Aftermath

And so, thus ended my first mission. It started off pretty lame, watching prisoners for hours on end. Also, it was scary as hell! I thought they would try to do inappropriate stuff on me! I mean jeez, these people have like dozens of accounts of main slaughter amongst other things, pretty dangerous people. Not the kind of people that you would want kids to be around, Pro Slayers or not. Why would Nick give us the missions? It's almost like-it's almost like he knew that the prisoners would escape and we'd get a chance to prove ourselves in action! He definitely knew that would happen, didn't he?!

The five of us walked Cell back into the prison. He was silent, we were silent, and Cell walked back without any bit of struggle, the will to fight has completely left his body. After a while of walking, we found ourselves back at the entrance of the middle hallway. It took our group a while to get back to the main body of the prison because we walked back through the hallway in which Grover fought Rose. There were cracks all amongst the walls and ceilings, and the structure was completely unstable. But more importantly to Grover, the floor was littered with his knives, as well as a bunch of knives stuck in the walls of the facility, and so, Grover had to pick up every last knife and put them back into his pockets.

At the entrance to the middle wing, there stood Nick, waiting for us.

"Yo! Hey Luis and the gang!" He calls to us. The three other Cursed Power user inmates sit tied up in a circle.

"Leader, you got captured too?!" Naomi cries.

"Well...that's what he gets for thinking he's all high and mighty and invulnerable" Rose sighs.

"NOOOOO!" Bellows Spike. "Our plan has failed, we'll have to start a new escape plan soon! Has one got any ideas?!"

"Ha! Like you'll ever get a chance to escape! You'll never even see sunlight again!" Austin sneers.

"Yeah, like the Slayers said, give it up Spike. The four of us, we can't hope to compare to Pro Slayers, not even rookie children without any training. Let's just prepare to live the rest of our lives in solitude."

I peer over at the rest of the prisoners, as the prison guards escort them back to their cells. "They really are beat up, huh?" I say. "You guys sure did a number on them, too."

"Speaking of being beaten up, you guys look horrible!" Nick exclaims as he stares at our multitude of wounds. I glance down at my body, seeing that I am in a pretty rough condition. But then I peer back to Nick, seeing that he's soaked in blood, covered in gashes, and that his pants have been burnt off at the knee. "Hey, you don't look any better!" I cry. "Where did you go when you left?!"

"Oh, just around!" Nick laughs. When Nick stops laughing, his eyes narrow into a fierce expression of concentration, appearing to be lost in thought. I can't help but sigh. What a strange man.

"Say...Nick…" Jamie begins to say, snapping Nick out of his train of thought. "WHY DID YOU GIVE US SUCH A TOUGH MISSION!? WE ALL ALMOST DIED!"

"Ha! Speak for yourself!" Grover interrupted. "I won my fight super easily!"

"Actually, Grover, you're in worse shape than Luis, Jamie, and Austin. The only person whose body isn't destroyed as yours is Luis'," Ella chimes in. Grover mutters obscenities to himself.

"Well…it wasn't supposed to be a tough mission. Things just went awry when we had no idea that the Inmates developed Cursed Abilities," Nick answers. "But either way, you should be happy! Cursed Power thrives in combat, and I'm sure that after today, you five are much stronger than you were before!"

"Well I did get to test out my intentions and a new ability, so it wasn't too bad," Ausin smirks as he does the anime glasses guy thing.

"I mastered turning my body into both rubber and iron at the same time!" Jamie cheers.

"I did unlock a new Wave…" Ella adds with a small smile.

"Well I didn't unlock a new attack or anything…" Grover sulks.

"Well then, it looks like that's the end of our first mission," I sigh.

"Ah, there you six are!" Mr Linclon cries as he rushes over to us. Once in front of us, Mr Linclon doubles over and places his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

"Ah, Mr Linclon, say you're still alive!" Nick says. "How are you?"

"How am I? How are you?! You six destroyed my facility! You let the inmates escape, and you let Inmate Zero escape! You ruined my family's reputation of no escaped convicts in over a hundred years!" Mr Linclon screams, his plump face growing red. My ears perk up when I hear that Inmate Zero has escaped. Is that what Nick was doing?

"Well…we did suppress the uprising, didn't we? Your inmates have lost all will to escape," Nick replies. "Besides, none of them officially left the facility, other than Inmate Zero, that is, but the Slayer Organization will keep that under wraps. Also, remember what our contract said when you hired me and my squad? That the Slayer Organization isn't liable for any property damage sustained during the mission?" Nick then reaches into his suit jacket pocket, pulling out a crumpled up piece of paper and holding it up to Mr Licnlon. The ends of the paper are charred black. "It says that, right here. And you signed it," Nick says, motioning to Mr Lincoln's signature at the bottom of the page.

"Give me that!" Mr Lincoln snaps as he snatches the piece of paper out of Nick's hands and holds it up to his face to read. But when Mr Linconl sees that Nick is indeed correct, his eyes widen as his mouth hangs ajar. Nick crosses his arms and smugly smirks at Mr Lincoln. Nick does seem to destroy property a lot, doesn't he?

"Sl-sl-sl-sl-sl-" Mr Lincoln stutters as he reads the paper.

"Come on kids, let's go. It's time to go home," Nick orders as he sticks his hands into his pockets, turns around, and begins strutting out of the facility. I turn to face Mr Lincoln, shrug, turn back to face Nick, and follow Nick out of the facility, as do my squadmates.

"SLAYER HACHIIIIIII!!!!!!!" Mr Lincoln booms as the six of us exit the Lincoln Correctional Facility for good.

When the six of us exit the facility, I look up to see the setting sun overhead, only one thought ringing through my mind:

I won.

***

Bloody, mangled corpses lay strewn about the Slayer Organization's secret underground research bunker. The lights overhead flicker, as flies buzz around the bunker, feasting on the bodies of War's victim's.

No one has been to the bunker in days. No one alive, that is. No maintenance has been done, no clean up, nothing. And due to the secretive nature of the research facility, there is no one who is expecting to receive a report or -at the very least- a mere sign of life from the facility regardless.

And thus, the bunker remains scathed but empty.

That is, until a bright, transparent purple cube constructed out of Cursed Power manifests itself in the underground facility, in the center of the room holding the portal to Hell that War had appeared from. A man and a woman wearing matching sacrilegious robes then teleport into the center of the cube, as if they had appeared out of thin air. The cube then begins fizzling out and disappears entirely, as if it had been "shut off," as the man and the woman both take a step forwards, and observe the gorey ruins of the research facility.

"Ugh, what happened here?!" The woman complains as she pinches the bridge of her nose shut due to the stench of the reeking corpses.

"Remember, Queen," the man answers. "This is where the portal to Hell that War "the Calamity" of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse entered into Earth from resides."

"Well…War is long gone by now," the woman -now known as Queen- replies as she continues studying the corpses littered across the floors of the facility.

As for the man, he looks about as well, until he makes his way to the front of the room, where he sees sparks of Cursed Power flickering about a circular metallic machine. The man reaches out to touch the sparks, but before he can; they dissipate into Cursed Power, merging with the cursed Power in the atmosphere.

"King?! What is it?!" Queen calls to the man now known as "King."

"The portal to Hell that War entered through is closed!" King calls back to Queen. "You're right; War is gone. We'll have to find a different way to contact her on a later date."

King then turns around and begins strolling back to Queen.

"What are you doing?" King asks Queen, who's kneeling on the ground studying two corpses; the corpses of the Pro Slayers in which War fought.

"These two are Pro Slayers!" Queen answers as she extends both hands out to the two corpses. Small thread-like tendrils of light purple Cursed Power begin to extend from Queen's fingertips and slither through the air towards the two fallen Pro Slayers. Queen's threads of Cursed Power then begin to "sew" the corpses back together, readjusting organs that War had misplaced, pieces together bones that War had

shattered, and sewing closed wounds that War had created, until the two Pro Slayers look as good as new.

"What are you doing?" King asks.

"We're taking these two bodies back with us," Queen answers as she stands up to face King, her threads of Cursed Power retreating back into her fingertips. Queen's lips then curl up into a hideous, sadistic grin. "They'll make for excellent puppets."