Mirrors, Chapter 1.

Rain makes an Angel’s wings heavy…

“Forecast said it’d be cloudy with little chance of rain.” Said the muffled voice of a man, standing under a bus stop on the curb. He was dressed oddly, mostly a color pallet of black that made him blend in with the part of town he was in. He had a gas mask that used three separate filters, one on the front and two off to the immediate left.

He wrapped a scarf around his face where his beanie wouldn’t cover besides a pair of sunglasses to enclose his eyes. He wore a fully zipped up black fleece jacket, dark jeans and hiking boots spray painted black. Apart from that, he also had a pair of leather gloves and a triangular, one sling backpack over his left shoulder.

“Yeah, they lie on a daily basis.” Said a girl next to him. She was on a white color pallet, except she didn’t cover her face and the backpack she wore was slung around her right shoulder. Her hair was white and her eye color was a pale grey, if you didn’t look close enough it’d seem that she didn’t have an eye color whatsoever.

“I noticed…” The man looked past the street to see people busily walking, trying to cover themselves from the heavy downpour. “If I knew any better, I’d say we’re switching places with Atlantis.”

“And what’s that tell you, Avik?” The girl turned with a smile.

“I dunno, I can’t swim.” The young man replied. He pulled out a ringing phone and answered it, pressing it hard against his beanie. “Yeah?” He said. There was a quick string of words as he put his hand out in front of him, a smoke coming off of it and taking on a form of glass. It was reflective and jagged edged like a mirror had been smashed, in the reflections it caught glimpses of a somewhat sinister looking version of Avik.

“Kiva’s alright,” He said breaking the silence on his end, “managed to keep her from killing herself.” The girl’s response was to lightly punch him in the shoulder, even though she meant it to be hard. “Had I known that there was an infestation, I wouldn’t have brought her. Ever since five years ago there’s been Mirror demon’s all over the city.”

“Avik, ever since that day crazy stuff has been happening all over,” the girl tugged on his jacket with a childish moan, “this city isn’t the only one with Mirror Demons.”

“Alright, see ya at the apartment, Carteline.” Avik hung up and sighed, “I know that, Kiva, but this city is where it started.” He caught the mirror shard from the air and looked at himself more closely, examining a hooded figure with glowing red lights behind the sunglasses.

“The Beta you have won’t be as good if we go up against an Alpha…” Kiva sighed and leaned against the glass edge of the bus stop. “So far you’ve been good with it…”

“Asiro isn’t a normal Beta.” Avik said lowly and walked out of the cover when the rain lightened up a bit, Kiva followed him a few moments after, “Beta’s normally can’t impersonate a multitude of other people, not to mention their own kind. Asiro has that down tenfold.” Avik looked up to the sky and thought of the state of the city, even the clouds didn’t like this part of the place.

They currently were in the slums, the bad part of their nameless city, fortunately it was their home growing up here for five years. They both knew shortcuts and paths they could take easily to get back to their apartment building. Although, Kiva mostly followed Avik for the sake of not needing to remember; wherever he turned she did.

“Carteline’s got our advancements today. You know, just for Christmas.” Avik said.

“Really? I’m surprised. It’s not even Christmas yet she’s giving us our birthday presents.” Kiva closed her eyes to think of what their boss, Carteline, had gotten them. Carteline wasn’t just their boss, but more or less their mother figure and mentor. She had an equal amount of respect for them both.

As Avik turned down another alley, the rain started up again and the two ducked into a groove where the design of the building allowed a door to be placed. A few good moments of silence passed until Kiva spoke up, “So, heard of the two new villains or something?”

“Oh yeah, Hans Vinolt and the Lich Doctor guy.” He then groaned, “Seriously, if you’re going to raid a lab, don’t get caught on camera.” He said to himself. He brushed off the front lenses on his sunglasses, trying to avoid smudging with whatever water droplets were on them. “Well, everything happens for a reason, that’s what Carteline says.”

“She’s actually been quite interested in them.” As Kiva said this, a woman passed with an umbrella, one open and another hanging on her arm. Her cheery face looked at both them, and greeted them with a hello, brushing a lock of black hair behind her shoulder, and finally adjusted a gold necklace, set in with a red stone.

She wore an olive colored overcoat and a black skirt, she clicked the heel of her shoe against the pavement out of a small habit. Avik waved his hand at her, “Hey Carteline, how’s it going?”

“Alright,” she handed off an umbrella to Kiva, and they started up walking again, Avik was to Carteline’s left and Kiva to her right, although Avik didn’t really hang under her umbrella, “So how’s Asiro?” She hit his left arm with her elbow, barely moving him.

“Asiro,” Avik held his left hand out and the same black smoke came back, turning into a shard of mirror just like before, “wanna come out?” The reflection shrugged and turned around. Avik stopped and put it on the ground, then proceeded to take out a match and managed to light it without the rain putting it out, and he let it fall on the mirror.

When the match hit, there was a large burst of flame and smoke as the mirror version of Avik stumbled out brushing off a little soot. It gave a groan of discontent and stretched.

“Yeah yeah, I don’t like fire either.” They started up again, jogging to catch up to Kiva and Carteline in a heated discussion about some arbitrary thing that Avik didn’t care much about.

After a few minutes, Kiva peered out and spoke to him, “So what do you think?”

“Hm?” He looked back at her and adjusted his gas mask a bit, “’bout what?”

“Why do you always tune us out? You’ve been doing it a lot lately.” Carteline poked his shoulder, to which he gave a groan. “I think Asiro is becoming a bad influence.”

Asiro then bent forward to look at Carteline, and replied, “Igen...” Carteline made a motion with her hand to tell Asiro to be quiet, then went about to turn down the sidewalk once they got out of the alley.

The building right next to them was the apartment complex of where they stayed. Even though they had back door keys, they’d be going through the front door. Carteline opened it and walked in, shaking water off the umbrella and taking Kiva’s to do the same. Avik however brushed off a few droplets. When Asiro came in, he walked over to a mirror and stepped through it, going back to the other side.

The owner of the building was a blonde man, spiky hair and bright blue eyes. He had plain clothes on, sweat pants and a sweatshirt; simplicity was evident on him. He also wore a nametag, however half of it was scratched off, leaving “Al” visible.

“Alvin,” Avik began, “How’s the business?”

“Alright, had a dispute with a customer over at the shop, but other than that, it’s been pretty quiet.” He responded. “Someone wanted to by the Kaneda, I told him the owner wouldn’t be very happy.”

“Who was he?” Kiva asked, suddenly intrigued.

Alvin sighed and stood up, pulling out a drawer and grabbing a picture from inside. It depicted the right side of a man, wrapped in a navy blue, hooded overcoat with some odd features. It looked like it would be something out of the 1800’s. The most noticeable part of him was the plague doctor mask that sprung up during the black plague.

“What’d he want?” Avik asked, grabbing the picture. Kiva took it out of his hands a few moments after, looking at it closely.

“He needed to know where some type of flower was, told him of the two shops over in the Uptown. Had this thick European accent.” Alvin used a couple hand gestures at the part where he explained the accent, like he was holding two weights.

“Ahuh…” Avik shrugged, “He give you a name?”

“Nope.” Alvin took the picture back from Kiva, who gave a pitiful sigh and crossed her arms, frowning. “Calm down, not like you know the guy.”

“I could…” Kiva replied. Her head turned in the direction of the door as it opened, a woman came in shivering. She had an odd hair color, pink. Blue eyes, a kind looking face, yet, it looked like she had been crying for a while.

She wore a white top and a green jacket, then skinny jeans with a studded belt. Her sneakers squeaked against the floor. She sniffled once and looked at Carteline, “Are you the boss of Kiva and Avik?” She said as she wiped at her raw eyes.

Carteline put a hand on her shoulder, “Yes, I am. Is there something wrong Miss…?”

“Miriam, my name is Miriam.” She straightened herself and choked up, “I’m missing someone important… Very dear to me.”

Kiva glanced at Avik momentarily, and Avik leaned against the wall, “A missing person’s case? Go talk to the police, they’d be happy to look for you.”

“You don’t understand, she wasn’t just taken by humans! She-” Miriam was cut off as Avik sprung up and laughed aloud, heading upstairs. Kiva yelled up at him, but he didn’t respond. Carteline scoffed and reassured Miriam, “I was supposed to take care of her,” she continued, “I thought she would be safe in the shop…”

“So, Miriam, who was it?” Carteline asked. She was about to explain more, but Avik came down the stairs, loading a semi-automatic shotgun and pumping it.

“This’ll be fun.” He remarked. He pulled a Desert Eagle out of his pocket and tossed it to Kiva. “I need you on sniper duty, get your crap and follow me.” Before he left out the door, he looked at Miriam, “So, where’d they take her?”

“Warehouse 5 along the pier.” She said, choking on her words. Alvin threw a pair of keys at Avik as he headed out with him quickly. “Be careful with her though! She’s fragile,” Miriam called to them as they headed out.

“So,” Alvin began, walking to a smaller building next to the apartments, “what ’ya think stole the girl?” He unlocked a shutter door to open up a mechanics shop, flipping on some lights to show a sleek, black, modern motorcycle propped on its stand.

“Mirror Demons. Pretty sure.” Avik checked his shotgun before getting on and starting it, “If I don’t come back, which’ll never happen, then yadda blah blah blah take the Kaneda to the grave.”

Alvin jokingly nodded and covered his ears as Avik drove out of the shop with a screech. The roads being slick with rain wasn’t too much of a problem for Avik. Considering that a motorcycle was more maneuverable than a car. He flew past stop lights on the road as he came to the City’s limits.

There were signs with its name plastered all about, but there were so many different names that everyone just called it City and left it at that. He broke hard, screeching down a turn and nearly hitting an angry man in his car.

He was careful when he drove, nothing ever happened to him or the vehicle. A figure appeared in the rear view mirror, Asiro, as he filled up the whole frame. “Hey, get out of there, what if I actually need to use the mirror sometime?” Avik shouted over the engine.

The piers weren’t that far from where they lived, only a couple of minutes away. He drifted into the lot where workers would park, and left the vehicle there in the middle of the concrete expanse. He readied the shotgun and ran towards the warehouse that had a large number five.

“Huh…” He commented, looking at a shipping vessel in the water, over run with black veins that looked like mold, yet it pulsated like it was alive. “Definitely Mirror Demons…”

He then turned his direction to a broken door, like it was clawed open by an angry animal. He approached it slowly and peered inside the dark area. Avik’s vision then rippled and turned a filter of red, yet he saw everything quite well. He quietly thanked Asiro and moved in.

He looked around the corner of a box, it was clear completely. A hazy figure of someone huddled in a room appeared behind a wall in a blue outline, and Avik walked towards it, trying not to make any sound if there was anything in the building.

A slight flash of steel caught his eye, and he quickly pulled his head back as a knife rushed past his eyes. He pointed the barrel of the shotgun towards the direction it was thrown, and called out, “If you show yourself now, I might not shoot you.”

“Is that your best at intimidation?” A figure stepped out, and Avik chuckled a bit. It was the man in the picture from a bit ago. “Because if it is,” he continued, “then you want to try again.”

“Nah, not going to.” Avik lowered the barrel a little, “Be honest with me, though, did you kidnap someone, Flower Boy?” After he said that, a knife flew past his left shoulder cutting into the jacket, although, he didn’t flinch. He cracked his neck, “Come on man, it’s just a nickname.”

“I don’t like your choice of it, however, to answer your question, no. I wasn’t planning on kidnapping someone and I haven’t.” He calmly strut forward, “If we get off on the wrong foot now, we’ll most likely kill each other soon.”

“How about it, friend?” Avik put the gun in his other hand and stuck out his right when the man approached, “Name’s Avik by the way.”

“Hans. Hans Vinolt.” Said the other, he grabbed his hand and shook once. “Now that that’s over, what are we going to do about the kidnapping situation?”

“We? You trying to find a girl too?” Avik pointed towards the door to the room, “There’s someone in that room, and before you threw a knife at me I was about to go over there. But, why all of a sudden do you want to help? In fact, why are you here?”

“Sorry for that, but you reek of those monsters, natural instinct to try and kill you. My job is my business, yours however,” Hans chuckled and brushed off his coat, “I’m going to guess you hunt them.”

“Long story to tell, but you’re wrong. Bottom line, don’t worry.” Avik started walking again, putting the shotgun into a resting position on his shoulder. Hans followed, but lingered back a few feet. “You open the door and I’ll go in,” Avik checked his shotgun again out of habit and stood to the left of the door.

When Hans got to the door, he tried opening it, but it was locked. Before Avik could remark about something, he pulled out a knife and jammed it in the gap, cutting through the locking mechanism. He then nodded to Avik and swung it open.

They both poked around a bit and flipped on a light, Hans looked out the door as Avik went to a lone desk set against the wall. Under it was a young woman, she looked no more than twenty, and her hair was even odder than Miriam’s. It was pink and blue straight down the middle that turned white to the ends.

Her eyes were heterochromatic, pink and blue respectively yet pale. She wore a tie-dye bodice with the same color pattern, as well as a frilled skirt. The only other things she was wearing were white stockings and boots.

“Hey, you alright there?” Avik asked, pulling his mask a bit to talk clearer.

The girl turned her head to him, but her line of sight didn’t meet him directly, “Who are you?” She asked in a meek, shy voice.

Avik sighed, “Are you blind?”

“Yes… Why does that matter?” Avik helped her up out from the desk and held her hand gently.

“Hans, take the girl, I have a bad feeling that something isn’t going to like her coming out of here.” He guided her hand over to Hans’s and pulled up his weapon as he looked back out, this time, green shapes began sniffing about.

“Oh boy,” Hans commented, “I get babysitting duty.” He pulled another knife out of a coat pocket and held it between her fingers. Avik would have commented that they’d be ineffective, but he remembered how easily it cut through the lock, and stayed quiet.

He ran out, whistling loudly and shot once at the forms in the dark. They immediately picked up his scent and roared, running at him. The figures were humanoid to an extent, their faces were covered by what looked like patches of skin overlapping their heads, yet it didn’t cover their mouths filled with sharp teeth.

They had four arms total and the hands were replaced with large metal scythe heads. If you looked at them closer, you’d see metal collars attached to their necks with a large and long length of chain connected to them. These were Mirror Demons, products of trying to go to a parallel dimension using technology too advanced for the current time. One smacked a large crate towards Avik, causing him to stop for the amount of time, aim the shotgun, and shoot a condensed amount of buckshot that tore into the beast’s side.

It gave out another roar and charged Avik, who ducked and shot again, this time taking off one of the arms. This wasn’t as good of an idea as he originally thought as the other Mirror Demon had come up to slash at him, yet shards of mirror that were produced by Asiro managed to make it more like an impact.

He was still thrown across the concrete, tumbling a couple of times and actually dislocating his right arm. He quickly popped it back in and ducked from another slash, “That’s the second time this month I had to do that!” he shouted angrily. Avik grit his teeth underneath his mask as he pulled something out of his jacket.

There was a sharp crack and something penetrated the top of the warehouse, slamming into the Mirror Demon behind Avik. He knew it was a bullet from a sniper rifle, however he wasn’t sure what caliber Kiva had. It did the trick as it managed to make a considerable hole inside the demon, causing it to collapse in a heap of dissolving flesh.

Hans had run up beside him, carrying the girl, “Problem.” He said quickly. The roar of the other demon sounded as it limped towards them, more than just knife marks in it. It was half scorched and limping with a broken leg, yet it gained considerable ground as it tried in vain to kill the intruders.

Avik pulled the item out from his jacket all the way, an incendiary grenade, and pulled the pin to chuck it. The demon stopped as the grenade rolled to its feet, and gave a groan as it was engulfed by more flames, instead of a roar it gave out a blood curdling death scream. It was bad enough Avik covered his ears.

After the corpse crumpled and went into a similar state of dissolving, Hans set the girl on her feet, her face in a cringe of pain as she didn’t cover her ears.

“You deaf yet?” Avik asked. The girl shook her head. “Good, I got a couple of questions.”

“Don’t you think we should wait until we get to a safer place?” Hans interjected. Avik put the barrel of the shotgun up to his chest, then groaned and set it down.

“Bad habit, but don’t let that make you think that I don’t have questions for you too.” Avik began to walk out of the building until Hans put his hand on his shoulder, he turned his head to ask, “What?”

“You need to take the girl. I have to go back to my boss for now. And trust me, he won’t be thrilled to have a new face.” Hans gave him the girl’s hand and walked past.

Avik wanted to swear under his breath, but was distracted when the girl tugged on his sleeve, “So who are you? My name’s Mina.” Hans made an Olympic dash away from them, running quite fast.

“Everything about today is odd,” Avik commented, “I’m Avik. Ain’t got another name, I hunt those things that were in there for a living.” The girl tilted her head and nodded, Avik pulled her over to the Kaneda, but a sound made him slow down about half way to it. “That’s not a lovely sound...”

He turned his head and stepped in front of Mina as a man in a crude, tattered overcoat stopped his approach to them. He had black hair and an unkempt face, worn, bloodshot eyes and a few fake gold teeth.

“Where you goin’ with that girl?” He said clearly, yelling over to them. “You look a little shady…”

“Look at yourself pal…” Avik tapped the shotgun’s barrel on the ground, letting a shell fall out, “I don’t trust you, got a bad… Sound.”

The man laughed, “Go ahead and shoot me then, ‘less you’re bluffin’.” He pulled out a pistol, a .45 magnum and aimed it dead at Avik’s face. “Now, you can die tryin’ to keep that girl safe, or you can give ‘er to me.”

“He’s not a good man…” Mina whispered, “He doesn’t have a soul…” Avik dissected the words carefully then chose his next move carefully. After a few moments of consideration he took a couple steps forward.

“Alright, I made my mind up.” He pulled the trigger, and as the buckshot got near to the man, a few shards of mirror threw the projectiles away.

He smirked and cocked the hammer back on his gun, “Bad move mo-” The smirk faded as Avik came up close to him, punching him in the gut and throwing him away a couple yards. Avik was there, and Asiro was near Mina, holding the gun on his shoulders. The man got up on his hands and knees with a groan of pain, “You… Have a demon too?”

“He’s not just a simple Mirror Demon though,” Avik explained, “He’s a Beta. You have a Kappa. Betas are better than Kappas.” He ran and kneed the opponent in the jaw. He stood and put his hands in his pockets as the man got up on his feet. “Do you want to live?”

The man pulled his hand back and threw it, sending a long plate of mirror at Avik. Avik caught it in his forearm, then pulled it out and crushed it with his hand. The man stumbled back and looked for his pistol, which he had dropped earlier.

“I won’t kill you yet,” Avik started, “Tell me… Why do you want the girl?” He looked back to Mina who was curiously touching Asiro, who gently pushed her hands to her sides. “She’s so innocent… And by the looks of her friend I say they aren’t very rich, so money can’t be an option.”

The man lurched forward and hacked up a black glob, pulling his head up to reveal his eyes were completely black, save a couple of yellow pupils. A black substance was leaking from his mouth and had just started from his eyes.

“The… Girl.” He choked out in a distorted voice, “Her… Soul! It’s not like others!” Mina had completely recoiled behind Asiro, cowering. The man tried to run at her and get past Avik, but he was caught by a hand and thrown back. Avik then pressed his boot to his chest.

“What about it?” He asked calmly.

“Icarus… Icarus!” The man tore at Avik’s foot and repeated the word over and over. Not getting any more out of him, Avik held his hand out for the shotgun which was tossed to him, and then he aimed it point blank in the man’s face. The shot rang out for what felt like minutes, but only lasted a few seconds.

“Asiro, go take Mina back to the apartment and tell Carteline I’m going to chill out in the city for a bit.” He walked off towards it and watched as Asiro piloted the motorcycle out of the parking lot. Avik was going to get a few answers out of something… Or someone…

***

Hans was browsing a flower shop, looking at a notepad written in clean fluid, cursive as he picked through different names and flowers alike. The shop owner looked at him especially, keeping a hand on a bat under his counter.

“Buddy,” the owner started up, “You gonna buy something and get out? You’re freaking out our customers.” Hans looked at him then around the store, then to the door as someone walked through that looked a bit too familiar.

“I’ll be right with you sir,” the owner still looked at Hans as he said this, then to the actual man that walked through. It was Avik who approached Hans and tipped his head up as a small greeting.

“So, Hans, how goes the shopping?” He asked him.

“Well, I’m having trouble finding a Rose…” Avik then pulled one out of a nearby bouquet and held it out. Hans took it from him and set it in a coat pocket. “I hope you weren’t meaning for that to be a romantic gift.”

Avik responded by trying to pull off the shotgun on his back, but struggled to keep it there, “Alrighty then,” he started slowly, “I had a few questions. Now that my little end of the business is done, time to make our own.”

“What did you have in mind?” Hans asked after they got outside, strolling on the side of the street.

“For one, what were you doing at the docks?” he was asked.

“Getting this,” Hans pulled out a jar with a wriggling wormlike piece of the mold growing on the boat. It thrashed around in the glass and Avik made him put the jar back in his pockets.

“Those things are dangerous, I hope you know what you’re doing.” Avik sighed and began a new question, “So, I know your boss must be the Lich Doctor or whatever, but what exactly is he making you get?”

“He has told me not to tell anyone else.” Hans even held up his hand in dismissal, much to Avik’s dismay. They parted ways off down a road intersection, but Avik couldn’t help but laugh as people avoided Hans as much as possible while walking on the same street. Everything would blow over quickly, Avik’s whole day in mind, with a nice nap on the sofa back at the apartment.