Special Task Force Pt: 3

"So what's the plan old man? We just gonna find this fucker and kick his ass? Because I'm all for that!" Cyrus says, punching his palm with his fist.

"Calm, down. As you all already should know, this spectre is no ordinary spectre. It has the power to completely incinerate entire villages, so if we want to fight it head on, we're gonna need to suppress its powers somehow."

All 7 of us are standing in the field of RVs, around a table I had some men set up. We're discussing our plan of action and how we could possibly find this thing.

"Suppress its powers? With what, arcana suppression handcuffs? I have some of those if we need them." Bright chips in.

"I doubt those'll work. Spectres don't have arcanas right? They just use the flames their bodies produce or something." Link says.

"Yep, exactly. So we need something that'll weaken its flames." I say.

"Well, why don't we just use water?" Otto says.

Water... Fuck no. Everybody knows spectre flames overpower water, so throwing water on it'll just piss it off.

"No, that's stupid." I say.

Otto looks disappointed, and gives up.

"Mwahaha... It seems you are all forgetting your most powerful asset... Me!" Maximillius strikes a pose.

Everybody tries to ignore him but that ends up being difficult.

"Allow me to give you all my proposition. I take on this 'spectre' alone, and the rest of you may cheer me on from the sidelines." He continues.

"Just listen to your commander Max." I say to him.

I turn back to everyone else and start again.

"I say we head on over to the vi-"

"Ahem!" Max interrupts me.

I turn to him again. This guy is starting to piss me off.

"What is it now?" I say, sounding annoyed.

"I would like to clarify one thing. My name is not 'Max', it is Maximillius Edmund the Seventh. I understand you have a lot on your mind but please remember to address me accordingly." He says.

That's it.

"Please wait in the RV, Maximillius." I tell him.

Max cheerfully struts over to an RV and hops inside, seeming glad he gets to relax.

"As I was saying, I think we should head on over to one of the villages that was destroyed and see what we can find, maybe we'll find something useful." I say before turning towards the RVs.

The rest of them nod and begin splitting into 3 RVs for the drive there. I hop into the drivers seat of the first one I see and turn on the gas.

"Oooh, we get the commander's RV, very nice." I hear from the backseat.

I see Link and Emerald sitting in the backseat.

"Oh, you two." I say.

Thank god, the bearable ones.

Link hops into the front seat from the back. I step on the gas and start driving to our destination, and the other RVs follow.

"So, why'd you join the rebellion?" Link asks me, sounding curious.

"Huh? Oh, well... The chaos created from the Arcana War was just too much. Both Klein and Kamikaze were gonna bring this country to ruin, so I decided to step in and help out. We're lucky someone took out Klein already, now we just need Kamikaze and I should be able to live a little easier. I just want this world to be safer for my daughter..." I explain, probably saying a bit more than I would've liked.

"You have a daughter?" He asks me.

"Yeah. 11 years old. I adopted her when she was just a baby and she lost both her parents. I was good friends with her mom. Cleo hasn't been living with me lately since the rebellion began taking a more aggressive front. It's safer this way..." I say.

"Oh, I see..." Link replies.

"What about you? Any family?" I ask him.

He thinks for a few seconds.

"Wellll, I have a dad back at home, but he's probably disowned me since I started working with the rebellion, aha. He was pretty close with General Klein." He says, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I see. Hopefully you two can make up. Any siblings?" I ask him.

His smile disappears.

"A brother. I haven't seen him since I was like 5 though... I guess my dad cheated on his mom with my mom, so their relationship wasn't the best, and then eventually my brother's mom just took him and left." He explains to me.

I nod. Seems like he was pretty close to his brother.

"I see." Is all I can say.

Eventually, we make our way to the remains on one of the villages destroyed by the spectre, or rather, the lack of remains. Just like the pictures, it's just nothing. Empty land. Everyone begins getting out of their RVs.

"What the hell is this? Thought we were going to some destroyed village. Is this some kinda joke old man?" Cyrus says, sounding annoyed.

"This IS the village dumbass. I told you all, this spectre can completely burn villages to the ground." I say.

"Oh, I see. I knew it'd be bad but I thought we'd at least find rubble..." Bright murmurs.

"AH!" I hear a loud scream from behind us, and immediately ready my shotgun.

All I see is Max, his face pale and he looks like he's about to cry.

"What is it?! Did you see something?" I quickly say.

He looks up at me with horror.

"I... I stepped in mud! Oh, it's all over my shoes!"

I immediately lower my shotgun along with my head.

"Max... Just... Go see if you can find anything worthwhile, or maybe just go play pattycake with Otto I don't care..." I don't even attempt to hide my disappointment.

Otto's face lights up like a Christmas tree.

"You really mean it?! We can take a break?! Cmon Max let's go!" He grabs Max's arm and drags him off to the RV, excited to get to slack off.

I turn back around to see Link on his knees, his hands searching through the ashes on the ground. He starts speaking without looking up.

"I've only came across spectres once before, but i could understand how one would be able to do this." He says.

"You've met spectres before? And you're alive?" I ask him.

That surprised me. Spectres are normally quite violent, If any normal person met one they'd likely be incinerated before they could even start running.

"I'm immune to fire I guess. They were all locked in a dungeon cell underneath this castle." He explains to me.

"Immune to fire? An arcana thing?" I ask.

"Yep. My arcana is fire based. What about you?" He replies.

"You mean what's my arcana? I, uh, don't have one." I look away.

I've always been shamed by my colleagues for not having an arcana, even though only about 30 percent of people have one, people wonder how someone like me could even make it this high up the ladder. I prepare myself for more shaming.

"You don't have an arcana? Yet you still made it to commander rank? Damn, that's impressive!" He finally looks up at me from the ashes he was inspecting and grins at me.

"Huh? Thanks- I mean, uh, flattery will get you nowhere! I just worked hard that's all!" I start walking away before he can say anything else.

This kid...

I catch myself smiling like an idiot and quickly give myself a hard slap to the face with my left hand. I prepare to head back to the group until I feel something hard under my boot. I lift my foot up and get down on my knees to see what it was. Laying there in the ashes, I find a white chunk of what looks like bone. It shows signs of impact, Like it was shot maybe? Regardless, it must be important so I reach out and grab it with my right hand.

"What's that?" I hear a girl's voice from behind me.

I turn around and see the green haired demi-human girl. Emerald I think.

"Some piece of bone, from a skull maybe. I think this might be from our spectre friend." I respond to her as I begin walking back to the RVs.

She begins following closely behind me, carefully making sure to not step in any of the mud or ashes scattered around the lot.

"Why would a piece of its skull break off?" She asks me. 

I ponder that question for a few seconds. I was wondering that also. The footage and reports all show the villages being engulfed in flames in seconds, and the only way I would see a piece of it being broken off is if someone survived long enough to fight back. Even if someone did, I'm sure they'd be dead now so we'd never know.

"Commander?" Emerald calls out.

"Huh? Oh, right, I'm not sure why a piece of the spectre broke off, but this should be a good clue nonetheless." I respond, deciding not to say my entire thought process.

Bright approaches us, looking around the lot carefully but seemingly finding nothing.

"Uh, Commander? This place is pretty empty, I'm not sure we'll find anything here." He says, looking worried.

I'm about to tell everyone to back in the RVs when I suddenly hear Link call out from the spot he was searching.

"Do spectres bleed?"

I look at him curiously, and tilt my head.

"I don't think so... They don't have skin. They're just flaming skeletons. Why?" I ask him back.

He looks back down at the spot he was searching.

"Hm... Yeah I didn't think so. So this must be from one of the victims right?" He moves over slightly so we can see what he was looking at, and there we see... blood?

There's a small amount of blood that looked liked it was mixed in with the ash, Link must've been digging through it when he found it. Could this be from a victim?

"Any body?" I ask.

Bright chips in.

"No, I've searched this whole area thoroughly and I found nothing. If there were bodies they've been incinerated by now." He says.

"That wouldn't leave any blood." Emerald says.

"Then where'd the blood come from?" Link tilts his head.

I look back at the piece of bone in my hand. Someone attacked the spectre... That's the only thing that makes sense. All the victims were burned to ash, Emerald is right they wouldn't leave any blood. But spectres don't bleed... They don't have skin... Right...?

"Bright, take a picture of the blood, we're leaving. Everyone, back in the RVs." I say before turning back to the RV I came here in.

Bright does as I say and snaps a photo of the blood in the ash, using his arcana to immediately gravitate a camera towards himself before heading back to the RV where Max, Cyrus, and Otto are already sitting. Link and Emerald follow after me and together we get back into the RV. I call out to the other RV, which Bright is driving.

"Just follow behind me!" I yell before stepping on the gas and driving off the lot.

The drive back is silent. My mind is still distracted, trying to piece together what everything at that lot meant. The idea that the blood belonged to a victim isn't completely farfetched, the spectre could have killed them by some other means before burning the body afterwards. But why would it do that? I don't see a reason it would go through the extra effort to burn the body, I mean, it certainly wasn't being sneaky.

I continue searching my mind for any possible clues, not realizing Link has been yelling at me for the past 5 seconds.

"Commander! Commander can you even hear me?! Watch out!!!" He screams.

"Huh? Wha-" I finally snap out of my trance and look out to the road.

It's a man. He has longer black hair and a black goatee. He's stumbling across the road like a zombie, bleeding profusely from his head. He doesn't seem to notice our RV rapidly approaching him.

"SHIT!!!" I turn the wheel as fast as I can, causing the RV to immediately swerve off the road.

Link and Emerald are both flung to the side, and I hit my head on the steering wheel. I slowly look up and see the man finally noticed us. He's staring at me across the street through the front window. He glares for a few seconds, before slowly turning back around and stumbling through the doors to the bar across the street.