“How are things coming along for the Phantom Brawl?” Nox was looking down from the second balcony of the restaurant. There were customers today, while the second floor was closed off with the excuse that it had already been booked out for the day.
Since Nox was the leader of the Scavengers that owned the place, they could do as they wished, even close the restaurant, since it wasn’t a core business of theirs in the first place.
Standing by his side with his hands behind his back and his dark black clothing on his body, Vixen replied. “The Phantom Brawl has been brought forward as you said, and the prize for the event has already been announced. They are looking to please the Scavengers as much as possible.”
“Great,” Nox said. “And has Pan’s squad updated you on anything yet?”
“They did as you asked, and released the kid. We predict that by the end of the day he will be found.” Vixen answered, but there was something that was on his mind. “Sir, why didn’t you let me deal with the situation myself, instead of sending out Pan’s group?”
Nox placed a gentle hand on Vixen’s shoulder.
“I know you might want to get revenge for him slipping through your fingers, but I would much rather have you focus on the Phantom Brawl, it's our yearly grand event. Besides, Pan had taken one of the solutions already, he should be enough with his group, and we need to test our new Altered and see what they can do.”
It was clear that Nox was treating the attackers as no big deal, even though Vixen had given a full report. No, perhaps Nox was dealing with it appropriately by sending a whole squad as well as an Altered after just two people.
However, at the back of Vixen’s mind, he was still incredibly worried.
‘I bit into his hand that day, and I injected a large amount of venom. The way he chucked me as well... I’m not a hundred percent sure, but there is a good chance that the kid is an Altered.’
If they were an Altered, what were they doing here? How could someone so young even become one without being a well-known figure? There were a lot of questions but the most pressing one was whether or not he was dead.
‘Even an Altered, having that much venom injected into them, they would be dead in a few hours. There’s still the Shadow Fighter to deal with, but if the other one is still alive, it means he’s not just any old Altered.’
———
At the park that looked more like a junkyard, Austin was able to get an idea of the current situation fairly quickly.
‘They must have forced Vlad into doing something like this,’ Austin thought. ‘It would make sense, since we came to that event together, they would guess that we had some type of relationship, when in reality Vlad would have never been able to find me, if I didn’t go to that school.’
It made Austin wonder if the Shadow Fighter had predicted this as well, and why they had told him to stay put.
Austin looked up as the group of people wasted no time rushing towards him. A man swung a bat, but he stood out of the way, grabbing his arm out in a locked position. Then with his own hand, he hit right on the elbow making a crunching sound.
Kicking the man in the chest with a level of strength, the man was lifted off his feet and knocked into two more of the attackers.
‘This is a good thing though, if Vlad didn’t run into me, who knows what these guys would have done to him.’
From behind, one of the men had picked up a broken chair from the mess around them and slammed it on Austin’s back, it broke into pieces, but Austin didn’t even turn around as he focused on punching another one of the attackers in the face.
“I guess the mess that you caused at the underground fight wasn’t exaggerated after all,” Pan said, "I guess that’s why they called me."
Pan was ready to test the waters of his new Altered self, and taking a step forward he wished to take on Austin on his own, until he heard something whispering in his ear.
“What was that?” Pan turned around, but he could see nothing there.
When he turned back to look at Austin continuously taking out the other members, he felt something crawling across his eyeballs. He reached up trying to scratch it but stopped himself realising what he was going to do.
“What is going on, hey kid, kid, what is happening to me... is there something on my face?” Pan asked, running up to Vlad.
There was nothing on Pan’s face but it was his eyes. Slowly from one whole eye being black it looked as if it was crawling across, changing his other eye. Fearful, Vlad stepped back until his back had hit one of the piles of rubbish.
Pan’s body started to change drastically, his muscles were growing in size but building strangely at parts that made him look more like a monster than a human. Both of his hands held the side of his head, and not being able to take it anymore, his fingernails had dug into his skin and it was starting to rip.
The screams and groans of pain were starting to get the attention of the other gang members who looked behind them, and the Pan they were looking at now had black-coloured tentacles coming out from his back.
“Arghh, what is this!” Pan shouted. “This voice, get it out of my head, get it out, get it out!!!”
The tentacles wiggled in the air until two of them went and grabbed the gang member closest. It pulled at its head and legs.
“No! It hurts, it hurts, please!” The gang member shouted until his body was ripped apart in two.
---
For updates for MVS and future works, please remember to follow me on my social media below.
Instagram: Jksmanga
Discord: d.I.s.cord.gg/jksmanga
When news of MVS, MWS or any other series comes out, you will be able to see it there first, and you can reach out to me. If I'm not too busy, I tend to reply back.