Phantom - Chapter 12

The Phantom Incident - Aftermath Report by Kasmine Aysen, Headmistress of Ferris Academy and Supreme Commander of the Guardians

Written at 9:51pm, the evening after the attack

As of the moment of writing this report, we have confirmed that over twenty thousand people have died with both our forces and the enemy’s suffering heavy losses.

Of the one thousand guards that had been part of Captain Lares’s security force, only fifty of them survived. Worse, the three hundred and eighty men and women who had been in charge of the vault’s security and maintenance team had been killed, as well as a student who had been defending the vault’s door.

Out of the four hundred teaching staff and the seven hundred professional Guardians on the site, two hundred and seventy were wounded and four hundred and thirty eight of them were killed.

Nearly eight thousand of the students that had been attending the school suffered some form of injury during the fighting and two thousand seven hundred of them lost their lives due to the bombardments and during fights against the Phantom forces. The initial bombardment that destroyed both the hospital on site and Lares’s barracks, as well as the EMP blast which wiped out all of our Mechs and turrets, lead to a higher number of deaths than we could ever have estimated.

Due to Dead Eye and his team’s intervention, the bombardments were cut short and they did far less damage to the students and the school than they could have.

Further, due to the intervention of Lich and the members of the Necronomicon, there were only thirty seven civilian deaths in imperial, but four hundred and fifty eight people were injured as a result of the fighting, although few of them are in a life threatening condition. While the city sustained some damage, it was contained and Lich has agreed to pay for the damages sustained.

It is also important to note that the school’s and city’s power and electricity systems were restored the moment the Phantom forces had fully retreated, we strongly believe that the EMP blast was caused by a member of the Brotherhood of Foresight, as they are the only ones who could possess such a power.

From our initial assessment and review against our own intelligence gathered before the attack, it seems that the majority of Phantom’s forces took part in the attack and very few of them escaped. Fifteen thousand of them had been killed, with another four thousand wounded and in our custody. As for the remaining one thousand soldiers that had taken part in the attack, they managed to escape and are currently being hunted down by the Merchant and our allies. We were able to successfully kill Kavachin, one of Phantom’s Elite Four, but the other three, including their leader, Michael Angelson, escaped and we are currently tracking their locations.

We were able to reclaim the stolen battleships that had been stolen from the HMS Darius and they are currently undergoing repairs at a British military base in Ireland. The battleships had been sunk and, although salvaged, sustained heavy hull damage; they won’t be fit for sailing for at least a year.

This is not a complete and comprehensive report of today’s events and I will be continuing to update it as more information presents itself and as the situation here calms down.

From the Headmistress of Ferris Academy and the Supreme Commander of the Guardians,

Kasmine Aysen.

***

Late into the night, the full moon hung in the sky high above the ruins of Ferris.

The Necromancers, their skeletons, the Guardians and the emergency services from Imperial were still searching the grounds for survivors and bodies. With large parts of the school in ruins and many of the pathways littered in blood and the dead, it was an enormous undertaking to search the entire school.

Kasmine’s office was one of the few buildings to remain untouched and the Headmistress was stood in her window, overseeing the rescue efforts.

The once beautiful landscape that had once lay outside of her window was replaced by a field of death, destruction and despair.

From her window, she could see the lines of bodies covered in sheets and blankets, a handful of officers tagging them and checking out their identities using their dental records. There were also several teams of paramedics attending to the wounded who had been found, some of who would never survive the journey to the city and, with all of the city’s healers at the hospitals in Imperial or drained from using their powers too much, there was little hope for whoever they found this late in the day.

Ferris’s hospital had been destroyed in the first barrage and it had claimed sixty lives when it fell, meaning that the best they could do for the dead and wounded was to set them down on the cleared but cracked streets.

Someone knocked at her door.

“Come in,” She said.

Teeq silently entered, shutting the door behind him and he stood away from her, his eyes turned to the ground.

“How goes the search efforts?”

“Thankfully, there are not as many people trapped or wounded on the site as we initially feared,” Teeq replied. “However, it’s highly unlikely that anyone else we find tonight will survive until the morning.”

“I see.”

“The Necronomicon are handling the corpses and are putting those whose identities we know in coffins and taking them to the city.”

“Michael?”

Teeq shook his head. “The Merchant’s spies are searching the planet as we speak. It shouldn’t be long until we know where he and the surviving members of Phantom are.”

“That’s something,” She whispered, grunting. “Good work. Keep it up for a few more hours.”

“Of course.”

Teeq bowed and took his leave, leaving Kasmine alone as a chilly breeze blew through her window, stirring her cat and raven from their sleep. She took out her phone from her pocket and, without looking at it, called someone from it.

She placed it to her ear as it connected. “Increase your surveillance at the hospital,” Kasmine said. “Make sure that Eric doesn’t do anything stupid.”

She hung up before they could reply and tossed it onto her desk carelessly.

“What do we do now?” She asked softly.

***

The number you have dialled is currently unavailable. Please call-

Alexa hung up again and cursed.

Ever since power had been restored to the city, Alexa had been desperately trying to get in contact with Eric and the rest of his team at Ferris, and she had already dialled their numbers over a hundred times in total.

Her house had, thankfully, been in the suburbs far away from Ferris and hadn’t been damaged during the attack, but she couldn’t help but be terrified for Eric and the others who had been at Ferris.

Alexa looked back to the television which had a random news channel on that was covering the attack at Ferris.

At the bottom of the screen in large white text, it said, ‘Thousands believed to be dead’, adding to Alexa’s fear.

“Damn it!” She yelled, throwing her phone hard onto her bed.

She sat down, placed her head in her hands and bit down hard on her lip, a few tears falling from her eyes.

“Eric…Kaida…Connor…anyone…please,” She whimpered, curling up into a ball. “Pick up.”

***

Ace was unconscious in his bed in the hospital room.

He had been wounded pretty badly, but the healers had taken care of most of his wounds so his life wasn’t in danger; however, he was in a temporary coma after using his Tarot card, using up almost all of his body’s stamina and Mana.

Dead Eye was in his room, stood against the wall with his arms folded, watching over him.

“They said that you were lucky to survive,” He mumbled, closing his eye and sighing softly. “Well, at least you don’t know that she’s dead.”

He frowned and gripped his arms tightly. “I’m so sorry.”

***

By the time Connor had woken up, the battle was over and he was in the hospital, sat in a chair overlooking the night sky of Imperial out of the window. He looked down and saw a lot of people walking along the streets, almost like normal, except there was a small army of Guardians and police lining the roads.

He shifted his chin into his palm, resting his elbow on the chair’s arm and stared vacantly at them.

Memories of the attack flashed back into his mind, of the pain he’d felt whilst fighting, the deaths that he had seen, the smell and sound of the artillery strikes, and Kaida’s words which echoed over and over again in his mind.

“Laila and…Alexis…died,” She whispered, barely able to hold herself together. “Laila, she…she…” Kaida had begun to cry and covered her mouth. “She died protecting Eric.”

Kaida had collapsed onto her knees and had left the rest of the team in complete shock.

Even when he had seen the look on Ajax’s face, his eyes drained of all life and his body covered in his sister’s blood, Connor couldn’t accept it.

He wouldn’t accept it.

“Shit!” He slammed his fist into the wall next to him, cracking his knuckles open.

Alexis, Eric’s Uncle Lares, and Laila had been killed and he hadn’t been able to do a thing to stop that from happening.

Connor had wanted to cry his eyes out as he cursed at himself, but his body was too weak to let tears form. He felt sick, his limbs felt like they were as heavy as anvils, and all he could feel was the rage and regret building in his chest.

***

Evony rubbed the back of her head and winced.

She had been one of the lucky ones, escaping the battle with only a few bruises and cuts.

While she had been able to avoid most of the cloaked being’s attacks, the ones that had hit her, especially the one which had knocked her out.

She looked down the corridor and saw Kaida leaning against the wall, covered in bandages and her face emotionless and vacant.

As much as Evony wanted to do something for Kaida, to hold out a hand and help her, to offer her support, Evony knew that there was nothing she could do.

There was nothing any of them could do for one another.

The reality was that some of their friends were dead and many others were in hospital beds.

Evony winced and grabbed her heart tightly.

***

Ajax was motionless.

His vision had long since blurred and the sounds of the hospital around him were nothing more than noise to him, his eyes fixed on his hands, still covered in dried blood which he had refused to clean.

His eyes were red, he felt cold and he hadn’t said a thing since he had cried his soul out over Alexis’s head.

When the feeling and image of her head surfaced in his mind, Ajax began to whimper and slowly covered his mouth with his hand, trying his best to keep down the vomit from his stomach. The stench of the iron on his hands went into his nostrils and Ajax screamed, attempting to scrape the blood off his hands on his sleeves.

“I need some help over here!” One of the nurses cried, running over to Ajax and holding his arms. “Get the wipes!”

Two more nurses and a nearby doctor ran to Ajax, restrained his arms and wiped the blood from his face and hands, as Ajax’s breathing became faster and faster.

“Get a Potion of Calming now!” The doctor ordered and a nurse took off down the corridor. “Listen, it’s going to be okay, but you have to calm down.”

Ajax didn’t hear a single word that they had said.

Memories of his sister flashed through his mind constantly, the good, the bad, the embarrassing, and even those that he had thought forgotten.

He remembered her seventh birthday when he had gotten the playset set that she had badly wanted but couldn’t find and her smile when she opened it. He remembered the time after her first crush had rejected her and how he had spent time with her for days after that until her smile returned. He remembered how she had once lost the top of her swimming suit in the sea and how he spent the next ten minutes swimming after it as it was drifted away, and how he had hidden her as she put it back on.

He remembered everything about her.

Her smile, the way she would stick her tongue out at him when she teased him, the way she pouted when she lost to him at videogames.

Tears still occasionally escaped from his eyes, but he did nothing about them; Ajax just sat there, unable to believe the reality that the little sister he loved so much had been killed.

***

Kiara bit her nail between her fangs so hard that it snapped in half.

She spat it out of her mouth and looked at the damage she had just inflicted upon herself.

Not that she particularly cared at the moment.

Old memories of Eleanor and the site of her destroyed home surfaced and her forehead began to throb.

“Not again,” She hissed, clutching it and biting down on her lip.

Blood leaked into her mouth and she swallowed it down hard.

***

Jasmine and Elthia were in each other’s arms on Elthia’s hospital bed, both exhausted and both with tears falling down their faces.

“Why?” Elthia whispered, burying her face in Jasmine’s shoulder. “Why did this have to happen to us?”

“I don’t know,” Jasmine said, stroking the blonde’s head. “I don’t know.”

“What…what did they ever do wrong?”

Jasmine closed her eyes and shook her head. “Nothing. They didn’t do anything wrong.”

***

“Ah, I guess this means I’m retiring early,” Aria said, throwing herself back onto her bed, kicking with what was left of her legs.

“Prosthetics have come a long way since we were students,” Takahiko reminded her. “There’s a good chance that they’ll connect with your nerves and work as well, if not better, than your old legs.”

“Even if they did, I wouldn’t be able to move or fight like I did.” Aria sat up again and rubbed her right stump, smiling sadly at it. “I really am done as a Guardian.”

“Aria…”

She closed her eyes briefly and then looked into Takahiro’s eyes, forcing a bright smile. “Well, at least I can still keep going as a teacher.”

Takahiro nodded and folded his arms, looking away from her. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault that this happened. I’d always been prepared to die since the day I became a Guardian but, I have to admit, it’s a little unreal right now. I should be grateful that I’m alive at least, right?”

“Sounds like you’re handling it well,” Sapphire noted, entering the hospital room and locking the door behind her. She held up a plastic bag with a few bottles of water inside it and tossed one to Takahiro. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright, at least, that’s what I’d say if I was lying.” Aria smiled sadly. “I’m alive, but I feel like shit.”

Sapphire pulled up a chair and sat next to her bedside. “Even if it’s a lie, you need to pretend that you’re fine. The students aren’t exactly handling the attack well and if they see their teacher depressed, it will affect them as well.”

“Sapphire, she knows but is now really the right time-?” Takahiro began to ask.

“There are students out there who lost their friends and families today and they need to see that, no matter what happens to them in a battle, they need to keep on living and going on for them. If a combat veteran like Aria doesn’t, then-”

“I understand,” Aria said. “How bad was it in the end?”

Sapphire narrowed her eyes. “You really don’t want to know.”

***

Eric burst through the doors onto the hospital roof on his crutches and ground his teeth together.

Eric, stop! Lucifer demanded in his head as the boy began to shuffle onwards. You’ll reopen your wounds!

“Shut…up,” Eric said.

One of the ends of his crutches popped off and Eric tumbled onto the floor, slamming hard onto the concrete. Eric yelped in pain and his clothes began to feel damp. He looked down and saw that he had torn his stiches and a lot of blood was pouring out of the reopened wounds.

Eric, this is insane, Lucifer told him. You need to go back inside and call for help before-

“No,” He spat, pushing himself up off the ground. He planted his other crutch on the ground and slowly brought himself back up onto his feet. “Michael needs to pay for what he’s done.”

“Eric!” Lucifer yelled, materialising before him. “If you don’t get help soon, you’ll-”

“Shut up!”

Eric swiped his crutch through Lucifer and lost his balance, collapsing onto the floor, his expression twisted in agony and anger.

“Eric…”

“If you hadn’t been there…” Eric mumbled, his voice shaking, slowly standing back up using his crutch. “If you didn’t exist then none of this would have happened! I would never have been thrown into this world, I would never have had to fear for my life, see people killed before my very eyes and they’d all still be alive! Everything that’s happened here today is your fault!”

Eric rammed his eyes shut as tears poured from them. “Uncle Lares…Alexis…Laila…and everyone else…” His eyes flew open and he thrust his crutch at Lucifer. “If it hadn’t been for you, then none of this would have happened! None of them would be dead!”

“That’s not the case, kid,” A voice said.

Eric and Lucifer snapped to the entrance to the roof and found Spike standing there, his right hand wrapped in bandages, and a sombre expression on his face.

“How is it-?” Eric demanded.

“The only one to blame is Michael,” Spike said, slowly moving towards them. “He did this, all of this, and-”

“Where the fuck were you?”

Spike stopped in his tracks. “Kid...”

“Weren’t you meant to be protecting us? Weren’t you meant to make sure that no matter what happened, my friends and I would be alright? And yet, a real fight breaks out and where the hell were you?” Eric smiled hatefully. “No doubt caught up doing something messed up for your boss, right? Or were you just too weak to protect us? What right do you even have-?”

“Eric!” Lucifer yelled.

Spike grabbed Eric by the collar and threw him up against the wall so hard that the wounds on his back opened again, causing Eric to hiss.

“What the fuck do you think I tried to do?” Spike screamed, glaring into Eric’s eyes. “The moment the battle began, I tried to find you! I searched everywhere I could, fought my way to the student houses, then to the main buildings and by the time I found you, Master had already saved you and Laila and Lares were dead.”

His grip tightened on Eric’s clothes. “Do you really think that I wanted them to die? Do you really think that I didn’t try my fucking best to get to you as soon as possible and protect you? It’s been hell for you I know, and I know it’s a hell that I can’t even begin to imagine, but imagine how I feel for not being able to protect any of you! Do you have any idea how much I hate myself right now from not being able to do a God damn thing for any of you? Huh?”

Spike shut his eyes and punched the wall next to Eric. “Kid, trust me, it feels like shit for you right now but it feels like shit for everyone right now as well. Don’t go blaming the people who are trying to help you for what monsters did.”

“But…” Eric whispered, clenching his left arm in his hand.

“You said earlier that if you’d never had Lucifer in your arm, then none of this would have happened, right?” Spike asked. “Well, you might be right. Laila, Alexis and Lares might have all lived, I can’t deny that, but if you’d never had your Armour, then you wouldn’t have ever met Alexis or Laila, right? You’d never have had them as friends or have made any memories with them…don’t cheapen your time with them by saying stupid shit like that.”

“But right now, at least, I want to live the best life that I can, even after everything that’s happened. I’m not alone this time.”

Lares smiled slightly, stood up and patted Eric on his back. “I’m glad you feel that way.”

She beamed and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, too. I know that my brother’s an idiot, a pervert and he’ll make you regret ever knowing him, but I hope you can become his friend despite that.”

“Eric…thank you…for everything. Thank you for inviting me to join your team…thank you for letting me meet so many amazing people…thank you…for being my friend…”

“I’m happy…that I saved you…so…please…don’t blame yourself…for this…”

“Everyone…” Eric said, sniffing and tears rolling down his eyes.

“Kid, don’t ever regret those days with them,” Spike said, smiling slightly.

Eric closed his eyes, nodded and burst into tears, pushing his head against Spike’s shoulder. He cried loudly into the night air as Spike stood there awkwardly, taking all of Eric’s emotions on his chest and he was smiling a little.

“If you still wish to go after Michael, I can help you with that,” An eerie voice called.

Lich, Grannus and the Merchant emerged onto the roof.

“Master?” Spike asked, helping support Eric as the boy’s strength began to leave him.

“What do you-?” Eric started to ask.

“My spies have pinpointed Michael’s location,” The Merchant told him. “We know where he is and were going to go after him before he can recover.”

“Then why-?”

“Because we wanted to give you the chance to fight him again,” Lich mused, walking towards him.

“Just so you know, I was against this,” Grannus said.

“Right now, you are exhausted, in body, mind and Mana terms, however.” Lich opened up his palm to Eric and revealed a potion injector. “This can restore you completely.”

“What?” Eric questioned.

“Oi, Master, isn’t that-?” Spike asked and Lich nodded. “But that was meant for you.”

“What use do I have for something like this?” Lich retorted and grinned. “Eric, once you inject this into your system, you will be fully restored, if not a little stronger, and you’ll be able to face and defeat Michael in his weakened state. Unfortunately, this potion’s creation was only finished earlier this evening by one of my servants and is a one of a kind item and it isn’t without its risks.”

He held up the potion and shook the black liquid inside of it gently. “Once you inject this into your system, it forcefully and quickly repairs and restores your body, meaning that it will turn healing flesh into scar tissue. Put simply, fifty percent of your body with be covered in rough scars, not to mention that it will be extremely painful to have flesh forcefully burnt back together.”

“I don’t care,” Eric said, slowly marching over to Lich. He took the potion and placed the needle against his neck. “If a few scars are the only price I have to pay, then I’ll pay it.”

Eric stuck the needle into the biggest vein in his neck and released the potion into his system.

Immediately, his body felt like it had been set on fire.

His blood boiled and flew through his veins faster, his skin snapped back together, forcing the stitches from his body and they sealed themselves like they were being soldered together, making Eric scream in pain. He felt his broken bones fused back together and the colour of his skin returned back to normal.

Eric hunched forward, grasping his chest tightly as the pain continued to flow over his body and he felt like he should have passed out from the pain instantly. A deep red aura expanded for metres around his body, sending a tornado of bright red energy into the sky and Eric felt his Armour merged with his flesh, digging into his skin and becoming part of his body.

Eric let out a terrifying and deafeningly loud roar which resounded throughout the entire city, from the hills where he had lived all the way to Ferris.

***

The demonic roar caused many in the hospital to scream and cover their ears in fear but, even though it sounded like a monster, Kaida knew who it was the moment she heard it.

“Eric,” She said softly.

She ran towards his hospital room and found it empty. Then, she spotted a faint blood trail leading out of his room which she began to follow, running after it.

***

“Lich, you bastard!” Kasmine yelled, taking out her phone and calling one of the Guardian captains in the city.

“Get to Eric Agrim, now!”

***

When his aura began to settle down, Eric was left standing in a dark crimson suit of armour with an obsidian trim, highlighting the sharpness of the armour and the rock-like nature of its design. Large demonic wings protruded from his shoulders, proudly standing at ten metres tall from his back with black bones holding them together. His helmet had black horns weaving along his temples, curling at the back of his head, with deep, dark, bloodthirsty red eyes staring viciously from the eye sockets in his helmet.

Oblivion had materialised in his right hand and it was glowing more brightly and powerfully than usual, pulsing with Mana like it never had before.

“Holy shit,” Spike said, taking a few steps back.

“Is it me or has it…changed again?” Grannus asked in disbelief. “It didn’t evolve again, did it?”

“Not exactly,” Lucifer answered. “It’s more like it’s changed to meet Eric’s desire for raw strength and the power to kill the Arch Angel Michael. I’m not sure how different it is to his previous forms entirely, but it seems far stronger than before.”

“Lich’s liquid probably overloaded his Armour’s circuits and it forcefully grew to accommodate it,” The Merchant calmly analysed. “For better or worse, it has reached a greater level of power than it was ever meant to have.”

“Where is he?” Eric demanded.

Lich grinned. “Berlin. But.” He held up his hand. “Before you go flying off alone; Merchant.”

The Merchant held up his God weapon and everyone else on the rooftop gathered around Eric.

“Yin!” He called and a large Yin and Yang symbol appeared beneath them.

A moment later, they were outside the grand capital city of Germany; Berlin.

***

Kaida had been less than a second too late.

“Eric!” She had screamed, throwing open the door, only to see Eric and several other people teleport away right before her eyes.

“No…” She whimpered, falling onto her knees and sobbing. “Eric…where have you gone?”

***

“Michael’s staying in the penthouse of the ‘Gefallene König’,” The Merchant coolly said.

Eric’s wings beat hard against the air and he flew straight up into the air, leaving the rest of them in a strong wind that whipped their clothes.

“Go get ‘im, Eric” Spike whispered with a soft smile.