Nier soared through the night, his eagle form slicing through the country's side skies, which is mostly the mid sectors of the FAA. Mostly in search of worthy Fluxes. Over the past hours, he had crossed countless regions, his senses attuned to the faint hums of Flux energy.
Some were pitifully weak, hardly worth a glance, their power barely enough to ripple the air.
Others pulsed with such raw, overwhelming force that even he, with his Unlimited power, veered away, knowing a reckless challenge could cost him dearly... Well Negativity it made no sense fighting as an immortal punching bag.
That aside though, Fluxes were everywhere if you looked hard enough, some lurking in desolate ruins, skulking through dense forests, or blending into the urban sprawl.
But finding one that struck the perfect balance of strength to test his limits? That was the thrill driving his hunt.
As midnight passed, his wings carried him toward the chaotic glow of Sector 4...Nellywood City.
"Damn, I really ended up in the higher Sectors ha!? Oh well, I love stretching my wings anyways, from ever since I learned how amazing it feels to fly, I can't get enough of it, Still to think I came here of all places."
Nier mused, his thoughts sharp as he glided over the city's edge.
"Sector 4, the chamber pot of the overpowered...
Nier chuckled to himself.
"As a low number Sector it means it home to some of the richest people in the country so you would expect it to be all glitz and wealth, penthouse suites, private security, the elite sipping their overpriced wine. But Nellywood is a different beast. It’s crawling with Hestas. It fill of wakened freaks who've turned these city streets into a warzone. Crime festers here like a disease, and where Hestas stir up shit, the Hero Association's the goody-two-shoes of this country are never far behind. Still this place was a place my mother kept me away from, mostly because of my curse."
Nier said to himself as he recalls his younger days. And watch the beautiful scenery from above.
As before him, the city sprawled below, a jagged tapestry of neon-lit skyscrapers and shadowed alleys, the distant roar of traffic blending with the pulse of life after dark.
It was well past midnight, the streets aglow with flickering signs and the occasional flare of emergency lights.
If you look south on the hills a large sign with the Words.
[Welcome to Nellywood] could be seen on the giant billboard glowing red, with dark purple background.
However not even five minutes in this place, trouble was already visible.
Up ahead, a cluster of beams cut through the blackness, rotating spotlights from helicopters.
Nier's instincts kicked in, and he pumped his wings to climb higher, melting into the thin clouds to avoid detection.
"No way I am getting pinged by some trigger-happy copter pilot.... Ah I remember these guy shot down a flying flux back in the day with barrage of missile's right over the damn city when Cleave first came, imagine if they saw big fucking bird three times bigger than a human... Yeah, let's not risk it."
Said Nier to himself...but peering down, he quickly realized it wasn't just police choppers.
A news helicopter hovered nearby, its camera locked on a high-speed chase unfolding on the highway below. Red and blue lights strobed across the asphalt, illuminating a battered van weaving through traffic.
Nier sharpened his hearing with Gaian energy, catching the announcer's voice crackling from the news chopper.
"This is Jessica Vance with Channel 7 Nellywood Nightwatch, reporting live from above Nellywood City's main highway! We're here live tracking a high-stakes situation, a group of Hestas, mostly Level 1s with two confirmed Level 3s, has broken out of Tartarus, the country's most fortified prison for the deadliest awakened criminals. They're fleeing in a stolen police van, with police in hot pursuit. The Hero Association has been called in for an emergency backup to contain this high-risk escape. Stay with us as this unfolds!"
Nier snorted, his eagle eyes narrowing.
"Escaped from Tartarus? That is no small feat. That place is a fortress, my mother herself had program some of the AI there so I would know, from what I heard from here, they have a lot high tech shit, like energy-dampening cells, spatial isolation grounds, self imploding colors, the works. Level 1s are barely a threat, just glorified street thugs with a little bit of supernatural powers. But Level 3s? They're packing enough power to be mult-local threath. Still, how the hell did some Level 3's even manage to escape. I heard not even a Lvl 5 can escape that place easily, especially since they are kept locked up near the planet core, which is the deepest part of Tartarus."
Nier said, curiosity overwhelming him.
As these guys suddenly escaping did not make any sense at all, to him, and his mother even Said the AI there is basically one million more times faster and more smarter than Lisa.
But when he ponder deeper about it.
His eyes caught something up ahead from the speeding van.
"...Is that!?...
Nier eyes open in shock, because standing dead-center in the highway, unfazed by the van hurtling toward her at breakneck speed, was a woman with jet-black hair whipping in the wind and blue eyes that burned with cold disdain.
Her clawed hands rested on her hips, her posture look bored if not extremely annoyed.
It wasn't long after that the announcer's voice spiked with recognition.
"Hold on, is that Lady Blue? No way it really is her! Lady Blue, one of the first Hestas to awaken ten years ago, has stepped in to stop these Tartarus escapees!"
Nier slowed his glide, curiosity hooking him.
"Lady Blue....oh no, RIP to these fools."
"She is one of the original awakened, a real badass with zero patience for weakness. If she is half as ruthless as the rumors say she is, this is gonna be a slaughter."
The van’s driver floored it, aiming to ram her.
Lady Blue's lips curled into a sneer, her voice slicing through the chaos like a whip.
"You brain-dead losers really thought you could outrun me? How cute, still I will give you C- for effort. Still escaping Tartarus doesn't make you special, hell even those level 5 fucks are only in there because they have life better in there than out here."
She raised one hand, and the air thickened with an invisible force. The van's momentum vanished, its front crumpling as if it had slammed into a steel wall.
Tires screeched, metal buckled, and the vehicle skidded backward, the Hestas inside tumbling into a heap.
Lady Blue stalked forward, her claws extending with a metallic shink.
"Level 1s daring to breathe my air? Disgusting. And you Level 3s, dragging these worms along? You're the biggest failures here."
The burly Level 3 scrambled to his feet, electricity surging around his fists.
"Shut it, Blue! I'll burn that smug face off myself you fucking cunt."
He unleashed a crackling bolt of lightning straight at her, power so vast it would take a family of ten to even use quarter of it in decade, as the air began sizzling with raw power.
Lady Blue didn't flinch.
Rather the condensed bolt of lightning strong enough to one shot a Fulcrum a hundred time over suddenly froze mid-air, its momentum drained to nothing.
She twisted her hand, and the lightning reversed, slamming back into the Hesta with double the force. He screamed, his body convulsing as electricity scorched his flesh, collapsing in a smoking heap.
The energy all focus inside his body by her power, crippling him from the inside.
A power so vast it could have blow up an entire city block, and all that energy rage inside him unable to come out or express the output as all of his organs began ruptured, fry, and his bones each if not almost all of them splintered all at once.
THUD!!
And with a loud thud he felt to the ground.
"Weak."
She spat, stepping over him like he was garbage.
"All that power, and you can't even aim properly. Pathetic."
The wiry Level 3 woman roared, her weird floating runes flaring with mysterious power as she hurled a wave of kinetic energy, a rippling distortion meant to crush Lady Blue.
"You're dead, you bitch!"
She shouted, her barrier shimmering to deflect any counterattack.
Lady Blue's laugh was cold and vicious.
"Dead? You're not even worth my time, you third-rate reject."
She slashed her claws through the air, and the kinetic wave halted, its force nullified. With a snap of her fingers, she redirected it, sending the energy crashing back into the woman.
The barrier shattered, and she slammed into the van's side, metal caving in with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed from her mouth as bones snapped, and she slumped to the ground, gasping.
The Level 1s spilled out, desperation driving them.
One summoned gusts of wind, another flung acidic globs, and a third conjured jagged stone spikes from the pavement.
They swarmed her, shouting defiance.
"You can't take us all."
One screamed, lobbing a fiery bullet.
Lady Blue's face twisted with disgust.
"You insects actually think you're a threat? Awakening doesn't make you strong right away morons, if you even want to hurt me even a little bit you will need a highly train army of level 4's, and even that wouldn't be enough to save you, there is reason why level 5's like myself are a threats to the planet. It only takes one of us if we feel like it to drive an entire civilization to extinction."
She moved like a predator, her claws a blur. The wind-user's gusts fizzled as she nullified their momentum, then slashed his chest open, blood gushing as he collapsed, screaming.
"Cry harder. Maybe it'll make you less useless...and give your friends the motivation to live."
The acid-thrower's glob stopped mid-air as well, caught in her invisible grip, before she hurled it back, splattering his face.
His skin melted as he wailed, clawing at his ruined eyes.
"That is what you get for aiming filth at my glorious skin, agh... ahh that shit smell like a bad queef after seven dudes."
She sneered, kicking him aside despite him trying to hold his melted face together.
Meanwhile the stone-spike Hesta drove his attack upward, aiming to impale her. Lady Blue stomped, the pavement cracking as she reversed the spikes motion, burying him in a pile of shattered rock.
She then grabbed his throat, irritated even more.
"Really a fucking stone, that your bright idea of an attack? Sigh, at this point you're not even fit to die at my feet."
She squeezed harder, his neck crunching, before she broke his neck, not kill but permanently crippled.
SNAPP!!
The sound of his neck snap, and his voice box crush under her gripping force, his hands and feat limp downwards, as he loses all sensation in them.
Right after she toss him to the side, knocking his head hard on the pavement.
Jessica Vance’s voice trembled over the broadcast.
"Oh god, can we even show this!?"
Nier reactions was no different.
As he continue to hover above, his eagle form blending into the night.
"Holy shit, she is ruthless."
Police swarmed the scene, cuffing the groaning survivors, as a group of medic came right behind as there of them needed to be prep for surgery.
Meanwhile all Lady Blue did was stood amidst the wreckage of the Tartarus escapees, her claws dripping with blood as it dig into the last guy neck, as she surveyed the groaning heap of defeated Hestas.
Her blue eyes burned with disgust, her lips curling into a sneer.
"I can"t believe I had to touch that filth."
She hissed, glaring at the blood smearing her hand.
“Fucking gross...weaklings leaving their stench on me."
With a hard yank she pull her own hand clean off at the forearm, the severed limb tumbling upward.
The air warped around it, her power accelerating it skyward at blinding speed. It breached the clouds in a heartbeat, rocketing beyond the atmosphere and hurtling toward the sun at a quarter of light speed, a faint streak red energy following it as it vanish into the starry void.
Blood spurted from the jagged stump, but her regeneration kicked in instantly. Tendons and muscle wove together, skin knitting seamlessly over the wound. In less than six seconds, a new hand formed, pristine, and untainted.
She flexed it, opening and closing her fingers with a satisfied smirk.
"There. Clean and perfect, like you losers could never be."
High above, Nier hovered in his eagle form, his sharp eyes wide with disbelief.
"What the actual fuck am I watching right now?"
He thought, his heart pounding in confusion to this woman behavior.
"She just yeeted her own damn hand into space to avoid some blood? This chick is on a whole nother level of unhinged. Yeah... I've seen enough crazy for one night from this city, time to bail and find a Flux worth fighting, far from this madhouse."
He banked sharply, wings slicing through the air as he aimed for the countryside, eager to leave Nellywood's chaos behind.
But before he could gain distance, a voice, cold, sharp, and laced with menace, whispered directly into his ear.
"And what the hell are you, you oversized peeping bird?"
Nier froze, a chill racing through his feathers as something heavy and soft pressed against his back. Her scent hit him sharp, hard, and quickly.
'No way. How the hell did she suddenly reach on top of me?'
His mind raced, but her voice cut through again, dripping with disgust.
"Sniff… ugh, you reek of something weird. Pheromones? Some chemical seduction crap to mess with people's heads? I hate your kind, screwing with minds like the manipulative trash you are. Normally, I would crush you for less, but I've got a soft spot for animals. Too bad you're no ordinary eagle, three times the size of a grown man? Yeah, you're no pet. You're a threat, and I don't let threats walk away... I know flux when I see one."
"SHIT!"
Nier squawked, panic surging as he tried to twist away. But Lady Blue was already moving, her weight lifting off his back in a blur. Before he could react, she stomped downward with terrifying force, her speed and weight suddenly increase amplifying the impact. The air itself seemed to crush him, a sonic boom erupting as he was propelled downward.
BOOM!
Nier crashed into the city street below, the impact shattering the asphalt into a four-meter crater.
The shockwave blasted nearby parked cars and trucks, flipping them like toys as glass shattered and alarms blared.
Pain seared through his body, his eagle form crumpled and bloodied, fathers scattered across the rubble. His bones ached, but his Unlimited power surged instinctively, knitting his wounds as he lay in the crater, gasping.