Against the Clock

Chapter 15 | The Ghoul

Let's not talk about how long this took to update, aight?

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[Light's POV]

It's been quiet around the Realm for a long, long time. I knew it was too quiet.

With all of the panic and stress going on right now already, of course something else has to start causing problems. Just- of course it does. It happens every time things start getting crazy again. Why was I hoping so much that it wouldn't this time?

As soon as I finally finished that incident file about the Professor's little basement project, reports start coming in that something is going from town to town wrecking things. Something... big, dangerous. Apparently some kind of freakish monster. It's sure a change from the usual power-obsessed maniac, but I'm certain it's also not a good change. There's already been people injured by it, we don't need more people getting hurt... or worse.

I'm standing over a large map table in one of the meeting rooms of the headquarters, looking over the marked locations. These spots are where the beast reported has attacked, seemingly going in a looping path around the Realm. This is how we know it's not just attacking randomly; something about these towns made the monster want to attack them. We just can't figure out what that is yet.

As I'm taking another look, one of my Elites enters the room. As I look up, he stops where he is and seems surprised.

"Oh, sorry Light. I didn't know you were using this room." He says. I recognize the voice.

"It's alright, you're not really interrupting anything." I reply. "Just trying to figure out what that monster is trying to do, maybe I could try to predict where it's going to go next if I figured out what all these towns had in common."

"That's actually what the meeting I was going to set up for later today is going to be about. I wanted to see if any of the other Guards had any ideas about it."

"That's a good idea. If I can, I'll be there."

...

There's a beat of silence for a moment. After a minute, I wave him over and go back to looking at the map.

"You can hang out in here for a bit, Happy. How'd your last visit with Sabre go?" I ask.

Happy walks over and starts looking at the map with me. He sighs before answering my question.

"He's... not looking good. He's even stopped making wise cracks about his situation." Happy replies. "Although, the Professor figured out what's going on with him, sort of."

"Wait, really?" I look up.

"Yeah. He says that after testing something related to an old deity, it worked. Which apparently means Sabre got this virus because he somehow got on a deity's nerves."

I give Happy an incredulous look for a second, then shake my head.

"Why am I not surprised..." I mumble.

"Hey, it's Sabre we're talking about here." Happy chuckles. "Knowing him, he probably mouthed off to somebody he should've have again."

"Oh jeez, remember the last time he did that?"

"Yeah. In his defense, that guy was a bit of a jerk, but Sabre nearly got his nose broken because of his tactic of getting somebody to incriminate themselves by annoying them enough."