Petty Business

Over the next week, the Royal Four & Kate had dealt with another group of dissipating men and were called to Armstrong's office at the end of it.

"What took you so long?" Mia sat down with the others, Armstrong & Renault on the other side. Renault pressed a clipboard over and she read it. "…Edgar Grey. Hero name: Necromaster. This is a student?"

"A former student. Note the date he was declared rogue."

"He went missing, then? August 3rd, 2019?"

"Presumably. He hadn't hunted in over a month, and when we attempted to contact him, he had already fled."

"And his protege?"

"He told us that he had not been in contact with Edgar since May, and after our usual investigation, it was determined he likely was not an accomplice. Of course, as you'll see there: he died a year ago."

Mia frowned and texted Aimee, careful not to show anyone the photos Aimee had sent her last night.

(Mia) "Do you know Edgar Grey or Dorian Steele? Necromaster and Counterfeit? One of them may be behind attacking me."

"Why would someone like this attack Mia? He was a third-year during her first year." said Samuel. "They wouldn't have even interacted."

"That we do not know." said Armstrong. "The Revenant matches, however, and the rest will likely fall to you. I doubt the attacks will relent until Edgar is dead."

"You don't believe it could be someone using his Revenant?" said Mia.

"You mentioned they were different ethnicities, President Swarm." said Renault. Bitter over having to address her as such, he now left his office to speak with her, thinking he'd at least let his distaste be known himself. "That rules out government involvement. If it were an assassination attempt by the Russian or Chinese government, they would have all been the same ethnicity. Any other government wouldn't have done something so stupid; it would be seen as an invitation to turn their nation into a graveyard. The Revenant names you mentioned -- I reviewed them with Rewind. They're in different languages; Russian, English. It's clearly Edgar or an independent group."

There was a jingoistic logic to the man's words.

"…I suppose." muttered Mia, reading over the paper.

"It would be highly unusual otherwise, at least." said Armstrong. "He's clearly raised a few natively Russian Revenants. It's possible he had fled to Russia or somewhere in Eastern Europe - but why he would flee in the first place, and why he would return to America now, we're unaware as to why."

"Lemme see it?" said Yuruko and Mia handed it over as she checked her phone.

(Aimee) "no idea. I asked everybody else in Timepact, too"

(Aimee) "are they students?"

(Mia) "Former students, apparently. Edgar either faked his death or someone else has his Revenant now."

"The best lead we may have is his father." said Armstrong.

At the syllable of *we*, Mia gave him a look of disdain.

"He's presumably still alive, and still at his old address a few states away."

"I suppose you haven't tried to contact him?"

"We thought to leave this to you. His last known address is listed on the paper."

"Edgar might figure out we know who he is if we do." nodded Samuel to Mia.

"Yeah." said Serena, utterly clueless. She had spent three years letting someone else handle investigation & wasn't about to start now.

"…right." muttered Mia, taking the paper with her. "Anything else?"

"I assume Ms. Screwball will be acting while you're gone." said Armstrong.

"Yes."

"…uh, can I get an extension on my Phantasmology project?" muttered Yuruko.

"Ask your professor for that." said Armstrong and Yuruko sighed. Last time, he had lectured her about how when he was a student, he'd had to juggle dating three women but still obtained his certification. This was back when a fish could've lucked in to a degree, so little knowledge there was then.

Mia looked over her squadron. "We'll be driving there."

Armstrong said: "It's a- you're aware it's -"

" - I'm aware of it, and I have my reasons for it. None of them are relevant to you."

She stood and walked out, and the three followed her to the hall.

"President Swarm." nodded Kate, still standing at attention. Mia doubted she had even budged; she seemed to be one of the few Urasaria women who entirely bought into that foolishness about honor & duty. For Mia, this was convenient primarily because it made her pliable into any contract no other student wished to take.

"Kate." she nodded and relayed the news. "I have reason to believe the assassin is specifically targeting me, but while we're gone, you'll be guarding Rochelle."

"Yes ma'am."

"Uh, don't let Tiffany near her." said Serena and Mia sighed.

"For Rochelle's own good, yes. You may leave."

Kate left. Mia felt a little strange at such deference, then did not.

"Uh, so, why aren't we taking a plane?" said Yuruko. "I mean, all of us can handle getting attacked. Serena and me can create parachutes. You have ice. Samuel can just cannonball into the earth or whatever."

"Sounds right." Outcast's armor flashed.

"Er, I'm not worried about that. But even if we all survive a plane crash, it may separate us."

"Smart thinking." said Samuel. "Don't have to stop for gas, either."

"Just like that artifact trip." chimed Yuruko, and the three groaned.

++++++

It has come time again to take a brief detour into Edgar's life, and as usual with this novel, the details of the *what* has caused him to attempt to assassinate Mia is less important than *what* Edgar is. So, what will be done here is to show you Edgar in a rather human experience and allow you to make your own judgment.

He has once attended a far-right political rally in mid 2017, and there he had watched many speakers talk about the degenerates of homosexuality, the virtue of Christianity, and other white nationalist talking points; his favorite of the bunch was noted white supremacist Richard Fuentes. If you have read the news recently, you may know him as the young pipsqueak arrested for tax fraud, who delighted arguing in bad faith and trolling with the most frivolous of anti-Semitic remarks: he would joke about the Holocaust but never *directly* deny that it had happened. Press him on any particular point, and he will retreat to an ironic remark as if to indicate that the time for serious discussion had passed.

This was Edgar's idea of a great orator.

But while at the rally, Edgar had worked up the nerve to approach one of the single women in the crowd, and as they spoke, he felt this was the rare moment in his life where he was doing quite well with a woman. Too often he had his own issues with women; he rarely dated, and he despised how sexily many of them dressed, for it seemed to him a figurative flashing of their pussies at him, as if to say: "You'll never have this, you ugly shit!"

Even worse was that he indeed wanted to fuck them, which made their perceived assaults on his masculinity all the more wicked.

But while they were flirting, she had noticed something on his chest and glared at him. "Oh, God, you're a student? What are you gay?"

Edgar's face reddened, though in his mind, Necromancer's monstrous hand grabbed her head and reduced it to pulp & sinew. "No. God, fuck no. It's just the women who are deviants."

"Oh yeah, you just hang around them all day and none of that rubs off on you? God damnit -- I thought you were a decent guy, and now you turn out to be some type of fa*. Worse than that: you're a student."

"I *am* a decent guy, if you would just shut up and -- hey, what do you mean by student?"

"Oh, I don't know. How about those two million ballots, huh? Know anything about that?"

"What?"

"Yeah, I saw the news about you and your little butt-buddies driving up thousands and thousands of ballots into polling places. God damnit, "what." My business got vandalized by you little shits, lately, with your goddamn legal immunity. All you do is steal from people trying to make a living, and then you got the audacity to play stupid about it. I wouldn'ta even talked to you if I knew you were a student."

Some of the crowd was beginning to look over; other seemed to agree with the woman. Edgar was pissed and said: "God damnit, what an ungrateful bitch you are. I've been nothing but nice to you, and that's how you repay me? Well, if you're so sure I'm a fa****, I'm sure you can find some … some other slobbering cretin here who'll spread your legs and let you pop out a trailer trash baby in nine months. I swear, women like you sometimes make me ashamed to be white."

What had followed was something Edgar attempted to block out, but it had only become more deeply rendered in his mind. He had fantasized about committing his own massacre then, and while he wished he could rend his physical life as easily as his mental creations, there was an ever-present gap between the two. He was left to attempt other methods of sublimation.

First with violence, then by transferring his anger over to Fuentes, somehow: but the illogic of such meant it could not hold for long. He had long attempted to imbue himself into these speakers, for he admired them and perceived them as charismatic in a way he was not; he liked to think that in another life, he could have been them or vice-versa.

In all likelihood, why he did so stemmed from the same reason he had tried to mimic the erudition he perceived in the Nazis, reading philosophy or appreciating Western art: he wished to project the intelligence that he lacked.

Not all women gave him issues, however. There were a few he respected and even liked without the thought of sex. In late 2017, he had met an older female host (heterosexual, of course) who worked in immigration enforcement. She had been more of a mentor to him than his own at Urasaria, and could provide a reference for his future career post-graduation. He sometimes thought that while an Aryan woman, she perceived the world more like a man, for she was strict and cruel to undocumented immigrants; she was even more homophobic than Edgar.

Yet it transferred over to her treatment of Edgar, as well. When she were to yell at him or discipline him, he would endure it as he felt a man should, and not allow his weakness to show until he was at home. There he would refuse to hunt for a few days and be angered by the suggestion that he should; he lacked the ability to cope with life on any mature level. Whatever the conscious ideology of his various bigotries, it was likely justification for what played out at an unconscious level; he found both homosexuals and non-whites viscerally repulsive.

And as he was walking in New Mexico to catch a train back to Urasaria, in early 2018, he was angry again that bitch thought he was gay. But he did not worry, for he felt his career with the federal government would soon make him safe. Even if he could not find it here, he was sure he could immigrate to a country like the Ukraine and naturalize himself; there the students were not even allowed to be homosexual and there was no deviance. He would marry a beautiful yet traditional Slavic woman; he would be not only admired but needed for something greater than himself; not as a man but as his Aryan race.

A kid from the yard he is passing by punts a kickball that hits him in the leg; his skin hardens and it bounces off only a few inches, yet he still winces.

"Hey, mister, are you one of those students?"

Necromancer's monstrous hand picks the ball up, cuts it open and lets the air fizz out of it, then throws it back to the kid's face. "Get the fuck out of my sight, you little spic. I'm not gonna give you another warning."

As he continues walking, he wonders if he has now become a catalyst to something no student who later runs across this kid will be privy to the provenance of. He will carry around a resentment that, whenever a student is around, will be pulled from his back pocket, of a time when hatred was hurled his way by one just for his curiosity towards the world, and it will become a cudgel to be wielded next he encounters one. Years removed, a student will turn her ear to a Mexican teenager calling her a bitch, threaten the little shit with death, and for a moment he will still be there in 2018, where part of his ken remains lodged and not yet buoyed by time.