Kälte [ˈkɛltə]

Agent Araki crawled towards me, violently shaking me awake, shortly before my vision started to blur again.

“Snap out of it, god damn it!” He yelled, throwing up blood. It appeared that a small Icicle had pierced his lungs.

“Get over here, you two.” He rolled to the side and stared at the two agents cowering behind one of the cars.

I felt an intense shiver crawling down my spine. The warmth I had just felt vanished in the blink of an eye. As the agents slowly approached me and Araki, I took one more glance around. An odd sensation I had never felt before grazed my skin.

The struggle for the surrounding agents’ lives had subsided, and they lost. It felt weirdly soothing for some reason, like a sudden surge of energy coming from within. I felt the strength returning to my legs, and stood back up. The two agents now running towards me stopped in their tracks. Both reached for something around their hip, and immediately opened fire at me with handguns.

Multiple bullets pierced my upper body and forced me to kneel. My body began cooling down again, freezing the entrance and exit wounds solid.

They’ll die. I’ll kill them. All of them. Right now.

A surreal feeling filled my mind, replacing my sorrow with the urge to kill. Yet another new sensation. This one I could somehow get used to way too fast, though.

I reached out my left hand, completely freezing the left agent on the spot.

“What have you done? This is getting worse by the minute.” Araki yelled, barely managing to stand up.

The other agent formed a sphere of flames in his hands, hurling it at me mere seconds after firing his gun. As soon as it approached me, the flames simply dispersed. Even the air around me had sunk far below zero, depriving me of much needed oxygen to properly think. Before I could reason with myself, a large shard of ice pierced his chest, and he fell to the ground.

Cold. It’s too cold. I’ll die here. Maybe that’s for the better. I can’t control it.

I continued walking toward the collapsed agent, the ground below me cracking under the sudden drop in temperature. Merely two steps away from reaching him, his head burst apart into a billion small pieces, having frozen solid just one second after the shard had pierced his chest.

An explosion set off right in front of my feet.

“Hey there, beautiful. Heard you’re in trouble.” An unfamiliar voice yelled.

A chain of small explosions followed, barely scratching me.

No Air. This is it.

The unknown person descended from the sky, pointing his finger at me, resulting in a small spark that fell quickly accelerated towards me.

Right above my head, it exploded. The immense heat allowed me to briefly regain my composure, and I desperately tried raising my outward temperature.

A pair of gloves fell on my head, immediately hardening from the temperature.

“You’re the real deal, huh? Sorry, but I didn’t plan on dying today.”

The mysterious man suddenly appeared directly in front of me, wearing a black, leather coat and sunglasses, with his black hair slicked back.

He began juggling small sparks in his hands, multiplying them by the second. After creating a small swarm of them, he blew me a kiss, followed by the swarm of sparks racing in my direction.

The first explosion hit immediately, throwing me back by a few meters. Followed by the second, the third and the rest of his barrage of explosions. They were too fast for me to react.

Before I knew it, I was laying on the ground, unable to move. My body began heating up again, and I was finally able to properly breathe again. The entire street was devastated by now, and agent Araki barely held on to life.

The pyromaniac pressed his left foot on my stomach.

“I’ll kill you, here and now. That’s what you want anyway, right? No point in living anymore?” he readied to snap his finger, his fingertips slowly heating up.

Salvation at last? I can’t possibly go on like this. I wish she was still here.

“Stop! And get me an ambulance, I’m barely holding on over here. Couldn’t you have caused a bit less collateral damage, Ōhara? The paperwork will be more grueling than the massacre that she just caused thanks to you.”

“Yes sir!”, Ōhara yelled, immediately retracting his hand to salute. He stepped away from me and pulled out his phone to call an ambulance.

It was honestly impressive to see Araki still being able to speak more than ten minutes after being struck by the small piece of ice. He even managed to melt the ice away and contain the blood loss while tending to the wound. I could hear a slight wheeze in his voice, though.

“She’ll be brought to a controlled environment. I didn’t mean for it to end like this. I’m sure your father will be gravely disappointed in me. He’ll also very likely want to speak to you, face to face.”

Satoru? What could he possibly have to do with this? I thought he just knew him as a friend. Why would he want to talk to me?

“And you, Ōhara, calm down, before you blow up something else. I’m sure you’re needed elsewhere now, so communicate with control to figure it out. The evac team will be here shortly, late as always.”

“Will do, sir. And what about that rift in the sky? Shouldn’t we be worried?”

“How would I know? It sure looks like it, but I haven’t seen anything threatening emerge from there so far. That dastardly snake slipped through it, though. I saw its tail disappearing into that hole.”

Their conversation was cut short by an armored vehicle approaching at a rapid pace, ramming away the few cars that were left intact after our short fight.

Out came multiple masked soldiers, armed with assault rifles and wearing weird goggles. They were followed by a woman wearing nothing but a white dress, not even shoes. She was utterly stunning in the way she even just walked.

We made brief eye contact, and I suddenly felt my elevation changing and the ground below me moving toward the armored car.

“I assume that’s her? We’ll take her, you’ll manage on your own, Araki. Ōhara, you’re supposed to return to base for further commands.”

She immediately took control of the situation, and not even agent Araki seemed to have the authority to disobey her.

I was gently floated into the car and it drove off with me laying on the floor, completely unable to move.

“Miss Matsumoto, what are we going to do with her?”

“Simple, soldier. Her father wants to speak to her. So we’ll deliver her to him as requested. Understood?”

“Yes Ma’am!”

The rest of the drive was silent, with a piece of the ground strapped to my mouth to keep me from speaking.

When we finally arrived back at what I presume to have been the base I was taken to previously, I wasn’t even allowed to stand up. As the door opened, restraints made out of rock covered both my arms and legs to keep me fixed to the floating platform I collapsed on.

The mysterious woman floated me through the hallways and into an elevator, while every person she came across bowed to her in admiration. She must carry some serious power to get that level of acknowledgement.

After standing in the elevator for a while, seemingly aiming for the lowest floor of the facility, the restraints finally loosened.

I quickly jumped down from the platform, my legs slightly jittering.

“You’re quite the unruly one, huh? Killing an entire squad of capable agents on your first day on the force is quite the feat. Not even I managed to do that. You can be glad to have connections at this place, otherwise Ōhara would have killed you on the spot back there.” She spoke with a soft voice, similar in tone to whenever Yuri tried calming me down.

I felt slightly at ease around her, even with the menacing aura surrounding her slowly growing stronger.

“Who are you, exactly?” I asked.

“My name is Takako Matsumoto. I’m the vice commander of the ground forces of the DSA Tokyo branch office, pleasure to meet you, Miss Wada. Or should I say Schnee?”

“Wada is fine. I haven’t had that other name for almost two decades now.”

“Of course. Still wanted to ask, you’ll never know someone’s preferences otherwise.”

A few more minutes of slightly awkward silence later, we, at last, arrived at our destination.

“Welcome to floor 100, Miss Wada. Your father is awaiting your arrival.” She slightly bowed before me, taking the elevator back up as soon as I left.

I was suddenly surrounded by countless people in lab coats, standing in an entirely white room following the same principle as the upper floor. It was eerily clean, just like everything else in this facility. Not a single speck of dust anywhere to be found.

“Please follow me, Miss Wada. I will lead you to your father.”

I, of course, obliged his request as he led me toward a large door, opening to a room with a single desk, mirroring the inside of a doctor’s office.

I sat down on one of the two chairs opposite of the see-through monitor of the desk, barely making out the old man that had raised me. I hadn’t seen or talked to him for two years, as his age began showing on his face.

“There you are, Laura. I’ve been waiting to meet you. I’m deeply sorry for your loss, of course. But we both knew that thing wouldn’t last for long now, didn’t we? Have you finally come to your senses after this rude awakening?" He muttered into his hand keeping his head afloat, while still staring at his monitor.

“What does any of this mean? Why are you here? Did you do something to Yuri? I know you said that you didn’t like her, but I didn’t think you would go so far as to kill her to prove a point. Am I wrong?”

“Of course not, my dear. Her death is a tragedy I had no hand in creating. As for your other questions, I shall answer them in a moment. I’m quite busy right now, you see. Make yourself comfortable.”