap.
[Shi, reports from the Viper family make known the fact that it was a stronger monster than what is normally fought… so strong in fact that our very own Sir Vlad had to neutralize it himself…]
She didn't flinch at those words, and neither did she linger, "what a joke," she thought, scoffing at herself.
In over a decade, no beast had been able to evolve; yet on the day Mr. Valen was discovered to have awakened, one had. The lies were exhausting.
"It's not like I have any say," she muttered to herself and looked at her phone again. With a quick swipe, she opened her bank app, and one would notice a new deposit of 1,000,000 Val transferred little more than an hour ago.
"Ha, I'm a liar myself," she thought as her fingers trembled, her eyes softening as she whispered, "I-I just did my job, I didn't hurt anyone, right?"
After lingering for a moment, she locked her phone screen, then she reopened it, scrolling to a nameless number saved in her contacts.
Immediately after registering this number, she called it, and the line rang.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
Ring... Ring... Ring...
But there was nothing except Voicemail, prompting her to lower the phone and rub her eyes with her sleeve.
She looked up and noticed that a storm was approaching, a grey cloud covering the sky.
"Valen…" she suddenly whispered, her words barely audible over the wind. "Where are you?" Yet there was no response, leaving her alone in the middle of the street, the actor, the spy who had grown too attached.
And now that he was gone, there was no one left to lie to.