A sharp metallic sound echoed. His eyes widened as the wall sizzled.
In half a second, the wires inside lit up, and he instinctively leap out the door — A blinding flash and a deafening roar erupted behind him.
As he tumbled over the ground, a searing wave of heat washed over his back. His mask clattered to the floor, while the hairs in his neck standing up as the loud boom reverberated across the hall.
He sat up, watching the simmering flames inside the burning room. He wiped his face with a sigh, "Of course it was rigged…"
Still on the ground, he looked up and saw a figure standing on the other side of the hall.
A civilian? No, who is he?
His eyebrows curled curiously. He picked up his mask and slowly got back up.
Drawing his white weapon, before cautiously walking check, where he found a young man, and noticed a glint from behind the standing figure. His mask reflected on the small camera of a drone hovering in the hall.
With a loud whir, it began to fire at him.
"Damn it!" Felix swung his white gun like a baseball bat, fending off against the hail of projectiles. The impact sending him skidding backwards. His feet scraped further back on the floor, until his back was pinned against the bright peach-colored walls.
Many of the bullets slipped by him and struck him straight in the chest and arms and legs. His coat prevented his death, but most of the impact bruised and beat him from within.
The drone paused to reload, giving the agent a moment to collapse to his knees.
His blood dripped from under his white metal mask. His white metal mask — a metal harder than titanium — had shown scratches.
"Whoa, you agents are something else." The figure whistled and took a step closer, "How are you still alive?"
Disoriented, the agent lifted his head up to look at the figure. Through blurred vision, Felix saw a young man with bright orange hair and a black star tattooed underneath his left eye. His face was vaguely reminiscent to that of a performer, while he wore a brown, fur-lined jacket.
"Are you… who are you—?"
"Answer my question first." The orange-haired jester interrupted, seeking to exchange information.
The agent chuckled through the pain, "Bullet-proof coat."
"Oh, oh really? So, then, if I do this, then it won't kill you?" He clicked on a button, and the floating machine once again struck Felix with a volley of lead.
A sadistic grin formed on his face, torturing the agent for his amusement.
"GRAAAGH!!" Felix shouted as his body was pummeled with bullets.
Through the loud rattle of the machine gun drone, the jester mused, "You know, it's strange how not a single one of my drone's bullets hit you where your coat is very clearly open…" Pointing towards the clearly open section of Felix's coat.
He then pressed on a button that made the drone stop its attack, "Since you answered my question, it's only fair that I answer yours.
The young man placed his hand on his head, and in it, a jester's hat flickered and appeared. His small braid dangled down as he introduced himself with a performative bow, "I am Moritz the Magician."
"Moritz… the magician?" Felix echoed weakly, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek, "Were you… the one who did that to those people…?"
"Did the holes in their bodies not make it obvious enough, or do I need to turn them into Swiss cheese?"
"Bullets holes… so it's not… hrm." Felix came to a quiet conclusion before quickly shaking his head, "Why? Why did you do that to them?"
"They got too close, so I thought I'd have some fun with them. Run a few tests. Now tell me who you are." The young jester, Moritz, said as he pulled off Felix's mask and threw it to the side.
Felix took a thin inhale to answer, and glared at Moritz, "Blue Phantom."
"That's pretty edgy. Is it because your eye glows? How did you even do that? Is it illusion tech?" He shot out several questions with a mocking grin.
"It's because… you're gonna be black and blue by the time I'm done with you." The agent forced out a strained laughter, a facade of composure, as he slowly pushed himself back up against the wall.
"Hah, that's funny. But I'm a little busy with a business transaction, so let's make this quick. You said it was because of your bullet-proof coat that you're alive, so what happens when I do this?" He mused as he pulled up the black, bullet-proof coat and slipped a pistol close to his chest.
Felix winced. His heart pounded harshly, the muzzle just a few inches away from his heart. He closed his eyes, and a voice echoed from his thought, 'what it means… to be… an esper.'
A vision quickly flooded his mind — A memory of a burning, golden star forming right in front of him.
The air started to crackle, and a faint blue haze outlined his body.
A vicious scowl formed on his face as he glared at the jester, yet both of his eyes shined with a radiant blue this time.
"Do you feel that, Felix?" The voice of Luna echoed in his mind during the middle of this battle.
Felix's body began to grow hot, and the veins around his arms and neck became visible as his body began to glow from inside. The outline crackled, and slowly transforming into transparent, crystal-patterned flames that enveloped him.
Moritz's soulless black eyes widened, he took a step back at the sight of the burning blue man in front of him, but his eyebrows furrowed and he steeled his resolve.
The jester pulled the trigger, but the bullet it shot out suddenly stopped in the space between his gun and Felix's chest, suspended by the blue light.
A wide space opened up between the two, as Moritz leapt back for his own safety, watching the agent slowly getting up.
Felix tightened his grip on his white gun, Agony.
His mind sunk to its depths, to where he envisioned his sister holding a crimson spear. "Your anger and regret, can you feel it swirling inside you? The storm raging inside your heart… Can you call upon it?" Luna asked.
The azure flames exploded and amplified several fold.
"Holy shit!" Moritz exclaimed as a gust of wind push against him.
"I'm not… sure…" The young boy with mismatched eyes answered to his sister's odd question.
"I thought you had a goal in mind? There's someone you wanted to see, right?" She asked.
"Oh… right." He responded meekly.
"If you still have that regret, that anger in yourself, then yer gonna have to make use of it. Let yer anger manifest, materialize it into the real world..."
Felix raised his weapon. His grip was so tight that the weapon in his hand clattered. The glowing blue shroud around his body started to get sucked into the back of the white gun.
"I know but… I can't." The young Felix remarked.
"You can't?" The silver-haired woman, Luna, sighed, "Look… if you ever meet again, will you be able to protect her? Will you able to take their hand if they reach out to you?"
He remembered staring into the dark sky, watching the vortex of clouds form just before the blizzard struck. It's spiraling motion etched into his mind.
Moritz stood there astounded as he watched the flames spiraling into a single, focused point, "Oh shit—!"
As he pulled the trigger, an azure tornado through the air — Spiraling blue flames whipped and ravaged the halls with burning, tendril-like excess, with the ear-piercing blare of a power drill. And as soon as it met contact with it's target, Moritz was sent crashing him against wall with tremendous force, and blood and saliva burst out of his mouth.
With heaving breaths, Felix's hand began to quiver.
After one long inhale, his white gun fell on the torn surface of the floor, and he dropped to one knee.
All out of strength, he tried to level his breathing. He looked around as the glistening haze dissipated with a crackling sound. The floor, walls, ceiling, appeared to have been shredded in a repeating helix-like pattern, like it had been drilled through.
The dark-haired agent looked at his quivering fingers, and felt each rushing heartbeat in his veins. He then looked at his white gun with a dumbfounded expression, amazed at the devastation it had caused.
"...the professor also wanted me to tell you that Agony is special. It's an improved version of Anastasia's gun, and that it's specifically designed to convert and handle as much power you put into it and turn it into ammunition, even while you're still learning how to control it."
Were the words that the Chief said to him as he received his new weapons.
"It worked…" The blue-eyed agent excitedly muttered to himself.
~