Her Code

"Ah, the Lost Girl of the Great Vaughan family, I see you have come to seek out the token too. It has only been a day since the notice was out......."

The register at the local Guild of Mercenary and Bounty Hunters raised his greasy eyebrow before letting out a chuckle. His fat finger rubbing back and forth over Ver's identity cast before it's finally returned after fingerprints are left behind all over her name.
"I was working nearby." Ver replied sharply, "Are you done?"
Ver bore with his nonsense until the piece of the Cast was returned, and she shoved it into her pocket angrily, "The special room is reserved for you just through the door."

The special room is the room reserved for those with a High Society Identity tag within their Identity Casts, and through there, Ver will have gained access to information not available elsewhere.

However, she has seen how this thing plays out before. She walks in, and people start asking who she is. Then, things always end up sour.....Ver wanted to just turn and walk away, and she wanted to save herself the headache.

So she did. In any other job, she would have had to endure the bullshit, but this time, she's going to do all of this alone. This Token must be hers, and hers alone.

After putting her name down as one of the registered hunters for the Token, she left the Guild and its slimy atmosphere behind before putting on a set of cloak and disappeared into the crowd that's heading into the city that morning.

Walking past a set of posters, she immediately caught her eye on the set of posters. That bounty looked to be in the local currency units, and it.....

Ver made an interesting noise as she moved aside, giving way to a local group of mercenaries that leaned in close to look at the facial features of the two with the prices on their heads. There is a mismatch between the bounty set up in the High Human bounty hunter circle and what's laid out here. In order to get the Token, all that's needed is the proof of death for the Summoned one, but here, the bounties are for dead or alive, with captures alive giving a higher reward.

Someone up top wanted a piece of the Token too. Ver smiled, so she's not only up against the entire guild of opportunistic High Humans bounty hunters around, but also all of the local big dogs too. This hunt for the Summoned one is truly going to be a battle of a lifetime.

Her right eye twitched once more, and she felt a short burst of dizziness before she covered her eyepatch, grunted, and walked away. She will need a place to stay first, then, she will contact her local informants.

"If you want to learn what happened, then you shall return to the place where it first happened. The Pinnacle Research Institute." Her contact said before accepting her payment, "Though it's destroyed two weeks ago, the restoration efforts have only just begun."
"Right."
"I wish you the best of fortunes, Lost Girl of Vaughan Family." Her contact said, bowing and disappearing into the shadows.

"Tsk......" Ver clicked her teeth. She always hated that nickname, and yet that's what the more informed of the people called her. Using the map of Sonne, Ver started heading towards the Institute before picking up a set of sweet buns from the bakery right after the city gates.

The Pinnacle Research Institute was an impressive building, given the Kingdom of Varous isn't exactly the biggest and wealthiest of countries around. The various outer walls had countless cracks and holes within from the battle that raged on mere two weeks ago, and lines of Casts were set up as perimeters with a handful of Sonne Security Forces circling the perimeter and workers sieving through the rubbles.

It looked like entrance will not be possible during the day. Ver thought, walking along at a normal pedestrian pace as she encircled the massive perimeters of the Institute, noting down the security Cast's basic structure in her head.

Six hours later, when the moons loomed overhead, Ver returned to the outer boundaries of the Institute. As the city slowly falls asleep apart from the popular pubs and diners, the countless mercenaries and bounty hunters that silently arrived made their moves.

Ver was not the only person that thought to come to the Institute, and even the Sonne Security has caught wind of this, intentionally stepping away from the area during the night. That act becomes increasingly justified as all of the students and staff members were vacated from the site almost the day after the attack.

Officially, the responsibilities of the attack were pushed onto the shoulders of Lera, as her acts of trying to bring about the summoning of the Fourth User are what killed the staff members and forced the hands of the Inverted Questions to interfere. Then, retroactively, the King granted Inverted Question special privileges and power from saving the Kingdom and stopping her sanity.

However, all of the students and surviving staff members knew the truth, but those that actively fought against the invading forces had already been silenced permanently, with threats being delivered to the others to keep their mouths shut, or have them be shut.

Standing atop the roof of a civilian house right across from the edge of the Pinnacle Research Institute perimeter, Ver took off her eyepatch and tucked it away lightly. A gentle cooling sensation brushed against her right eye, and a faint purple glow surrounded her entire body.

"So you have unleashed me again." The haunting rumbling voice from her right eye returned, and a sharp twitching pain echoed, "Where are we now, little one?"
"We are here to do a job." Ver murmured, responding to the calls from a dark and unclear pattern surrounding her right eye. Under the faint shine of the moon, it looked like her right eye had various dark tendrils growing out from her eyeballs, and that pattern was enough to completely ruin her beauty by the standards of the High Humans.

In fact, it ruined more than just her appearance.

"What are you without me, little one.....What do you seek this time?" The rumbling voice asked kindly, "I am feeling generous tonight."
"Shut up.....' Ver bit into her lips, "We are finding out more about Lera Huten, "Get me moving. Whirlpool Purple."
"As you wish, little one." The voice said before a whirlpool of dark purple fluid started forming underneath her feet and she fell right through.

Then, moving through the short-range portals created by the owner of the voice, she emerged from an identical whirlpool on the other side of the walls of the Pinnacle Research Institute. Swiftly overcoming the perimeter Cast, Ver then ran forward in the night.

At the same time, other figures of shadow also leaped made their ways past the barrier, and entered into the bounds of the Institute. However, they had to work through the resistance from the perimeter cast while Ver had already made her way into it.

"An intriguing taste of Wave. Can you feel it?" The voice asked, and Ver nodded. He seemed extra talkative today, and Ver doesn't care as long as it gets the job done, "Everything converges to one point of origin......the Portal......"
"I have read the history books too." Ver said impatiently as she reached a hand out as a strange little extension came out of her fingertips. Sensing the tiniest variations of the Wave in the air, she started moving over the ground from one pile of rubble to another.

Then, she came across a single figure running across the openings right in front of her, he's carrying a single book, he started moving the moment he saw Ver.

"Whirlpool Purple!" Ver hissed quietly yet sharply, teleporting herself through the short distance and immediately catching up to the figure. Then, she reached one hand forward before a blast of high-pressure water jet rammed the figure in the face. He grunted loudly before dropping the book he's carrying.
"No......no......" That man said, rolling on the ground and coughing out blood, "That's the......I cannot......"

Looking over, Ver hovered thumb over the surface of the book before it glowed for a few seconds.
Book of Register, Class of 4022.

So that's all that she needed. Quickly flipping her finger over the book while keeping a small light with her thumb, she sought out the names of Lera Huten and found her corresponding address.

"No.....I cannot allow her families to be hurt......" The man said as blood rushed from his mouth, "Please.....don't do it like this......"

Ver's eyes widened, and her entire body became tensed up. With her face covered by the darkness, she closed the book as the man groaned painfully. Then, she opened up a Whirlpool Purple and swallowed up the book whole before. Her blast couldn't have done it that bad to him......he was already injured and bleeding, and Ver simply knocked the wind out of him.

"You cursed bounty hunters! Screw you......" The man said when Ver walked towards him and placed a single finger over his back. Then as other shadows that have snuck into the academy and this man's previous pursuer started approaching Ver and the man, another Whirlpool Purple opened up underneath their body and teleported the two of them back to the exteriors of the Institute.

"I am a bounty hunter. That's true." Ver said, leaving the man in the darkness at the back of the corridor, "But even I have a code. That book has been destroyed, and no one else will know the address."
"You are wrong......" The man said painfully as he held onto the wound over his chest and turned over, "Someone had already taken the replica earlier today.....The worker found the office of the register under the rubble just this morning......"

Ver's eyes widened, and she ground her teeth together before spinning around.
"Make no mistake. I will kill the Summoned one by my hand, but I will not let harm come to the families of Lera Huten." Ver said, half turning around as Whirlpool Purple swallowed her whole.

As she's traveling through the darkness of her portals, Ver couldn't help but think back to the kind smile of her mom's. That smile is what keeps her going, and that smile is what she will protect.

From a glance, Ver already knew what she had to do. Like her, all Lera had is her mother, and she will not let any harm come to her.

By the time Ver moved through the vast city of Sonne and arrived at the address noted within the Book of Register, the house of Lera's had already had been taken over, though groups of local mercenary soldiers stood guard just to the outer perimeter.

What Ver's afraid of is that she will be too late, but perhaps Lera's mother was out during the day, and those that knew of her address could only act during the night.

Tracing the lights in the second floor, Ver then short-ported herself right to the top of the building as she leaned with her ear on the floor, listening in to what's happening downstairs.

"You will tell us what you know about your daughter's whereabouts." A low feminine voice came through, though it belonged to that of a man, "Be a good girl, and you may save yourself."
"Scums like you must have not been a parent then!" Lita said fiercely, "Lera will never do something like that! And she is not here! Get out of my house!"

WHIP!
Ver felt her blood rushing and heart racing, and she closed her eyes, extending out an extra limb and sensing the distribution of Wave within the room. There are four individuals within the room, plus Lita who's tied to something vertically. Adding the three that stood guard outside, adds to a total of seven, enough to make up a small local mercenary group.

"I hate whips." The voice commentated, and Ver swiftly and suddenly, emerging from the side of the walls in the room beneath before sending a hand forward, "Whirlpool Red!"

Four simultaneous jets of water shot out from the black whirlpool that spawned right in the center of Ver's palm, and they penetrated through the skulls of the four mercenaries instantaneously. As their bodies fell in all directions, individual Whirlpool Purples opened up and swallowed their bodies whole.

The entire sequence of attacks happened in the matter of a second, and Ver had already taken down all four within the room. Lita, stripped to her undergarments and body full of whip scars, had her eyes shut before Ver reached for a large jacket and untied her.

"What.....who are you......" Lita asked, her body trembling, though her eyes strong and voice steady, "Are you Lera's friend? Is she all right?"
"You need to get away from here." Ver said, waiting until Lita's put her clothes on, "Grab all that you need."

Lita reached forward and grabbed onto Ver's wrists with surprising strength, holding her in place, "My daughter......is she okay?!"
"I.....I don't know." Ver admitted before wrapping her fingers around Lita's wrist lightly and pulling it away slowly, "But I will find her. And......I will make sure she is unharmed."
"......That's all I can hope for then....." Lita said, grabbing a bag from her room upstairs while Ver took care of the three mercenaries outside. Then, wiping away her worried tears, she let Ver teleport the two of them far away before the strange rescuer returned quickly blew up her house in a massive explosion that rocked the entire district.

As the buildings set on fire, and residents nearby scrambled to get help, Ver dragged Lita along deeper and deeper towards the outskirts of the city until the sights of the fire and late-night chaos are no longer visible.

"What.....why......" Lita asked as Ver left her behind on the side of the road, "Why are you doing this?"
"Because......I had a worried mother too." Ver said without turning back, "Go somewhere safe, for Lera's sake."
"......Thank you!" Lita said as Ver walked away, now used too much of her powers and fatigue starting to set in, "When.....when you found Lera, tell her I have gone back to home! The real home!"

With a nod, Ver slipped through Whirlpool Purple one last time.