chapter 49

The past six months, Stalker observed Hayden and Daniel’s actions, without anything really interesting happening.

One day, suddenly, Hayden went out of Liwayway Hotel dressed in a Puting Araw initiate, greatly shocking Stalker.

“In a short six months, he already became an Initiate?” Stalker squinted his eyes in disbelief. “Usually it took about a year, right? On top of that, even Daniel… It seems that Puting Araw places a huge importance on these two…”

Stalker followed the car from a distance. When they arrived at the abandoned building, Stalker knew full well that there was going to be a good show to watch.

“Let’s see how powerful these two have become…” Stalker said in an amused tone. Abruptly, two people appeared behind him, one was dressed in a black robe wearing a plague doctor mask.

Meanwhile, the other one was dressed in a simple black long sleeve shirt with a white ‘A’ logo in front of it, along with jeans, and a black futuristic biker helmet. They were exactly the Plague Doctor and Techno that Stalker’s boss mentioned.

“Is that the kid?” The Plague Doctor spoke in a crazed tone, sounding like a typical witch depicted in movies, albeit, male version. “Oh, there’s two?”

The Stalker looked back, he was unsurprised of the two appearing out of nowhere. “Yeah, those two are Puting Araw’s new recruits. Looks like they’re treated as prodigies within it. See that black-outlined box on their chest? They’re already Initiates.”

“Interesting…” Techno spoke this time. Techno sounded like an android, robotic and emotionless. “In a short six months, they became an initiate, truly interesting….”

“Shush, that kid might hear us,” The Stalker covered them in shadows. It was only 4:00, there were still plenty of shadows for him to utilize. “Let’s observe their power for now.”

…..

“Man, guarding is so boring…” One of the guards of the abandoned factory said as he yawned. “Why are we even guarding a hideout? Wouldn’t it be more suspicious if there were guards? We’re in an abandoned part of town for goodness sake…”

“I know, right?” The thin man guarding along with him agreed. “I don’t know what the boss is thinking! It’s like, he’s inviting people to come and get u-“

Before the thin man was even able to finish his sentence, somebody appeared in front of him, punched his solar plexus, and knocked him out.

Meanwhile, the other guard was in shock due to the sudden appearance of this figure. He was going to raise his gun, but before he was able to, something hit his head, knocking him out as well.

Daniel was walking calmly towards Hayden, his right iris was gray in color, while his left iris was brown. He was the one to knock out the other guard using a pebble, which he accelerated using his earthen material manipulation stemming from the hazel iris form of God Eyes.

Daniel’s God Eyes worked like so, changing the color of his irises that grants him different powers. There were currently nine colors, red, blue, light blue, yellow, hazel, gray, black, white, and green. Red gave him the power to manipulate and generate heat and fire, blue gave him the power to manipulate water, light blue for ice and frost, yellow for electricity, hazel for earthen materials, including metals and crystals, gray for air, black is for darkness, white is for light, and green is for plants and greenery. Daniel could manipulate anything in his line of sight.

“Tsk, I really don’t like this mission…” Hayden snickered. There was no challenge at all to knocking them out. “It’s too easy to knock these guys out, don’t you think?”

‘This is our first mission for goodness sake!’ Daniel looked at Hayden with a strange expression “Stop it, they’re only regular humans, of course they’d be easy to knock out.”

“Exactly!” Hayden sighed. “They’re regular humans, yet, why are we the ones subduing them? Shouldn’t the police be the one to arrest these, while we’re only supposed to be responsible with the wielders? What if we weren’t able to control ourselves and accidentally kill a person?”

Daniel couldn’t find the words to refute Hayden at all. Indeed, Hayden’s statement was true. Daniel could manipulate nine elements, albeit, two at a time, while Hayden is simply inhuman in terms of combat prowess, physical abilities, and inherent killing power.

“You know what?” Daniel said in exasperation. “Let’s just get this over with. If that guy uses some kind of an element, let me handle him. Got it?”

“Sure, sure,” Hayden yawned. “As long as I get to take out all of the people inside this base, you can have him.”

“What?” Daniel was a little bit agitated of what Hayden said. “Are you really that bored? Damn, why are you taking this so lightly?”

“I don’t know as well.” Hayden shrugged as if he didn’t know, his face nonchalant at all. Even though Hayden seemed like he didn’t care, Daniel recognized that Hayden was taking this as seriously as he did. How? Because Daniel knew full well that this was Hayden’s calm face, where he analyzes the situation like a supercomputer. “Can we go in already?”

Daniel shook his head, walking to the huge metal door of the abandoned factory. Blasting the enormous metal door open by pushing it using his earthen material manipulation. It produced a large bang, alerting the people inside.

Walking inside the factory, the two didn’t speak, with Hayden counting the number of enemies inside through his senses. Using his seismic sense, Hayden was instantly able to accomplish this feat, in fact, he was even able to know the exact layout of the abandoned factory.

The factory was already cleaned up, with tables put inside, the gang members of Bakunawa playing card games, some had girls on their laps, while some were chatting.Ha Ha They all stopped when they heard the loud sound produced by tearing down the factory door.

“There are exactly 45 people inside,” Hayden relayed the information to Daniel. “Since you already blasted the door open, rush in?”

Daniel nodded. He planned from the start to do a head-on confrontation anyways, why would he disagree when Hayden proposed to rush in?

Subsequently, Hayden and Daniel walked inside. Hayden unsheathed the taser, planning to use hand-to-hand combat. He felt that there was no fun at all in using the tranquilizer gun. This way, Hayden was given much more of a challenge.

Plus, Hayden wanted to hone his combat skills. A chance was being presented to him willingly, why wouldn’t he accept this, right? With that, he let go of the thinking that they should be covert. Thereafter, when the gang members inside saw Hayden and Daniel walking, they were alerted, grabbing guns and melee weapons from their surroundings.

Daniel walked to the metal door on the ground and used it to make armor around himself. Meanwhile, Hayden charged to the side that he was going to take on.

Then, he used a taser on the nearest guy to him, moving on to the next target with quick efficiency. Using his Divine Perception, he perceived that there were multiple pistols pointed towards him. To be precise, there were three.

He was able to know that there were only a few guns inside the gang. At the end of the day, although Bakunawa was a domineering name, they were merely a small-time gang, rising in power only when a member awakened their Ability.

The moment the bullets left the pistols, Hayden dodged by sliding forward to the nearest gang member. This gang member swung a bat towards him, which Hayden stopped using his free left hand easily, putting the guy in a daze.

Hayden was literally on the ground, while the man put his entire force behind him. In addition, the guy was jacked, making him question what he did all those workouts for in years.

Hayden tasered his leg without hesitating. After that, he stood up, using his Capoeira footwork to dodge here and there, all the while attacking opponents on his left with the taser, and punching people’s livers with his right hand. This footwork of Hayden also allowed him to dodge bullets from the three people.

Hayden was extremely efficient in doing these moves, nothing wasted at all. At that moment, Hayden rushed towards one of the man firing a pistol at him, evading all of the people that was in his way.

The man tried to fire at Hayden, to no avail. Hayden was too agile, and it was as if Hayden could see the bullets, scaring the man out of his wits. Realizing that there was no way he’d be able to gun down Hayden, he attempted to turn around to run away.

Hayden, who saw this, almost laughed. However, he controlled himself, bursting to an extremely fast sprint with his essence energy enhancement. Meanwhile, the other gunners couldn’t get a hold of Hayden’s position, not being able to lock in. On the contrary, while they were blindly shooting, they shot several of their co-members.

Soon, the other two firing at him ran out of bullets, allowing Hayden to freely move and chase down the fleeing man. Many people tried to chase Hayden as well. Some who tried to intercept Hayden was met with Hayden’s Aikido, reflecting their forces back towards them, making them fall backwards.

Catching up to the coward, Hayden grabbed his shoulder and electrocuted his back, resulting in the man fainting. He faced to look the remaining people, those of which were still conscious. With Hayden ‘recording’ the entire fight he did, there was still 16 people on his side, with him being able to knock out nine people, while seven of which were incapacitated as collateral from their co-members’ blind fire.

“This will take too long…” Hayden mumbled, going back to the chaos. Hayden became a slippery snake the moment he went back. He was surrounded by all of the enemies, yet, none of them were able to land a hit on Hayden at all.

With Hayden being bored, he took out his two tranquilizer guns and fired at people to finish things faster. He fired at people who were resorting to running away, while he used brute force to those who attempted to beat him up

Wanting to finish the fight, Hayden jumped up and did a backflip. Mid-air, Hayden’s Divine Perception activated, his perception of time slowing down. The next few seconds, the gang members’ number dwindled down to a mere six people.

Looking at each other’s eyes, they opted to run. Cursing under his breath, Hayden fired out five simultaneous shot and left the man closest to him. Enhancing his speed to the limit, he tackled the man down to the ground and restrained his movements using his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

The man tried to struggle in futility, after all, Hayden was a master Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, fighting while being downed on the ground was as easy as breathing for him. In three seconds, the man ceased his struggle, knowing that he had no way to win anymore.

With that, Hayden quickly moved to sit on him, pulled out his karambit knife, and pointed it to the man’s throat. He threatened the man to ask where their leader was.

“Our leader?” The man was horrified out of his mind, quickly giving the answer away. “He’s in the back room! Please, let me go, I didn’t-“

Before the man was able to finish his sentence, Hayden karate chopped the man’s neck, knocking him out. Hayden looked towards the other side, only to see that Daniel finished cleaning up just now.

Precipitously, the sound of a door opening was heard, startling the two. Hayden felt an incoming danger. His air current sense allowed him to pinpoint this incoming danger. It was the leader of Bakunawa!

“I was sleeping with a fair maiden!” The leader stopped, shouting lividly. “Why do you people have to ruin it all! I was enjoying myself as well!”

Hayden saw that the leader was a thin man, with arm-length black hair, and a stature of at least 170 centimeters. The man was wearing, a gray t-shirt, a brown leather jacket on top of it, and simple jeans. The leader wasn’t handsome, but one would not say he was ugly.

Hayden and Daniel were stunned. Amidst the guns firing, people screaming, and incessant noises of fighting, along with the sound of the factory door being blasted away, this guy was still sleeping with a ‘fair maiden?’

The leader started running around. In truth, the man wasn’t actually running around, he was using the air to float around! This was noticed by Hayden with his superhuman senses and acute observational skills. In addition, he was able to perceive that the guy was moving as fast as a bullet.

There were no supersonic booms, indicating that the man was traveling at subsonic speed. Despite that, Hayden agreed that this man was faster than him, and that was taking in Indestructible Devil into account.

“Daniel!” Hayden alerted Daniel. “His Ability is related to the wind! He uses the air to make him faster, which is probably the one current usage of his Ability! You know what to do!”

Daniel nodded at Hayden. Using his air manipulation power that he got from the gray iris, he made the air around the leader return to its normal state, causing the man to propel to the direction he was running because of inertia. This worked because the man used his Ability without putting his guard up, underestimating his opponents with his tremendous speed, plus the fact that he recently awakened.

When the leader got back up, he touched his aching body. In the end, the man just recently awakened, his body was still not as strong as Hayden’s and Daniel’s, who obtained their powers six months ago.

Daniel restricted the man by manipulating the cement around him to shackle his movement on the ground. Hayden walked towards the leader with a grin on his face.

“Finally, we’re done!” Hayden exclaimed. He felt bored the entire fight, he wasn’t challenged at all. It was Aswang all over again, a pretty boring fight. “Can we go home now?”

“We can’t…” Daniel talked to Hayden. “We have to take this guy back with us. Shoot him with the tranquilizer gun.”

“Sure, sure.” Hayden rolled his eyes, shooting the leader with a tranquilizer round, knocking out the man without delay. Daniel removed the shackle, while Hayden put him on his shoulder.

The two went back to the building. All throughout the fight, Engkanto was observing and was astounded. The two were unbelievably efficient, with Daniel using his Ability to fight, and Hayden using his own combat skill without any wasted movement, even dodging bullets in the process.

Engkanto had no doubt that these two will definitely become better than him in the future, which he had no issues about as he wanted the best for Putting Araw. He did not care about power struggles whatsoever.

Engkanto phoned in the headquarters of the main branch, reporting the success of the mission to Anthony. On the other line, Anthony was absolutely astonished by this news. Engkanto told him that the duo started the mission at 4:45 AM, now, Engkanto was telling him that they finished the mission in a short 10 minutes?

Although Anthony couldn’t believe himself, he knew that Engkanto was a serious man, even if he had a laidback attitude. With that in mind, Anthony simply replied with an “Affirmative.” Afterwards, he dropped the call.

…..

Arriving back at the base, Engkanto, along with Hayden and Daniel, was back at the briefing room. Engkanto first congratulated the duo for finishing their first mission, commending their superb performance.

“Now that that’s done, you two are now Official Agents.” What Engkanto said next confused the two. “You two are also forbidden to team up, either working alone from now on or with other people. You can get missions in the mission board, or be given a mission personally by Puting Araw. The two of you will have no teams assigned to you. Whether you create your own teams, stay a lone wolf, or form temporary teams during missions, that’s up to the two of you. I am no longer your advisor.”

“Wait, what?” Hayden questioned Engkanto. “We are supposed to be partners. In addition, I thought that we had to complete at least three missions to become an Official Agent. What is this preferential treatment?”

“You mean to say you don’t accept?” Engkanto simply smiled at Hayden. “As for this ‘preferential treatment,’ it’s only logical. Your performance was commendable and efficient. The Initiate rank was given out to gain experience for the Initiate themselves, and seeing your performance with my own two eyes, I can vouch that you’re eligible for the Official Agent rank. Also, the police were given a hint when the two of you finished, they found that there was no one killed. Some were injured though…”

Engkanto gave Hayden a meaningful glance. Hayden looked away from Engkanto’s eyes and whistled, acting innocent. From this glance, Engkanto inferred that Hayden was the only one who had ‘injured victims.’

“Consequently,” Engkanto continued. “The board of directors, plus the Walong Sinag ng Araw, gave the green light for you two to be promoted to Official Agents without further testing. Your monthly trainee allowance will now be waived, only completing missions and working for Puting Araw’s 13 Divisions will give you money.”

Hayden thought about it, thinking that this was reasonable. Everything was sensible, testing them further was indeed impractical.

“Claim your uniforms later,” Engkanto said a few more words before leaving the briefing room. “Work harder, Official Agents.”

Hayden looked towards Daniel, who was looking at him. They smiled at each other, joy evident on each other’s eyes.

“See you at the top,” Hayden spoke to Daniel. “We can’t make a team, huh? I guess it’s for the best, we’re too powerful. And, well, I prefer assassinations.”

“Right,” Daniel grinned. “You’re a paranoid. Don’t worry, sneaky man, I’ll see you at the top.”

…..

Note: I’m going to keep using Walong Sinag ng Araw, and other Filipino words, because it sounds more lame if it was ‘Eight Rays of the Sun’ or, for Kamay ng Lagim’s Limang Daliri, “Five Fingers.” I hope you’ll be able to keep up with those etymologies as I will not be using its English counterparts.