°°° Little Miss Spy °°° Carlos arrived at his underground study in Philadelphia and hung his gray cloak. He sighed and slumped into the archaic wooden chair closest to him. He frowned and groaned in anger before walking to his cloak to retrieve the items he had been given. He dropped three bottles in the grip of the tentacles of the three-dimensional engraftment of an octopus crawling out of a triangle. He paused and looked at the design built into the table. His scan of the insignia was brief, but in that brief moment, he felt a terrible pain, a mix of shame and regret. Not allowing himself to dwell on it, he looked away and turned his attention to the grimoire. At a glance, his frown became even more obvious. "You dumb fuck… "You didn’t ask the old man for what ritual you will be using," he groaned in frustration and threw the book on the table in anger. "Fuck you, Carlos!" he growled the words. After a minute of growling curses at himself, he sighed and
°°° Merciful Murderer °°° In the living room turned work-out gym of Lower Nine, Sean Walker, the blonde Emily Anderson, and Lower Four, the one Carlos had tagged as an imposter, was seated on the floor, shivering in fear of the unpredictable man in front of her. She couldn’t understand who or what he was. Sure, from following him around today, it was clear that he was into some mysterious things; he was probably a member of a powerful cult with actual power, but still, she couldn’t understand him. There were no signs, no aura of it. It was almost as if he had hung his occultic powers and aura behind him in the study. "Come on… Let’s not waste my time. "If you are scared that whoever is backing you will kill you if you talk, I can understand, but you also need to know that I can grant you a fate much worse than death," Carlos said still smiling. "Who are you, and what have you done with Emily Anderson?" The blonde Emily kept trembling. She tried to stop herself, but it was as
°°° Black in Black Mist °°° • South Oakland, Pittsburgh • -Lower-class condo- In the dark basement of the Lower Class Condominium, the flicking candles on an old rusty table went out one after the other as a lady hurriedly grabbed at the lit wicks of burning candles, turning them off. She kept murmuring as she selectively cleared the makeshift altar of some items, leaving others behind. This was Lower Four’s coach, Miss Jameson. "Who the fuck is that fucker though?" How did he know our senses were merged? Is he that powerful? I mean, only mid-oracles and above can discern these things, right? He can’t be that powerful. Can he? Fuck no… I perceived his aura when Emily Anderson was still alive. There was a sign that he was into something unnatural, but it was too weak for me to take note of; there is no way he became that powerful overnight. "It's been barely a week, so that is impossible," she calculated in her head and began walking to the door. "Well, if he couldn’t have gr
°°° Power of the Mist °°° "And who said we were done?" Carlos chuckled and stood up from the floor, dusting himself immediately as he stood up. "What the fuck?" Miss Jameson exclaimed with a horrified look."H-How are…" "How am I still standing?" Carlos completed the perplexed woman’s question and smiled. "Well… I’m feeling a bit generous, and you have made my job a lot easier, so I’ll explain. Oh, and you are welcome to try to escape while I talk," he grinned, a look of cruel dominance plastered unto his face."I am known by many names to many people. Carlos Wilson is just my alias at the moment. Now, about my survival: When you tried to grade me based on my aura, you were right. I barely ever release my aura. It is almost always sealed. My aura in its fullness is a weapon of its own self, heh. So, I was barely at Emily Sanders’s level this morning, but... then you two came along. "The thing about my seal is that it will automatically break to defend me if the need be. So basically,
°°° Gateway °°° In the basement of the Lower Class Condo, the Lower Nine and Lower Four coaches both looked into each other’s eyes. Miss Jameson was no longer trembling, but the look of horror on her face was still quite present. Carlos, on the other hand, remained calm and maintained his dominance. He had to be somewhere else at the moment, but he was still waiting for the lady to make up her mind with a patient smile. He was trying to get information concerning Sean, Kate, and the Cataclysm Order themselves from Miss Jameson, but he was also wisely using the time to adjust the energies flowing through his body at the moment. His seals had been damaged, and if he did not take the time to see to it that the rifts and crevices created by Miss Jameson's attacks were sealed, he risked an expansion, and he knew this body would break if more energy escaped without him resting for a while. He had maintained this aura of dominance not because he needed Miss Jame
°°° The Infernal Void °°° • Lower-class condos • In the unit allotted to Lower Nine, Sean Walker and Emily Sanders, the Lower Four imposters, sat on a workout bench in the living room turned gym. The beads of sweat on her face and her twitching at the slightest of sounds, even at the momentary complete silence, were indicators that she was scared witless. She had been assured that the risks involved in this mission were going to be little to none. She had further assured herself that with a sister as powerful as Radial Jameson, a Radial ranked at Sequence One of the Radial ranks, nothing could go wrong, but here she was, sitting in the target’s unit, not bound but afraid to leave. He had been gone for about twenty minutes, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave. She, for some reason, knew that her handler, Radial Jameson, was dead. If not literally, she knew she was dead morally and was probably being tortured. She sat in silence, afraid of the unknown. She
°°° Uncharacteristic Characters °°° After a full four minutes of pushing, Carlos was finally able to get the "table’s" lid to open up about a quarter of the way and stopped pushing. He staggered back and let himself fall into the embrace of the high-back reading chair, panting heavily. "Um... what just happened?" The confused Emily Sanders asked with eyes wide open. Is this not the same man that returned from a fight with a Sequence One Radial moments ago? "How is he straining to push this open?" she quizzed herself internally. Carlos took a moment to catch his breath, then he said, "A gate to the infernal void was just opened; that’s what happened." He really is rebuilding the Infernal Void. No one has ever been able to locate any of the three gateways, and he was fortunate enough to find them, and... could it be that he was also being honest when he said, "I am the Infernal Void"? Is this man the Black Death? "Is Carlos Wilson the Black Mist?" she thought to herself,
°°° Setting Up °°° In the well-lit underground study, Carlos sat at the study table that was a gateway to another "world," studying the Grimoire before him. Despite his heightened senses and mental activity, he had been studying for over an hour and hadn’t been able to finish up. This was partly because he would occasionally get distracted by the rituals he didn’t need and duplicate them, planning to use them for himself. Like the Ancient One had said, a war was brewing, and he was also planning to officially rebuild his "cult," as everyone was calling it. Having a few of these spells and rituals with him, he could also train some of his future offspring in this light; he could raise an army of warrior mages. He had to duplicate them immediately after he noticed them because it was expected of him to return the grimoire the moment he was done with it. The Order of Babel was definitely watching over Kate, and after he succeeds in undoing whatever was done to he