Haze & Chaos - Reunion A Part 5
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As he entered a code into the keypad and presented his badge to the scanner, Antares gave a soft groan as the heavy doors to the outer containment cell for ACF-008 slid open. “And that’s the real reason why we don’t do disclosure, Sam. It’s not that people will lose their minds, it’s that people will lose their goddamned minds…”
Sam laughed at that one as they entered the large, rectangular room. There was a slight chill to it, but it was nothing too bothersome. “Excuse me? Could you explain that a little more?”
Antares chuckled as he reengaged the door, but not fully locking it just in case. Bran, and the two guards in black and blue uniforms, could see that the Lt. Colonel was a little stressed, so they waited patiently for him to finish. “No one will be able to behave themselves around alien life. Sure, there are sensible people like us that will give Zarnak a good birthday or shake hands with a diplomat, but there are also so many people that will act like utter apes. Take Zarnak for example: You’ll either get a bunch conservative creeps that will want to kill him, or a bunch of liberal extremists that will want to indoctrinate him! Somewhat extreme examples, I know, and thankfully Zarnak is a smart kid and working on his magic, but it’s still a worry we all share…”
“Especially Rosaline and Bucky,” Will added. “The Wing Director said he’ll shoot anyone who dares lay a hand on Zarnak.”
“Wow…” Sam felt incredibly uneasy as she snapped her fingers and returned to being Morrigan. The mix of her worry for Zarnak and the unease she felt just being around ACF-008 put her on edge. “That makes things make a lot more sense looking back on it… but what about Kyu though?”
“Kyu’s fine as he stays out of the public eye and knows how to keep himself a secret,” Antares answered.
Kyu chuckled with a slight jig. “Hey, it pays to be a genius.”
And then a frown appeared on Antares’ face, and it was almost like ACF-008 itself was waiting for him to finish his rant. “AND THEN THAT MOUTH BREATHING VP JUST HAD TO GO AND RELEASE THE ‘ALIEN FILES!’” That warranted the loudest groan from Antares that was not outright yelling. “Do you know how much of a headache that caused for us and the Men In Black? And General Lundberg actually had to point a gun to his head to get him to stop it with all of those stupid surveillance bills he kept trying to sneak through!”
Morrigan nodded, hoping she would not say anything that would set Antares off further. “Well given that the VP was probably taking orders from Karnage, I can imagine…”
Antares scoffed, but not at Morrigan. “He wanted to make things great again… NO, he wanted to make The Extinction Order great again! Good lord, I am so glad President Donovan sacked that moron…” he moaned with a face palm. “Freaking uniparty nonsense…”
Bran scratched the back of his pink, untamed hair and stepped over. “Is everything okay, Antares?” he asked in a comforting, concerned voice.
Antares gave a light grumble, but composed himself. “Yeah, I’m just a little nervous is all…”
“I know how you feel… and it’s not just 008 over there. Remember all the proposed cuts to M.A.I.G. that President Donovan had to put the kibosh on?”
“Yeah, yeah…” Antares said with a nod that indicated he wanted to drop the topic and focus on the task at hand. “Alright then, you guys obviously all know Bran, but our guards here are Derringer and Devins…”
“Lt. Colonel, Sir!” Derringer said as stood at attention and put a hand up to his forehead in salute.
Antares then noticed Devins seemed a bit out of it... “Devins, up and at ‘em, or dismiss yourself so we can bring in another guard…”
Devins shook his head and saluted. “Sorry, Lt. Colonel, Sir!”
There was a moment of awkward silence before Antares turned to Bran. “Alright then, would you like to introduce Will and Sam to 008?”
Bran straightened out his cotton, M.A.I.G. bodysuit and put a smile on his face… even though ACF-008 warranted anything but a smile. “Well firstly, Will, Sam, good to see you two again! How’ya been doing?”
“Fine, fine,’ Will replied plainly, despite the ambient anxiety. “Sam?”
Morrigan nodded. “It’s been a bit of a roller coaster, but things have been great.”
“That’s awesome…” Bran said, then clapped his hands together. “Alright, ACF-008… oh boy… As you remember from September, ACF-008 was transferred to our custody so we could assess what Haze was, and obviously The ACF were the first ones to encounter him. What we have here is an incorporeal mage who bonds with other mages in order to cast his magic. Want to know how The ACF found him?” The others looked nervous. “They caught him devouring criminals, absorbing them into its smokey form until there was nothing left.” Bran could see the subtle looks of discomfort and horror on everyone’s faces and gave a nervous chuckle. “Basically Haze seems to be drawn to evil to feed on it. I guess we have a metric for how corrupt and evil a soul is now, because Haze will only devour those beyond saving.”
Will took a breath to ease his nerves. “Jeez, and I thought I had seen the weird stuff…”
“And it gets even worse when you realize that Haze can seemingly possess anyone or anything with emotion, even if they are displaying a total lack of emotion.”
Kyu cleared his throat and stepped over to Bran with a folder of papers he had grabbed from the small table near the entrance. “Thankfully we do have some information on his personality, thanks to Ryota of all people…”
“Ryota?” Will was a little surprised by this.
Antares nodded. “Mm-hmm, because prior to you meeting him, he was getting into trouble with Haze, going after criminals and whatnot. That little escapade brought him to the attention of us and M.A.I.G. Once the two were apprehended, Ryota’s mother, Shigeko, or ANTIMagic Mania, promptly grounded Ryota for a month, haha.”
“What we’ve been able to gather from Ryota is that Haze seems to have a strong sense of justice, bordering on vigilantism…” Kyu clarified.
“It might as well be vigilantism,” Bran interjected.
He thought about it for a second and nodded. “Fair. Ahem, when Haze finds someone to bond to, he takes over them and overwrites their magic with his own, but those with strong personalities or who are aligned with Haze’s ideals can remain in control, and even use their magic in conjunction with Haze’s.”
“Also this stinker likes to break containment on the regular,” Bran noted. “I’m trying to work on an AMV while one of my machines is doing a reading and all of sudden WAN WAN RED ALERT, HAZE HAS BROKEN CONTAINMENT every. other. day. I swear to God…”
Kyu scoffed. “He could easily possess you and you were worried about your AMVs?”
“Oh come on, like he was ever going to possess my kinky behind…” Bran boasted as he pointed a thumb towards his posterior with a hand on his hip, causing Will and Morrigan to start chuckling.
“Alright, alright, let’s rein it in a little gentlemen,” Antares interrupted before they started bantering. “So the reason why ACF-008 was handed over to us was because Anderson wasn’t too sure if Haze is a shadow construct. Plus The Liger Brigade potentially has better containment measures because of all the PSAA we and the Men In Black have to deal with, and we anticipated you coming home soon, Will. Given who you met in The Unlight, we wanted to get your opinion on the matter.”
“Hold up a second,” Morrigan said as she stopped Will with her hand as he started to walk forward. Devins continuing to be out of it also made her nervous. “Why not just ask Ryota? He’s been to The Unlight too, right?”
Antares let out a soft grunt. “Well firstly he’s been all over the place as of late, the squad can attest to how active he is. Secondly, apparently that level of information on shadow constructs is classified, and The Iron City wants us to confirm that Haze is indeed a shadow construct before they share what they know…”
Morrigan nodded in concession. “Okay, yeah, I can’t blame Dunja there… And I suppose you can’t just take Haze to go see her majesty and Lia…”
“Given the chaos we’ve been through with him so far?” said Bran. “Yeah, I don’t think we have the patience for that.”
Antares then went over to the large, iron door and slid the cover away from the observation glass. “Well, I hate to admit it, but the plan is to see if Will can talk to Haze given his friendship with Ryota, maybe even bond with him… I mean, I understand the risk, but Will’s gone above and beyond before…”
Will felt the oddest sensation right then and there, like Haze had agreed with Antares. “So you want me to take a look then?”
“If you could, Will…”
“Alright then…” Will looked around and found… nothing? He was growing worried, unsure what to say to his commanding officer. He pretended to make some observations, hoping the others would buy it… or that they would call him out as he did not have the courage to say he did not see anything. He then noticed Devins fiddling with the control panel and felt a surge of adrenaline course through his veins. “Gu-guys? Is he supposed to be invisible?”
“No, you were supposed to see a cloud of black and red smoke…” Antares gravely pointed out. He then saw what Devins was doing and began to worry. “Devins, what in Sam Hill do you think you’re doing!?”
“Ju-just opening up to see if Haze is still in there…” he slurred like he was half asleep. The main door to the whole room also opened up seemingly by itself.
“Derringer, quick–help me get Devins under control!” Antares ordered as he and the guard went to restrain Devins, causing everyone else to start panicking.
In a moment that she would have missed had she blinked, Morrigan saw what had to have been Haze leaving Devins. The cloud of black and red smoke was unmistakable as it silently snaked up into the air. “WAIT, NO, IT’S A DISTRACTION!” she shrieked in fear.
Bran and Kyu hit the deck as something flew into Will and pinned him up against the wall, covering him in a shiny black sheath that sealed him in his entirety. Morrigan raced to the wall to try to peel Will off of it, but the sheath knocked her back with a pair of hands as she tried to grab Will’s leg, leading to her crashing into Kyu and Bran as they got up. Will struggled and squirmed as he tried to push against whatever the thing that held him was. The sheath eventually receded, but Will had been completely changed by the time it was done.
The man that fell to the floor resembled Will, but his hair had turned white, his skin was like shiny black rubber, and giant, red zippers with no pull tabs were all over his body. A corset-esque arrangement of five zippers was around his torso, and there was a zipper on each upper arm and thigh. Laughing with a grin, he marveled at himself, then looked at his friends. “RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!” he cried, followed by him running out of the cell. “YOU CAN’T CATCH ME, I’M THE GINGERBREAD MAN!” he sang as he ran down the hall.
“BOYO, STOP–WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!” Morrigan called out as she ran after him.
Feeling like he was about to lose it, Antares said nothing and went for the alarms, only for the entire ship to shake, causing him to lose his footing. The blaring sirens went off, accompanied by a computerized voice announcing over the intercoms “RED ALERT, SKY FORTRESS CAMELOT UNDER ATTACK! RED ALERT, SKY FORTRESS CAMELOT UNDER ATTACK!”
“OH WELL THAT’S JUST PRIME!” Antares barked, then roared as he kicked the small table over. “DERRINGER, get Devins to a doctor STAT. Kyu, Bran–you get Haze back into containment! I need to head up to the bridge!”
“Wait, what about Will and Sam?!” Bran questioned just as Antares left the cell.
“Sam’s an officer now, she can handle Will!”
Before Antares could properly head off, Faustus of all people appeared in a cloud of smoke and fiery sparks. “ANTARES, Where’s Will?! Where’d he go!?”
“That way and to the left! Keep an eye out for Sam if you get lost!”
“OHHHH, First the Future Squad and now THIS!?” Faustus said as he ran down the hall, with Antares heading in the opposite direction. “THAT BOY’S NEVER GOING TO HEAR THE END OF IT FROM ME!”
Bran and Kyu were not sure what to think as they watched Derringer escort Devins out of the cell, and looked at each other with nervous expressions. “SO, is there anything on record for this?!” Kyu demanded to know as the fortress shook again.
“Damn it, no…”
“Well what do we do then?!” Kyu snapped back, clearly worried for Will.
Bran glanced around nervously, then had an idea that could be felt in his brightened up expression. “I KNOW, the security room! We’ll track them down through the security feeds!”
“But what if Haze can’t be picked up on camera?!”
“Sure, but we should be able to see Sam and Faustus!” he pointed as they ran out of the cell.
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As he entered a code into the keypad and presented his badge to the scanner, Antares gave a soft groan as the heavy doors to the outer containment cell for ACF-008 slid open. “And that’s the real reason why we don’t do disclosure, Sam. It’s not that people will lose their minds, it’s that people will lose their goddamned minds…”
Sam laughed at that one as they entered the large, rectangular room. There was a slight chill to it, but it was nothing too bothersome. “Excuse me? Could you explain that a little more?”
Antares chuckled as he reengaged the door, but not fully locking it just in case. Bran, and the two guards in black and blue uniforms, could see that the Lt. Colonel was a little stressed, so they waited patiently for him to finish. “No one will be able to behave themselves around alien life. Sure, there are sensible people like us that will give Zarnak a good birthday or shake hands with a diplomat, but there are also so many people that will act like utter apes. Take Zarnak for example: You’ll either get a bunch conservative creeps that will want to kill him, or a bunch of liberal extremists that will want to indoctrinate him! Somewhat extreme examples, I know, and thankfully Zarnak is a smart kid and working on his magic, but it’s still a worry we all share…”
“Especially Rosaline and Bucky,” Will added. “The Wing Director said he’ll shoot anyone who dares lay a hand on Zarnak.”
“Wow…” Sam felt incredibly uneasy as she snapped her fingers and returned to being Morrigan. The mix of her worry for Zarnak and the unease she felt just being around ACF-008 put her on edge. “That makes things make a lot more sense looking back on it… but what about Kyu though?”
“Kyu’s fine as he stays out of the public eye and knows how to keep himself a secret,” Antares answered.
Kyu chuckled with a slight jig. “Hey, it pays to be a genius.”
And then a frown appeared on Antares’ face, and it was almost like ACF-008 itself was waiting for him to finish his rant. “AND THEN THAT MOUTH BREATHING VP JUST HAD TO GO AND RELEASE THE ‘ALIEN FILES!’” That warranted the loudest groan from Antares that was not outright yelling. “Do you know how much of a headache that caused for us and the Men In Black? And General Lundberg actually had to point a gun to his head to get him to stop it with all of those stupid surveillance bills he kept trying to sneak through!”
Morrigan nodded, hoping she would not say anything that would set Antares off further. “Well given that the VP was probably taking orders from Karnage, I can imagine…”
Antares scoffed, but not at Morrigan. “He wanted to make things great again… NO, he wanted to make The Extinction Order great again! Good lord, I am so glad President Donovan sacked that moron…” he moaned with a face palm. “Freaking uniparty nonsense…”
Bran scratched the back of his pink, untamed hair and stepped over. “Is everything okay, Antares?” he asked in a comforting, concerned voice.
Antares gave a light grumble, but composed himself. “Yeah, I’m just a little nervous is all…”
“I know how you feel… and it’s not just 008 over there. Remember all the proposed cuts to M.A.I.G. that President Donovan had to put the kibosh on?”
“Yeah, yeah…” Antares said with a nod that indicated he wanted to drop the topic and focus on the task at hand. “Alright then, you guys obviously all know Bran, but our guards here are Derringer and Devins…”
“Lt. Colonel, Sir!” Derringer said as stood at attention and put a hand up to his forehead in salute.
Antares then noticed Devins seemed a bit out of it... “Devins, up and at ‘em, or dismiss yourself so we can bring in another guard…”
Devins shook his head and saluted. “Sorry, Lt. Colonel, Sir!”
There was a moment of awkward silence before Antares turned to Bran. “Alright then, would you like to introduce Will and Sam to 008?”
Bran straightened out his cotton, M.A.I.G. bodysuit and put a smile on his face… even though ACF-008 warranted anything but a smile. “Well firstly, Will, Sam, good to see you two again! How’ya been doing?”
“Fine, fine,’ Will replied plainly, despite the ambient anxiety. “Sam?”
Morrigan nodded. “It’s been a bit of a roller coaster, but things have been great.”
“That’s awesome…” Bran said, then clapped his hands together. “Alright, ACF-008… oh boy… As you remember from September, ACF-008 was transferred to our custody so we could assess what Haze was, and obviously The ACF were the first ones to encounter him. What we have here is an incorporeal mage who bonds with other mages in order to cast his magic. Want to know how The ACF found him?” The others looked nervous. “They caught him devouring criminals, absorbing them into its smokey form until there was nothing left.” Bran could see the subtle looks of discomfort and horror on everyone’s faces and gave a nervous chuckle. “Basically Haze seems to be drawn to evil to feed on it. I guess we have a metric for how corrupt and evil a soul is now, because Haze will only devour those beyond saving.”
Will took a breath to ease his nerves. “Jeez, and I thought I had seen the weird stuff…”
“And it gets even worse when you realize that Haze can seemingly possess anyone or anything with emotion, even if they are displaying a total lack of emotion.”
Kyu cleared his throat and stepped over to Bran with a folder of papers he had grabbed from the small table near the entrance. “Thankfully we do have some information on his personality, thanks to Ryota of all people…”
“Ryota?” Will was a little surprised by this.
Antares nodded. “Mm-hmm, because prior to you meeting him, he was getting into trouble with Haze, going after criminals and whatnot. That little escapade brought him to the attention of us and M.A.I.G. Once the two were apprehended, Ryota’s mother, Shigeko, or ANTIMagic Mania, promptly grounded Ryota for a month, haha.”
“What we’ve been able to gather from Ryota is that Haze seems to have a strong sense of justice, bordering on vigilantism…” Kyu clarified.
“It might as well be vigilantism,” Bran interjected.
He thought about it for a second and nodded. “Fair. Ahem, when Haze finds someone to bond to, he takes over them and overwrites their magic with his own, but those with strong personalities or who are aligned with Haze’s ideals can remain in control, and even use their magic in conjunction with Haze’s.”
“Also this stinker likes to break containment on the regular,” Bran noted. “I’m trying to work on an AMV while one of my machines is doing a reading and all of sudden WAN WAN RED ALERT, HAZE HAS BROKEN CONTAINMENT every. other. day. I swear to God…”
Kyu scoffed. “He could easily possess you and you were worried about your AMVs?”
“Oh come on, like he was ever going to possess my kinky behind…” Bran boasted as he pointed a thumb towards his posterior with a hand on his hip, causing Will and Morrigan to start chuckling.
“Alright, alright, let’s rein it in a little gentlemen,” Antares interrupted before they started bantering. “So the reason why ACF-008 was handed over to us was because Anderson wasn’t too sure if Haze is a shadow construct. Plus The Liger Brigade potentially has better containment measures because of all the PSAA we and the Men In Black have to deal with, and we anticipated you coming home soon, Will. Given who you met in The Unlight, we wanted to get your opinion on the matter.”
“Hold up a second,” Morrigan said as she stopped Will with her hand as he started to walk forward. Devins continuing to be out of it also made her nervous. “Why not just ask Ryota? He’s been to The Unlight too, right?”
Antares let out a soft grunt. “Well firstly he’s been all over the place as of late, the squad can attest to how active he is. Secondly, apparently that level of information on shadow constructs is classified, and The Iron City wants us to confirm that Haze is indeed a shadow construct before they share what they know…”
Morrigan nodded in concession. “Okay, yeah, I can’t blame Dunja there… And I suppose you can’t just take Haze to go see her majesty and Lia…”
“Given the chaos we’ve been through with him so far?” said Bran. “Yeah, I don’t think we have the patience for that.”
Antares then went over to the large, iron door and slid the cover away from the observation glass. “Well, I hate to admit it, but the plan is to see if Will can talk to Haze given his friendship with Ryota, maybe even bond with him… I mean, I understand the risk, but Will’s gone above and beyond before…”
Will felt the oddest sensation right then and there, like Haze had agreed with Antares. “So you want me to take a look then?”
“If you could, Will…”
“Alright then…” Will looked around and found… nothing? He was growing worried, unsure what to say to his commanding officer. He pretended to make some observations, hoping the others would buy it… or that they would call him out as he did not have the courage to say he did not see anything. He then noticed Devins fiddling with the control panel and felt a surge of adrenaline course through his veins. “Gu-guys? Is he supposed to be invisible?”
“No, you were supposed to see a cloud of black and red smoke…” Antares gravely pointed out. He then saw what Devins was doing and began to worry. “Devins, what in Sam Hill do you think you’re doing!?”
“Ju-just opening up to see if Haze is still in there…” he slurred like he was half asleep. The main door to the whole room also opened up seemingly by itself.
“Derringer, quick–help me get Devins under control!” Antares ordered as he and the guard went to restrain Devins, causing everyone else to start panicking.
In a moment that she would have missed had she blinked, Morrigan saw what had to have been Haze leaving Devins. The cloud of black and red smoke was unmistakable as it silently snaked up into the air. “WAIT, NO, IT’S A DISTRACTION!” she shrieked in fear.
Bran and Kyu hit the deck as something flew into Will and pinned him up against the wall, covering him in a shiny black sheath that sealed him in his entirety. Morrigan raced to the wall to try to peel Will off of it, but the sheath knocked her back with a pair of hands as she tried to grab Will’s leg, leading to her crashing into Kyu and Bran as they got up. Will struggled and squirmed as he tried to push against whatever the thing that held him was. The sheath eventually receded, but Will had been completely changed by the time it was done.
The man that fell to the floor resembled Will, but his hair had turned white, his skin was like shiny black rubber, and giant, red zippers with no pull tabs were all over his body. A corset-esque arrangement of five zippers was around his torso, and there was a zipper on each upper arm and thigh. Laughing with a grin, he marveled at himself, then looked at his friends. “RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!” he cried, followed by him running out of the cell. “YOU CAN’T CATCH ME, I’M THE GINGERBREAD MAN!” he sang as he ran down the hall.
“BOYO, STOP–WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!” Morrigan called out as she ran after him.
Feeling like he was about to lose it, Antares said nothing and went for the alarms, only for the entire ship to shake, causing him to lose his footing. The blaring sirens went off, accompanied by a computerized voice announcing over the intercoms “RED ALERT, SKY FORTRESS CAMELOT UNDER ATTACK! RED ALERT, SKY FORTRESS CAMELOT UNDER ATTACK!”
“OH WELL THAT’S JUST PRIME!” Antares barked, then roared as he kicked the small table over. “DERRINGER, get Devins to a doctor STAT. Kyu, Bran–you get Haze back into containment! I need to head up to the bridge!”
“Wait, what about Will and Sam?!” Bran questioned just as Antares left the cell.
“Sam’s an officer now, she can handle Will!”
Before Antares could properly head off, Faustus of all people appeared in a cloud of smoke and fiery sparks. “ANTARES, Where’s Will?! Where’d he go!?”
“That way and to the left! Keep an eye out for Sam if you get lost!”
“OHHHH, First the Future Squad and now THIS!?” Faustus said as he ran down the hall, with Antares heading in the opposite direction. “THAT BOY’S NEVER GOING TO HEAR THE END OF IT FROM ME!”
Bran and Kyu were not sure what to think as they watched Derringer escort Devins out of the cell, and looked at each other with nervous expressions. “SO, is there anything on record for this?!” Kyu demanded to know as the fortress shook again.
“Damn it, no…”
“Well what do we do then?!” Kyu snapped back, clearly worried for Will.
Bran glanced around nervously, then had an idea that could be felt in his brightened up expression. “I KNOW, the security room! We’ll track them down through the security feeds!”
“But what if Haze can’t be picked up on camera?!”
“Sure, but we should be able to see Sam and Faustus!” he pointed as they ran out of the cell.
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ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
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