PRELUDE TO A NEW MISSION
Sparrow's gaze drifted to the window, the rhythmic drone of the lecturer fading into a background hum.
Aerodynamics. Efficient movement through air. He already understood the principles, could calculate drag and lift with an ease that bordered on instinct.
His mind, however, was currently occupied with a different kind of flight – the chaotic, unpredictable trajectory of the Grotesque Fantasy organization.
The image of Tom Matagot, the Puss in Boots, flashed in his mind - a flamboyant, lethal opponent. The encounter had been a stark reminder that there were great threats, more than even the already insane surreal creatures, lurking beneath the veneer of Mearth's normalcy.
It had already been nearly a week since the 'Vengeful Werecats' mission. For him, it had been a flurry of activities since then, most notable of all comes in the Secret Library.
They had experienced two other chances to visit the library after their last missions. Sparrow felt a flicker of warmth thinking about Canary, of her boundless enthusiasm and unrestrained creativity.
It was her idea to forcibly pull the famous psychologist and the insane villain into their library to extract their knowledge.
Dr. Nicolas Freudel, the esteemed psychologist from the country across the sea, was the first to be 'invited' to the Secret Library that week. The library, with its unnerving ability to draw consciousness from anywhere within the planet, had simply taken him when he was taking a nap.
As an unawakened, he'd been dazed and disoriented by the sudden shift to the spectral library, but the documentation process had begun regardless.
Six spectral tomes, ranging from introductory psychology to in-depth analyses of extreme cases, now occupied their places on the shelves, a testament to the library's coercive knowledge-gathering ability.
Sparrow knew that understanding the human psyche, its vulnerabilities and strengths, was crucial in combating the insidious influence of the soul invasions.
But it was Canary's audacious decision to target Tom Matagot that truly intrigued him. The sheer audacity of compelling an enemy to unwillingly contribute was breathtaking. Thinking about it, Sparrow could not help but once again admired his daredevil sister.
Matagot's contribution, the slim volume titled 'Notes on Grotesque Fantasy', was disappointingly sparse, yet contained vital information extracted without his consent.
The criminal organization, it seemed, lacked any discernible structure. No formal meetings, no central headquarters, simply a collection of individuals united under the banner of chaos.
If it wasn't for the information forcibly gleaned from Matagot's mind, they would know nothing about this criminal organization but the name and the terrorism crimes they had done.
Sparrow had to acknowledge Canary's ruthlessly effective approach, even if it made him slightly uneasy.
The key figure of the organization, one known as the Taleweaver, remained shrouded in mystery even in Tom Matagot's knowledge. He just knew him as an elderly man in a purple trench coat, with unfathomable power.
In Matagot's view, the man seemed obsessed with recreating twisted fairy tales he had never known before.
For Sparrow, the fairy tales were not unfamiliar though. They were stories from his past life, stories from Earth. Sparrow's suspicion that The Taleweaver was a reincarnated individual like himself deepened. How else could he possess such intimate knowledge of stories virtually unknown on Mearth?
The book detailed a truly unsettling cast of characters as the members of the Grotesque Fantasy. Each member seemed to derive their unsettling abilities from what the book termed 'Cursed Fairytale Fruits', granting them powers ripped straight from twisted bedtime stories.
First, there was Wanda Careboss, the Fairy Godmother. On the surface, she presented as a kindly, eccentric old woman, but beneath the façade lay a sadistic manipulator. Her powers seemed to revolve around wish fulfillment, but with a sinister twist.
Her criminal record included charges of extortion, intimidation, tortures, and cases of manslaughter disguised as accidents.
Then came the Three 'Little' Werepigs: Peter Hogtail, Paul Hogtail, and Larry Hogtail. The three burly brothers were blood-thirsty robbers notorious for their seemingly impenetrable defenses and coordinated assaults.
Their 'Cursed Fruit' ability allowed them to shapeshift into monstrous, boar-like creatures of immense strength and durability. They used these abilities to conduct brutal robberies, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies, broken buildings and terrified witnesses.
Felix Flutist, the Pied Piper Ratslayer, was very likely the most terrifying figure in the list. His 'Cursed Fruit' granted him the ability to influence the behavior of living things, especially rodents, through music played on his silver flute.
While seemingly harmless, he had been known to unleash swarms of diseased rats upon his enemies, overwhelming them in a tide of terror. He carried several charges, including inciting riots and bio-terrorism.
Next on the list, Septian Chipper, the Seven-faced Jolly Dwarf, was a master of disguise and deception. His 'Cursed Fruit' allowed him to alter his appearance, shifting between seven distinct faces and body types at will.
This made him incredibly difficult to track and identify. He was a con artist of the highest order, known for sophisticated scams that made many people committed suicide.
Then, there was Jack Barley, who called himself the Beanstalk Jack. His 'Cursed Fruit' granted him the power of accelerated growth and manipulation of plant life.
But, instead of using the power for good deeds, he chose to be an insane eco-terrorist who used the rapid growing vines to suffocate people and rapid growing poisonous plants to turn settlements into deadly forest.
Rumpelstiltskin, whose real name remained unknown, was shrouded in mystery, even in Matagot's note. His crimes were subtle but devastating, involving intricate schemes of economic sabotage and information manipulation.
It was believed that his 'Cursed Fruit' granted him the ability to manipulate language and contracts, twisting words to his advantage and binding others to unfavorable agreements. He operated in the shadows, leaving no fingerprints but causing massive financial ruin to his targets.
Finally, there was Vlad Ramcrown, the Prince Charming. He was a master manipulator, a home-wrecker who reveled in the discord he sowed, and a slave trader who thrived on other's suffering.
His 'Cursed Fruit' power granted him an unnatural allure and an ability to bend wills, making him a predator draped in the guise of a savior.
Matagot's notes had revealed that The Taleweaver distributed these fruits to all of those members of Grotesque Fantasy, tasking each member with the unclear directive to 'recreate the greatest fairy tales through chaos and darkness'. The origin of the fruits remained a mystery, but their power was undeniable.
Sparrow returned his focus on the lecture in front of him, of the knowledge he could understand. But the mystery of the Cursed Fairytale Fruits continued to flash in his mind. Where did they come from? What was their true nature? And most importantly, how could they be stopped?
...
The lecturer was still droning on about airfoils and lift coefficients. Sparrow's mind drifted back to his endeavors in his personal soulworld, Eldritch Mechworld.
He'd been in a frenzy of productivity this week, driven by the nagging worry that gnawed at him – the threat of 'Grotesque Fantasy' and the ominous implications of their Cursed Fairytale Fruits.
In Eldritch Mechworld, a junkyard landscape full of broken gears and damaged energy conduits, he'd poured his focus into strengthening their arsenal.
It was close to a month after they went for their first realmgate dive. He needed to prepare for the next dive. In the realmgate, combat was definitely inevitable, and relying on makeshift weapons, like they had in the past, was a recipe for disaster.
The inability to bring external objects into the realmgates had always been a severe limitation. Soultool cards, however, were considered extensions of their abilities, not physical objects, allowing them to bypass this restriction.
Following that line of thought, Sparrow had successfully forged two more soultool cards for the Power Gauntlets set. Now, he possessed three cards, each granting five minutes of enhanced strength, speed, and resilience. Fifteen minutes of boosted capabilities – it should be sufficient for most skirmishes, he reasoned, at least long enough to turn the tide.
More importantly, he'd created a pair of Dual Arcane Handguns as a soultool card. These handguns were not for him but for Canary. It would hopefully give Canary the ranged advantage she needed in future encounters, especially in the realmgate.
With his Power Gauntlets and the Dual Arcane Handguns for Canary, they would at least be armed enough for combat and would not need to fight with makeshift sticks or stones. Hopefully, they would be able to utilize these weapons to their fullest.
As he planned to give the soultool card of Dual Arcane Handguns to Canary, Sparrow didn't actually need to craft bullets as Canary could use her [Arcaned Energy Projectiles] for them.
However, just in case, Sparrow still created six sets of bullet magazines: two for Explosive rounds, two for Thunderbolt rounds, and two for Frost rounds. They were in the form of item cards, which meant they would enter cooldown every five minutes or once the rounds were empty and completely restored with full bullets after an hour. He wanted to provide his sister with as many options as possible.
He shook his head slightly. He was so thankful for his power. It was truly a blessing. He could not imagine how they would have survived without it.
He pushed those thoughts aside and focused back on the fact that Canary had also been busy. In Canary's case, she had contracted with another sprite card in her soulworld, Arcane Spriteworld.
This time it was Wyrm, the Earth Diver Sprite. It was a tiny sprite capable of moving underground and manipulating the earth in a small scale.
Sparrow couldn't even fathom how his sister could befriend and contract such creature. While he was forging weapons of destruction in his soulworld, his sister was out there befriending cute, quirky sprites.
'Typical Canary,' he thought wryly.
Sparrow blinked, remembering that the day before yesterday they went to the Mystery Market again to restock the items used during their last mission.
And simply by luck, this time the Mystery Market had the last two objects he needed to create real world Surreal Radar: the sacred liquid crystal and black graphene battery. He'd almost given up on finding them.
The lucky streak seemed to keep happening to him. Yesterday, Sparrow was finally able to create a functional Surreal Radar in the real world. Housed in a sleek, unassuming metal casing, it hummed with barely contained energy.
It hadn't been tested yet, but he was confident that it would be able to detect surreal entities very well and would solve their problem of being caught off guard.
Once it was tested, he should be able to sell the blueprint of the radar to MIST Union for plenty of mistpoints. The MIST Union would pay handsomely for such a device.
He glanced at his watch, a relic from his father. Almost time for class to end. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief.
...
The bell shrieking the end of the lecture was a welcome reprieve.
Sparrow, who had been mentally dissecting the theoretical applications of his newly forged soultool cards, registered the sound with a near-silent nod. He extricated himself from the hard plastic chair and followed the flow of chattering students out of the stuffy hall.
He even managed a grunt of acknowledgement to some classmates discussing the upcoming event, the dance night, a social ritual he found profoundly troublesome.
As they walked towards the parking lot, the familiar hum of his mistlink vibrated against his wrist. Sparrow felt a prickle of anticipation.
He offered a mumbled apology to his friends. "Uh… restroom," he simply said as he detoured sharply towards the nearest restroom.
Explaining the mistlink, a marvel of technology far beyond the general public's understanding, was more trouble than it was worth. Let them speculate about his mysterious comings and goings. He preferred it that way.
Inside the sterile restroom, the fluorescent lights buzzed with an unsettling energy. Sparrow ignored it, focusing on the message displayed on his mistlink's small screen. The message was from Autumn, his aunt.
"Cyclops. Urgent co-op mission. Three teams. Three Witches, Monster Squad, and Midnight Siblings. Meet at the MIST Union HQ. Before five. Mission code: 'Headless Horsewoman'."
The urgency in the message was palpable, radiating even through the cold text. MIST Union wouldn't call for a three-team co-op unless something truly significant was brewing. The MIST Union generally preferred to deploy teams separately unless the threat level was exceptionally high, or the situation was particularly complex.
On the other hand, his aunt's involvement offered a degree of reassurance. She wouldn't risk them on a truly perilous mission. This felt like a rare opportunity for him and his sister to gain valuable experience. He needed to reach Canary soon.
His first impulse was to use his mistlink, but that risked drawing unwanted attention to her, especially since she was likely still at school.
Sparrow decided the safer, albeit more time-consuming, option was to simply pick her up after classes. A less-conspicuous reunion was worth the inconvenience.