Mutants: Normal

3-3: An ongoing battle

Zero then found himself looking out the window at the scenery as they passed. He wondered what the rest of the world looked like since he had no memory of it. At least, it was impossible for him to discern what he knew second-hand and what he had actually experienced himself. He always kept himself updated on parts of it from documentaries, books and the internet, but research like that could only bring so much to the table.

"Zero, you won't see anything for a long time. It takes a while to even reach the highway since we're following a hidden trail," Ranulf told him, his eyes still watching Pierre's car as he followed closely behind. "Get some shut eye. We'll be sleeping at a hotel tonight."

"So how does this all work anyways?" Zero asked, stretching and trying to hide the excitement he was feeling. "Investigating a murder, I mean. Why're we the ones being called in?" They had been briefed, but it had been the most brief briefing Zero had ever experienced in his life. The informers at the base seemed to place little interest in matters outside their jurisdiction, but they had also felt compelled to assign someone to help with the situation they had been presented by the capital. The incident they were going in for had become blown up in the news, and since the mutants had been free...

"It's more complicated than that. I've been helping out the police department since they're shorthanded after the job cuts the government's budget has caused in the city. There have been strange murders happening around the Tongjiang district of the Jingcheng—which happens to be the district closest to us, thank god, because that avoids us having to go through city traffic. The police have their hands mostly full with riots and protests. These would usually be dealt with some help from the federal government, but we all know how messed up that system is right now. And as you know, the capital is its own province, so the municipal and provincial government are one entity running everything at the moment."

Zero nodded. The country of Qin had fallen into disarray since the president had been overthrown by force almost three years ago. Since then, it had fallen prey to civil hardships circulating within the country that had broken it apart. Forget the support of a federal government –many provincial governments had been ruined by the sudden blow and the country was now separated into alliances between municipal governments. These cities were even more divided within with different kinds of people with different opinions: those who wanted democracy, those who wanted to reinstate communism, try dictatorship... Among these, there were those who searched for a peaceful solution and those who cried civil war.

Well, we've gotten a war on our hands like they wanted. Only it's not civil.

Since then, the country had been viewed as a weakened part of the world, and other world powers had taken advantage of its weakness. Two years earlier, Edo had declared war on Qin just like in the past, and though the first attacks had already started, the mainland wasn't doing much in resistance. It was every city and county for themselves, it seemed. Still, the rest of the world looked on or turned a blind eye—it was a fight between two of the most powerful countries, so no one wanted to interfere and risk losses on their own side. That's when the situation had turned desperate, especially when it came to means of self-defence.

It's why we were made. It's why the military has become its own force behind an unknown commandant whose identity is hidden for safety reasons. All because of those mechas.

Edo, a country well-known for its developments in mechanical and software engineering, had created a new kind of weaponry: a machine of destruction in the form of a huge suit of armor. The new creation was dubbed "mecha" and it wreaked havoc on tanks and fighter jets alike. Standing at an average of seven meters tall and controlled by soldiers from inside, it could shape shift to travel under water or in the air as well as on land. Qin, on the other hand, had had another trick up its sleeve that it had been saving for desperate measures. Being further developed in biology than machinery, it decided to give evolution a push.