Beast Speaker, Monster Tamer

38: Burn the City Down

Unsurprisingly the unsettled feeling came back with a vicious vengeance later on as Madara led her and Wraith out for patrol that night. Since he took them deeper into the city's heart, the streets were more crowded and filled with sights, sounds, and people.

There's nothing out of the ordinary as far as I can see. Elise mused, surveying the area. Crowds of night goers roamed the streets, moving in and out of shops.

"Lively, isn't it?" Madara said. "Surprisingly, because of the high number of people present here, large crimes and robberies are very uncommon. Major problems like the previous incident are usually scarce."

Elise nodded, hanging onto his words.

"Have you explored the city yet?" Wraith asked.

"Ah, not much. I went out to lunch with Billy Goat and his friends yesterday, but I haven't done anything else much."

Wraith frowned. "That's no good, there is a bunch of really fun stuff around here! Go out and have fun while you're at it."

"Wraith is right," Madara added. "While I know that you're here to further your hero studies, it's vital to enjoy your youth and not get caught up in all of U.A.'s expectations."

Elise felt a tingling in her nose and excused herself as three massive sneezes came to her one after the other. "S-Sorry Madara-sama."

"No worries," he assured. "As I was saying—"

A large shadow fell over them as something trying massive flew overhead. All conversation cut off as the trio looked up to try to gauge the owner of said shadow. As Elise saw it, her throat dried up as she recognized it as a familiar haunting croak reached her ears.

"What the fuck is that..." Wraith mumbled, eyeing it.

"M-Ma-Madara-sama..." Elise began. "That's—That's—"

Nomu.

This one looked different but Elise could identify features that overlapped with the one she encountered.

Both heard the fear in her voice and saw her ashen face. "Get ready," Madara ordered. "Wing, same protocol as last time, do not engage unless absolutely necessary. Let's go!"

They launched into a full-speed run, Madara ripping out papers and writings names on the fly and tucking the slips into his belt in preparation. Smoke poured off from Wraith in droves as they prepared long shards of darkness in their hands. Elise was busy wrestling down her panic as she began briefing the pair about the Nomus. "The one I encountered was capable of regenerating entire limbs, so they don't fear anything. They attack anything and everything faced against them," she panted.

Up ahead, the Nomu they were following dove down, straight at a truck as another jumped down from the rooftops, crushing a car beneath it. A third crawled out from an alley. Screams began filling the air as the flying Nomu took someone to the sky. Madara wasted no time summoning one yokai after another. Wraith snarled a curse and took to the sky in a swirling cloud of darkness and reemerged onto the Nomu's back, stabbing its neck with one of the shadow shards in their hand.

"Pidgeot!" Elise yelled as she called forth its Pokéball.

The bird Pokémon emerged, taking to the skies with a piercing cry. It managed to catch the person that the Nomu dropped, landing safely back on the ground away from the chaos. Elise took on her old role, herding people away from the chaos. Beside her, she could hear Madara yelling through his pager. "Sunsprite, head over to my coordinates now! Gather the available heroes and tell them we have an emergency." Pulling out another device from his pockets, Madara backed up and turned it on. "Attention all available reinforcements, this is Madara speaking. Report to my coordinates as soon as possible. This is an emergency of the utmost importance. Hurry, I am only here with Wraith and a high school intern."