Rivieran Exterminator Pt 1: Rallying the Troops

[Kai]

After an encounter with someone of his past, Kai found that he could no longer put off investigating the the fact there was a Lighteater on Vescrutia. After making the necessary preparations and informing important parties, he set off to track the vile creatures down. He had to make a quick stop, however, at Tidra's behest. She refused to allow Kai to track down such dangerous beasts alone. If he was going after the hive, he needed an ally.

Zeik had the protecting of a kingdom to do, so Kai refused to ask him to tag along. There was another friend that he had met since his landing, however. He just had to hope he didn't also have more important matters to attend to.

So, he found himself approaching the Atelier, hoping to catch Zero at home.

"The man seems to never sit still. Or maybe our down time just never aligns," Kai remarked mostly to his self.

"You have down time?" Tidra questioned, curled up on Kai's shoulder.

"Touché," Kai replied with a shrug. He stopped his stride a few meters away from the building. "Well, why ring the doorbell when there are more fun ways to announce our presence." With the flick of a wrist, Kai summoned an unholy amount of light Naten and concentrated it into a small ball that crackled with lightning. It may have fit in the palm of his hand, but the power it radiated surely was enough to get the man of freedom's attention.

"Man, it feels good to be back at a hundred percent. Wakey wakey, Zero! I've got a favor to ask," Kai yelled in the unlikely case he didn't know he was there already.

[Zero Venkage]

“Who’s this?”

The recliner was leaned as far back as it could go, in it was a smiling imp running through the pages of the Chronicles of Hero. He conveniently heard the voice on a page that closed a chapter, so he popped the back up and snapped the book closed. Hero was one of his favorite ledgers in his collection, great for a good leisurely read and still valid as a reference for some of his projects. And the resounding thud it made when it landed on the coffee table was icing on the cake for him. He giggled to himself as he sauntered over to the window, taking a sneaky peek out from behind the shades.

“Who is it? Am I in trouble?”

His track record dictated he move with caution, who knew who could be on the other side of that friendly voice? You could never be too careful when you at one point made an enemy of the Atlantean Republic of Mares Vidas.

[Kai]

Kai waited a few breaths before he noticed someone peeking from behind the shades. He sighed.

"Is...is he screening his calls?" Kai asked himself, a little bewildered.

"Are you that surprised when you do the same?" Tidra replied. "He probably has just as many enemies as you do. Maybe even more."

"If he has several kingdoms coming for him and has managed to live this long, he's definitely the guy I need right now." Kai had made many a friend in his lifetime, but very few would he call allies on the battlefield. Yet Zero was a man whose ambitions had aligned with Kai's many an occasion, sometimes even just on a whim. "Yo, Zero! It's Kai. I need your help with something."

"Are you actually going to talk about your request?" Tidra chirped.

"Yes... but I'm also going to see if he's bringing anything new to the table. I like to know my allies as well as I know my enemies."

"Excuses."

"Mind your business."

[Zero Venkage]

"OH, cool!" Zero yelped, ripping open the door and pulling Kai right inside. He shut the curtains and locked it behind him just to be sure no other uninvited guests would befall them. It'd been a while since they last spent some time, between their first meeting below deck of the Kir Royale and now, they'd shared some simple adventures in and around Arcturus. but hadn't seen each other since The Fall. For him to pull up on the Jaida Coast right now, it had to be important. The sigil he left at the former site of Arcturus invited many of his past acquaintances to his doorstep and he welcomed most of them with open arms, but Kai was one of the few he knew he could trust without a shadow of a doubt.

"What's the word, brother? It's been too long! Hope the trip wasn't too hard on ya."

Zero gave Kai a great big hug and zipped to the kitchen and whipped up some simple snacks to bring back to the coffee table so they could catch up. Surely if he found his way through the harrowing trials that were the Jaida Coast and its residents, he should be tired. Who knows what he went through to get here?

"Come on, sit, chill, what's new? I know you got some stories for me, and boy do I have some for you."

Zero took a seat and started munching on the snacks between them, waiting for Kai to regale him with the epic that would be his journey since The Fall. They had a lot to catch up on, but he wondered if this was just a wellness check.

[Kai]

As Kai was whisked into the humble abode of Zero, he couldn't help but smirk. "Might not be the response I wanted, but definitely the one I should've expected," he thought to himself. He welcomed the embrace and watched as Zero disappeared to acquire snacks. He took the time to observe his surroundings. It had been a while, but the setting was still familiar enough for Kai to drop his guard and relax.

"The trip wasn't that bad. Although I did have to stab...something. It's amazing, years on this planets surface and there are things living here still capable of surprising me." Kai reached for a snack as he spoke and removed his hood. His brown eyes were bloodshot from the all-nighter he pulled trying to track down the subject of his visit to his friend.

"I'll cut to the chase: Months ago, I found out my crazy ass sister actually jumped from Riviera after me. Thankfully, she landed far away from me." Kai sipped the coffee in front of him. Normally, he wasn't a coffee guy, but Zero seemed to brew it like art. "She wasn't the only one. Apparently, the higher powers of Riviera sent two more assassins after me." Kai took a pause to allow Zero a moment to digest the info. Tidra unfurled from her cozy sleeping position and sat upright on Kai's shoulder. She needed to be awake for the next part.

[Zero Venkage]

"Had no idea you had a sister, bro. That sucks."

Zero sipped his own drink and leaned back, listening to Kai's story. There were a few details he might have needed an update on, though they had been side by side in arms before, unfortunately thier circumstances didn't lend them much time to talk specifics. Kind of like that friend you call when you're moving homes, very capable and reliable, but maybe lacking in the intimate details of each others' goings on. What Zero knew was that Kai was an Angel of some sort, there were many spoken of across Vescrutia, and now that he had a sister, it seemed that Kai's family ties were less than tight. She was only one of three assassins sent to make work of the Ishidate defector, reminding Zero of his own troubles brewing on the horizon. Falkensekt had made their names known to him and consigned themselves to Zero's demise and destruction, so he wans't a stranger to dodging the riff raff in public. Still, it was unfortunate that one after him was his own flesh and blood. On that, Zero couldn't relate.

"Oh ho, and who's that?" he asked leaning forward to get a better look at the small familiar emerging from Kai's personage. He wasn't sure how long they had been together, but Zero hadn't met them just yet. He loved animals, especially magical ones, and with Kai's pedigree, he'd have been quite surprised if there was no magic around the creature. Maybe one like had a page in one of the many books lining the walls of the atelier, but Zero elected to let Kai make the introduction.

[Kai]

Kai sighed. "Yeah, I'm not big on talking about my family when they all want me dead." Kai sipped again. "Save for my little brother. He's the only ally I have back home." Kai stared off for a beat before shaking the clutch of despair off his brain. "Rivieran politics tend to be absolute, and unfortunately for me, my sister is dedicated to her job." Though there was obvious venom in his words, Kai couldn't help but think of the accomplishments his youngest sibling racked up in her career as the youngest head of Polaris, the special unit of the Ishidate military force. "She's a warrior, a killer through and through. Next time we meet, I might have to..." He stopped, getting a surprisingly huge lump in his throat for someone who supposedly no longer had attachments to his family name.

Again, Kai shook off the shadows of his past and imminent future to make introductions. "That's right, you've never actually met my partner here considering she's reclusive."

"I just choose who I want to speak to, Tidra replied. It would've sounded something akin to chirping to Zero, lest he understood fairies. It honestly wouldn't have surprised Kai. "He's more than trustworthy at this point."

"This here is Tidra. She was the first being I befriended after I landed. We went through a lot that day, but we've been tight ever since." Kai pet the fairy with his pinky finger, which warranted a satisfied coo from Tidra. "She actually helped me on the Kir Royale that night we met. She's also the key point to the favor I need to ask of you." Kai held out his palm so Tidra could ride it down to the snacks. She broke off a generous amount for her size and sat on the table. "Zero, have you heard of Lighteaters? Are they native to Vescrutia?" Kai readjusted as he and Tidra shared a glance.

[Zero Venkage]

The imminent threat of familial assassination clearly weighed heavy on Kai's mind. For any normal person, being hunted would be a normal level of visceral stress, and the familial ties only added layers to the discomfort. He read it all across Kai's face, but somehow the angel managed to pull himself together and correct course.

"Yeah, I bet you'll have to get down to some," Zero started moving his hands in multiple fashions, slicing the air like swords, doing finger guns, grinding his fists into one another amd ending with an explosion of jazz hands, "type of stuff. Assassins nowadays really just don't know how to let up."

As Kai introduced Tidra to Zero, he leaned forward to get a better look at the tiny fairy. "Awww she's cute and helpful? You hit the jackpot with that one." Tidra seemed quite birdlike in appearance, but far more delicate, completely different from the Gafren Fowl that wandered the Jaida Heights in disposition and design, but seemingly just as much character.

"Lighteaters? I've heard of light and eaters but not yet the both of them combined. Sounds... Dungeon-ey, haha."

Zero was already excited, 'Have you heard of' questions almost always precluded some other information leading to the thing one might not have heard of until then. He had that phrase to thank for at least half of his collection of books, most of his secret weapons, and other mystic artifacts one would find in the atelier around them. Zero's mind was already racing with the possibilities, but he kept it open to be guided to the sense of adventure and wonder that brought Kai directly to his doorstep.

[Kai]

Kai and Tidra shared a glance as Kai sucked his teeth. "See, that's what I was a afraid of." Kai dug around in the bag that hung off his side, a brown leather bag made from the hides of horned lizards native to a particular cave in his homeland, deep in the Ishidate territory. He fished a worn, black journal that was bound by several bits of yarn durable enough to hold the pages together for the years they had.

He had little trouble finding the page he needed, as one of the corners had been folded for the meeting. The angel opened the journal and sat it on the table. The page had a drawing that looked like a rorschach test attempting to be a creature. He took a pencil from his jacket pocket and concentrated a small amount of his energy into it. He drew a double circle around it and filled the empty space with a series of seals. Kai tapped the page twice and an image of the black scaled beast, complete with its abnormally long arms and horrific jaws, was projected out using the energy from Kai as a catalyst. It was a simple spell, a party trick taught to him by a king in a lesser region in Siviar territory. But when Kai found out recording as much information about a target yielded a clearer projection that was also capable of mimicking its mannerisms, it became one of his favorite spells.

"This abomination is a Lighteater. They feed off anything with Naten similar to Tidra's and mine. Fae are unsafe. Fairies, pixies, sprites, angels, they consider us prey. Their durability and strength is unheard of and..." Kai sighed, "they can duplicate the powers of any of us they consume. I ran into one my first day here. Light magic, muscle acceleration, regeneration, it was here for a while and it wasn't even an adult." Kai bridged his hands. "You're the second man capable of getting, quite frankly, an alarming amount of intel that hasn't heard of these things, which only adds to my argument that they should be native to Riviera." Kai's eyes narrowed. "I need to know how the hell they got here, and where are they hiding. There has to be a queen around."

[Zero Venkage]

"Yeah, I do have an approximate knowledge of many things, but those are new to me. I'd love to go on safari with you, I'm great at scavenger hunts."

Kai must have felt saucy to dazzle his friend with a vibrant illustration of their mysterious target. Zero got a close look at the magic projection jumping off the page of Kai's notebook. It looked terrifying, like something out of the page of a storybook from purgatory, ready to devour the journal from whence it came. Its armor looked formidable, its teeth gnashing, and its ability to use the abilities of its consumed prey only served to pique Zero's interest. His last experience game hunting was on the floor of Arcturus, taking down a dairhino, piercing its nigh impenetrable hide with a well placed kick. If this Lighteater was any kin to that kind of challenge, Zero had a sneaking feeling he'd get to cut loose in a way he often times regretted for its bad timing. In the wild, he could be wild.

"If you have a lead, I'm ready to go in 5 minutes."