blue UP
[they/them]
MAY 30TH 2025 17:24 PM
TOWER 9
Two detectives from the Investigation Branch of the Defense Division are called to Tower 9 to investigate a break-in. The perpetrators had infiltrated the innermost area of the tower where the door to the inside of the original tower was located. It is unknown how they were able to get in. The Director of the Tower Sect of the Science Division was able to thwart the attack, but left in the wake were many questions.
Blood covered the platform, and two dead bodies were strewn over the top of it. One body was laid face first in a puddle of blood, and the last body was smashed into the inner wall—head crushed by the hefty metal door that kept trying to close on it. There was a burst of crackling static, and the video repeated, the time stamp sending it back five minutes from where it ended. The cameras focused on a group of three individuals crowded on a platform above an immense drop downwards into the hollow tube of the tower. The metal walls were bleak and slick, a casing to protect the sanctity of the stone tower within. And between them was nothing but space and walkways. Voices echoed easily in the tube, yet the camera recorded no sound. It was obvious through body language what was happening.
The larger of the three figures, later revealed as Jack Hodges, held the door open a crack while one tapped on the screen outside and the other was on the lookout. They hadn’t identified those two people yet, but their nicknames were “Glasses” and “Baby Doll” based on their looks. Glasses held a small device in one hand whose cords ran into the wall next to the screen that commanded the door. Jack held the meager inch that they had gotten loose. Baby Doll looked at the camera and winked underneath her straight line, black bangs. It was like she wasn’t even trying to hide. Lights flickered, and Jack tumbled back, and the door opened completely. He quickly shot up and investigated the door, his body slacking at the sight. Whatever it was, it was off-screen, so the video didn’t show it.
At that moment, Dr. Ares Fel walked into the frame. The head scientist of the Tower Research Division looked the part in his white coat and sharp silhouette. He was easily in his 50s with black hair that was quickly graying. He apparently exchanged words with the three before Baby Doll lunged at him, wielding a small umbrella with frills around the edges. A strange grain filled the air, like monochromatic glitter. A few beats later, it cleared enough to see Baby Doll looming over Dr. Fel. His face was bloodied, and his fingers looked as if they’d been dunked into boiling water. He said something, and Baby Doll turned around. She pulled a knife from inside her dress and hurled it at Glasses. It shot through his neck, and he was dead before he hit the ground. Dr. Fel slowly stood. He then pulled something from his jacket and came behind Baby Doll, slicing her throat. She crumpled to the ground in a pool of quickly forming blood.
Dr. Fel then turned his attention to Jack. At that time, Jack had turned around, holding tightly to a stylized executioner’s sword extended at Dr. Fel. He was yelling something and pointing past the door. Dr. Fel said nothing or moved, so Jack lunged at him. He missed the first swing, but the second one caught Dr. Fel’s coat and ripped clear through it. The doctor was obviously flagging. He even coughed, blood coming from behind his lips despite not looking like he had any internal injuries. Jack came down to cleave the man in half. Dr. Fel said something, and Jack awkwardly dropped the sword and landed on the ground. The older man then coughed again, blood spewing from his mouth. Jack lay on the ground as if he’d been frozen in place. The doctor grabbed him by the collar and pulled him towards the door, positioning his head in the threshold of it. He then hit a button on the screen, and the door slammed on Jack’s head. Then Dr. Fel passed out.
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Detective Ted Gates said into the monitor. Smoke left his lips as he had taken a drag right before the end of the video. “What’s the status of Dr. Fel?”
Detective Soumya Bedi pulled up her phone and went through the debriefing. “Says here that he’s stable, but it will be a while before he’s released. He had a ton of internal lacerations.”
“Who out of those three did that?”
“None of them. Dr. Fel did it to himself. He swallowed some glass before entering the platform. That’s the trigger to his Aspect.”
“I’ll say it again, Jesus Fucking Christ.”
“I would say his power served him well. His aspect is ‘subjugation,’ and he can command people with just a word. But his insides must be bleeding to do that.”
Detective Gates shivered. “Remind me never to be around the good doctor when he’s angry and a vase is within grabbing reach.” He sighed, looking around the tight control room. “And you’re sure they won’t let us onto the platform to investigate?”
Detective Bedi shook her head. Her dark hair was in a sloppy bun at the nape of her neck. She was in what looked like casual shopping clothes with a sword attached to her hip. Seeing her standing next to him was funny, as he was a tall man, immaculately dressed with crisp green hair. She was also ten years his junior, evident by her youthful skin and the crow’s feet near his eyes. “Apparently, that’s a very restricted area.”
“Those three had an easy time getting in there, then.” Detective Gates took a long drag off his cigarette before putting it out on the bottom of his shoe. He grabbed his partner’s hand and looked at the screen. He blew out the smoke, and it thickened around them until it disappeared. There they stood in the middle of the crime scene. “I mean, I literally just did it.” He smiled.
Detective Bedi rolled her eyes. “I highly doubt they had a picture of this place.” She looked upwards to the darkness and then below to an equal amount of darkness. “Crazy this place doesn’t have handrails.”
“Yeah, that’s the only thing that is crazy about this place,” Detective Gates said deadpan. He looked across the platform and to the door ahead of him, cleaned and resealed. Actually, everything had been cleaned. They’d recovered the bodies and sent them to the morgue and expunged every trace that there had ever been a break-in. His footsteps were so loud over the metal walkway as he approached the door. He looked around for any sign of a struggle. “Any more information on the perps?”
Detective Bedi pulled some black eyeliner out of her pocket. “’Glasses’ and ‘Baby Doll’ are two unknown entities. Though, with the kind of training they had, Baby Doll’s use of an aspect to be precise, the higher-ups think heretics.” She paused. “Jack Hodges was a known entity, though.”
“Yeah. Didn’t they find that the handheld device Glasses used to have the mark of Prometheus on it? And wasn’t that the same sect of heretics responsible for the Night of a Thousand Demons?” He frowned. “Really thought we had nipped them in the bud. Nope, they’re just fucking—” he turned around to see Detective Bedi in his personal space. “Come on, Soumya.”
“Nope, give me your face.”
He leaned down, and she started to write on his face with her eyeliner pencil. “You at least going to tell me what it says?”
“Not at all.” She didn’t offer any amusement as she wrote ‘I
BIG BUTTS’ on his forehead. Yet, when she finished, the area around them glowed a bright white before showing multiple silhouettes in different colors. She walked around, inspecting them, thumping some out of existence before she had settled on four. Two were blue, one was red, and the other was a mixture of colors.
“Let me guess,” Detective Gates said. “The two blue are Babydoll and Glasses. The red is Jack. And the multicolored one is Dr. Fel?”
She shook her head. “You got 3 out of the 4. Babydoll and Glasses were calm, hence blue. Jack was angry, hence red, and I am not surprised. I was reading his rap sheet. He just graduated Bellum Academy, and he had a history of getting into stupid fights.”
“Man, the heretics are getting their claws into them fast and trusting them with big missions.”
“Here’s the thing. The tech guys were able to get information from a laptop at his apartment. He’s been in contact with the Prometheus sect for well over a year.”
“Meaning he was talking with them before he graduated.”
“And many messages implied that he received orders through a ‘man on the inside.’ Meaning—”
“Bellum Academy is compromised?” Detective Gates exhaled. “Fuck me. But we’ll let the bigwigs handle that. We’re not on the pay level to start playing the academic staffing game.” He paused. “Wait, if I got the two blue and one red right, that means Dr. Fel had to be the multicolored one.”
Detective Bedi shook her head. “I dismissed Dr. Fel. The multicolored one… I don’t know who that is.”
“It’s not one of the employees that cleaned this all up?”
“No.” She frowned. “The aura on this person is very fresh. Meaning that they were here only moments before we were.” Detective Bedi walked forward, looking over the silhouette well over a head taller than her and had two arms and two legs, but the gender couldn’t be placed in their slick frame. And despite the newness of the aura, their facial features were a jumble. “More so, this many colors in their aura. I’ve only seen that a few times before. And those auras always belonged to—well—”
“Don’t say it.”
“No. I’m not going to say demons or angels.”
Detective Gates exhaled. “Thank God. So, just like—an emotional divine?”
She shook her head. “They are only contained by corpses. A corpse teleported in and out of here, Ted. Right before we got here. That’s not possible—”
“I have a weird feeling we’re going to be saying that a lot in the coming months.” Detective Gates lit another cigarette. “Now, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
At that moment, both of their phones chimed. Detective Bedi was quicker on the draw than her male counterpart. She glanced over the screen, and her usual peachy brown skin turned a shade whiter.
“Soumya?”
“The bodies.” She didn’t look up from her phone. “They’re missing from the morgue.”
Detective Gates pulled up his phone to confirm the same thing. All three of the corpses were gone, along with their belongings. He turned the screen off and saw his forehead in the darkness of his phone. “You would let me walk around with this on my head? I mean I do like big butts. But—”
At that moment, Detective Bedi’s attention turned to him, and a laugh broke up her usual stoic demeanor. It would be the last time Detective Gates would hear her laugh.
TOWER 9
Two detectives from the Investigation Branch of the Defense Division are called to Tower 9 to investigate a break-in. The perpetrators had infiltrated the innermost area of the tower where the door to the inside of the original tower was located. It is unknown how they were able to get in. The Director of the Tower Sect of the Science Division was able to thwart the attack, but left in the wake were many questions.
Blood covered the platform, and two dead bodies were strewn over the top of it. One body was laid face first in a puddle of blood, and the last body was smashed into the inner wall—head crushed by the hefty metal door that kept trying to close on it. There was a burst of crackling static, and the video repeated, the time stamp sending it back five minutes from where it ended. The cameras focused on a group of three individuals crowded on a platform above an immense drop downwards into the hollow tube of the tower. The metal walls were bleak and slick, a casing to protect the sanctity of the stone tower within. And between them was nothing but space and walkways. Voices echoed easily in the tube, yet the camera recorded no sound. It was obvious through body language what was happening.
The larger of the three figures, later revealed as Jack Hodges, held the door open a crack while one tapped on the screen outside and the other was on the lookout. They hadn’t identified those two people yet, but their nicknames were “Glasses” and “Baby Doll” based on their looks. Glasses held a small device in one hand whose cords ran into the wall next to the screen that commanded the door. Jack held the meager inch that they had gotten loose. Baby Doll looked at the camera and winked underneath her straight line, black bangs. It was like she wasn’t even trying to hide. Lights flickered, and Jack tumbled back, and the door opened completely. He quickly shot up and investigated the door, his body slacking at the sight. Whatever it was, it was off-screen, so the video didn’t show it.
At that moment, Dr. Ares Fel walked into the frame. The head scientist of the Tower Research Division looked the part in his white coat and sharp silhouette. He was easily in his 50s with black hair that was quickly graying. He apparently exchanged words with the three before Baby Doll lunged at him, wielding a small umbrella with frills around the edges. A strange grain filled the air, like monochromatic glitter. A few beats later, it cleared enough to see Baby Doll looming over Dr. Fel. His face was bloodied, and his fingers looked as if they’d been dunked into boiling water. He said something, and Baby Doll turned around. She pulled a knife from inside her dress and hurled it at Glasses. It shot through his neck, and he was dead before he hit the ground. Dr. Fel slowly stood. He then pulled something from his jacket and came behind Baby Doll, slicing her throat. She crumpled to the ground in a pool of quickly forming blood.
Dr. Fel then turned his attention to Jack. At that time, Jack had turned around, holding tightly to a stylized executioner’s sword extended at Dr. Fel. He was yelling something and pointing past the door. Dr. Fel said nothing or moved, so Jack lunged at him. He missed the first swing, but the second one caught Dr. Fel’s coat and ripped clear through it. The doctor was obviously flagging. He even coughed, blood coming from behind his lips despite not looking like he had any internal injuries. Jack came down to cleave the man in half. Dr. Fel said something, and Jack awkwardly dropped the sword and landed on the ground. The older man then coughed again, blood spewing from his mouth. Jack lay on the ground as if he’d been frozen in place. The doctor grabbed him by the collar and pulled him towards the door, positioning his head in the threshold of it. He then hit a button on the screen, and the door slammed on Jack’s head. Then Dr. Fel passed out.
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Detective Ted Gates said into the monitor. Smoke left his lips as he had taken a drag right before the end of the video. “What’s the status of Dr. Fel?”
Detective Soumya Bedi pulled up her phone and went through the debriefing. “Says here that he’s stable, but it will be a while before he’s released. He had a ton of internal lacerations.”
“Who out of those three did that?”
“None of them. Dr. Fel did it to himself. He swallowed some glass before entering the platform. That’s the trigger to his Aspect.”
“I’ll say it again, Jesus Fucking Christ.”
“I would say his power served him well. His aspect is ‘subjugation,’ and he can command people with just a word. But his insides must be bleeding to do that.”
Detective Gates shivered. “Remind me never to be around the good doctor when he’s angry and a vase is within grabbing reach.” He sighed, looking around the tight control room. “And you’re sure they won’t let us onto the platform to investigate?”
Detective Bedi shook her head. Her dark hair was in a sloppy bun at the nape of her neck. She was in what looked like casual shopping clothes with a sword attached to her hip. Seeing her standing next to him was funny, as he was a tall man, immaculately dressed with crisp green hair. She was also ten years his junior, evident by her youthful skin and the crow’s feet near his eyes. “Apparently, that’s a very restricted area.”
“Those three had an easy time getting in there, then.” Detective Gates took a long drag off his cigarette before putting it out on the bottom of his shoe. He grabbed his partner’s hand and looked at the screen. He blew out the smoke, and it thickened around them until it disappeared. There they stood in the middle of the crime scene. “I mean, I literally just did it.” He smiled.
Detective Bedi rolled her eyes. “I highly doubt they had a picture of this place.” She looked upwards to the darkness and then below to an equal amount of darkness. “Crazy this place doesn’t have handrails.”
“Yeah, that’s the only thing that is crazy about this place,” Detective Gates said deadpan. He looked across the platform and to the door ahead of him, cleaned and resealed. Actually, everything had been cleaned. They’d recovered the bodies and sent them to the morgue and expunged every trace that there had ever been a break-in. His footsteps were so loud over the metal walkway as he approached the door. He looked around for any sign of a struggle. “Any more information on the perps?”
Detective Bedi pulled some black eyeliner out of her pocket. “’Glasses’ and ‘Baby Doll’ are two unknown entities. Though, with the kind of training they had, Baby Doll’s use of an aspect to be precise, the higher-ups think heretics.” She paused. “Jack Hodges was a known entity, though.”
“Yeah. Didn’t they find that the handheld device Glasses used to have the mark of Prometheus on it? And wasn’t that the same sect of heretics responsible for the Night of a Thousand Demons?” He frowned. “Really thought we had nipped them in the bud. Nope, they’re just fucking—” he turned around to see Detective Bedi in his personal space. “Come on, Soumya.”
“Nope, give me your face.”
He leaned down, and she started to write on his face with her eyeliner pencil. “You at least going to tell me what it says?”
“Not at all.” She didn’t offer any amusement as she wrote ‘I
BIG BUTTS’ on his forehead. Yet, when she finished, the area around them glowed a bright white before showing multiple silhouettes in different colors. She walked around, inspecting them, thumping some out of existence before she had settled on four. Two were blue, one was red, and the other was a mixture of colors.“Let me guess,” Detective Gates said. “The two blue are Babydoll and Glasses. The red is Jack. And the multicolored one is Dr. Fel?”
She shook her head. “You got 3 out of the 4. Babydoll and Glasses were calm, hence blue. Jack was angry, hence red, and I am not surprised. I was reading his rap sheet. He just graduated Bellum Academy, and he had a history of getting into stupid fights.”
“Man, the heretics are getting their claws into them fast and trusting them with big missions.”
“Here’s the thing. The tech guys were able to get information from a laptop at his apartment. He’s been in contact with the Prometheus sect for well over a year.”
“Meaning he was talking with them before he graduated.”
“And many messages implied that he received orders through a ‘man on the inside.’ Meaning—”
“Bellum Academy is compromised?” Detective Gates exhaled. “Fuck me. But we’ll let the bigwigs handle that. We’re not on the pay level to start playing the academic staffing game.” He paused. “Wait, if I got the two blue and one red right, that means Dr. Fel had to be the multicolored one.”
Detective Bedi shook her head. “I dismissed Dr. Fel. The multicolored one… I don’t know who that is.”
“It’s not one of the employees that cleaned this all up?”
“No.” She frowned. “The aura on this person is very fresh. Meaning that they were here only moments before we were.” Detective Bedi walked forward, looking over the silhouette well over a head taller than her and had two arms and two legs, but the gender couldn’t be placed in their slick frame. And despite the newness of the aura, their facial features were a jumble. “More so, this many colors in their aura. I’ve only seen that a few times before. And those auras always belonged to—well—”
“Don’t say it.”
“No. I’m not going to say demons or angels.”
Detective Gates exhaled. “Thank God. So, just like—an emotional divine?”
She shook her head. “They are only contained by corpses. A corpse teleported in and out of here, Ted. Right before we got here. That’s not possible—”
“I have a weird feeling we’re going to be saying that a lot in the coming months.” Detective Gates lit another cigarette. “Now, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
At that moment, both of their phones chimed. Detective Bedi was quicker on the draw than her male counterpart. She glanced over the screen, and her usual peachy brown skin turned a shade whiter.
“Soumya?”
“The bodies.” She didn’t look up from her phone. “They’re missing from the morgue.”
Detective Gates pulled up his phone to confirm the same thing. All three of the corpses were gone, along with their belongings. He turned the screen off and saw his forehead in the darkness of his phone. “You would let me walk around with this on my head? I mean I do like big butts. But—”
At that moment, Detective Bedi’s attention turned to him, and a laugh broke up her usual stoic demeanor. It would be the last time Detective Gates would hear her laugh.
