"Welcome Mister Tell." Beelzebub welcomed Dawn warmly into the fold.
The order's response to the aberration that appeared in the aftermath of Ives' manifestation came in the form of a powerful hunting party.
Nearly thirty featureless masks.
Eight higher enforcers.
True masks like Beelzebub, a Hawk mask - Dawn and a female moth mask.
Dawn gave a reverent bow, acknowledging Beelzebub's presence and the moth mask.
They all crowded around the morgue building which was shut down along with all the buildings two blocks down.
"Beelzebub. What are we dealing with?" The moth mask inquired with a dull dragged out voice so unqiue Dawn had to pause and face her.
Beelzebub felt the air before him and laid down what they knew.
"A ghost. That's what we're dealing with, a particularly annoying one we haven't been able to get rid off no matter how many times we do over."
"Tampering with events didn't work?" The moth mask asked with growing tension.
Beelzebub nodded then continued, "Earlier we detected an anomaly coming from the basement of this building."
"What sort of anomaly?"
"A disturbance within spacetime itself whatever it was knocked out half the city's power."
"Can we assume it was it is the same anomaly we are hunting?" Dawn inquired sensing that they were now in a dangerous situation.
Beelzebub turned to them and said, "No."
Beelzebub who was usually quite relaxed and jovial now stood there quiet, giving off physical signs not to dissimilar to fear.
'What could make those who tamper with time itself afraid?' Dawn asked this question within himself.
"The team that went missing arrived exactly thirty minutes after the anomaly was detected, the aberration arrived minutes after them possibly drawn in by said disturbance." Beelzebub added.
"Let us go in and look for clues or have you done that already?" The moth asked.
"We would but...." Beelzebub led them into the building, everyone felt a surge of energy pass through them like they had just stepped through a wall.
"What the...?!" The moth mask exclaimed then looked further into the hospital and got the shock of her life.
The air was thin, the room much more darker than the outside despite having numerous lights illuminating its interior then as they stepped forward the concrete walls grew more misshapen and distorted.
The floor stretched forward so much they were vacant holes everywhere then the entire hallway was a mess, the architecture had been reshaped walking through it felt like walking through a straw being twisted at its end.
This continued till they reached the basement were the morgue was supposed to be and instead they found something too unnatural to have any reasonable explanation.
"Oh my God!"
"What the fuck is this?!"
"Jesus!"
Many of those present asked horrified at the sight.
The moth mask asked terrified at what she saw, "Beelzebub what am I looking at?"
In front was an endless abyss. Not a cavern or a drop off point. A black void that held no noticeable boundary both in front or beneath. No demarcation, it was as if the universe stopped existing beyond this point. Beelzebub took a stone and threw it into the space, it flew in floating steadily in a straight line before undergoing disturbing changes.
First, it throbbed then it writhed like it was trying to fall apart then it bubbled like a fluid before dissolving spreading across the dark expanse within thin streaks of itself rushing away then it sizzled and vanished completely erased from existence.
"Don't try to jump in, you won't make it far. If you do tell me how it feels." Beelzebub jokingly warned, the excitement of discovering this nightmare reigniting the flames of passion within him.
Looking into this place felt like looking into another universe, this unsettling feeling was strong enough to frighten even an order member like Dawn and apparently the moth mask.
"Can we track those who disappeared?" The moth mask asked Beelzebub.
"No. We use quantum emitters as trackers and they all collapsed. Wherever they are, I don't think they are anywhere within the universe we know."
"What if we edited this out? Send a message back, cancel the mission before it happened." The moth mask advised.
"It wouldn't work, whatever this thing is it isn't bound to linear causality. If I acted like you wished, this void would appear within the new set of events possibly swallowing people and causing a stir we won't be able to cover up. And this isn't the first time we've encountered this particular aberration, those who fought it and lost their lives didn't return in the new world. Their bodies experienced interesting changes." Beelzebub said with mirth.
"They died in the new timeline?" Dawn asked.
"Yes. Mister Tell." Beelzebub affirmed.
"My Lords, the order doesn't have the means to deal with this." One of the higher enforcers said.
"Perhaps. Not at the moment." Beelzebub contemplated.
"Let's use Ives." Dawn suggested shocking everyone present.
"You mean Rothschild, the fledgling initate?" The Moth mask asked confused.
"I apologise but you might not be aware of the recent developments." Beelzebub said.
"Mister Rothschild has been terminated for rebelling against the order."
"And how is that important?" The moth mask.
"It took the might of a full squad to bring him down. He could cause things to happen like this." Dawn added.
"What enhancements was he given?" The moth mask asked with growing interest.
"He didn't have any enhancements. Only a hollow body but he didn't use it." Dawn reported.
"How did he pose such a threat then? Was he working with another faction we don't know about." The Moth mask asked
"No." Dawn said.
"He was an Aberration?" The realisation hit the moth mask who turned to look inquisitively at Beelzebub.
"What he was, Isn't exactly clear. He was human on all scales."
"How would you tell?" The moth mask protested.
"Simple. Aberrations are singular quantum entities, no internal constituents or base structures animating their physical form. The best way to envision this is like you being able to separate an apple from every single atom and molecule that makes it up and still have an apple as an independent informational entity.
Though one much more volatile than normal baryonic mass since it would usually lose its internal energy reserve and inevitably collaspe.
A separate case would most likely be the aberration we are facing which seems to be capable of parasitizing mass from other entities, a disturbing feature that makes it a threat not just to the order but to all of humanity.
If Ives was truly an Aberration then he should have shown signs of Collaspe long ago. Aberrations only exist to convey the presence and interaction of a phenomenon not it's reality thus they have a unqiue wavelength only they give off.
He only manifested those abilities quite recently possibly triggered by a life and death situation he was in and that alone showed more than ever he wasn't one.
He could perform feats not too different from the aberration we are hunting though it is difficult to know if they have the same source and nature." Beelzebub laid out the facts.
"How did the order handle him?" The moth mask asked.
"Mister Tell. Managed to strain Rothschild enough to weaken him, constant use of his ability seemed to have very severe adverse consequences to his body. Coupled with a few neural disruptors and good timing, he was eliminated and every inch of his body was destroyed. Rothschild had too much reason to act against the order making him an unnecessary threat."
The moth mask was displeased by this, "Can we not reconsider. If he is human then he can be controlled, perform another alteration and revive him. This Aberration is too much of a danger to ignore."
Dawn stepped up to defend Beelzebub,
"I agree with Lord Beelzebub. Rothschild was a considerable risk, I was the one who put an end to him."
Dawn barely got to the end of his sentence when he lost his voice, he couldn't move and it seemed neither could anyone else.
'No!' He cried out in his head as he watched the distorted figure melt through the floor then hunching over him it spoke.
"Are you the ones who killed him?".