Chapter 125 - 124 - South Quadrant Conundrum(Part 4)

Alright...I'm in. Heh, I've always wanted to say that. Well, not that I actually said it out loud, but you know what I mean. Well, anyway, first impression...it's super dark in here. Which is to expected, so it's a good thing I've got my night vision to rely on. 

Still, I have to admit...this place is more than a little creepy. Dust everywhere, it smells kinda musty and I could see spiders on the walls, along with plenty of other bugs. It doesn't look like anyone else is here...but I can't afford to let my guard down. 

For now, I'll keep making my way towards where the signal is coming from. I headed deeper into the building as I followed the map on my I-Watch, my senses on high alert, watching my surroundings carefully as I made my way to the signal...okay, I'm here...but I don't see anything. 

I was in a clear area, as it there weren't any pillars or chairs or anything, just an empty patch of floor. The answer was pretty obvious and didn't take me long to figure out...I'm in the right spot but on the wrong floor. This is a single-story building, and I doubt it's on the roof, which means...I need to go down to the basement level. 

But I'd rather not scramble about through the dark till I find a way down, so instead...I'll just cut straight down. Hm, just in case someone's down there, I better freeze time. Also, I probably don't want to drop down straight onto the spot where the I-Watch signal is coming from and end up landing on the watch and breaking it. 

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Pause>...next, <Activate Anomaly, Tier Three: Cut>," I chanted as I focused on the floor, taking out a round piece of it to create a hole, before dropping the removed part off to the side, "<Activate Anomaly, Tier Three: Paste>."

I then cautiously dropped into the hole, landing inside a dusty room...that smelt terrible, making me gag. What the hell is this rancid odor, it's-...I then stiffened as I looked around and immediately saw the cause. 

A bunch of heavily rotting corpses, piled up on the floor. I-I feel sick...they've all been cut apart and tortured severely...some of the corpses were really small, those must have been children. Dozens of flies were in the air around their lifeless, torn-apart bodies, rats were chewing on their rancid flesh, their rodent feet covered in coagulated blood. 

And on the wall behind the pile of corpses, were a few people shackled with chains, all in bad condition. Since time was frozen, I couldn't say for sure whether they were alive or not, but it doesn't look like they're rotting, at the very least. 

They had definitely been tortured though. Their fingernails were missing, they had cuts and bruises all over their bodies and there was a table filled with a bunch of tools, like knives and screwdrivers and whatnot. 

Actual torture tools can't be found in the Sanctuary...well, except for in the secret underground prison, but that's far from accessible to the public. 

Hm? Wait, is that Sofia? Yeah, it is...she looks even worse than she did in the security footage that Director Silva showed me. And her I-Watch is on that table...I wasn't expecting this, for both her and the watch to be in the same place. But why? It doesn't make sense... 

This person who's been manipulating the lowlife thugs around here...just what the hell are they after? This...this is beyond messed up, whoever did this...will pay.

I then heard a slight scratch behind me, snapping me out of it...probably a bug or a rat-...no, wait, time is froz-...the instant I realized that fact, I quickly turned around and sprang back as I inaudibly chanted Play, right as a small cut appeared on my face...but there was no one there. 

Now I get it...so that's what going on here. This explains a lot. I closed my eyes and focused my ears...there, to my right! I swung my foot out to the right...and struck something, before a loud crash echoed out as the table with the makeshift torture tools broke in half. 

And since I struck him, he came in view the moment I connected...after all, Anomalies aren't affected by the abilities of other Anomalies. So once I heard him, I had him...because his intangibility wouldn't make a difference against me. 

And the bottoms of his feet wouldn't be intangible, otherwise he'd just fall through the floor...I'm guessing they're intangible when he lifts them, but become tangible again when he takes a step, and that's how I knew where he was... 

"Been a while, Wight. It all makes sense now...back then, you never left, did you?" I remarked, speaking in my normal voice, pulling off my wig as I drew out one of my X-Blades and activated it, before pointing the edge at his throat, "Come to think of it, I never did catch your name."

"Hmph, I go by Aku...I like the new look, time stopper," He greeted me with a smirk. 

"Fuck off. Now, then, I've got some questions for you. If you don't want to answer, that's fine, I'll just lob your head right off," I replied, pressing the energy blade to his neck, drawing out a bit of blood. 

He probably isn't going to talk too easily, and since he's an Anomaly I can't use Cut and Paste to capture him. How do I get him to talk and-? 

"Fine, I'll talk. I'd rather not die right now, it's a bad time," He responded, shrugging. 

Is he implying that there are good times to die? Okay, yeah, his reaction is more than a little suspicious...but I might as well make use of this opportunity, suspicious or not... 

"Alright, then...tell me everything you've done since the last time we met. I'll kill you if you fuck around and give me trivial information, got that?" I warned him. 

"Of course...after I escaped, I helped the other Wights escape, and then hung back here, to stir up trouble, so to speak, as I'm sure you've found out from the fools I've been using. After that it was just a matter of waiting till conditions were ripe for luring your so-called X-Warriors here, so that I could capture and extract information from them. Oh, but I plan to leave soon, that 'vacuum layer' that's being added to the defenses of this so-called Sanctuary is something I'd like to avoid getting trapped in," He replied with a wry smile. 

He's pretty sharp...at first glance it seemed like he was giving me some pretty significant information, but none of what he said would have been impossible to deduce just by thinking about it carefully. I'll let it slide, but now it's time to get more specific... 

"Then tell me, why'd you kill these innocent people, including small children?" I inquired coldly, pushing my X-Blade more firmly against his neck. 

"Two reasons...the first was to help lure X-Warriors here as soon as possible, and I figured that civilians disappearing without a trace would be the best way to do that. And the second reason...I was bored. You called these people innocent, but as far as I'm concerned, not a single one of you sheltered humans are innocent, you're all-!" He began to snap, losing his cool towards the end. 

"Shut up," I interrupted icily, tightening the grip on the handle of my X-Blade as a bead of sweat ran down my face, a slight headache bothering me, "You said you've been extracting information...have you been sending that information to the other Wights? If so...how?"

He hesitated for a moment...before replying... 

"I suppose it won't hurt to tell you, all things considered."

Hm? What things considered, exactly? What's he talking about? 

"We have an Anomaly, as you humans call it, that can form telepathic links with another, a link that isn't affected by any amount of distance and can last indefinitely. I was already linked the first time you encountered me, and...I still am," He answered with a smirk. 

I...really don't think he's lying right now. But, then...why? It doesn't make sense, why's he giving up such a valuable piece of information so easily? I doubt he's doing so just for the sake of survival, like Hebi did...then, what-...suddenly, my vision blurred and I found myself stumbling back as twinges of pain erupted throughout my body... 

"Wh-what the hell...?" I gasped weakly, collapsing onto my knees. 

"Oh, looks like it finally worked, I can't believe it took so long to kick in," He remarked with a laugh, letting out a sigh of relief before standing up and knocking away my X-Blade, and then picking up his own blade...the one that had grazed me when I evaded him while he was invisible. 

Damn it...that blade must have been coated in poison....SHIT! It feels like my consciousness is starting to fade, my vision is darkening... 

"It's a shame, I'd have liked to torture you a bit before you die, but I suppose that's being greedy...don't worry, your heart should stop beating within a couple of minutes, at most," He remarked condescendingly, before muttering to himself, "After this, I'll need to find a way to kill that damned traitor Hebi and then get the hell out of this place."

Fuck...fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!! How could I get so careless!? So that's why he answered my questions so freely...he was buying time for the poison to kick in. He gave me the information I wanted because he thought I wouldn't survive long enough to tell anyone. 

Well, I don't want to die...so here goes, I've never tried this with another Anomaly present, so I don't even know if it'll work...but if it doesn't, I'll die for sure, so I've got nothing to lose... 

"You...will...pay for this...," I growled weakly, before chanting, "<Activate...Anomaly, Tier...One:...Load>!"

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Huh, what do you know...it worked. I was back, to where I'd been just after I ran into Lin. Wish I could have used Cut and Paste to drop something on that Wight's head, but I didn't want to risk taking too much time and end up succumbing to the poison, and that aside, my vision was so dark and blurry that I wouldn't have been able to focus well enough to activate Cut anyway. 

Well, this answers a lot of questions. Including why the logs in the Teleportation Points that Sofia used were erased. It wasn't simply that Sofia didn't know that security cameras were there, because she probably did...no, I'm betting that Aku was with her, invisible and with his blade to her back to keep her from getting away. 

And the Teleportation Logs were deleted because he didn't want anyone to see that Sofia hadn't teleported alone, he wanted to hide his presence. When a teleportation platform is used, the number of people that teleported is included in the logs. 

And thinking back, there were times in the security footage that the director showed me where it looked like she was talking to someone, but we never did spot any earpiece communicators.

Now it makes sense, she was talking to the person right behind her all along. And it's pretty obvious why Aku wanted Ze-Ro dead...he must have found out from one of the X-Warriors he captured that Ze-Ro had begun leaking intel to us, so took him out before he could give away anything too sensitive. 

Actually, I'm willing to bet that Sofia is the one who cracked and told him...now that think about it, she wasn't tortured nearly as bad as the other bodies I saw in there. 

Director Silva did say that she's one of her most trusted subordinates...Aku must have realized that Sofia has more sensitive knowledge that the others he'd captured, and went easy on the torture as a result, to avoid breaking her and losing her as a source of information. 

And-...no, wait, I can't just stand around here deducing all this, I can do that later...for now, I need to get back to that bowling alley, right now...!

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