The Mask Maker

Dawn of the Final Day

"And finally, in Galar, she attacked Bea, Piers, Klara, Raihan, and Leon the Champion. She battled and defeated all of them, but she also goaded a couple of them into a physical fight. Bea was injured the most, probably because she's a martial artist that Morai wanted to test her own skill against. The kid lost in front of her whole gym," Looker explained. 

"Well," Anabel said, "She's left a trail of blood in every region now. I think her public reign of terror may be over, at least I hope so. Where is she now?"

Looker frowned and shook his head. "We couldn't track her. I've been waiting for any reports from major gyms or leagues, but I think she'll go back to picking off random nobodies. I've got everyone across the globe waiting for hospitalization and police reports. Colress, what can you show us?" Looker nodded to the scientist, who had been quietly listening to their reports. He pulled a vial out of his pocket and held it up. The liquid inside was black. 

"This," he explained, "should give you a brief window of time to stop her. If I'm correct, it will be excruciatingly painful, more-so than her precious serum. And—if I've engineered it correctly—may even counteract the serum by at least weakening her psychic power. At the very least, the pain might be enough to knock her out. I can give the two of you one vial each, but that is all. It must only be used once."

Looker took the vial and held it up to the light. "It's...something, alright" he said. "With all your genius, this is all you could create?" 

Colress frowned. "This took incredible time and effort. I had to make something that wouldn't interact with the serum or her brain too much and kill her, and I had to take her powers into account."

"I think it'll be very helpful," Anabel said reassuringly, putting a hand on Colress's shoulder. 

"After her arrest, I can develop better technology. Right now, however, it's hard to test things without her. Speaking of, what are you planning to do with her?"

Looker and Anabel looked at each other. 

"It's...difficult to say," Anabel said, putting a hand to her chin. 

"I'm not going to continue to help you if it puts her in an even worse position than she is now," Colress said. 

"Believe me, now that we know who she is, we want to help her," Looker said. "We've got a...place...where she'll be staying, and we're going to try and reverse the damage the serum has done. But looking at her now, I'm not sure it's possible. If, by chance, she remains the way she is, we'll have to decide how to move forward. We can't put her in any areas with people who will mistakenly look her in the eye unless we can control her psychic powers." 

"I can likely help with that," Colress said. "I'll do whatever it takes to try and get her back.

Today is the day, Morai thought, that my fate comes to fruition. 

Her upcoming demise didn't seem to stir much fear inside of Morai. Her ability to regard the future with any sort of emotion had greatly diminished over time. Time seemed to flow around her without her knowledge, but this was the one thing she was sure of. Her freedom—or possibly her life—would come to an end today. 

She tucked her newly repaired suit and mask into a shoulder bag and put on an outfit not dissimilar to her usual one. It consisted of a blood red turtleneck that hid most of the self-inflicted claw marks on her neck, black pants, and black dress shoes. Lastly, she found a pair of sunglasses, both for protecting her light-sensitive eyes and hiding their occasional red color. It seemed like a silly disguise, but the trainer had come to realize that people were not as observational and alert in the modern age.