What was going on? Riana couldn't think or see straight. The sudden flash of light had completely knocked out her vision. She found herself kneeling on the floor, her eyes firmly shut by reflex as she was trying to get a hold of herself. All around her, she could hear strange sounds…… singing? What? She could have sworn she was hearing some strangely soothing chorus coming from her surroundings, as surreal as that would have been considering their current situation. Through her squinted eyes, she felt the blinding light from her surroundings begin to dissipate. She tried to slowly open her eyes whilst standing back up on her two feet. Her vision was blurry and shaking, but the vague, foggy outlines of her surroundings soon cleared up enough for her to make sense of things.
And what she saw stunned her. She saw… Ezra, the Origin, hovering mid-air. Rays of light enveloped him like some holy aura. That might as well have been the case, since she made out a halo levitating above his head, and two pairs of feathery, flowing wings materialising on his back. His white lab coat, previously tattered, now looked like some sort of holy robe with all the light coming from his figure. An angel? What– what? What kind of Ability was that? An Ability that turned its Origin into an angel? Out of her seven years working at the Cordiale, Riana hadn't ever heard of such an Ability. That being said, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Abilities in general lacked any formal classification or categorisation, though Riana was aware attempts had been made in the past. Most of them had failed due to the sheer variety and unpredictability of Abilities out there. Still, from her experience, she could tell there were general, vague groupings. There were Abilities that allowed Origins to manipulate certain forms of matter or energy, Keith's water manipulation being an example. Besides that, there were also Abilities that improved an Origin's biological functions, such as skin hardening, flight, superhuman strength or speed. All these types so far were all rather common. Then there were rare Abilities that worked based on human concepts or principles. Her Ability Arsenal was one of them, and it allowed her to "temporarily materialise any weapon capable of being fully operated by a single individual". How long these weapons lasted depended on the size and complexity of the materialised weapon, ranging anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. Anyways, in Arsenal's case, it was the concept of "weapon" which placed it in this category. She was aware there were other types, such as hybrid Abilities, which granted their host Origins a multitude of powers, but those tended to be quite rare.
But what about Ezra? Looking at it, she had to guess his Ability was similar to her Arsenal. An Ability that granted the powers of an angel would fall under the category of "human concepts", after all. Especially considering Ezra hadn’t turned into a mass of eyeballs and wings, so his “angel” appearance wasn’t even biblically accurate, as far as she could tell. But putting his Ability’s questionable appearances aside…it was on a whole other level. Origins in general were usually atheist, though there were religious communities, but Riana wasn't part of them. Still, looking at the scene alone… she couldn’t help but revere such an awe-inducing sight. It was almost as if an angel had descended to save them from their current predicament –wait– no, focus! Ezra had been about to be crushed to death! Where was the abomination–oh.
Taking her eyes off Ezra, she scoured the scene, only to find the abomination that had previously been towering over the man, lying dead on the street floor. All across its mutilated corpse, glowing white swords were jutting out, having pierced the abomination in over a dozen places. It was an overwhelming display of power. Ezra himself hadn’t moved a single step from where he stood, and yet in a brief few moments, he’d overwhelmed and killed an abomination capable of taking the detonation of a HEAT anti-tank warhead head on. This was— yeah, this was a whole other level.
“Holy fuck.”
Fully registering the scene before her, she couldn’t help but gasp aloud. Right, this was absurd. Wait, Ezra had this much power? This brought up a dozen more questions onto her mind. How in the world was he a researcher, out of all things? Based on combat ability alone, this was clearly beyond your average–no, even high-level operatives like her and Keith. Not only that, if the man had this much power, why didn’t he use it back then in the cave? They could clearly have avoided this whole situation in its entirety. He could have saved lives. Lots of lives. Yet they all died back there, with only the three of them, alongside Richard, surviving till the end.
Snapping herself out of her thoughts, Riana turned to look back at Ezra again, only to find something out of place. Well, something out of place besides the whole angel wings, halo, holy light and heavenly chorus from seemingly nowhere. The man, whose back she was facing, was uncannily motionless. She cautiously asked, “Ezra? You good buddy?” No response was forthcoming, which was concerning, to say the least.
Picking herself up, she approached Ezra, cautiously eyeing him from behind as she watched for any sudden movements from the man's side. Her steos were cautious. She didn't quite understand why, but the unresponsiveness and silence of the man was almost eerie, especially coupled with the ludicrous amount of power he had just shown. He was still there, right? He wasn’t about to lose control and go berserk, hopefully.
She continued on, step by step. She contemplated calling out to the man again, until a strange pressure suddenly halted her in her tracks. All of a sudden, she felt an overpowering pressure pressing against her whole body, and found herself struggling to lift even a foot off the ground. Could this be–? Was this…… Aura? Unbelievable. Aura was a side-effect emitted when powerful Abilities were used purposefully without restraint, yet it was also unbelievably rare. From what she knew, Aura was known by Origins more through stories than actual instances of it being displayed. Something almost mythical. In fact, she had only been able to recognise this pressure as Aura from the get-go due to the single experience she’d ever had with it three years ago, on a mission to support a Division in some large-scale mission. Back then, she hadn’t even come close to the ongoing battle, rather she had been stationed far behind as back-up. Yet the feeling of helplessness she felt when faced with the Aura from the battlefield had etched itself into her memory.
But even that wasn’t as bad as the Aura she was feeling now, probably due to the close proximity between her and Ezra. It was domineering, overpowering, even. Her muscles felt stiff and unresponsive, and her head was completely filled with warning signals blaring non-stop, screaming at her to get away, to hide. Not that she could have even if she wanted to, with her whole body paralyzed by fear. It was different from being paralyzed by those abominations. That had been a fear of death–painful death, but this……this was almost instinctual. Like a prey paralyzed in the face of a predator. For the second time since back then in the Crack, she felt so weak… so powerless. Upon arriving at that thought, she felt like gnashing her teeth in frustration and anger. She’d spent seven years here, training and perfecting her skills, ready to be more, yet her world and self-confidence had been so easily shattered like glass in the face of raw power. So this was what a top-tier Origin was like. Just the mere act of them unleashing their Ability without restraint was enough to completely dominate their vicinity. If this was what the upper-echelons of the Cordiale were like, she could see how the organisation had remained so stable all this time, even within the unpredictable world of Origins and Abilities.
"Ezra! Get a hold of yourself! What's going on?!" From behind, she heard Keith yell towards the man. Looking besides his running figure, she saw the slumped figure of the abomination that had been suffocated to death. Guess Keith had been successful, though the man himself looked worse for the wear as he ran over. It was just when he had called out to Ezra, that he was abruptly stopped by the Aura currently dominating their vicinity. Riana heard another voice cry out, "What's happening?! What–what in the Lord’s name……" She heard the voice of Lionel's father. Turning her head, she saw that he had gotten his family’s jeep running, and had driven it out onto the street not too far behind them. She was honestly glad the family of three hadn't just left without them.
Shifting her head, Riana turned back to face Ezra, who was still standing there motionless. She couldn’t see his expression since his back was still turned on her. She desperately fought against the Aura still suppressing her body, and managed to get her voice out. A tint of anxiety dyed her words as she spoke out, trying to raise her voice above the weird angelic chorus that made her words difficult to hear. “Ezra, look buddy. I don’t know what’s happening with you right now, but we really need to get going. These abominations are one thing, but once abominations from the other portals start coming out, we’ll be overwhelmed.” She paused to check for the man’s response. Nothing.. Swallowing her saliva, she continued on, “Hey, we seriously need to–” Her words were cut short upon seeing the sight of Ezra abruptly falling to the ground. Following the man’s fall, all the other holy-like phenomena were abruptly cut short. The holy light radiating from Ezra’s body quickly dimmed as he fell, before disappearing in its entirety. The singing also stopped, and both the angel wings and halo wings began fading away like haze. The oppressive Aura coming from the man also receded, finally liberating her body from its oppressive shackles.
“Ezra!!” With the man’s Aura that had been stopping her now gone, she rushed forward, calling out his name. Coming to a stop beside his motionless figure on the ground, she immediately began checking on him. His eyes were shut close, and he was completely unresponsive. Thankfully though, it didn’t seem that the worst had come to pass. Breathing, check. Pulse, check. Though she didn’t have the time nor expertise to run a more thorough analysis, she judged he was probably just unconscious. Arriving besides her, Keith also seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, before lifting Ezra’s motionless figure off the ground. With trained, smooth movements, he pulled Ezra’s arms up, before hoisting the man’s body above his own shoulders in an impromptu fireman's carry.
“Alright, let’s move.” With that short confirmation, they began running towards the jeep, with Ezra on Keith’s shoulders. WIth the angelic singing now gone, and her mind cleared, Riana could make out the distant sound of explosions. I'm sorry. As she got up on the jeep, she had to remind herself that there was nothing they could do. There were no immediate civilians in their vicinity left to evacuate, and they didn’t have the leeway to go around looking. Fighting even a single monster could attract others, much like how her and Keith fighting the first abomination had drawn in the second towards the jeep. With Ezra unconscious and out of action, all it took was one horde of monsters swarming them and it would have been over for her and Keith. As guilty as it made her feel, they couldn’t forfeit their own lives in a vain attempt to save others. Since when had I been so… weak?
Taking a seat within the jeep besides Keith, she told Lionel’s father, “Let’s get moving.” The man himself seemed a bit apprehensive, clearly about the whole out-of-the-world scene he had just witnessed of the two of them fighting, alongside Ezra’s whole angel thing. This wasn’t even mentioning the fact there were probably still people he knew within this town, fleeing or in the midst of being killed. He must have wanted to save them too, or perhaps he would have been too frightened as a civilian to risk wanting to save them? Riana couldn’t blame him for whichever side he leaned towards. Still, she was a combatant here, she needed to give him the push. “I know this all very sudden, and I’m sure you must be worried about your friends and family here, but we need to–” The man cut her off. “I know, I know. Either way, our family hadn’t been here for all that long. We didn’t have any close friends here anyways.” She was cut off-guard by the lack of hesitation within the man’s cold voice, until she saw his grim expression. She knew that face all too well. It was the face of someone ready to do whatever it took to protect his family. She knew, because she saw her father make the same face in his last moments, something which had never left her mind, even after all these years. She saw the man briefly turn towards his wife and son, Lionel, who were seated beside him at the front passenger seat. He gave them a reassuring look, before stepping on the pedal. With that, they were on the move. Away from this place. Turning her head one last time, she saw the burning scene of the town behind them, growing distant as the jeep drove through a path into the woods. An escape, at last.
What was going on? Riana couldn't think or see straight. The sudden flash of light had completely knocked out her vision. She found herself kneeling on the floor, her eyes firmly shut by reflex as she was trying to get a hold of herself. All around her, she could hear strange sounds…… singing? What? She could have sworn she was hearing some strangely soothing chorus coming from her surroundings, as surreal as that would have been considering their current situation. Through her squinted eyes, she felt the blinding light from her surroundings begin to dissipate. She tried to slowly open her eyes whilst standing back up on her two feet. Her vision was blurry and shaking, but the vague, foggy outlines of her surroundings soon cleared up enough for her to make sense of things.
And what she saw stunned her. She saw… Ezra, the Origin, hovering mid-air. Rays of light enveloped him like some holy aura. That might as well have been the case, since she made out a halo levitating above his head, and two pairs of feathery, flowing wings materialising on his back. His white lab coat, previously tattered, now looked like some sort of holy robe with all the light coming from his figure. An angel? What– what? What kind of Ability was that? An Ability that turned its Origin into an angel? Out of her seven years working at the Cordiale, Riana hadn't ever heard of such an Ability. That being said, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Abilities in general lacked any formal classification or categorisation, though Riana was aware attempts had been made in the past. Most of them had failed due to the sheer variety and unpredictability of Abilities out there. Still, from her experience, she could tell there were general, vague groupings. There were Abilities that allowed Origins to manipulate certain forms of matter or energy, Keith's water manipulation being an example. Besides that, there were also Abilities that improved an Origin's biological functions, such as skin hardening, flight, superhuman strength or speed. All these types so far were all rather common. Then there were rare Abilities that worked based on human concepts or principles. Her Ability Arsenal was one of them, and it allowed her to "temporarily materialise any weapon capable of being fully operated by a single individual". How long these weapons lasted depended on the size and complexity of the materialised weapon, ranging anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. Anyways, in Arsenal's case, it was the concept of "weapon" which placed it in this category. She was aware there were other types, such as hybrid Abilities, which granted their host Origins a multitude of powers, but those tended to be quite rare.
But what about Ezra? Looking at it, she had to guess his Ability was similar to her Arsenal. An Ability that granted the powers of an angel would fall under the category of "human concepts", after all. Especially considering Ezra hadn’t turned into a mass of eyeballs and wings, so his “angel” appearance wasn’t even biblically accurate, as far as she could tell. But putting his Ability’s questionable appearances aside…it was on a whole other level. Origins in general were usually atheist, though there were religious communities, but Riana wasn't part of them. Still, looking at the scene alone… she couldn’t help but revere such an awe-inducing sight. It was almost as if an angel had descended to save them from their current predicament –wait– no, focus! Ezra had been about to be crushed to death! Where was the abomination–oh.
Taking her eyes off Ezra, she scoured the scene, only to find the abomination that had previously been towering over the man, lying dead on the street floor. All across its mutilated corpse, glowing white swords were jutting out, having pierced the abomination in over a dozen places. It was an overwhelming display of power. Ezra himself hadn’t moved a single step from where he stood, and yet in a brief few moments, he’d overwhelmed and killed an abomination capable of taking the detonation of a HEAT anti-tank warhead head on. This was— yeah, this was a whole other level.
“Holy fuck.”
Fully registering the scene before her, she couldn’t help but gasp aloud. Right, this was absurd. Wait, Ezra had this much power? This brought up a dozen more questions onto her mind. How in the world was he a researcher, out of all things? Based on combat ability alone, this was clearly beyond your average–no, even high-level operatives like her and Keith. Not only that, if the man had this much power, why didn’t he use it back then in the cave? They could clearly have avoided this whole situation in its entirety. He could have saved lives. Lots of lives. Yet they all died back there, with only the three of them, alongside Richard, surviving till the end.
Snapping herself out of her thoughts, Riana turned to look back at Ezra again, only to find something out of place. Well, something out of place besides the whole angel wings, halo, holy light and heavenly chorus from seemingly nowhere. The man, whose back she was facing, was uncannily motionless. She cautiously asked, “Ezra? You good buddy?” No response was forthcoming, which was concerning, to say the least.
Picking herself up, she approached Ezra, cautiously eyeing him from behind as she watched for any sudden movements from the man's side. Her steos were cautious. She didn't quite understand why, but the unresponsiveness and silence of the man was almost eerie, especially coupled with the ludicrous amount of power he had just shown. He was still there, right? He wasn’t about to lose control and go berserk, hopefully.
She continued on, step by step. She contemplated calling out to the man again, until a strange pressure suddenly halted her in her tracks. All of a sudden, she felt an overpowering pressure pressing against her whole body, and found herself struggling to lift even a foot off the ground. Could this be–? Was this…… Aura? Unbelievable. Aura was a side-effect emitted when powerful Abilities were used purposefully without restraint, yet it was also unbelievably rare. From what she knew, Aura was known by Origins more through stories than actual instances of it being displayed. Something almost mythical. In fact, she had only been able to recognise this pressure as Aura from the get-go due to the single experience she’d ever had with it three years ago, on a mission to support a Division in some large-scale mission. Back then, she hadn’t even come close to the ongoing battle, rather she had been stationed far behind as back-up. Yet the feeling of helplessness she felt when faced with the Aura from the battlefield had etched itself into her memory.
But even that wasn’t as bad as the Aura she was feeling now, probably due to the close proximity between her and Ezra. It was domineering, overpowering, even. Her muscles felt stiff and unresponsive, and her head was completely filled with warning signals blaring non-stop, screaming at her to get away, to hide. Not that she could have even if she wanted to, with her whole body paralyzed by fear. It was different from being paralyzed by those abominations. That had been a fear of death–painful death, but this……this was almost instinctual. Like a prey paralyzed in the face of a predator. For the second time since back then in the Crack, she felt so weak… so powerless. Upon arriving at that thought, she felt like gnashing her teeth in frustration and anger. She’d spent seven years here, training and perfecting her skills, ready to be more, yet her world and self-confidence had been so easily shattered like glass in the face of raw power. So this was what a top-tier Origin was like. Just the mere act of them unleashing their Ability without restraint was enough to completely dominate their vicinity. If this was what the upper-echelons of the Cordiale were like, she could see how the organisation had remained so stable all this time, even within the unpredictable world of Origins and Abilities.
"Ezra! Get a hold of yourself! What's going on?!" From behind, she heard Keith yell towards the man. Looking besides his running figure, she saw the slumped figure of the abomination that had been suffocated to death. Guess Keith had been successful, though the man himself looked worse for the wear as he ran over. It was just when he had called out to Ezra, that he was abruptly stopped by the Aura currently dominating their vicinity. Riana heard another voice cry out, "What's happening?! What–what in the Lord’s name……" She heard the voice of Lionel's father. Turning her head, she saw that he had gotten his family’s jeep running, and had driven it out onto the street not too far behind them. She was honestly glad the family of three hadn't just left without them.
Shifting her head, Riana turned back to face Ezra, who was still standing there motionless. She couldn’t see his expression since his back was still turned on her. She desperately fought against the Aura still suppressing her body, and managed to get her voice out. A tint of anxiety dyed her words as she spoke out, trying to raise her voice above the weird angelic chorus that made her words difficult to hear. “Ezra, look buddy. I don’t know what’s happening with you right now, but we really need to get going. These abominations are one thing, but once abominations from the other portals start coming out, we’ll be overwhelmed.” She paused to check for the man’s response. Nothing.. Swallowing her saliva, she continued on, “Hey, we seriously need to–” Her words were cut short upon seeing the sight of Ezra abruptly falling to the ground. Following the man’s fall, all the other holy-like phenomena were abruptly cut short. The holy light radiating from Ezra’s body quickly dimmed as he fell, before disappearing in its entirety. The singing also stopped, and both the angel wings and halo wings began fading away like haze. The oppressive Aura coming from the man also receded, finally liberating her body from its oppressive shackles.
“Ezra!!” With the man’s Aura that had been stopping her now gone, she rushed forward, calling out his name. Coming to a stop beside his motionless figure on the ground, she immediately began checking on him. His eyes were shut close, and he was completely unresponsive. Thankfully though, it didn’t seem that the worst had come to pass. Breathing, check. Pulse, check. Though she didn’t have the time nor expertise to run a more thorough analysis, she judged he was probably just unconscious. Arriving besides her, Keith also seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, before lifting Ezra’s motionless figure off the ground. With trained, smooth movements, he pulled Ezra’s arms up, before hoisting the man’s body above his own shoulders in an impromptu fireman's carry.
“Alright, let’s move.” With that short confirmation, they began running towards the jeep, with Ezra on Keith’s shoulders. WIth the angelic singing now gone, and her mind cleared, Riana could make out the distant sound of explosions. I'm sorry. As she got up on the jeep, she had to remind herself that there was nothing they could do. There were no immediate civilians in their vicinity left to evacuate, and they didn’t have the leeway to go around looking. Fighting even a single monster could attract others, much like how her and Keith fighting the first abomination had drawn in the second towards the jeep. With Ezra unconscious and out of action, all it took was one horde of monsters swarming them and it would have been over for her and Keith. As guilty as it made her feel, they couldn’t forfeit their own lives in a vain attempt to save others. Since when had I been so… weak?
Taking a seat within the jeep besides Keith, she told Lionel’s father, “Let’s get moving.” The man himself seemed a bit apprehensive, clearly about the whole out-of-the-world scene he had just witnessed of the two of them fighting, alongside Ezra’s whole angel thing. This wasn’t even mentioning the fact there were probably still people he knew within this town, fleeing or in the midst of being killed. He must have wanted to save them too, or perhaps he would have been too frightened as a civilian to risk wanting to save them? Riana couldn’t blame him for whichever side he leaned towards. Still, she was a combatant here, she needed to give him the push. “I know this all very sudden, and I’m sure you must be worried about your friends and family here, but we need to–” The man cut her off. “I know, I know. Either way, our family hadn’t been here for all that long. We didn’t have any close friends here anyways.” She was cut off-guard by the lack of hesitation within the man’s cold voice, until she saw his grim expression. She knew that face all too well. It was the face of someone ready to do whatever it took to protect his family. She knew, because she saw her father make the same face in his last moments, something which had never left her mind, even after all these years. She saw the man briefly turn towards his wife and son, Lionel, who were seated beside him at the front passenger seat. He gave them a reassuring look, before stepping on the pedal. With that, they were on the move. Away from this place. Turning her head one last time, she saw the burning scene of the town behind them, growing distant as the jeep drove through a path into the woods. An escape, at last.
