Chapter 42: Versus monstrous worship!

"Yeah, babe, I've got enough of myself and any sisters you wanna bring along." Mack stated to an older woman who caught his eye while outside of a nail salon. Mack turned his head over towards the window as he felt eyes spying on him. The cult's heir's girlfriend was eyeing him full of daggers before he went back to flirting with the woman. Jasira marched out with a sadistic smile and stepped in front of the woman herself, then punched the woman so hard in the gut she dropped to her knees. Mack walked back and away from his girlfriend as she continued to give the deadly glare he found himself receiving from her earlier and made an expression of disgust from the smell. "Not very low profile of you, Jasi." Mack commented as he grinned with glee. "You're goin' ta end up like the skank if you continue yapping." Jasira replied as she began walking away. "Speak, talk, yap, babble, sassy, something else like you." Mack responded as he followed her. "Save being persistently annoying for when we track down that vigilante, doofus." Jasira replied as she squinted after turning herself his way. "But why, It gets me off seeing you fired up." Mack replied as he looked at her in leggings. The two make their way from the salon to the last location scene, the scene of the mayor's death that has news outlets reporting and the public reacting to and shocked by. The current elected chief of police allowed the two onto the crime scene after dismissing the other officers. "I really don't get it. Did I overestimate the Mayor or underestimate the kid that couldn't even land a blow on me?" Mack asked out loud but with a whispery voice before whistling for her attention as he knelt down in front of a gun in the corner. "Didn't you get your answer thanks to his death." Jasira replied as she began the process of using her powers as the two found themselves very stumped and lacking sufficient clues except one during their investigation of the entire area. "One or a few of them aren't strangers to guns. Control, he was a fan of it and often enhanced his goons. Jasi, one of them got overrun from the sheer numbers of the Mayor's forces, I'm assuming the weak link and he resorted to using a gun to kill off the Mayor's officers." Mack deduced before he moved out of the way for Jasira and her golden retriever. "Still artistically forming his gift for you into a useless dog, ever heard of a cat?" Mack asked as he confidently grinned with the intent to irk her. "At least, I don't let my girlfriend top me." Jasira asserted as her wolf reverted its shape into a thin smoke trail. "What?" Mack was confused by her comeback leaving him furthering his confusion as she returned the question, before following the thin trail. Mack rolled his eyes as he followed her, assuming her comeback was something he would personally find disgusting. 

"I'm gonna need to think about that." Derek said in his head as he hung up the phone. Derek sat on a crate that was placed on a roof as he practiced his Ashen practice. He shaped his right arm as he was comfortable on the crate in and out of the form of his lost limb before he began flexing a muscle after every six repeats. The beautiful and graceful bird Derek recognized as Fenella flew down and landed on his armored left shoulder as usual as the hour was turning into a young evening and the sun was on its path to set and he clicked off a call with a new friend from this city. "Ella." Derek called out as he sat down on the edge of a roof. "I'd love to know how you consistently manage to find me after you've flown off and why do you still stick by me ever since?" Derek monologues as he pet her. "Will it be you and I against whatever else in this world and this service to the purlieu? Will I be able to maintain a friendship with these guys when this problem ends for us?" Derek continued as he found his calm in the bird. "You have a strange effect on me. A welcomed one, something of a warmth— should I welcome the company of the thoughts that I get the better of me when you're around?" Derek stated then asked as he stared down at the city streets and the citizens. "I've never liked to betray my moral compass, most of us humans probably would rather not, the night with the Mayor, Rey's dad with his own story that I want to listen to, made me remember growing up being taught and enforced in my mind that there's always another path through an obstacle. More than a single solution against the evils we face in our lives, some paths prove more dangerous and uncomfortable than others but most of the time I've walked down those ones, maybe sometimes with a hint of a thrill I've been told." Derek halted and looked at Fenella reminding himself that she was a bird before she and him heard strange loud and long moans of pain. Derek looked down and saw an average Joe gripping his head before his hair turned gray among his limbs becoming inhuman. The rest was happening to many of the others around the city forcing him to ask questions. "I've cried enough in the past, the moments that it takes for tears to roll down my cheek could be used to let us make the death of the cult happen already. Your project, though?" Reynard asserted in response to Anthony's question but then turned towards the Mechanic. "You'll need to have stolen a ton of a leprechaun's luck to not faint in astonishment, Ooh whoo!" Amin gloated about his project. "Just— are you really sure you're alright right now?" Anthony continued to bug without realizing it. Reynard stared at him with an unamused expression for a minute. "I swear to the eternal grave raider's heart that I'll be alright, I'm alright, it had to be done or it never would've been. We'd have been wiped away if we let him live. We've still got a fight we're closer to finishing. Let's stay on that now." Reynard assured and eased his longtime anonymous informant and latest friend. Anthony, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed, covered his eyes with his hat. "Okay. I simply just couldn't imagine it though." Anthony replied as he looked at him. Before Reynard could ask Amin a question, a communications device Derek gave to him to keep contact from anywhere rang prompting him to interrupt himself and answer assuming that it was the hero. 

"What's this project you've been working on that I've been told about?" Anthony asked as he walked towards Amin as Reynard walked out past him. Amin looked up while on one knee and one hand held out towards a small robot but he looked at him with an upset expression. "You only ever gave us information and dipped so when you did that with this place and left us to investigate it, we were lost more than you probably thought. Now you see how well we've cleaned it up." Amin replied as he continued but began grunting. "Yep. I got back in touch when you had a few updates, speaking of which, should we tell Mis— Derek what we know?" Anthony inquired Amin's thoughts. "I can't see why right now but it's not up to me. Anyway, I never knew I was capable of controlling it and success in this doesn't come cheap. My father's prized treasure, I found more of his notes buried in here shortly after you let us know about this place. This was a mechanical guard beyond any scientific method to accurately determine its age; he and Mist-Affliction dug it up while it was buried in a dark and deep cave someplace in Norway on a spelunking assignment. Misty had beaten it up well after it attacked them but after procuring some tools he found near the same location before conveying it through countries when the mission was finished, he fixed it up and he wanted my brother to help him figure it out prior to the— incident that he found himself in but now it's in my hands, that is thanks to you, and after struggling to turn it on, this next part is easy." Amin informed him further. Amin grunted before standing back on his feet with the mechanical guard turning on and standing up beside him. Amin lightly shadow boxes swinging left and right hooks. "Yo, so what's the situation where you are?!" Reynard asked as he answered the call. "I'd like to know how you're so strong when it comes to— maybe this was a mistake to call about this right now?" Reynard heard Derek ask as if he was lost. The former officer turned rebel against the cult demanded that his friend not hang up. "You think about it. You don't take your mind from it. You keep it in your head but know that it's not inherently wrong. You let the justification consume you, act as your god. Intentions guide the actions and the two combined can create the definition of what you're doing. For me, it's the justice for the unfortunate victimized by this evil that allows me to go through with it. Anthony was asking earlier how I could go through with it and get over it as great as I've been managing, that's how, what I've seen when I was under the illusion? Peace and order isn't coming from this god that's showing up, it's a demon that's healing to bring an apocalypse. Let's not force each other to follow the other's methods but hopefully that helps if you're struggling with feeling that you had a fault. Clearly, I'm the trigger." Reynard clarified over their conversation. "Appreciate that, I've got to get back to this." Reynard from Derek over the phone. Reynard hung up after he announced his exit then heard a noise. 

"Aw, was that the cute little lady named Mist-Deemer?" Reynard heard from a woman's voice before he turned his head and squared up as he was trained. Reynard leapt out of the way of an oversized stone fist slamming into the spot where he was standing previously. "Speedy, El Camaron!" Reynard heard from the man who accompanied the woman as Mack overwhelmed the rebel with his speed. Reynard stepped a few jabs before he attempted to counterattack which failed and he was forced to eat the rest of Mack's furious flurry. The cult's heir stopped with a devious grin after Jasira reminded him of his promise to her and backed off of the rebel with a persistent grin of his own. Jasira summoned clouds of smoke which formed into a nude figure of a Mack. "Disgusting." The inspiration himself commented as he stood back and watched. Reynard realized the construct he was against didn't have the accurate speed of the true villain himself. Eventually, the fight fell out of Reynard's favor because the rebel's moves weren't effective. "Ease up on the guy just a bit, we still need to question him about the location of the others to end this for our Basa of the great Lord Enenra's favor or this time he might literally separate our heads from our bodies." Mack reminded Jasira, leaving her distracted as she gave him a pouty face, Reynard kicked the stone construct before he grabbed a sharp throwing knife from a pocket in his jacket, the construct remained lifeless yet moved on its own to rescue her and speedily grab the knife as it was soaring, forcing her full attention back toward him. Reynard froze with a nervous expression before Jasira had the construct reform into a vicious Lion with smoke emitting from his mane then had it ferociously pounce on him. Reynard and the Lion form construct struggled against one another physically, rolling and wrestling, until he got it on its hind legs and had an easier handle of it. "Physically more capable than I thought. As strong as one of the Mistress' students." Mack commented in his head as he observed him combat the beast construct.