A few days after my talk with Amelia, she hadn't contacted me afterward, well, because of what happened to her that day. I couldn't say that she is dead because the chains were still tethered to my left arm, not that anyone can see them besides her and I.

My team noticed that I was troubled and didn't know what to do to get me back on track. I wasn't bothered my Mind and Body were debating the course of action that had been taken and the close calls my team had when they had gone out to the other sectors doing a reconnaissance on them.

Again, they were successful, but at what cost? I had recently paired Dante with Marie and Veronicah with Donny yielding promising results, however as I had mentioned before; this city had other plans with the pairing I had done. I felt it was simply mocking me to an extent of frustration.

Through all that I couldn't lose my cool. Still in our safe house they had reported back to me on their reconnaissance so far and it went south at the start. Dante and Marie found themselves cornered by some people in the who were undercover police officers searching for a couple of convicts out in the city. They committed arson to several buildings in the city with a death toll of sixty-nine people and leaving others with severe skin burns -third degree burns-, and murdered, let me put it this way, slaughtered fifty-one officers and security personnel in a heist they were doing. And through all that they couldn't be recognised through their body features and mistook anyway who surprisingly dressed like them.

It wasn't as bad.

They managed to escape from the through their combined cunning feats, athleticism and former military training. They fought their way out, but Dante had to make sure he didn't use much of his strength. If he did their mandate would have been to kill not to arrest.

Veronicah and Donny on-the-other-hand had it worse than the previous duo. The demons sensed her power and made her an open target, and they were ambushed out in the street where there weren't any witnesses. Donny had no choice to use his dagger which they recognised and targeted him as well. They had to find an opening and make a run for it, chased down till they were exhausted and still needed to fend for themselves to stay alive.

Though they fought diligently however it ended with Donny and Veronicah getting injured. He got slashed in his left calf and was grazed across his chest and got his right arm dislocated. I had to relocate it since Veronicah wasn't well knowledgeable in that field. Veronicah had cut under her left cheek, was stabbed in her right arm and suffered a few broken ribs.

Brushed and battered, they were both happy they hadn't died yet. Their deaths will be their choice not this city's.

I hadn't left the safe house much. I dug through more information of the underground world of the city and took hours to look documents in our private One Direction Information Highway, ODIH for short, which we had to setup, and it was designed to make sure that we would only receive any and all information from the source. Was it a safe connection between us and Mynde? Yes! It was specially made secure through several layers encryption that Donny walked on with the top cyber criminals to develop under the watchful eye of Mynde.

Given full immunity from prison if they worked on this classified project that even the government had no idea of. Mynde pulled all the stops to hide this project and calling it Manifold while I was on my mission called Sanity Paradise that he kept from my team.

For the time we had been here no cyberattacks were launched on us. Not yet. It seemed they haven't found the private network at the time. My phone then buzzed for the twentieth time due to notifications. I looked at what it could possibly be and was perplexed to see that Amelia had sent a text. It read 'I thought a lot about that day…'. I had to turn my phone screen off so that I wouldn't split my attention irrationally.

We had to take care of Donny who was in a terrible physical state. I carried him and put him on his bed, and I told him, "You need to rest for now and allow Marie to tend to your wounds." I looked at Marie standing at the entrance of Donny's living quarters.

"Go get the first aid kit and some sedatives, he is going to need them," Donny groaning in pain after I instructed Marie.

"Veronicah watch over Donny I have to get back to the ODIH and continue scrutinizing the information. I have already gone far enough into the files, and you would be slowing down my progress," I told her.

I got back to the ODIH and read Ameila's text message which of course was daunting to read, though I read anyway. The text was exactly what she said she would send to me, a list of certain powers, demons in power, and where I can find them. Besides that, she reflected on the whole event that ended up with me being her master. Her mischief came to an end that day.

'I don't want you to think I am ignoring you, I was trying to fathom what just happened and it's hard to do so.' One of texts read. It seemed that she was contemplating a lot, but I didn't jump to conclusions. 'I couldn't ask anyone for help, and I am fully aware that I asked a stranger but what choice did I have? Everyone I know is either too scared, they are going to taken away and killed or worse or even use me as a negotiation tool.'

Amelia

Fuck, I have gone through enough and then you came in made me your fucking slave.

Though you respected me and knew that it just made the fucking situation worse.

I don't even know what to do anymore. Just take care of the list for me and maybe I could do something better with my life.

You

Amelia

I stopped myself from typing back and erased the message I planned to send to her.

Another hour went by while I was rummaging through the files, someone knocked on the door. I got up from the desk and summoned my pistol and slowly walked to the door. I looked back and saw Donny, Veronicah and Marie arming themselves and waiting for a chance to attack whoever it was if they weren't friendly.

Grabbed on to the brass door handle and slowly opened the door only to find no one on the other side but a package which was unmarked, had no destination nor did it have the sender's address. On the side of the seventy centimetres by fifty centimetres was a message written 'READ ME OLD FRIEND'. I set it down on the table after closing the door behind me.

Everyone came to the table to see what I got from the front door. "What's inside?" Marie asked me.

"I guess we are going to have to find out," I stated.

I proceeded to open the package and found an array of small handheld weapons inside, pistols, knives and a note inside. 'I just felt like getting rid of old stock, and thanks to you I got amazing customer. Hope you hadn't forgotten about me, mate. Hehe.' it read including the laugh.

It was from the merchant we last met in Downtime City. 'He is here?' I asked myself. Then I remembered that his shop teleports randomly, but he hadn't mentioned that it could teleport outside of the city making feeling the gap of knowledge of him and his shop.

The pistols felt odd, they had some sort of magical power infused in them. And a set of peculiar blades in the box had the others choosing what they felt was a best fit for them, but I warned them not to do so. The type of blade they had to pick depended on their skillset not on preferences. I have had enough experience to know the faults of picking with your preferences, sometimes it is good and sometimes it leads to one's destruction.

It was a matter of time before we had to acquire new weapons. It seems it isn't going to be the start of our adaptation to the city.

Hours later, it was evening probably 19:00 HRS, I received another text message saying she has another matter to attend to, she might not be available for the time. The chains vibrated slightly on arm and that meant she was being dishonest with me. I questioned her on that, and she told me that she really has something to attend to, but the chains remained still. That then meant she was lying about her availability which I left to rest.

Later at night while everyone was having their leisure, I took a walk out around the streets of Bronix City. I didn't put much on me to be walking around in.

The city was bustling in these hours, way more than the day. 'They might be themselves at these times.' I said under my breath and the word themselves lingered in my mind a little longer than I needed.

A bone in my body was telling danger is nearby, but I couldn't figure out from where.

Along my stroll I had to wade through a crowd of people out on the streets, some tipsy, high, sober and mental deranged to the point where their hallucinations manifested themselves. Even though I was wading through them I had save a few who were targeted by demons in the crowd.

One of them, a virgin woman dressed in butt shorts and were caught by two men in suits both demons and I confronted them. They were quite strong, and they launched me into an alley. A big man came chased after me right after landing by a dumpster.

He jumped in the air and crashing down feet first. I quickly moved out of the way and got to my feet. I didn't fight back because I was in no rush to go anywhere. He stood and faced me, then threw one hell of a right which I had caught with my left with a bit of resistance. I got the leverage and twisted him arm to left.

He groaned in pain and swung his left arm, which I also caught. That's what he wanted, he then stretched out his arms causing my feet to leave the ground and be suspended in the air. He moved his head back and then hit me with the nastiest headbutt I had gotten. In my state I then reciprocated and headbutted him, making him let go of me and landing on the ground to my feet.

I took the chance to attack him but was stopped by the sound of a gunshot. My vision was starting to fade, and a warm liquid was flowing on the side of my head. I moved my hand to the area the warm liquid I felt was then I looked at my fingers. It was my blood! In my last moment I slowly turned my hand to see Amelia holding a gun. I collapsed after that, and my vision went dark.

----------- Narrator------------

Smoke rose from the barrel of the pistol into the air. The gun was tightly gripped by a terrified girl who stood by a man barely visible in the dimly lit alley where Captain's corpse lay. She was breathing erratically accompanied by her hands shaking.

The man lowered the gun barrel and spoke to her, "Well done, Amelia." She was speechless.

"Thank you for making the man who killed our dear friend Zator to justice. I will keep my end of the promise since you were obedient enough to keep yours. We will no longer trouble you and your family or friends or colleagues anymore. Your debt has been paid off as well. Now you are free from your shackles underneath us and my family and my goons. Maybe one day we will come back with a business proposition." He spoke.

Amelia looked at him, her face showing terror and pain for the man she entrusted to help her with her problems. But he was gone she felt a tremendous amount of pain in her heart. Her heart ached so much that she dropped to her knees and cried over a man she barely knew.

"Get rid of the body!" he instructed his goons.

They heeded his words and two of the goons picked up Captain's cold, 'lifeless' body up of the ground and threw it inside the dumpsters. The man then took out a cigar and lit up and took a huff of the cigar and puffed a thick cloud from his mouth.

He took his leave, leaving behind a broken, sobbing woman on her knees blaming herself for what she had done.

Not long after she departed from the crime scene to her apartment out there in Bronix City. When she arrived she noticed that her collar had not disappeared.

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