Author notes: Apologies this is all late, I have been engrossed in studies, work and side projects that steal my attention away.
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The walls and door were made out of an alloy commonly called carbide titanium-220, a hyper-dense lead alloy formed under fusing additional neutrons to the lead under intense artificial gravity, before fusing that with other atoms to create a material even those with born with superpowers of strength would struggle to tear apart.
It was within this brightly lit prison cell that Thomas sat, a VIP location reserved for the most dangerous villains.
Thomas’ hands were crossed behind his back and bound by thick iron cylinder-shaped restraints. His legs were restrained by a similar device, while both devices were locked to the chair and prevented him from being able to leave it.
As a further assurance, there were four cameras that faced him from each corner of the room. A pseudo AI monitored these feeds and ensured that no movement he took was unnoticed. Any hint of him breaking free from his restraints would raise an alarm without delay.
“Thomas Smith, you are to be transferred to The Deep in two days time. I would have you on your way tonight, but our forces are spread thin enough already the transport craft won’t be able to get here until then.”
Captain Anthony Reeves stood outside the cell and spoke through the intercom into the room, his gaze never leaving the tiny viewing window in the door.
“Drug addict, what about my trial??” Thomas cried injustice at being sent directly to prison. “Where has the justice in this world gone!?”
“Justice!? Asshole, you were sentenced long ago! Business fraud, tax evasion, breaking and entering, theft, assault, manslaughter, murder, mass murder, the list goes on! What crime have you not committed!?”
“That’s not all that big of a deal, old friend.”
“You are a criminal and I am not, nor have I ever been, your friend.”
“Come on, it’s not that bad. You are too sensitive about the matter of death.” Thomas shook his head helplessly while sighing.
“Those people are dead, gone! They had families, people that loved them, people they loved. You stripped all of that from them. I don’t care if this time it was demons who committed murder, you still have 1,224 years of incarceration to serve.”
Thomas chuckled and shrugged his body.
“You haven’t been able to hold me before, what makes you think you will be able to now?”
Captain Reeves’ eye shot fire as he fiercely laughed straight back at the prisoner.
“You’ve lost all your strength to that demon you said was Astaroth, the Duke of Doors, didn’t you? You are nothing but a mortal now. Even if it were to return one day, you will be in a permanent cryostatic sleep and unable to act.”
“I may be weak, but my daughter has quite the temper and is not.”
“We have methods for taking care of those who are not immortal, Thomas Smith.”
“Sigh, you have no idea how strong she truly is.”
The cell Thomas sat in was eerily silent except for the one occasion a small robot entered the room once with what can only be described as a disgusting grey-brown slurpie with nutritional paste.
His
It tastes like garbage, but it is enough to keep his body alive and healthy. It was also served in a paper cup with a large paper straw, both of which would disintegrate after approximately half and hour whether he finished his meal or not.
Twelve hours passed in this silent manner before Captain Reeves returned, this time with a chair.
He threw open the cell door in record time before dropping the chair he brought in in front of Thomas and sitting down on it with barely contained anger. In his hand was a folder with Thomas’ name on it.
One look at his expression showed that he was extremely pissed off at the moment.
“…”
“…”
“…”
“What’s up, you run out of drugs- guffph!”
Thomas broke out in a grin and teased before the police captain abruptly swung out his sword and hit him in the stomach with it, thankfully still in the sheath.
“Hmm, I never knew how good it would feel to hit you. I could get used to this.”
“This is abuse of a prisoner.”
“What was that?”
The sheathed sword swung once more and crashed into his knee, causing him to cry out in mock pain. He obviously wasn’t using his full force, which would have torn Thomas’ mortal body apart, but it was enough to bruise or even fracture bones and cause any ordinary person to cry out in pain.
“I’m going to lodge a complaint.”
“Go ahead.”
Several more attacks came before Anthony Reeves frowned and stopped hitting him.
“The Department of Homeland Security, in their infinite wisdom, have extended a deal to you.”
“I refuse. I’m a free man.”
“I strongly doubt that you are even human, and you are still both an illegal immigrant in the country and a criminal. Your current status on that chair is also not that which would typically be considered ‘free’.”
“Sure, sure, I am a bruised and battered alien that’s been wrongfully imprisoned.”
Captain Reeves pinched his brow in an attempt to alleviate the headache he was feeling from his rising anger.
“The offer-
“Nope, rejected~”
“Shut up before I…”
Having an epiphany, the urban cultivator twisted the spacial ring on his finger and a paper sealing talisman appeared in his hand. Before Thomas could utter another word, it was slapped over his mouth with a sharp slap and the latter’s eyes watering from the stinging pain.
“Ahh, that is so much better. I should have thought of this much earlier.”
“!!!”
The man showed a genuine smile of satisfaction as Thomas struggled to talk but couldn’t make a single sound.
“Moving on, the department has made the following offer. They are willing to… pardon your past crimes, and even provide you with an American citizenship. In return, you are to enter the rift that opened in the Laurence Academy of the Gifted, locate the source that opened it, and destroy it.”
Thomas wriggled his head back and forth in an attempt to remove the sealing talisman, which Anthony acted against his better judgment and peeled it back enough to allow him to speak.
“I ref… ahem, I mean, it is not that I don’t want to, but as you can see, I am currently nothing more than a weak civilian. Or are you just trying to throw me inside to dispose of the body? Probably much easier and cheaper than persistent cryostatic sleep I guess~”
“I did mention that you were a useless loaf of bread, but it turns out you have a ‘daughter’ with anger management issues who can tear apart tanks and airships with her bare hands.”
“Are you asking me to throw my daughter into an unknown land filled with danger at every corner? How dare you!?”
“Do you want me to seal your mouth again?”
“Enter the rift, destroy the core. Is that all?”
“You will also be required to be under constant surveillance-”
“You already stalk us.”
“Don’t interrupt… You will follow all laws of our country, and should a national crisis occur, will participate to defend it.”
“Ehh, that sounds like it would be a bother~”
“…There is a proposal to shoot you into the sun, or an endless journey into the deepest recesses of space.”
Thomas’ expression shifted to one of exaggerated fear before clearing his throat and commenting, “Mmhmm, mmm, it’s not that big of an ask I guess.”
“Do you accept the deal, then?”
“Under one condition~”
“Spit it out.”
“I want a detailed history on the Laurence Academy of the Gifted, including everything the school has covered up. Every student, every teacher, every dirty deed.”
Captain Reeves looked towards one of the cameras and nodded his head before looking back at Thomas.
“It will be delivered to your home. Now I will discuss the details of your task in closing the rift.”
The cultivator tapped the folder in his lap with his finger and several pictures flew out and floated in the air. They were high resolution images of the rift at the school, the current defensive formation set up around it, as well as some scouting images inside.
“In three days, outsiders will be permitted entry so long as they pay the fee, agree to a screening and hand over 30 percent of whatever they bring out from inside. While they are doing whatever they want, you and Senna Smith are to enter, locate the origin of the rift, and destroy it.”
“Don’t we need her to agree to this too?”
“Convince her.”
“Sigh, so what does this origin look like?”
“We have a device synchronized with the energy of the rift itself. It will guide you.
“You seem to already know a lot about this rift, despite it only being days since it appeared.”
Captain Reeves tapped the folder again and several other images and documents Thomas didn’t understand floated out. These images showed two other rifts from satellite imagery.
One of the images showed a hoard of cultivators controlling a rift, several of whom were looking into the sky directly at the camera lens, the other was a wasteland of destruction.
“This is not the first, but the third, rift that has appeared in the world. The first was seven years ago in Hubei, China. The Eastern Guardians were the first to react before a coalition of traditional cultivation sects seized control of the area. The cultivators have sealed the entrance and are still extracting resources from it. The Chinese government appear to have also struck a deal with them to hold a share in the gate.”
“The second appeared two years ago in the heart of Algeria, and demonstrated just how dangerous these rifts are when uncontrolled. With the core intact, these rifts continue to grow in size and allow larger and more powerful monsters though. I don’t mean the standard mutated beasts we are used to dealing with, but creatures straight out of fiction, capable of bulldozing through towns and even cities. Over 40,000 people died from the outbreak of these monsters.”
Thomas rose his brow at the images and asked, “So how did you contain it? I never heard anything about this.”
“248 heroes, 62 of which were B Class Superheroes, and 12 A Class Superheroes.”
“That’s quite the lineup! Even I would want to run from that, you know.”
“No, this the number of heroes who died in the battle, most of which were from international Protectorate branches so America didn’t feel it as much. Through their sacrifice, it also allowed us to analyze the gate and collect data so we are better prepared in the future and humanity do not need to suffer such a loss.”
“Will you not feel the loss of all those resources by closing the rift? How could… hoh? You don’t plan on closing it, do you?”
Thomas grinned from ear to ear at his realization, a gaze of smugness at Captain Reeves whose eyes glared back.
“Do you have any understanding of the current standing of the world? Whilst you are all cozy and ignorant sitting in safety flaunting the law, the number of monthly monster attacks are more than double that of the same time last year, five times more than five years ago, and nearly eight times higher than ten years ago.”
“The world is becoming a less and less safe to live in at an accelerating rate, and now we have monsters from a foreign dimension encroaching as well…”
Thomas shook his head and stated, “Even if you wanted to keep it, shouldn’t you move the school away?”
“…No. Not only is this a valuable asset to the government in terms of resources, it will become a crucial training ground for our students.”
“Dude, you are crazy, you know that? Thrusting kids into an area where monsters will tear them to shreds. Things weren’t even that harsh in the dark ages.”
“Regardless of my opinion, the political movement has already started moving. The fact that the talented young are going to be trained to fight monsters is just how dangerous our world is becoming.”
All of a sudden, the entire room shook which caused the lights to flicker on and off. Several more vibrations were felt before an even larger one that sounded much closer.
“I think my ride is here~”
Thomas mocked with a giant grin on his face.
True to his words, not longer afterwards, a pair of crimson eyes coldly gazed into the room through the small peeping window before a slender arm pierced through the solid lead door designed to withstand even the greatest of strength-based superpowers.
The door was then ripped off the wall, or more accurately the section of wall where the door was attached was ripped off, before being tossed on the ground in an uncaring manner.
What stood in the opening was a fae girl with long blonde red hair before it changed to a fiery red half way down. She was exceptionally beautiful, but her gaze was so sharp it would be difficult for anyone to look at her without feeling an instinctive terror. Her body was also emitting a terrifying aura that made anyone nearby instinctively hold their breath in fear.
“…It was unlocked,” Anthony Reeves commented through gritted teeth before standing up and leaving, making sure he passed the document folder to her before departing.
“Oops,” Senna responded without a trace of sincerity in her voice, her pupils slowly turning and coldly tracking the police captain as he walked pass her and stood outside.
The semi-fallen fae girl was about to tear apart Thomas’ restraints when Captain Reeves pressed a button on a controller in his hand and they abruptly unlocked themselves and released him.
“I would ask you refrain from destroying more government property.”
Senna led the way out of the cell, Thomas following behind her while uncomfortably rubbing his sore wrists as he cheekily commented. “See you next time, drug addict~”
“…Thomas Smith,” Anthony Reeves spoke up while glaring at the man who was leaving, his gaze icy and filled with conviction. “you’re actions over the past decade have not been hidden. Those whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed, or lost their lives as a consequence… are countless. I don’t care if you are suddenly pretending to be a good human. You do not deserve to be forgiven.”
Thomas’ footsteps slowed to a halt, his gaze that was facing away from the police captain was complex and flashed with what seemed to be a nostalgic sadness.
“I do not intend to be,” He quietly responded in melancholy before disappearing around the corner.
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