Day 96, Year 3010, on the Yorikian Calendar.
It was early summertime, nearing the end of spring. The trees were vibrant green. The sun was high in the sky, it was a perfect day for a celebration. The fairgrounds were one of the only places in District 11 with trees and plant life. The park made up around 25% of the district's city. The other 75% was filled with freshly renovated futuristic buildings, each dedicated to furthering societies need for science and research.
Almost every citizen of District City 11 is gathered today. The city was celebrating a group of heroes who had been single-handedly capturing relic users who terrorized the district cities. This group of heroes was handpicked and trained in an environment where only the strongest survive. These heroes were referred to as The Legends. The Legends consisted of 6 elite contractors, each possessing a unique relic. They were considered to be some of the strongest contractors currently in existence.
Dante sauntered up to the center of the stage. Looking out at the smiling crowd, he makes eye contact with his wife Monica's soft blue eyes. Instantly, all his anxiety and fear rolled right off. Today marks the 10th year of peace since coming out of the Dark Ages. Dante takes a deep breath and exhales, slowly releasing his anxiety and stress. The crowd's eyes follow him up to the podium. Dante looks out at his colleagues and fellow teammates. He awkwardly taps the Mic twice. The second tap causes the speaker to make a horrendous screeching noise.
"I want to start my speech by saying thank you first and foremost to everyone in attendance today. I know you are busy and important people". Dante smiles nervously.
He continues, "Although I know you can probably appreciate my unwillingness to make speeches. I hate them almost as much as you hate listening to them".The crowd was dead silent, besides a few snickers scattered amongst the audience.
"We are all gathered here today. So that we may recognize and celebrate the fact that this district has become a beacon of peace in a time thriving on discord," Dante pauses.
A woman screams out, "We love you, Dante."
Dante cracks a smile and gives the group of girls his best devilish wink. Three teenage girls in the front row make a freakishly loud screaming noise before pretending to faint. Monica rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
She gives him a hand gesture which Dante assumed meant, "Move it along, dumb ass."
Coughing into his hand, "Ahem, on behalf of Myself and, of course, the rest of the legends. We are so thankful for the monument built in our honor. We have worked hard to ensure that any rogue or unauthorized violent relic use is brought to justice. Our mission is to stabilize New Roark and neutralize all threats to the greater good."
Dante pauses in the middle of his speech. A bad feeling started growing in his stomach, moving into his chest. When ordinary people feel a burning sensation in their stomach or chest, they assume it's acid reflux. On the other hand, Dante prefers to think of it as a sixth sense. Whenever his chest or stomach burns, it means danger or trouble. His gut is rarely wrong, especially about danger.
Breathing in, Dante recognizes an odd smell filling the air. Puzzled, Dante realizes the crowd has become restless due to the long pause. They began talking amongst themselves, probably wondering if the youngest rookie of the legends got cold feet. A loud thunderous boom shook the stage and the ground. Followed by two much larger explosions. Dante's eyes grew wide with the sudden realization. He knew what the smell was now. It was sulfur. No wonder it smelled so bad. It was too late to evacuate the fairgrounds. He knew what was coming.
The air around the fairground began to heat up while everyone looked around, still dazed from the ground shaking. Instinctively, Dante uses his relic, a black ring worn around his middle finger called Blink, to teleport to Monica. While simultaneously grabbing the three teenagers in one motion, shielding them from the next blast. Dante invokes the power of his second relic. A jet-black cloak called the Cloak of Nightingale. The cloak expands to envelop them in a protective barrier. Two more deafening explosions go off while the ground is still shaking. There was a brief silence before Dante released the cloak's protective veil.
In the distance, he hears Alexander telling people to evacuate. The smoke enveloped and burned his eyes.
A voice booms in the smoke. " Dante, Monica, are you alright?" It was Alexander's hoarse voice.
Dante yells back into the smoke, "We are fine, status report."
Alexander yells, " I managed to divert one explosion into the air. The only other explosion was the one closer to the stage. I am unsure of the enemy's number or their abilities. However, we can be sure that a relic was responsible. These blasts were not on the level of just regular bombs".
Dante had already figured that this was the work of a contractor's relic because he would've detected any explosives during his initial sweep of the fairground. When they first arrived, Dante used his third relic, the glasses of truth, to scope out the place and prevent a situation like this. The glasses allowed their contractor to see the truth. Thus, he could see through walls and even inches into the ground. They blessed their contractor with perfect depth perception and field of view.
The smoke shifts and spins upward, helping to clear their visibility." what's going on? How is the smoke moving on its own?" one of the three girls asks Dante.
"Mrs. Raven must be using her relic to gather and disperse the smoke into the sky," Monica says, coughing into her hand. "Ordinarily, smoke is the most dangerous aftermath of a large explosion."
Dante gently releases the other two girls. "Raven's relic Zephyrs Backpack, can suck in anything and redirect it in any direction with double the efficiency," Dante explains while trying to survey the area.
One of the teenagers passed out from shock, and the other two held her and cried. The view of the fairgrounds becomes vividly clear. The sight was horrifying; blood splattered everywhere, filled with the sound of people crying, holding their loved ones. The woman next to the teenage girls at the time of the blast lay motionless next to them, and her stomach appeared pierced by a large piece of debris.
A loud shriek rang out, startling Dante." Mom, no, please," the girl who was just unconscious says. While shaking the poor woman vigorously, "Mom, you must wake up, please."
Monica softly placed her hands on the girl's shoulders."Stop, honey. She's gone. Let her rest," Monica said in a soft and remorseful tone.
Dante bends down to close the woman's eyes. At this point, the girl is hysterical, sobbing and wailing for her mother. While Monica cradles her against her chest. Dante looks around to find where the rest of the Legends are positioned.
He catches a glimpse of Valerie's vibrant red hair. She was easy to spot, and the mixture of sunlight and ash made her hair look like it was on fire. Dante blinks over to her, teleporting directly in front of her. She is focused on healing a child's leg blown off by the explosion. His leg, glowing a bright green, was almost entirely reattached.
" Valerie, I need you. It's serious," Dante tried not to interrupt her concentration. Without looking back, her white coat glowing a bright green, she replies, "It's always serious. Give me 2 minutes, and this kid will walk like nothing ever happened." Her brows furrowed in concentration.
A woman who appeared to be the boy's mother was kneeling beside him, crying. Rocking back and forth, holding the boy's head. Out of desperation, she begins silently praying to the crimson priestess. And just like Valerie said, the kid's mangled leg was completely healed.
The child's mother said, "Thank the priestess," to which Valerie snorted, "Do I get any credit?" The kid's mother replied, "She has gifted you with such wonderful powers."Valerie sighs, "Right, well, just make sure he gets lots of rest. He will be just fine. He could easily run a marathon now."
"Valerie, I need you," Dante says again as he bends down to help the boy and his mother. Veronica's lab coat's green glow begins to fade and return to a standard white.
" Who needs to be revived from the dead now?" she says sarcastically, wiping the dirt off her blue cargo pants.
Dante grimaces at the comment, catching Valerie off guard. Her demeanor instantly changes."what's going on, Dante?" Valerie says in a shaky, concerned tone.
Instead of responding, he reaches out his hand. Valerie takes his hand, and Dante uses Blink to teleport them back to Monica and the girls, who are now all sobbing and holding onto each other. Monica uses her soft and reassuring voice to calm the three girls. Valerie immediately begins to work on the girl's mother. After checking for a pulse, her beautiful face grows dark.
"She is barely holding on," Valerie says, looking back at Dante.
"I know that's why I brought you over here," Dante replies while looking at the girls held by Monica. Valerie's eyes followed his, piecing together the situation at hand.
"Fine, I will try. But I cannot promise anything." Valerie says, turning her attention to the girl's mother.
Valerie's lab coat begins to glow a bright green again. Her hands hovered over the woman's body, and the blood started to float and seamlessly flow back toward her wounds. It looked like time was beginning to turn around before the woman was injured.
"I need you to pull it out. Real slowly, or you'll kill her." Valerie says, gesturing towards the wooden shaft in the woman's stomach.
Dante walks over and begins pulling at the wooden shaft. The woman starts coughing blood and moaning in pain, causing her daughter to snap out of her crying fit.
"Stop your hurting her. What are you doing to my mother?" The girl screams, storming over. Monica grabs her, holding her back.
"It's okay, honey; they're trying to help," she says.
"She is a special type of doctor," Monica explains to the girl.
She uses a remarkable relic called Panacea, which allows Valerie to heal people. As long as there is a pulse, she can heal most injuries. On the rarest of occasions, she can even turn back the time surrounding more severe injuries.
"So she can heal my mother?" The girl says in a hopeful tone.
"She certainly will try. Her injuries are extensive, and your mother is on the brink of death." Monica says, releasing the girl's arms.
Dante slowly pulls the shaft out of the girl's mother. While Valerie's lab coat, now bright green, starts floating and rustling. Sweat dripped from her brow as she concentrated on reversing all of the injuries the women's bodies sustained. Only Valerie would be capable of such a feat. Ordinarily, "Panacea" only gifts its contractor the ability to heal minor to moderate wounds. Valerie was born with a unique bloodline trait called Seer. The trait allows Valerie to see glimpses of the future, which is often fragmented and hard to understand. That combined with her license as a surgeon and experience as a battle medic. She earned her nickname, the fate practitioner.
However, most mistake her for the crimson priestess because of her bright red hair. Valerie is attempting what can only be called a miracle by combining her relic Panacea and her bloodline trait. She is trying to revert the woman's body to the condition it was in, not even fifteen minutes ago. In a sense, Valerie is just rewinding the time around the woman's body to reflect the state it was in before the initial explosion.
Dante pulls the shaft out of her body with one final pull. The woman began convulsing and bleeding profusely. Valerie stood up, still focusing on the woman's injuries.
"Step away!" Valerie commanded, which caught Dante off guard.
Stepping back, he noticed how drained Valerie looked. Her face was dripping with sweat, yet she could somehow maintain a look of intense concentration. The more she concentrated, the stronger her bright green aura became, lifting her red hair and causing it to flow in all directions. Dante thinks she honestly resembles the portraits of the Crimson Priestess when she is in this state.
The woman's bleeding has finally stopped, and the color in her face has returned to normal. The hole in the woman's stomach has closed without the faintest sign of injury, and it looks as if she was never injured in the first place.
"Good as new," Valerie said with a smile before collapsing.
Luckily, Dante catches her before she hits the ground. The daughter runs past, crying, and the girl's mother finally opens her eyes.
"What happened? Where am I? Honey, why are you crying? The woman said with a confused but soft expression.
The girl was crying so hard she couldn't even form a sentence. The other two girls came behind her, crying to comfort their friend. Dante, still holding Valerie, surveyed their surroundings. The fairgrounds were in shambles, with large craters formed from the explosions. The air was filled with the stench of blood and burned debris. The other Legends were all still working to secure and evacuate the area.
"Wow, I see why you hate speeches," Valerie says, laughing, her eyes still closed."Yeah, and you bastards said I was just dramatic," Dante says. He places her on the ground so she can get her bearings.
Monica walks over and checks on Valerie. "Well, it seems like the commotion is over," Monica says, pulling her golden blonde hair back into a ponytail.
A large explosion goes off in the distance. Followed by three more blasts back to back in quick succession. Dante flips around his black cloak, expanding, preparing to shield the civilians again. This time, he had a horrible feeling welling up in his stomach. However, he couldn't find the reason for it. He fully expected to see a series of newly formed craters. However, to his surprise, the explosions weren't coming from the fairgrounds but instead off in the distance. A large blue building higher than any around it had a flume of smoke building around it. Startled, Dante drops into a position to fight. Whatever entity created these explosions and caused so much carnage would not receive any mercy from him. Placing a hand firmly on his long black katana hilt.
A loud, ear-piercing scream was let out. Dante draws his blade and swivels his head, ready to kill anything before him. But the scream didn't come from in front of him but instead from behind him. It was Monica howling and clutching her heart. Dante, horrified, bends down and tries shaking his wife.
"What's wrong, sweets? I'm here. Everything is okay." Dante whispered, trying to console his shaking wife.
Monica pointed back in the direction of the burning blue skyscraper, sobbing. Only one word managed to escape her quivering lips: "Xavier.