2 July 2011 at 23:16

This is a city characterized by a mix of tall modern skyscrapers, sleek Victorian buildings and many other buildings under construction; the past, the present and the future coexist here.

In an area full of business buildings, government offices, museums, shops, malls; all empty due to the curfew, stood the remains of what was once the headquarters of the Department of Dark Energy Containment. It was a beautiful building, with white pillars on its facade, but due to a psychi attack, it had been destroyed a day ago. That wreckage was shaken and blown away, further destroyed by another explosion. This time it was a small missile.

After the smoke from the explosion was blown away by the fast-moving winds that have been blowing through the city for a few nights now, and the ashes and reduced debris fell, Philip was able to open his eyes. Lying on the ground above him was the man in the black suit that had pushed him seconds before.

Philip could instantly recognize the man, George White, the priest in charge of his class. Doubts began to creep into his head, but first, he had to work out how this man had saved him. As he sat on the floor and thanks to the night vision, granted by the goggles Bill had made him, he could see a thin vibration in the surrounding air.

A barrier of dark energy! -The surprise made him shudder. It hadn't crossed his mind that George was a psychi. Now he must solve another doubt, why did he save him?

No... Why did he save Zero?

—You all right, boy? 

—Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somehow.

George dissipated the barrier and walked to the side.

—Relax, we're not your enemies. You don't have to die either, you're the hope of this city. Just let us take care of the more troublesome things, and you take the credit.

—We?

George knelt down nearby and took in his left hand the glowing stone that lay among the small fragments of concrete, along with burnt flesh and a Venetian mask. Philip opened his eyes and, after coughing a little, cried out.

—Why didn't you save her too?!

—It doesn't make sense, she can't die at all.

—What?

—Let's leave this talk for later, I have to take care of something first. I'd rather you went home anyway. It's going to get dangerous here soon.

George lifted the stone, it glowed and shattered into purple particles that surrounded his body and then disappeared. He looked at his hand as he repeatedly opened and closed it.

—Yes, that is an adequate amount of power.

Philip sat on the ground in shock from everything that had just happened. George floated down the street and stood in the middle of the intersection, pulled a small piece of bread out of his pocket and, before eating it, began to recite a few words.

—Who eats of this bread shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

After eating it, dozens of shadows began to form around him and a black smoke came out of them. The smoke gradually climbed and took shape, until it resembled humans emerging from the shadow. Within seconds, Philip could make out that the smoke rising from the shadows took on the appearance and clothing of George.

That's his ability! He just created over fifty copies of himself out of thin air!

—What the fuck...?

Using the night vision of his glasses, he could see in the distance; between the rooftops of the buildings and clinging to the balcony railings, about eight people dressed in black suits.

These people in black were approaching George at high speed. It was only when they were about fifty meters from George and eighty meters from him that Philip could see what they looked like. Six men and two women, young; between sixteen and thirty years old, or at least that's what they looked like because of their physical build. They are wearing black mesh with internal armor, a black hood and their mouths and noses are covered by a black mask. They move using tubular devices, which deploy from their calves and release a pressurized gas downwards, allowing them to fly. Each had a wrist crossbow.

Philip instantly recognized the characteristics of these people's clothing. They are members of the RG Brotherhood, the most famous mercenary group in the country.

“Do they go after stones too?!”

Cold sweat began to break out on his body, he realized that George was about to confront them.

George's copies flew swiftly towards the mercenaries. The mercenaries were flying, almost glued to the buildings near the road intersection. Seeing the frontal attack, they fired arrows at the copies. Some of them were hit, others dodged to start hand-to-hand combat. The copies that were hit by the arrows melted away, returning to black smoke. Each mercenary was facing at least twelve copies.

Copies are not very resilient. Arrows take them out instantly, but in close combat they were quite adept. Philip guessed that they would have similar or equal skill to the original corps, though after a few exchanges of blows, they would break down. In less than five minutes, the mercenaries had taken out almost half of them. The fighting was now taking place on the ground, the gas that the soldiers in black move around with must not be plentiful, Philip guessed.

He can't figure out if George has a plan or if he is really losing in such a crushing way, he doesn't even know where the original George is. He knows perfectly well that if he loses, it is very unlikely that he will ever have any trace of that Eyre stone in his possession again. The only clue he has to the 21 June incident. If he wants to get more information, George must not lose.

Summoning up his courage, and ignoring the pain of the stamp on his wrist, Philip gets up from where he is and advances towards the fight that is taking place at the road intersection.

All the mercenaries are skilled in different forms of combat. He noticed by watching them. George and his copies were no slouches, though. In terms of pure skill, they were evenly matched, but this was not just a fight of skill but also of numbers. Although it seemed that in that respect George had the advantage, in practice this was not the case. One by one his clones were disappearing and there was no trace of him. “He's probably escaped with the stone,” muttered one of the soldiers.

A bright purple light peered out over them all. It came from one of the rooftops, a few buildings away. It was George. One of the mercenaries shouted in a thick voice.

—There he is! Don't let him get away!

As most of the mercenaries headed towards the area where that light appeared, Philip took advantage of one of them being left behind, to appear at his back and hit him with his right fist. The man fell, hitting his head on the asphalt. Philip punched him in the face to make sure he was unconscious.

At that moment, someone fell on Philip, kicking him in the back of the head. He rolled on the ground to get away and looked at who had attacked him. Standing in front of him was one of the two mercenaries he had identified earlier. She looked young, slim-bodied and a few brown locks escaped from her hood. Philip noted on which wrist she held her crossbow to be careful, it was the right one.

She stood on guard, Philip lunged at her at high speed and as he swung his left arm, with the idea that she would take cover so that he could break her crossbow. She stretched her body forward with even greater speed, closing the distance between them as much as possible, and struck him from below upwards in the jaw. Then she moved her torso back a little and drove her left fist into Philip's abdomen. He leaned back and activated his thrusters to fly away backwards, but the mercenary deployed the devices in her calves that released the gas at high pressure and shot out, catching him instantly. She charged his right arm, Philip extended his, thinking she was going to shoot an arrow at him, but that didn't happen. Instead, she kneed him in the stomach. He anticipated her next move and swung his body down just as she swung her arm towards him again, this time to shoot an arrow at him. He managed to dodge it and landed about five meters away.

—Shit —Philip clenched his abdomen in an attempt to mitigate the pain. The mercenary landed in front of him, about five meters away.

He sighed and looked up, the six remaining mercenaries were facing about 30 copies of George —Looks like he created even more of those, they won't interfere for now.

Philip glanced at the mercenary and felt a defiant look.

“The feeling is mutual, huh?"