Chap 132: Massage

Tee had lied to Kie and Saeda about glimpsing another Xenosapian. She ran off and reached the four-story building with the metal cabin the drunk MG official had entered. With a single leap, she landed on the concrete roof.

The large crack beneath her feet was a stark reminder of her power. She counted to ten, telling herself the MG officials in the cabin might not be responsible for the sewer bomb. But the deep, creepy voice in her head insisted they were.

“Yes, they are.”

Kie and Saeda were left to handle the young but swift Xenosapian. Kie whipped energy waves at it, but the creature dodged, sending blasts through the air that destroyed a light post and the grilles on a building. 

Saeda scolded him, “Be careful not to wreck the place!”

Engrossed in the mission, he suggested, “Why not focus on delivering stronger attacks instead of just glowing swords?”

Meanwhile, Miko and Zod were still deep in the dark sewers, searching for any Xenosapian heading toward the human cage. Miko didn’t rush ahead, leaving space for her eyes to read the tunnels. She feared running into her doom. But what they discovered was worse.

Bloody human limbs and parts trailed along the tunnels. The humans in the cage weren’t the only bait luring monsters below. Miko’s heart twisted at the realization. She had always feared Xenogene victims, but that the truth gnawed at her.

Tee pushed the strange voice in her head aside to focus. The metal door of the cabin had no handle, and no gap allowed her to see inside. She pressed her ear to it, listening. 

“Who is that white-haired maniac outside?”

“Wait a second… Didn’t we see her on the surveillance footage from around the cage?”

She was right. Those were the culprits. But had she heard correctly?

She quickly shifted her thoughts back to the hostages in the bomb cage. She formed a fist to punch the door but the low hum of electricity made her stop. The metal was charged.

She couldn’t risk punching the door. Kie would notice the burns if she told him a Xenosapian had hurt her. Instead, she punched a hole in the wall beside the door and kicked it wide enough to slip through.

High-pitched screams filled the messy room, where adults in uniforms scattered in panic. Surveillance cameras tracked the sewers, confirming her suspicions. Her eyes went black with a flashback.

As a child, she had dreaded news of abducted Xeno-victims. That fear had made her stare at clinic doors, imagining someone coming to steal her. By fate, she stood before the crooks responsible for those horrors.

The MG officials shivered under the terror that blocked out the full moon. Tee’s white hair and black-filled eyes made it clear she was no ordinary teenage girl—she was a ghost. And she reeked of the sewers they had spent time riding their cabin of.

One official yelled, “This has to be some prank. The law enforcers couldn’t be onto us—it’s way past global curfew!”

Another hurled a boomerang blade at the ghost. “Shut up and pull the switch! Let’s get out of here!”

Tee snapped out of her trance and slapped the incoming object away from her face. The long metallic shimmer caught her eye, and she froze when she realized her claws had come out. Panic crawled up her throat. She wasn’t supposed to use her dark powers. She glimpsed the reflection of her black-filled eyes in the sheen of her claws as she struggled to pull them back in.

A low boom shook through her entire body, making her go rigid.

The sound came from deep underground. She looked up at the screens—half the surveillance cameras had gone black. A spike of dread stabbed her heart, and she stumbled back from the terrifying possibility. She shook her head hard, whispering to herself that she was wrong. That sound wasn’t what she thought it was.

Then Zod’s voice crackled over her telecom—he and Miko were still in the sewers. He reported that the bomb might have gone off.

Miko said she would check, only to break into coughing seconds later. Then came the shriek—pure terror—saying the cage with the hostages was burned to crisp.

No other words reached Tee’s ears. Dark energy spilled down her claws. The MG officials sensed their doom the moment the ghostlike figure curled her lip and her fangs snapped out.

Tee flash-stepped to each official in turn. One stab with her claws—that was all she gave them before ripping out their insides. None had time to scream, and she felt the kills were too quick… too merciful.

She scanned the cabin for any others who might be hiding, swearing to give them a slow death. The surveillance screens looping sewer footage only fueled her rage. She flipped a desk with one hand, sending it crashing into a wall. She wanted to shove the cabin walls in, crush everything inside, flatten the whole place—but Kie’s voice cut through her fury through the telecom.

“Copy that. Tee, Saeda and I killed the young Xenosapian and are heading to your location.”

Tee’s eyes flew wide when she saw the blood coating her claws and clothes. Xenosapians didn’t bleed red blood. Kie’s words echoed in her skull, and she felt a scream rising—but she swallowed it when she remembered two-way communication was still on.

She called out, “I’m still tracking more Xenosapians.”

Then she fled the ransacked cabin like a criminal on the run.

Kie informed her, “We’ll catch up—we’re tracking your GPS as we speak.”

Those words slapped sense into Tee’s brain. She realized she was far from the crime scene and could stop running. She halted near a large mirror beam in the center of a display pond. She washed the blood from herself and glanced at her reflection—but something drew her eyes back, and she froze.

It was dark out, but the tall streetlights lit the streets behind her. She overlooked the blood, her claws, and her eyes, noticing something far more disturbing.

“What the freck?” she murmured, stepping through the water to get closer to her curved reflection.

Tilting her head for a better angle, she touched the bulge on her forehead. It wasn’t a smudge. The hard, pointed tip was real. For the first time, she had something that resembled a horn—and she instantly regretted growing out her bangs. 

Should she even be concerned? She struggled to answer that question—until Kie’s voice cut through her thoughts.

“Tee, you’re not moving. Did you find another Xenosapian?” He couldn’t handle the thought of her taking one down alone. That should have been him.

Tee replied, “I didn’t. I think I made a mistake when I said I saw another one.”

She glanced at her holo-map and froze, disturbed to see Kie and Saeda approaching fast. Running away hadn’t been a good choice—for too many reasons.

After slapping her face with wet hands, she undid her hair bun, brushing her shoulder-length hair forward to hide her forehead. At that moment, she wished for a low cut like Kie’s. He had to hide his massive forehead, which she secretly thought was cute.

She stopped fussing over her forehead and focused on her eyes. How could she hide her black-filled eyes? It would be obvious—they were nothing like her natural pale ones. She shut her eyes, counted to ten, and reminded herself she was not a Xeno-victim.

When she opened them, the same terror stared back. She stepped back through the water and looked down slowly, remembering the unholy. Her gaze fell on the metal claws on her right hand—and then a loud voice made her jump.

“Hey!” Kie yelled.

Tee froze for a second before yanking two of the metal claws from her fingers. Pain shot through her, forcing her onto her knees in the pond. The other claws pulled back into her hands, but she had to look up to believe what she saw. Above her gloved fingers, her pale eyes reflected on the water’s rippling surface. She thanked the universe.

Kie and Saeda stopped outside the pond where Tee kneeled.

“Can’t get enough of the pool, huh?” Saeda said in a monotone.

“What the bloody corpse are you doing?” Kie asked, seeing her bloody hand.

Tee didn’t rise from the pond. She pushed her hair out of her face and let out a sigh of relief—the bulge was gone. That had been too close. She shut her eyes to stop the tears and swore never to use her dark powers again. She was certain that each time she sparked them, it took longer for her body to return to normal.

Kie turned away from her and contacted Zod and Miko. He confirmed that the bomb would have destroyed the main source of the blood scent. For any Xenosapians still tracking it, he hoped the fresh pumping blood would be enough to lure them. He decided it was time to regroup.

Zod and Miko looked at each other in the dark tunnel, the dim light from their gear illuminating their faces. They nodded silently, agreeing not to mention the fresh human scraps—bloody enough to attract more beasts.

“Copy,” Zod said. “We’ll meet you guys at the surface—away from the stinking sewers.”

Kie stepped into the pond toward Tee to help her up. “Are you alright?” he asked, gently parting her hair from her face.

She lifted the bloody hand she had ripped her claws from. “Yeah, I was just moving too fast using my foreseeing vision, and my hand hit a pole.”

He studied her steady eyes before simply saying, “Oh.”

Together they walked off to meet Zod and Miko, Saeda following behind. Tee was grateful for the night. The darkness hid the holes above her glove fingers.

Kie didn’t ask Tee to scan for more beasts. Saeda had a point—they relied on her too much for initial action.

When Zod and Miko reached the surface, they found their teammates already waiting. Kie leaned against the arm of a bench at the bus stop, while Saeda and Miko took it as a cue to sit. Zod rested against the back of the bench, facing another direction. Tee leaned against the metal pole of the bus sign, her back turned to Kie.

Tension hung heavy in the air. She spoke haltingly, choked by emotion. 

“There were human scraps in the sewers—apart from the bodies in the cage.” 

Each word seemed to hurt her as she said it, and tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision. She hung her head, crushed by the horror, unable to look at her teammates, her small frame shaking under the enormity of it all.

Tee glanced at her, silently grateful that someone cared, even if it was a terrified Xenogenist.

It wasn’t the Xeno-victims’ fault they could turn into monsters—that’s why they were called victims. So why should they be the ones to suffer, to give up their lives?

A low conversation started over Miko’s soft sniffling.

“It’s illegal to kill Xeno-victims,” Zod said quietly. “Besides, no one knows for sure who’s a Xeno-victim. I’ve heard some people without any blemish can mutate into Xenosapians. I could even be one…”

Tee stared long into the darkness behind a building, stunned by the absurdity brushing past her ears.

The silence pressed down until Kie spoke. “That only happens because some can hide what they are. You’d be surprised how many covert Xeno-victims are walking around.”

Tee tensed.

Since they were on the topic of Xeno-victims, Saeda decided to share something. “I heard about a case where there was a curse-mark on the back of someone’s eyeball. How would you even know your soul’s linked to a demon in that case?”

Tee wondered if Saeda really had a proper second-level education. Every sensible brain knew the curse-mark only appeared on skin exposed to the sun. And how could you not know you’re a Xeno-victim?

She remembered the burn on her neck where her mark had been. The phantom pain had stopped years ago, but her memory kept dragging her back to that sensitive spot.

The mark was proof the demon had bonded with you, and mutation was inevitable. That’s why amputating the limb with the mark did nothing. The mark was just a symbol of the cruel fate waiting.

Kie, trying to impress Tee, who he assumed was a Xenogenist, said, “It should be legal to kill Xeno-victims.”

Zod turned sharply to him. “No. If it were legal, people would go around killing anyone. The population would drop to ten, like it did one hundred and fifty years ago in District Ten.”

He leaned off the back of the bench and continued, eyes fixed on Kie.

“Remember Johnny’s famous case? They killed him, but the mark on his skin didn’t disappear. The mark they thought was the bonding of a Xenogene? It was just a birth-blemish… a really weird birth-blemish.”

Tee puffed. “Kie wouldn’t know that. He didn’t go to a second-level Academy… Dummy.”

Kie shrugged and said out loud, “Johnny was a serial killer. He deserved to die.”

Zod shook his head. “I think it was the same district where people went around killing others with guns and rifles. They were too quick to bury the bodies, and it turned out most were still alive. Worse, some were Xeno-victims.

“The Xeno-victims that mutated dug through the ground and ate the humans. That made them stronger. Eventually, they burst from the graves and attacked the neighboring homes.”

Miko wiped her eyes, shivering. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

Zod grinned and glanced back at Miko sitting on the bench. “That’s because there’s a movie about it. What’s it called again?” He held his chin and looked up at the moon.

“That entire district must’ve been filled with idiots,” Kie added. “Everyone knows the proper way to kill a Xeno-victim is by destroying the brain. The brain is to the Xenogene what the heart is to humans. So many people die meaningless deaths fighting those things. We should be eliminating Xeno-victims before they mutate…”

Miko, Zod, and Saeda all turned toward Kie. His back was facing them as he leaned on the right arm of the bench.

“Dude, didn’t you hear anything I just said? People can’t just go around killing—”

Kie pushed off from the bench. “We’ve wasted enough time out here. We’re teleporting now.”

Tee remembered Kie’s old joke about wanting to eliminate all Xeno-victims once he became a god. It was distasteful, and the thought of breaking up with him had crossed her mind on the spot. But why would that bother her if she wasn’t a Xeno-victim?

Back at Primus after the mission, they gathered in the kitchen to get warm milk before heading to bed. Miko was still sobbing over the bomb. It got worse after Zod’s comment. 

“The abductees were probably tortured before being placed in the cage.”

After Tee heard it, she dropped her empty cup into the sink and marched out of the kitchen, annoyed.

Kie had no idea what she was so upset about. Was she actually affected by the deaths and only pretending to be tough? It would explain why she bumped into a pole and hurt her hand. He followed her and caught her by the hand in the hallway, where the others couldn’t hear.

Kie said it casually—“Hey, I’ll give you a massage. Go get dressed and meet me in my room.”

Nothing in his voice hinted at anything more. But Tee’s heart flew straight past logic. Jack’s face flashed through her memory, and she shoved it aside. Jack had never given her what she wanted, so she’d get it from the next closest option. And after they defeated the Harbingers… if Kie found out he slept with a Xeno-victim, oh, it would burn him so good. That Xenogenist would finally be put in his place.