HunterxKiller87
Hunterxkiller87
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- Aug 19, 2023
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Get used to seeing a specific color and it becomes the whole world to one's senses.
These skies loomed over a city located on a medium-sized island, a bastion of civilisation built many centuries ago by a society that had fought off the yolk of oppression to a domineering empire due to not wishing to pay their taxes. In the end, they took their fates into their own hands for better or for worse depending on who was asked, becoming a domineering superpower by inheriting it from the very empire they had broken away from. One could say they were an empire of their own at this point, with their reach and influence across the globe.
This city had been a beacon of civilisation, home to a great number of minds and talents which were used to foster the city's culture and development. Numerous souls got brought into existence in this city, and just as many had perished here either before their time or when the all-consuming curse of old age took hold of them.
Not to say the town was perfect, far from it with conflicts raging all around of varying forms such as political and criminal based, with tribalism having dominated the city's governing since the dawn of its inception. Numerous other issues prevailed behind the public eye, but aside from them, the city boasted a thriving tourist industry due to the famous landmarks that called this city home, boosted by it being close to one of the most popular locations in Western comic culture: new york city.
That had been what this city was... now it was that no longer.
What had once been a glorious city home to laughs, cries and brilliantly chaotic mayhem now lived under oblivious silence. Life no longer flourished in this ruined desolate graveyard of a city, its buildings either diagonally tilted or on the verge of collapsing under their weight like a timer counting down to the city's vanishing off into the ever-expanding annuls of history.
Some had already done so, becoming nothing but piles of rubble spread over the streets they had been built on, the streets themselves hardly looking better.
Rubbish once stored in bins or other garbage disposals now littered the streets with lampposts and road signs having toppled onto the roads, roads with countless chunks of concrete having been ripped out of them and haphazardly tossed off to the sidewalks and into buildings. Water exhausts and sewage systems lay exposed to the elements with not even liquid flowing through the pipes as if even the waste had long since dried up.
All in all, one wouldn't think this had been anything like a prosperous city full of life and ambition.
But it had...
And one young man of 19 had been the one to see it all.
Said a young man standing atop the ruins of a building that had once been a small store, looking up to the skies while still as a statue. The man looked to be at least 6 feet exactly with silverish grey hair as messy and chaotic as the junkyard this city had become, a pair of heterochromatic eyes (the left being blue and the other green) staring out into the desolation before him.
He stood clad in primarily light apparel: a tight black muscle shirt that clung to his athletic torso with sleeves reaching over his biceps but just above the elbow. There was a short gap between these sleeves and the matching black arm sleeves that went from just above the elbow to his wrists, of which were bare to the world. Around his waist was a black leather belt with a small sachel attached to it at the left hip, right above a pair of military camp pants that were tucked into a pair of knee-high laced military boots.
Hands moved seemingly after an eternity into his pants' pockets, as the man in question heaved a sigh, the number of which he'd made this entire day being far too large to bother recalling. He'd long since lost track of the time... or he would have had he not gotten a biological clock that was still annoyingly good at telling him how long he'd been like this. Not even a day went by when he didn't know this information, and for a time he'd wondered if that was either a blessing or a curse with many times his mind slipping into the latter category.
'5 years now...' the man thought gloomily, hopping off the side of the building and letting himself fall to the ground below. '5 long years... wonder how those two fared when I helped them escape this cesspit of a city... I hope they're living the lives none of us got the chance to have.' This thought erupted into prominence in his mind seconds before his form crashed into the ground...
THUD!
A loud thud accompanied him as a low tremor ripped through the entire island like a mini earthquake as if a small missile had slammed into it or something. His form got shrouded by dust kicked up from the impact, the male having landed on some of the undestroyed sidewalks. How long he had left before all the sidewalks looked the same to him was a question he didn't want to even consider entertaining as he slowly got up from his kneeling position and stood up straight. The dust settled, allowing him to view his surroundings as his body showed no signs of even being scratched by the fall he'd taken off a multi-story building.
5 years... it'd been 5 years since the day this city once named Manhattan had been reduced to this pitiful state with no chance of anyone coming back to repair it. Most of the world tried to forget this tragedy it seemed to him, he wasn't sure since he'd gone into seclusion after those events... not exactly by choice but he had to do so for the sake of everyone's safety. Not even many of the players in that deadly game of skirmishes bothered coming back here anymore, having moved on from the events to pursue other projects according to what he'd known from 'convincing' the last patrol team he'd come across 2 years ago... but he had stayed here nonetheless, unwilling to repeat the mistakes that led to this town's destruction.
But even though it was gone, Manhattan's demise still lingered in the form of this current husk which served as a reminder of the tragedy that unfolded here.
Placing a foot forward, the man began to stroll through the streets like he were a king or government official surveying the lives of his people... though he had nobody to survey, not anymore. He had long forgotten the sounds of merry laughter, of children playing in the parks, of cars driving in a hurry or of the general noisiness of public life had been. He expertly weaved in between the ruined streets by walking along the edges of each hole like they were tightropes, sometimes making some light jumps and hops to cover the bigger distances between him and solid ground with the male treating it as if it were some obstacle course for a parkour practitioner.
Before this city's been reduced to this shadow of its former self, a pair of cataclysmic events were set in motion that utterly wrecked the city beyond its ability to recover, wiping out the entire population and turning it into the ghost city that it currently existed as. The government had immediately tried to contain the horrors within a quarantine zone managed by a military group so high up the president would have to screen his neck just to look at them, but a combination of them underestimating those horrors and various other parties with their agendas rendered this city completely unsavable by the end of those events. Once the end had truly come calling the military, the government and the few survivors remaining had decided to all but abandon the city, blowing off all bridges connecting it to the mainland and leaving it to fend for itself in its final moments, washing their hands of a failed endeavour that only gave them additional human suffering with nothing to show for it.
It had been 5 years since then and every year on the anniversary of this city's destruction there was a memorial service for those who lost their lives here, he knew this again through some 'persuasion' of the patrols that occasionally visited here in the opening years following things dying down.
One would be right in saying it had been a living hell staying in this place, a hell he could have escaped any time he wanted to admittingly, but the consequences of which convinced him otherwise. He'd been here since the beginning of things, he was the last of the Manhattan population, it was and still is his duty to keep the horrors contained within away from humanity as a whole. He may no longer have the right to be among the race he'd been born into, but the mistakes that led to all this shouldn't be repeated anywhere else...
He'd also be protecting future generations from himself too considering HE was one of those horrors in the first place.
'Still... how things got like this haven't been completely unearthed even by me...' the male thought as he wandered over to what had once been called times square, where the final battle had been moved to by the players who'd taken part in it. The most important sight to him to the level of it rivalling a holy sight for a church or religion or some shit, for it held some questions that even now he had not found the answers to.
He'd not been able to see what had happened during the final battle despite being there himself, he'd been rendered unconscious during the initial stages due to the enemy pulling a fast one on his ass. By the time he had regained his bearings, the battle had been concluded, there weren't any signs of life in the entire city and both his ally alongside his enemy had vanished off the earth's face. No matter how many times he searched through the island, from the tiniest cracks to the tallest crevices he had not been able to track down even a tiny trace of 'those two', as if they had been wiped from existence in its entirety.
Were they dead? Were they alive? He didn't know, nor did he have the ability to find out which was the worst part about this to him. Going from someone with very little ability to having the power to change the course of thousands, to then having that ability ripped away from him right when he'd gone through hell and back many times over... felt like a goddamn smack in the face. After everything, EVERYTHING he had gone through why did fate see fit to deny him the ability to fight when he needed it the most? What the hell kind of bullshit was this?
He hated this. He HATED IT.
Thoughts like these had circulated through his mind for years now, ever since he first entered this period of self-imposed isolation. In the initial months, he'd been fuming, rampaging across the island chucking anything he could get his hands on. More than a few poor souls had tried to stop him like they thought in their hubris they had a chance to do so when entire military organisations had failed every time they tried. Their fates had been sealed the moment they came across his path.
Internally he'd lost count of the number of families he'd taken loved ones from who'd only been doing their jobs.
It didn't take long before the male finally paused his trip down memory lane, one of many he'd taken, when he came to the place where everything began for this city that'd reduced it to this state of being:
Penn station.
The building that once served as a way of travel beneath the ocean and the earth itself, is now another desecrated reminder of what had once been a marvel of civilisation. The male stood before its main entrance with his hands pocketed inside his pants, head leaning back slightly to take the building in with better clarity. To him, it brought back the memories of bustling industrial activity, of children walking with their parents back and forth while adults came and went between the island and the mainland. Street vendors and small businesses made their living selling services to travellers, while the station staff did their jobs to keep it from all coming apart. What had once been a hub of human activity...
Now a shadow of its former self, though he'd long since lost the ability to cry or shed sorrow about it.
'To think that I once wished to ride one of these trains to some other state, like Brooklyn or Queens...' The male thought with a mirthless chuckle at the memories of innocence, of a time when things weren't so bad for everyone else. Keywords 'everyone else' there. He remembered when he once, as a child, asked his nurse what it was like riding trains since he'd heard she had been on a few journeys to see relatives, and how she'd complained that they were often tightly cramped and there'd been more than a few times a guy tried to cop a feel of her ass in all the confusion. Though she mentioned it was way worse in a place called Japan wherever that was, he hadn't been sure at the time.
Now though, thinking back to her face his currently late teen self viewed her as incredibly attractive. Though it'd be a face he'd never see again.
As memories of past experiences flowed through his head, the male eyed the abandoned station for a moment before his eyes slightly narrowed. His prior reverie vanished, replaced with a building confusion that quickly lead to the waves of caution flowing through him like riverbeds. This place should be abandoned, and he'd been checking over the years for any signs of IT resurfacing, the ultimate threat that makes nuclear war look like a common cold. He'd made sure nothing with such a threatening demeanour could have taken root here or anywhere else in the city formerly called Manhattan...
So why did the smell of life start coming from here all of a sudden?
'This can't be good...' The male thought, narrowing his eyes into slits while he clenched his fists within his pant pockets. If there were signs of life in this place he could think of only one thing that could be the cause, and the very IDEA sent chills unfelt for years down his spine. 'How the fuck...did I not notice this? How long has this been going on? I thought I eliminated any trace of that THING years ago! I should be...!' Thoughts more worrisome than the last circled through his mind, fuelling him with the strong urge to investigate.
Yet that wasn't all going on inside his emotional spectrum. Like old gears turning after prolonged lack of use, sensations he'd not felt for a long time rose to the surface, his body experiencing imitations of a racing heart so loud that it sounded like it were next to his eardrums. The thought of something new, something different, an anomaly that cut into the same routine he'd done for so long now, filled his grey world with colour for the first time in forever.
From grey to bloody crimson.
These feelings mixed with the sense of urgency, panic and dread exploding down his gullet as the male dashed into the abandoned station...
Eerie-looking lilac-coloured trails flowed behind him.
Penn Station had a series of different floors and the like when it had been in its prime, some even persisting after the abandonment when the building started to collapse over time due to lacking maintenance. Only two such floors remained now, the main one and the one which the male wanted to check out: the underground floor.
The floor once had tunnels connecting the island to the mainland with train lines, only for these connections to have been severed during a massive operation that humanity's survival hinged on. Where trains had once stopped at to deposit passengers before returning to the other side, 'bridges' one could consider them. It was this floor that he wanted to check out, for it was where he was getting these strange sensations from... implying that something slumbered down there unbeknownst to him.
That was what he needed to change, immediately.
Landing in front of a set of stairs, the male stood straight before stepping forwards to one of the platforms. He intended on scouring every platform he could get to, which would be all of them thanks to it being him of all people, minor obstacles like piles of rubble didn't exist in his eyes.
The atmosphere remained quiet, eerily so as he pocketed his hands inside his pants as he stepped towards the yellow safety line. The line that usually warned people to stay away from lest they turn into a paste on a train's body when they came speeding to port. In these times, it served no other purpose than a remnant of a forgotten history as the male hopped over it and onto the train track below before he turned to one of the darkened tunnels.
Peering into the shadows, the male scowled under his breath as he unpocketed his hands in preparation. In his past experiences this type of situation usually meant that diving into the unknown would end in a bloodbath... for everyone other than him. They also implied a great threat he had to put down before it could cause massive amounts of damage, he'd lost count of how many such things had happened in the last few years of his life. Right now that darkness not only LOOKED uninviting but like a minefield with mines hidden behind means unperceivable for him.
Not like this would stop him, however, as the male started strolling forth towards the darkness and soon entered it like he was jumping into the depths of hell itself... sounded like a paradise compared to where he was now. As the darkness began to envelop him and his senses, the male's eyes slowly lit up with an eerie, sinister lilac purple horizontal glow as if they were inferred sensors, violent electrical energy starting to cackle outwards from them.
With each step he took, the male felt the cool embrace of former Manhattan air get replaced with something else, a breeze being the best way to describe it. He'd felt breezes before on especially windy days overlooking skyscrapers and remained like an edge lord, but this breeze... something about it felt different. Foreign... alien even.
Alongside this, the darkness around him grew thicker and thicker the further from the daylight rays behind him. The male's glowing eyes narrowed slightly while his fists clenched in preparation for both habits, as well as instincts. The closer he enveloped himself in the darkness the greater his caution and irritation became, for darkness signified different things to him than most people. For most, it implied a need to rest, a sense of solitude and safety within a cosy bed a warm house lush with daily luxuries they take for granted.
For him... it was completely different.
Soon enough the darkness became so thick that he could hardly see his feet, the only thing reminding him of where they were being the sounds they made as they collided with the tracks beneath him. It honestly surprised him that the darkness had become this way to a point where even HIS eyes were struggling to pick up the way forwards, this usually didn't happen to him as in the past even when he had no light source his eyes saw perfectly well in the dark.
That alone would have set off alarm bells inside his head if it weren't for the fact that something even worse held his attention: that IT was silent.
It was NEVER silent.
Even during his isolation where little activity could have stimulated it, every second had been consisting of IT changing something inside of him, something that could be improved or varied in a way. This wasn't anything new to him, IT was designed to be highly adaptive to the point where 'ruthless efficiency' undersold its threat to the natural order. He'd tried to keep away from areas that stimulated IT the most after running a few quick tests, not wanting IT to develop any ways to leave this prison of theirs, but it never truly stopped growing, evolving, and changing.
But right now, IT had gone completely silent in the wake of whatever this darkness was, going completely mute before it was like being sucked into a vacuum. Never had he even CONCEIVED the possibility of something existing that could halt the personification of evolution itself, a force of nature so unpredictable that any attempt to understand its workings proved a futile endeavour even to those who host it.
Whatever was responsible for this... had to be POWERFUL.
Which made the impending conflict even MORE important... as well as exciting as hell.
Before long, his trek through the tunnel began nearing its end when he noticed a bright light in the distance. His eyes widened briefly in confusion at the sight, before they narrowed when he sensed the same sensations from before coming from it... making it the source he was looking for. Whatever this thing was it had to be powerful if it were capable of doing this, even he couldn't even begin to comprehend the situation going on right now which made him feel... puny. A feeling he'd not felt in many years, and he did NOT like it.
That didn't mean he wouldn't investigate though, he wasn't any kind of bitch.
So he stepped closer to the light with each tap his footwear made, and as he did so the light seemed to glow brighter and brighter. Strangely enough, even with his danger sense on high alert right now he didn't feel any kind of threat from this anomaly. He felt nothing from it at all, and that unnerved him as he clenched his fists tightly. Not being able to feel IT changing in his body felt like he'd lost all his clothing, quite uncomfortable despite still feeling its presence. He remained glad for that silver lining.
Before long the light erupted into a bright flash when he got close enough, enveloping his entire consciousness as a wave of fatigue washed over him.
The last thing he heard before unconsciousness took him, would be a soft-as-hell female voice echoing from both around him and in his mind at the same time.
'Please... help me...'
It had been YEARS since he lost consciousness last, and that was no joke.
Back then he'd been a completely different person than he was today with bright grins, hopes, and dreams filled with naive grandeur. With a type of female for a partner, a few crushes who were way older than him, you know the typical guy shit. Perhaps back then one could call him an ordinary dude with a future, though that'd be further from the truth since the one thing he'd wanted most had been denied him since birth, and it took a heavy price to pay for it.
That price wiped out most of those things for him, turning him into a shell of that once vibrant self.
Alright, that's enough of him feeling sorry for himself, he needed to awaken and dissect his surroundings.
(Play Neptunia Rebirth 1 - 100$ here)
Opening his eyes with a pained groan at the thundering headache threatening to split his head in half, the young man had expected to be... well, in several places each more eldritch or twisted than the last. It had been his only thought process due to imagining what it was that brought such sensations to his prison. He'd expected twisted fleshy walls, pustules filled with twisted monstrosities that'd give even veteran generals nightmares for the rest of their lives. He'd thought he'd see some horrific abomination of life, warped into existence thanks to some unwary schmuck getting too close to that which they never should have.
What he did not expect, was to wind up inside of a bedroom... a GIRLY bedroom at that.
Cream-coloured walls resembling the sun with their brightness, attached to a matching ceiling and a wooden tiled floor. Fortunately, not cream-coloured, but there was a cream-coloured carpet with a reddish-pink border around it in the room's centre. Off to the side, stood a two-seater couch with pinkish-red cushions and a bronze frame, a freaking SYRINGE of all things leaning against the wall next to it. Next to it were some racks holding some sets of outfits of some kind, quite fluffy-looking ones at that. Next to the opposite wall looked to be a wooden desk/chair set with a mirror and all kinds of accessories lined up on it as well as in some in-built drawers. Then there were the wooden framed windows that had pink curtains patterned with love hearts on them, which led him to gaze down at the bed he currently occupied... which had a brown wooden frame, pinkish mattress and a blanket resembling the curtains from before.
Almost immediately he realised it to be a girl's room, the likes of which he had never seen before. It had a steep contrast to the usual bleak and dreary atmosphere his prison had, the complete opposite. He had to wonder about the girl's mental state for having all this cream-coloured stuff, ESPECIALLY when he eyed the massive Syringe that'd rival a rocket launcher in size, making him wonder just what it'd be used on. Anyone with a fear of syringes would probably call it a manifestation of the devil.
It was only thanks to IT that he'd adapted quickly enough so that the colour didn't force his eyes shut with their blindness. But the sight nonetheless affected him as much of his demeanour shifted, awed curiosity mixing with the caution flooding his system as the final vestiges of cobwebs got burned off his brain.
A feeling he hadn't experienced in years.
What the hell was this?
Who lived here?
Why was he in this strange place no man should ever come across?
Where the hell did that strange light come from?
So many questions flooded his mind at once that he didn't have time to process it all. There were just too many and not enough answers here, answers he needed to find as soon as possible as he threw the covers off his form and swung his legs off the bed.
It's not like he wanted off the bed as soon as possible, not one bit.
'Alright, I'll just need to get outta here and...'
"Ah, you're finally awake! G'morning mr sleepyhead!"
"?!"
Soon enough, his eyes widened to saucers when a cheerful, upbeat feminine voice reached his ears and nearly made his breath catch in his throat. Instinctively making to activate IT at the voice's owner, he forced himself to halt the process at the last second, favouring looking to the direction that the voice came from. If anything this marked the first conversation he had with anyone in well, years, so he didn't want to mess it up not to mention he didn't want to kill anybody if he didn't have to.
The moment his gaze fell upon the voice's owner, the male felt his breath catch in his throat. Someone had indeed entered the room from the door behind them, how they'd managed to get this close to him he had no clue, though in the future he'd attribute it to his lack of time to process things. But other than that he had one other thought in his mind at the moment:
This person... looked goddamn GORGEOUS.
Standing in front of the room's sole entrance, stood a stunningly beautiful young woman. If he were to guess she'd be in her early twenties or twenty exactly, she had a fair skin complexion with creamy pink coloured hair that fell to the middle of her back, curling at the ends while being held back by a black headband with a 'C' logo on its side. Her eyes matched her hair colour too, making him initially wonder what genes existed in her to have such a colour.
She wore a rather light outfit, but no less colourful: a tan-white wool-styled tank top with a big neck and un-attached sleeves and matching styled boots, but with small ribbons/fuzzy balls at the top. A black choker wrapped around her neck while sporting a creamy pink love heart on the side. Around her waist was a red plait skirt with a small hip-mounted purse similar in shape to the heart on her choker, with her legs being covered by thigh-high black stockings with pink heart-shaped frills.
There was also this innocently kind smile on her face that matched the expression she sported, seemingly disarming many of the defences he had placed inside himself for many years in case of an attack.
"Um... uh..."
Oh shit, did he just try to speak just then? Was that raspy, ghastly voice his own? Fuck, he'd spent all those years alone so maybe his speaking ability had gone dark or something. He wanted to curse himself, especially when he saw the look of concern forming on the young woman's features as she quickly strolled up to him.
"Oh, are you okay? You sound like your thirsty...here!"
Having figured out that his voice was dry, the girl didn't hesitate to reach into her purse. She fumbled for a good few seconds while he stared up at her, unaware of what she planned for him now that she knew this weakness of his. Was she gonna try to poison him? Shove a weapon down his throat? Was this some form of psychological warfare he didn't know about? The male didn't know, but he soon got his answer when the woman pulled a bottle of water out of her purse.
"Here, this should fix you right up! Now drink and feel your HP go back to full!"
Why did she speak like this was some kind of game? Such a peculiar detail would have made him arch a brow, but right now the water looked way too inviting to care at this point. Thus he took the offered water bottle, uncapped the lid and drank about half its contents. Immediately the effects became apparent when his throat wettened and felt much better to use when he tried testing it by making some noises. Something which the girl seemed quite chipper about when he looked at her beaming smile.
"Th...Thank you... would you like...?" he began to say, internally wincing at his voice's lack of composure which could only be solved with repeated practice. But the water did help, so he offered it back to her as thanks.
Instead, she shook her head while holding her closed fists next to her sizeable bosom. "No need to worry, I got plenty left in my fridge downstairs. Water is super healthy, drink lots of it!" she proclaimed, pumping a fist with a rather... starry-eyed expression like she was gazing at the night sky or something.
Well, he wasn't going to let this gift slide so he went and chugged the rest down, feeling the liquid wetten his throat. To be honest the water didn't have that much of an effect on him, IT just made his body imitate more 'human' things so that he could pass off as one easier. After all, the best way to get at one's prey was to learn their ways and live among them.
That and the water did have SOME refreshing effects, so it wasn't a total loss.
So far though he didn't think this woman had any ill intentions and was likely just an ordinary civilian, which meant he had to be VERY careful here. This'd be his first time talking to one in years, let alone a member of the opposite sex, so he couldn't afford to mess this up. Thankfully or regretfully depending on one's POV he had discovered that IT didn't mess with his body too much in that some elements of his human origins remained, like his hormones and desires. He wasn't like a CERTAIN someone who was IT itself, but rather a host for IT.
As for why this civilian was here in Manhattan which now that he thought about it his current location was even debatable, he just had to find out.
"Again... thanks for the water, miss..."
"Ah, right! I am Compa, it's nice to meet you, mister lazybones."
'Lazybones...?' A bristle of annoyance at the term swelled in his chest, but the bright smile on the woman's face didn't imply she meant anything by it. More than that he had to wonder about the woman's name since it didn't seem like something parents even slightly competent would name their kid in fear of them being bullied for being different. "Compa...? That's..."
"Hm?"
"...nothing." The male shook his head when he saw the innocent expression on her face, unwilling to probe into that line of conversation. The girl just seemed too innocent for such talk, he wondered if she encountered any bullies in her childhood. Knowing how bad people get when deriving pleasure by bringing others beneath them AKA bullying. Bullying worked by bringing down their victims out of a sense of needing to feel better for someone, ruining their lives to make the bully feel a sense of satisfaction. It was how the youth primarily acted in such cases, though it extended into adulthood too.
But he didn't want to inquire into it lest he hurt her by mistake. Yet another first for him, how many firsts was this woman gonna take from him?
At this moment, the woman watched the stranger she'd brought to her home which to her wasn't a bother at all, specifically she watched the way he had a conflicted yet deep in thought kind of expression like those detectives wearing those long coats in those crime series. It was kind of cute in a way, and it soothed a few jitters she had developed in her gut. "What's your name, mister? Since you know mine, it's only fair I know yours instead of keeping on calling you lazybones," she questioned, question marks... floating around her head?
What the hell?
'My name...' as much as he wanted to pick her brain about the whole question marks thing since she seemingly had no problem with it, the male wondered whether or not he should use his real name or not. It wasn't something he'd forgotten like some stupid overdone amnesia plot point, but the last time he'd used it had been years ago when things had been chaotic without an end in sight. But considering that his profile had his face and name yet this one didn't try calling anyone in maybe she either had a death wish or didn't know about him.
He wanted to think it'd be the latter.
"My name's Callum. Callum Nelson."
Compa blinked once, then a few more times as she pondered on the name he gave her. "Callum... Callum..." repeatedly she tested the name on her lips but she seemed to grow more agitated each time, making Callum wonder if he'd made the wrong call and prepared to flee at the slightest provocation. Memories of the mere MENTION of his name sending entire military regimens into full alert mode or gunning down anyone suspected of being him filled his mind, igniting old instincts that hadn't been activated in five years.
However, his worries got unfounded thanks to the girl releasing a sound of frustration through her nostrils. "Mom, that's a mouthful so can I call you Cal-Cal?" she queried, aiming a hopeful gaze towards him.
Callum raised a brow as his defences fell once more, replaced by this incredulous sense as he regarded the woman before him. 'No way is my name hard to say...' he thought with a sweatdrop, remembering several people saying his name with ease back in Manhattan. Some didn't use his name instead of his Codename though, so maybe there were those with pronunciation problems there too?
Pushing that thought aside, Callum leaned back on the bed putting his hands behind him for support. "Uh, sure... maybe I can help with the spelling if you want..." he offered weakly, trying not to think of how her nickname made him think of a bullet calibre.
Though the bright smile he got, in turn, made him think he'd chosen right.
This woman didn't have a shred of malice in her, did she?
"Thanks, Cal-Cal! That's very sweet of you!"
"Though before all that am I right in assuming that this is your house I'm in?"
Compa nodded her head in response, her beaming smile shining brightly like the room's decor. "Yup! This is my humble abode! I found you when I was foraging for materials in Virtua Forest! You looked so cute sprawled on the grass that I thought you were getting your beauty sleep." she explained with a slight coo at the end, closing her eyes and recalling how she'd dropped her stuff when she'd noticed his unconscious form during her trip.
Wait, what? Callum's brain ground to a halt when he heard the name that she uttered, a name so alien to him he wondered if she were high on drugs. Virtua Forest? He'd never heard of a name like that and he had memorized all sorts of places. But judging from her body language, the male sensed that she wasn't lying either, so did he wind up in some isolated country somehow? If so what did that light do and how did it do it?
This only added more questions to his brain with no answers... never mind the fear of being called a sleeping beauty. His testosterone mind and manly pride would be crushed if that happened.
"Virtua Forest..."
"Yuppers, you were snoring so peacefully, silly Billy. You don't go and sleep where monsters can gobble you up good." Compa playfully teased while making a jaws-clamping motion with her hands and arms in front of her. A brief gust of wind got generated that made his hair shuffle a bit, but nothing more than that.
A chuckle left his lips at that. Monsters? Somehow this both added more evidence to his being in a foreign location, which worried Callum in various ways and also amused him. This woman thought these 'monsters' were a threat? Hmph, then she didn't know she was with an APEX predator, one who stood at the top of the food chain. "Monsters, huh? Sounds like fun if you ask me."
"...Are you one of those battle junkies or something Cal-Cal? Did you get hit on the head when you were a baby?"
"...I'm perfectly sane thank you, no need to aim that sad look at this badass here."
The way she eyed him implied she had difficulty believing him on that one, but Callum didn't care that much.
Nevertheless, he needed to find out where he was fast and get back to his prison before those interested parties figured out he was gone. They'd target anyone who he'd associated with in the past few years, including THOSE TWO which he couldn't let happen. "Still, monsters huh...?" He had to admit, Callum found himself confused as to what had to be considered a monster in this lady's eyes.
Again, Compa nodded her head, before a look of comprehension formed on her face as she placed her hands behind her back while leaning forward slightly. "You haven't heard of monsters before...? That's weird, did you hit your head and get a spout of amnesia? How awful... I don't think I have anything that can treat amnesia." she remarked with worry and concern both for her supplies and the male's situation.
The said male merely shook his head in denial. "Why the heck do you keep thinking I have head damage? You trying to read from a script or something?" he wondered, shaking his head again at Compa's confused expression. If this were a high school or college setting, the male could see this girl being the naive kid teased a lot in class. "Anyways, no I don't have amnesia you can count on that. I remember..." Taking a moment to pause and consider what to say, Callum decided on simply admitting what he knew. Unlike THOSE TWO he felt willing to go on a little faith with this lady. "I was walking through an underground tunnel... then this light enveloped me and next thing I know I wake up here, wherever here is..."
"How strange... monsters have been going rampant so many trains have been closed for weeks now. Maybe you encountered one with a special ability?" Compa commented, confusion only heightened by his story as she cupped her chin with her left hand imitating a detective's thinking pose. Briefly, she had the appearance of a policewoman in Callum's mind, before the image vanished seconds later.
At this point, Callum saw no way this conversation could end with anything meaningful to him. If anything it would seem that this 'Compa' girl didn't know a thing that could help answer his questions, which meant he should probably get out of her hair so she can move on with her life. No need for her to be dragged into his affairs, she was an innocent civilian with seemingly no knowledge of his true nature.
Still, there was SOMETHING she could help him with and while a part of him reasoned that it wouldn't be necessary, that part got overruled by the majority of his desire. To that end, a rather... hopeful feeling crashed into him as the silver-haired male aimed a gaze with said emotion up at the girl. He didn't know what came over him, at the time anyway, but there was just no way he'd let this conversation end here. Perhaps he enjoyed this chat more than he'd care to mention, he couldn't confirm it for himself. "...Do you think you could show me around? I wanna see where I am if that's alright of course."
"Sure!"
These skies loomed over a city located on a medium-sized island, a bastion of civilisation built many centuries ago by a society that had fought off the yolk of oppression to a domineering empire due to not wishing to pay their taxes. In the end, they took their fates into their own hands for better or for worse depending on who was asked, becoming a domineering superpower by inheriting it from the very empire they had broken away from. One could say they were an empire of their own at this point, with their reach and influence across the globe.
This city had been a beacon of civilisation, home to a great number of minds and talents which were used to foster the city's culture and development. Numerous souls got brought into existence in this city, and just as many had perished here either before their time or when the all-consuming curse of old age took hold of them.
Not to say the town was perfect, far from it with conflicts raging all around of varying forms such as political and criminal based, with tribalism having dominated the city's governing since the dawn of its inception. Numerous other issues prevailed behind the public eye, but aside from them, the city boasted a thriving tourist industry due to the famous landmarks that called this city home, boosted by it being close to one of the most popular locations in Western comic culture: new york city.
That had been what this city was... now it was that no longer.
What had once been a glorious city home to laughs, cries and brilliantly chaotic mayhem now lived under oblivious silence. Life no longer flourished in this ruined desolate graveyard of a city, its buildings either diagonally tilted or on the verge of collapsing under their weight like a timer counting down to the city's vanishing off into the ever-expanding annuls of history.
Some had already done so, becoming nothing but piles of rubble spread over the streets they had been built on, the streets themselves hardly looking better.
Rubbish once stored in bins or other garbage disposals now littered the streets with lampposts and road signs having toppled onto the roads, roads with countless chunks of concrete having been ripped out of them and haphazardly tossed off to the sidewalks and into buildings. Water exhausts and sewage systems lay exposed to the elements with not even liquid flowing through the pipes as if even the waste had long since dried up.
All in all, one wouldn't think this had been anything like a prosperous city full of life and ambition.
But it had...
And one young man of 19 had been the one to see it all.
Said a young man standing atop the ruins of a building that had once been a small store, looking up to the skies while still as a statue. The man looked to be at least 6 feet exactly with silverish grey hair as messy and chaotic as the junkyard this city had become, a pair of heterochromatic eyes (the left being blue and the other green) staring out into the desolation before him.
He stood clad in primarily light apparel: a tight black muscle shirt that clung to his athletic torso with sleeves reaching over his biceps but just above the elbow. There was a short gap between these sleeves and the matching black arm sleeves that went from just above the elbow to his wrists, of which were bare to the world. Around his waist was a black leather belt with a small sachel attached to it at the left hip, right above a pair of military camp pants that were tucked into a pair of knee-high laced military boots.
Hands moved seemingly after an eternity into his pants' pockets, as the man in question heaved a sigh, the number of which he'd made this entire day being far too large to bother recalling. He'd long since lost track of the time... or he would have had he not gotten a biological clock that was still annoyingly good at telling him how long he'd been like this. Not even a day went by when he didn't know this information, and for a time he'd wondered if that was either a blessing or a curse with many times his mind slipping into the latter category.
'5 years now...' the man thought gloomily, hopping off the side of the building and letting himself fall to the ground below. '5 long years... wonder how those two fared when I helped them escape this cesspit of a city... I hope they're living the lives none of us got the chance to have.' This thought erupted into prominence in his mind seconds before his form crashed into the ground...
THUD!
A loud thud accompanied him as a low tremor ripped through the entire island like a mini earthquake as if a small missile had slammed into it or something. His form got shrouded by dust kicked up from the impact, the male having landed on some of the undestroyed sidewalks. How long he had left before all the sidewalks looked the same to him was a question he didn't want to even consider entertaining as he slowly got up from his kneeling position and stood up straight. The dust settled, allowing him to view his surroundings as his body showed no signs of even being scratched by the fall he'd taken off a multi-story building.
5 years... it'd been 5 years since the day this city once named Manhattan had been reduced to this pitiful state with no chance of anyone coming back to repair it. Most of the world tried to forget this tragedy it seemed to him, he wasn't sure since he'd gone into seclusion after those events... not exactly by choice but he had to do so for the sake of everyone's safety. Not even many of the players in that deadly game of skirmishes bothered coming back here anymore, having moved on from the events to pursue other projects according to what he'd known from 'convincing' the last patrol team he'd come across 2 years ago... but he had stayed here nonetheless, unwilling to repeat the mistakes that led to this town's destruction.
But even though it was gone, Manhattan's demise still lingered in the form of this current husk which served as a reminder of the tragedy that unfolded here.
Placing a foot forward, the man began to stroll through the streets like he were a king or government official surveying the lives of his people... though he had nobody to survey, not anymore. He had long forgotten the sounds of merry laughter, of children playing in the parks, of cars driving in a hurry or of the general noisiness of public life had been. He expertly weaved in between the ruined streets by walking along the edges of each hole like they were tightropes, sometimes making some light jumps and hops to cover the bigger distances between him and solid ground with the male treating it as if it were some obstacle course for a parkour practitioner.
Before this city's been reduced to this shadow of its former self, a pair of cataclysmic events were set in motion that utterly wrecked the city beyond its ability to recover, wiping out the entire population and turning it into the ghost city that it currently existed as. The government had immediately tried to contain the horrors within a quarantine zone managed by a military group so high up the president would have to screen his neck just to look at them, but a combination of them underestimating those horrors and various other parties with their agendas rendered this city completely unsavable by the end of those events. Once the end had truly come calling the military, the government and the few survivors remaining had decided to all but abandon the city, blowing off all bridges connecting it to the mainland and leaving it to fend for itself in its final moments, washing their hands of a failed endeavour that only gave them additional human suffering with nothing to show for it.
It had been 5 years since then and every year on the anniversary of this city's destruction there was a memorial service for those who lost their lives here, he knew this again through some 'persuasion' of the patrols that occasionally visited here in the opening years following things dying down.
One would be right in saying it had been a living hell staying in this place, a hell he could have escaped any time he wanted to admittingly, but the consequences of which convinced him otherwise. He'd been here since the beginning of things, he was the last of the Manhattan population, it was and still is his duty to keep the horrors contained within away from humanity as a whole. He may no longer have the right to be among the race he'd been born into, but the mistakes that led to all this shouldn't be repeated anywhere else...
He'd also be protecting future generations from himself too considering HE was one of those horrors in the first place.
'Still... how things got like this haven't been completely unearthed even by me...' the male thought as he wandered over to what had once been called times square, where the final battle had been moved to by the players who'd taken part in it. The most important sight to him to the level of it rivalling a holy sight for a church or religion or some shit, for it held some questions that even now he had not found the answers to.
He'd not been able to see what had happened during the final battle despite being there himself, he'd been rendered unconscious during the initial stages due to the enemy pulling a fast one on his ass. By the time he had regained his bearings, the battle had been concluded, there weren't any signs of life in the entire city and both his ally alongside his enemy had vanished off the earth's face. No matter how many times he searched through the island, from the tiniest cracks to the tallest crevices he had not been able to track down even a tiny trace of 'those two', as if they had been wiped from existence in its entirety.
Were they dead? Were they alive? He didn't know, nor did he have the ability to find out which was the worst part about this to him. Going from someone with very little ability to having the power to change the course of thousands, to then having that ability ripped away from him right when he'd gone through hell and back many times over... felt like a goddamn smack in the face. After everything, EVERYTHING he had gone through why did fate see fit to deny him the ability to fight when he needed it the most? What the hell kind of bullshit was this?
He hated this. He HATED IT.
Thoughts like these had circulated through his mind for years now, ever since he first entered this period of self-imposed isolation. In the initial months, he'd been fuming, rampaging across the island chucking anything he could get his hands on. More than a few poor souls had tried to stop him like they thought in their hubris they had a chance to do so when entire military organisations had failed every time they tried. Their fates had been sealed the moment they came across his path.
Internally he'd lost count of the number of families he'd taken loved ones from who'd only been doing their jobs.
It didn't take long before the male finally paused his trip down memory lane, one of many he'd taken, when he came to the place where everything began for this city that'd reduced it to this state of being:
Penn station.
The building that once served as a way of travel beneath the ocean and the earth itself, is now another desecrated reminder of what had once been a marvel of civilisation. The male stood before its main entrance with his hands pocketed inside his pants, head leaning back slightly to take the building in with better clarity. To him, it brought back the memories of bustling industrial activity, of children walking with their parents back and forth while adults came and went between the island and the mainland. Street vendors and small businesses made their living selling services to travellers, while the station staff did their jobs to keep it from all coming apart. What had once been a hub of human activity...
Now a shadow of its former self, though he'd long since lost the ability to cry or shed sorrow about it.
'To think that I once wished to ride one of these trains to some other state, like Brooklyn or Queens...' The male thought with a mirthless chuckle at the memories of innocence, of a time when things weren't so bad for everyone else. Keywords 'everyone else' there. He remembered when he once, as a child, asked his nurse what it was like riding trains since he'd heard she had been on a few journeys to see relatives, and how she'd complained that they were often tightly cramped and there'd been more than a few times a guy tried to cop a feel of her ass in all the confusion. Though she mentioned it was way worse in a place called Japan wherever that was, he hadn't been sure at the time.
Now though, thinking back to her face his currently late teen self viewed her as incredibly attractive. Though it'd be a face he'd never see again.
As memories of past experiences flowed through his head, the male eyed the abandoned station for a moment before his eyes slightly narrowed. His prior reverie vanished, replaced with a building confusion that quickly lead to the waves of caution flowing through him like riverbeds. This place should be abandoned, and he'd been checking over the years for any signs of IT resurfacing, the ultimate threat that makes nuclear war look like a common cold. He'd made sure nothing with such a threatening demeanour could have taken root here or anywhere else in the city formerly called Manhattan...
So why did the smell of life start coming from here all of a sudden?
'This can't be good...' The male thought, narrowing his eyes into slits while he clenched his fists within his pant pockets. If there were signs of life in this place he could think of only one thing that could be the cause, and the very IDEA sent chills unfelt for years down his spine. 'How the fuck...did I not notice this? How long has this been going on? I thought I eliminated any trace of that THING years ago! I should be...!' Thoughts more worrisome than the last circled through his mind, fuelling him with the strong urge to investigate.
Yet that wasn't all going on inside his emotional spectrum. Like old gears turning after prolonged lack of use, sensations he'd not felt for a long time rose to the surface, his body experiencing imitations of a racing heart so loud that it sounded like it were next to his eardrums. The thought of something new, something different, an anomaly that cut into the same routine he'd done for so long now, filled his grey world with colour for the first time in forever.
From grey to bloody crimson.
These feelings mixed with the sense of urgency, panic and dread exploding down his gullet as the male dashed into the abandoned station...
Eerie-looking lilac-coloured trails flowed behind him.
Penn Station had a series of different floors and the like when it had been in its prime, some even persisting after the abandonment when the building started to collapse over time due to lacking maintenance. Only two such floors remained now, the main one and the one which the male wanted to check out: the underground floor.
The floor once had tunnels connecting the island to the mainland with train lines, only for these connections to have been severed during a massive operation that humanity's survival hinged on. Where trains had once stopped at to deposit passengers before returning to the other side, 'bridges' one could consider them. It was this floor that he wanted to check out, for it was where he was getting these strange sensations from... implying that something slumbered down there unbeknownst to him.
That was what he needed to change, immediately.
Landing in front of a set of stairs, the male stood straight before stepping forwards to one of the platforms. He intended on scouring every platform he could get to, which would be all of them thanks to it being him of all people, minor obstacles like piles of rubble didn't exist in his eyes.
The atmosphere remained quiet, eerily so as he pocketed his hands inside his pants as he stepped towards the yellow safety line. The line that usually warned people to stay away from lest they turn into a paste on a train's body when they came speeding to port. In these times, it served no other purpose than a remnant of a forgotten history as the male hopped over it and onto the train track below before he turned to one of the darkened tunnels.
Peering into the shadows, the male scowled under his breath as he unpocketed his hands in preparation. In his past experiences this type of situation usually meant that diving into the unknown would end in a bloodbath... for everyone other than him. They also implied a great threat he had to put down before it could cause massive amounts of damage, he'd lost count of how many such things had happened in the last few years of his life. Right now that darkness not only LOOKED uninviting but like a minefield with mines hidden behind means unperceivable for him.
Not like this would stop him, however, as the male started strolling forth towards the darkness and soon entered it like he was jumping into the depths of hell itself... sounded like a paradise compared to where he was now. As the darkness began to envelop him and his senses, the male's eyes slowly lit up with an eerie, sinister lilac purple horizontal glow as if they were inferred sensors, violent electrical energy starting to cackle outwards from them.
With each step he took, the male felt the cool embrace of former Manhattan air get replaced with something else, a breeze being the best way to describe it. He'd felt breezes before on especially windy days overlooking skyscrapers and remained like an edge lord, but this breeze... something about it felt different. Foreign... alien even.
Alongside this, the darkness around him grew thicker and thicker the further from the daylight rays behind him. The male's glowing eyes narrowed slightly while his fists clenched in preparation for both habits, as well as instincts. The closer he enveloped himself in the darkness the greater his caution and irritation became, for darkness signified different things to him than most people. For most, it implied a need to rest, a sense of solitude and safety within a cosy bed a warm house lush with daily luxuries they take for granted.
For him... it was completely different.
Soon enough the darkness became so thick that he could hardly see his feet, the only thing reminding him of where they were being the sounds they made as they collided with the tracks beneath him. It honestly surprised him that the darkness had become this way to a point where even HIS eyes were struggling to pick up the way forwards, this usually didn't happen to him as in the past even when he had no light source his eyes saw perfectly well in the dark.
That alone would have set off alarm bells inside his head if it weren't for the fact that something even worse held his attention: that IT was silent.
It was NEVER silent.
Even during his isolation where little activity could have stimulated it, every second had been consisting of IT changing something inside of him, something that could be improved or varied in a way. This wasn't anything new to him, IT was designed to be highly adaptive to the point where 'ruthless efficiency' undersold its threat to the natural order. He'd tried to keep away from areas that stimulated IT the most after running a few quick tests, not wanting IT to develop any ways to leave this prison of theirs, but it never truly stopped growing, evolving, and changing.
But right now, IT had gone completely silent in the wake of whatever this darkness was, going completely mute before it was like being sucked into a vacuum. Never had he even CONCEIVED the possibility of something existing that could halt the personification of evolution itself, a force of nature so unpredictable that any attempt to understand its workings proved a futile endeavour even to those who host it.
Whatever was responsible for this... had to be POWERFUL.
Which made the impending conflict even MORE important... as well as exciting as hell.
Before long, his trek through the tunnel began nearing its end when he noticed a bright light in the distance. His eyes widened briefly in confusion at the sight, before they narrowed when he sensed the same sensations from before coming from it... making it the source he was looking for. Whatever this thing was it had to be powerful if it were capable of doing this, even he couldn't even begin to comprehend the situation going on right now which made him feel... puny. A feeling he'd not felt in many years, and he did NOT like it.
That didn't mean he wouldn't investigate though, he wasn't any kind of bitch.
So he stepped closer to the light with each tap his footwear made, and as he did so the light seemed to glow brighter and brighter. Strangely enough, even with his danger sense on high alert right now he didn't feel any kind of threat from this anomaly. He felt nothing from it at all, and that unnerved him as he clenched his fists tightly. Not being able to feel IT changing in his body felt like he'd lost all his clothing, quite uncomfortable despite still feeling its presence. He remained glad for that silver lining.
Before long the light erupted into a bright flash when he got close enough, enveloping his entire consciousness as a wave of fatigue washed over him.
The last thing he heard before unconsciousness took him, would be a soft-as-hell female voice echoing from both around him and in his mind at the same time.
'Please... help me...'
It had been YEARS since he lost consciousness last, and that was no joke.
Back then he'd been a completely different person than he was today with bright grins, hopes, and dreams filled with naive grandeur. With a type of female for a partner, a few crushes who were way older than him, you know the typical guy shit. Perhaps back then one could call him an ordinary dude with a future, though that'd be further from the truth since the one thing he'd wanted most had been denied him since birth, and it took a heavy price to pay for it.
That price wiped out most of those things for him, turning him into a shell of that once vibrant self.
Alright, that's enough of him feeling sorry for himself, he needed to awaken and dissect his surroundings.
(Play Neptunia Rebirth 1 - 100$ here)
Opening his eyes with a pained groan at the thundering headache threatening to split his head in half, the young man had expected to be... well, in several places each more eldritch or twisted than the last. It had been his only thought process due to imagining what it was that brought such sensations to his prison. He'd expected twisted fleshy walls, pustules filled with twisted monstrosities that'd give even veteran generals nightmares for the rest of their lives. He'd thought he'd see some horrific abomination of life, warped into existence thanks to some unwary schmuck getting too close to that which they never should have.
What he did not expect, was to wind up inside of a bedroom... a GIRLY bedroom at that.
Cream-coloured walls resembling the sun with their brightness, attached to a matching ceiling and a wooden tiled floor. Fortunately, not cream-coloured, but there was a cream-coloured carpet with a reddish-pink border around it in the room's centre. Off to the side, stood a two-seater couch with pinkish-red cushions and a bronze frame, a freaking SYRINGE of all things leaning against the wall next to it. Next to it were some racks holding some sets of outfits of some kind, quite fluffy-looking ones at that. Next to the opposite wall looked to be a wooden desk/chair set with a mirror and all kinds of accessories lined up on it as well as in some in-built drawers. Then there were the wooden framed windows that had pink curtains patterned with love hearts on them, which led him to gaze down at the bed he currently occupied... which had a brown wooden frame, pinkish mattress and a blanket resembling the curtains from before.
Almost immediately he realised it to be a girl's room, the likes of which he had never seen before. It had a steep contrast to the usual bleak and dreary atmosphere his prison had, the complete opposite. He had to wonder about the girl's mental state for having all this cream-coloured stuff, ESPECIALLY when he eyed the massive Syringe that'd rival a rocket launcher in size, making him wonder just what it'd be used on. Anyone with a fear of syringes would probably call it a manifestation of the devil.
It was only thanks to IT that he'd adapted quickly enough so that the colour didn't force his eyes shut with their blindness. But the sight nonetheless affected him as much of his demeanour shifted, awed curiosity mixing with the caution flooding his system as the final vestiges of cobwebs got burned off his brain.
A feeling he hadn't experienced in years.
What the hell was this?
Who lived here?
Why was he in this strange place no man should ever come across?
Where the hell did that strange light come from?
So many questions flooded his mind at once that he didn't have time to process it all. There were just too many and not enough answers here, answers he needed to find as soon as possible as he threw the covers off his form and swung his legs off the bed.
It's not like he wanted off the bed as soon as possible, not one bit.
'Alright, I'll just need to get outta here and...'
"Ah, you're finally awake! G'morning mr sleepyhead!"
"?!"
Soon enough, his eyes widened to saucers when a cheerful, upbeat feminine voice reached his ears and nearly made his breath catch in his throat. Instinctively making to activate IT at the voice's owner, he forced himself to halt the process at the last second, favouring looking to the direction that the voice came from. If anything this marked the first conversation he had with anyone in well, years, so he didn't want to mess it up not to mention he didn't want to kill anybody if he didn't have to.
The moment his gaze fell upon the voice's owner, the male felt his breath catch in his throat. Someone had indeed entered the room from the door behind them, how they'd managed to get this close to him he had no clue, though in the future he'd attribute it to his lack of time to process things. But other than that he had one other thought in his mind at the moment:
This person... looked goddamn GORGEOUS.
Standing in front of the room's sole entrance, stood a stunningly beautiful young woman. If he were to guess she'd be in her early twenties or twenty exactly, she had a fair skin complexion with creamy pink coloured hair that fell to the middle of her back, curling at the ends while being held back by a black headband with a 'C' logo on its side. Her eyes matched her hair colour too, making him initially wonder what genes existed in her to have such a colour.
She wore a rather light outfit, but no less colourful: a tan-white wool-styled tank top with a big neck and un-attached sleeves and matching styled boots, but with small ribbons/fuzzy balls at the top. A black choker wrapped around her neck while sporting a creamy pink love heart on the side. Around her waist was a red plait skirt with a small hip-mounted purse similar in shape to the heart on her choker, with her legs being covered by thigh-high black stockings with pink heart-shaped frills.
There was also this innocently kind smile on her face that matched the expression she sported, seemingly disarming many of the defences he had placed inside himself for many years in case of an attack.
"Um... uh..."
Oh shit, did he just try to speak just then? Was that raspy, ghastly voice his own? Fuck, he'd spent all those years alone so maybe his speaking ability had gone dark or something. He wanted to curse himself, especially when he saw the look of concern forming on the young woman's features as she quickly strolled up to him.
"Oh, are you okay? You sound like your thirsty...here!"
Having figured out that his voice was dry, the girl didn't hesitate to reach into her purse. She fumbled for a good few seconds while he stared up at her, unaware of what she planned for him now that she knew this weakness of his. Was she gonna try to poison him? Shove a weapon down his throat? Was this some form of psychological warfare he didn't know about? The male didn't know, but he soon got his answer when the woman pulled a bottle of water out of her purse.
"Here, this should fix you right up! Now drink and feel your HP go back to full!"
Why did she speak like this was some kind of game? Such a peculiar detail would have made him arch a brow, but right now the water looked way too inviting to care at this point. Thus he took the offered water bottle, uncapped the lid and drank about half its contents. Immediately the effects became apparent when his throat wettened and felt much better to use when he tried testing it by making some noises. Something which the girl seemed quite chipper about when he looked at her beaming smile.
"Th...Thank you... would you like...?" he began to say, internally wincing at his voice's lack of composure which could only be solved with repeated practice. But the water did help, so he offered it back to her as thanks.
Instead, she shook her head while holding her closed fists next to her sizeable bosom. "No need to worry, I got plenty left in my fridge downstairs. Water is super healthy, drink lots of it!" she proclaimed, pumping a fist with a rather... starry-eyed expression like she was gazing at the night sky or something.
Well, he wasn't going to let this gift slide so he went and chugged the rest down, feeling the liquid wetten his throat. To be honest the water didn't have that much of an effect on him, IT just made his body imitate more 'human' things so that he could pass off as one easier. After all, the best way to get at one's prey was to learn their ways and live among them.
That and the water did have SOME refreshing effects, so it wasn't a total loss.
So far though he didn't think this woman had any ill intentions and was likely just an ordinary civilian, which meant he had to be VERY careful here. This'd be his first time talking to one in years, let alone a member of the opposite sex, so he couldn't afford to mess this up. Thankfully or regretfully depending on one's POV he had discovered that IT didn't mess with his body too much in that some elements of his human origins remained, like his hormones and desires. He wasn't like a CERTAIN someone who was IT itself, but rather a host for IT.
As for why this civilian was here in Manhattan which now that he thought about it his current location was even debatable, he just had to find out.
"Again... thanks for the water, miss..."
"Ah, right! I am Compa, it's nice to meet you, mister lazybones."
'Lazybones...?' A bristle of annoyance at the term swelled in his chest, but the bright smile on the woman's face didn't imply she meant anything by it. More than that he had to wonder about the woman's name since it didn't seem like something parents even slightly competent would name their kid in fear of them being bullied for being different. "Compa...? That's..."
"Hm?"
"...nothing." The male shook his head when he saw the innocent expression on her face, unwilling to probe into that line of conversation. The girl just seemed too innocent for such talk, he wondered if she encountered any bullies in her childhood. Knowing how bad people get when deriving pleasure by bringing others beneath them AKA bullying. Bullying worked by bringing down their victims out of a sense of needing to feel better for someone, ruining their lives to make the bully feel a sense of satisfaction. It was how the youth primarily acted in such cases, though it extended into adulthood too.
But he didn't want to inquire into it lest he hurt her by mistake. Yet another first for him, how many firsts was this woman gonna take from him?
At this moment, the woman watched the stranger she'd brought to her home which to her wasn't a bother at all, specifically she watched the way he had a conflicted yet deep in thought kind of expression like those detectives wearing those long coats in those crime series. It was kind of cute in a way, and it soothed a few jitters she had developed in her gut. "What's your name, mister? Since you know mine, it's only fair I know yours instead of keeping on calling you lazybones," she questioned, question marks... floating around her head?
What the hell?
'My name...' as much as he wanted to pick her brain about the whole question marks thing since she seemingly had no problem with it, the male wondered whether or not he should use his real name or not. It wasn't something he'd forgotten like some stupid overdone amnesia plot point, but the last time he'd used it had been years ago when things had been chaotic without an end in sight. But considering that his profile had his face and name yet this one didn't try calling anyone in maybe she either had a death wish or didn't know about him.
He wanted to think it'd be the latter.
"My name's Callum. Callum Nelson."
Compa blinked once, then a few more times as she pondered on the name he gave her. "Callum... Callum..." repeatedly she tested the name on her lips but she seemed to grow more agitated each time, making Callum wonder if he'd made the wrong call and prepared to flee at the slightest provocation. Memories of the mere MENTION of his name sending entire military regimens into full alert mode or gunning down anyone suspected of being him filled his mind, igniting old instincts that hadn't been activated in five years.
However, his worries got unfounded thanks to the girl releasing a sound of frustration through her nostrils. "Mom, that's a mouthful so can I call you Cal-Cal?" she queried, aiming a hopeful gaze towards him.
Callum raised a brow as his defences fell once more, replaced by this incredulous sense as he regarded the woman before him. 'No way is my name hard to say...' he thought with a sweatdrop, remembering several people saying his name with ease back in Manhattan. Some didn't use his name instead of his Codename though, so maybe there were those with pronunciation problems there too?
Pushing that thought aside, Callum leaned back on the bed putting his hands behind him for support. "Uh, sure... maybe I can help with the spelling if you want..." he offered weakly, trying not to think of how her nickname made him think of a bullet calibre.
Though the bright smile he got, in turn, made him think he'd chosen right.
This woman didn't have a shred of malice in her, did she?
"Thanks, Cal-Cal! That's very sweet of you!"
"Though before all that am I right in assuming that this is your house I'm in?"
Compa nodded her head in response, her beaming smile shining brightly like the room's decor. "Yup! This is my humble abode! I found you when I was foraging for materials in Virtua Forest! You looked so cute sprawled on the grass that I thought you were getting your beauty sleep." she explained with a slight coo at the end, closing her eyes and recalling how she'd dropped her stuff when she'd noticed his unconscious form during her trip.
Wait, what? Callum's brain ground to a halt when he heard the name that she uttered, a name so alien to him he wondered if she were high on drugs. Virtua Forest? He'd never heard of a name like that and he had memorized all sorts of places. But judging from her body language, the male sensed that she wasn't lying either, so did he wind up in some isolated country somehow? If so what did that light do and how did it do it?
This only added more questions to his brain with no answers... never mind the fear of being called a sleeping beauty. His testosterone mind and manly pride would be crushed if that happened.
"Virtua Forest..."
"Yuppers, you were snoring so peacefully, silly Billy. You don't go and sleep where monsters can gobble you up good." Compa playfully teased while making a jaws-clamping motion with her hands and arms in front of her. A brief gust of wind got generated that made his hair shuffle a bit, but nothing more than that.
A chuckle left his lips at that. Monsters? Somehow this both added more evidence to his being in a foreign location, which worried Callum in various ways and also amused him. This woman thought these 'monsters' were a threat? Hmph, then she didn't know she was with an APEX predator, one who stood at the top of the food chain. "Monsters, huh? Sounds like fun if you ask me."
"...Are you one of those battle junkies or something Cal-Cal? Did you get hit on the head when you were a baby?"
"...I'm perfectly sane thank you, no need to aim that sad look at this badass here."
The way she eyed him implied she had difficulty believing him on that one, but Callum didn't care that much.
Nevertheless, he needed to find out where he was fast and get back to his prison before those interested parties figured out he was gone. They'd target anyone who he'd associated with in the past few years, including THOSE TWO which he couldn't let happen. "Still, monsters huh...?" He had to admit, Callum found himself confused as to what had to be considered a monster in this lady's eyes.
Again, Compa nodded her head, before a look of comprehension formed on her face as she placed her hands behind her back while leaning forward slightly. "You haven't heard of monsters before...? That's weird, did you hit your head and get a spout of amnesia? How awful... I don't think I have anything that can treat amnesia." she remarked with worry and concern both for her supplies and the male's situation.
The said male merely shook his head in denial. "Why the heck do you keep thinking I have head damage? You trying to read from a script or something?" he wondered, shaking his head again at Compa's confused expression. If this were a high school or college setting, the male could see this girl being the naive kid teased a lot in class. "Anyways, no I don't have amnesia you can count on that. I remember..." Taking a moment to pause and consider what to say, Callum decided on simply admitting what he knew. Unlike THOSE TWO he felt willing to go on a little faith with this lady. "I was walking through an underground tunnel... then this light enveloped me and next thing I know I wake up here, wherever here is..."
"How strange... monsters have been going rampant so many trains have been closed for weeks now. Maybe you encountered one with a special ability?" Compa commented, confusion only heightened by his story as she cupped her chin with her left hand imitating a detective's thinking pose. Briefly, she had the appearance of a policewoman in Callum's mind, before the image vanished seconds later.
At this point, Callum saw no way this conversation could end with anything meaningful to him. If anything it would seem that this 'Compa' girl didn't know a thing that could help answer his questions, which meant he should probably get out of her hair so she can move on with her life. No need for her to be dragged into his affairs, she was an innocent civilian with seemingly no knowledge of his true nature.
Still, there was SOMETHING she could help him with and while a part of him reasoned that it wouldn't be necessary, that part got overruled by the majority of his desire. To that end, a rather... hopeful feeling crashed into him as the silver-haired male aimed a gaze with said emotion up at the girl. He didn't know what came over him, at the time anyway, but there was just no way he'd let this conversation end here. Perhaps he enjoyed this chat more than he'd care to mention, he couldn't confirm it for himself. "...Do you think you could show me around? I wanna see where I am if that's alright of course."
"Sure!"