The Girl With Metal Claws

Knowing

ELLIOTT

Was he hiding?

Was he shot dead?

Or was he behind the bars?

But for most of it, was Garry even innocent?

Elliott tried running his mind through it, over and over again. The voices of concern around him blurred down.

Maybe he was thinking too much. Maybe he was caring lesser about the way things were. He was getting out of the way, creating his reality. A reality where he was no longer being chased by a demon, a reality where his life wasn't messed up with all sorts of parts people were playing in them. A reality where losing track of people he knew was normal.

"Damn it," Fred said, frustrated, banging his fist on the table. "I knew... knew Garry would get in trouble. It was my fault for letting him go."

Jack patted his back while Fred focused his eyes on the table.

"94 people in the same locality. That's her target now?" Gabrielle said, her eyes fierce.

"I'll find her and I'll stop her. No matter wherever she is." Elliott said, his fists balling up in rage.

"Impossible. Common people like us can't do anything. If I knew what kind of powers she had, it'd all have been easier." Gabrielle said, wincing and firming the grip on her hands.

"I was just able to bring one back with me," Elliott said, his head shook down as he handed Gabrielle the picture of the symbol he had found in the backyard of the abandoned house in Amberville as Garry told him to.

"How many were there in total?" She asked.

"Four, as Garry said," Elliott replied, not being able to meet her eyes.

"That's a huge loss for us." She sighed.

"I'd have bought all 4 of them but no, you just had to show off your bravery," Jack said, his tone sounded off.

"If they caught you, they'd have caught all of us." Elliott shot back. If Elliott was caught, he'd have gotten a good beating and a few days in jail and then he'd be set free because he was below 18 and also they wouldn't find anything suspicious about him.

The police knew all about George, Fred and Jack because they used to work hand in hand with them in case solving. But after that incident a year ago, everything went downhill.

People elsewhere would definitely be surprised with disbelief at the existence of powers and darkness but not Elliott and his team.

As detectives, they had previously taken quite some supernatural cases and solved them in iconic ways. They were still praised for it whenever someone recognised them. That's why they had decided to take up the case of the Phoenix. Because they were experienced enough to save the people from this ever-growing threat.

"A symbol like this.. means nothing," Gabrielle said, looking dead serious, after scanning the symbol for quite some time. "It's just a graffiti or a kid with black paint. It depicts nothing."

"What? Are you sure?" George asked.

"Certain," Gabrielle said, not even looking him in the eye.

"So it was all for nothing. Garry went to jail for absolutely nothing." Fred said, frustrated.

Elliott felt very cornered and understood the fact that it all came down to him being blamed for not being capable enough to collect the rest of the leads Garry had told him about.

"I'm sorry if I let you down. Also, I'm sorry that I'm still standing up after being crushed by a huge vehicle. I couldn't meet your expectations but I was just trying to help." Elliott said.

"You did a great job but the situation is desperate. We need to think of something." George said, placing a hand on Elliott's shoulder.

"Yeah, sorry. You did great." Jack said, acknowledging him.

All that while, Gabrielle had been running her eyes through the picture again and again, quietly. She held the picture closer to her and her eyes went wide.

She flinched and started rummaging through the drawers for something.

"A paper, a pen. Quick." Gabrielle announced as she sat upon the chair, her face turned in a troubled expression.

Jack and Elliott dashed through the basement and quickly brought her the paper and the pen. Gabrielle immediately started drawing lines sprawled out on the paper. The lines looked randomly being marked and it wasn't making much sense either.

"What did you find?" George said, looming over her.

"Can you move over, old man? You're guarding the light." She snapped back, her face unbothered. George put on his grumpy face and stomped back to the couch, sitting down.

"You could've been a little less mean about it," George muttered, not meaning to interrupt her.

"Sometimes I'm really interested in know about their history," Jack whispered, taking about George and Gabrielle, and their bittersweet relationship.

Elliott had been looking at the drawing which was slowly starting to look like something. A circle that had a lot of lines scattered around it. Inside the circle was a single plus symbol with a small protection symbol at the bottom.

He didn't know what any of it meant neither had he ever seen symbols like that. But that only meant that they were fighting against something unknown.

Finally, Gabrielle put her pen away and ran a hand through the symbol she had drawn with terror in her eyes. Her breath was deeper as she turned to take out a book from her bag.

She turned the pages one by one and completed the whole book. Then she went through two more books but none of them had that symbol inside them.

Elliott looked at the picture he had taken in the backyard. The symbol he had found there was of no help but then he noticed that beside the cartons, there was another small symbol drawn which Gabrielle was tracing on the paper.

He frowned upon the picture with his heart thumping in his chest. The symbol wasn't there when he took the picture but it was visible now.

It was the first time Elliott noticed that symbol.

"Sa..," Gabrielle murmured. She had broken down the whole symbol into separate parts. Then she was individually finding the meaning of those parts in her books.

She turned the pages till she got to the second part. She was trying to decipher the meaning.

"A..," she said, frowning throughout.

She checked the third book next for the protection symbol. Gabrielle was continuously chanting and while looking out for the drawing. No one spoke except for her.

"Mi..," she said, gasping. "I felt like I was running out of breath."

"What'd you find? Did it work?" Fred said, bringing her a glass of water.

"Mi... A... Sa..." She murmured.

"What is that?" George asked, everyone, having a look of concern.

"It's her." She said, her eyes focused unblinkingly. "The top, A. The middle, Sa. The end, Mi."

"A... Asami," Elliott said, his nerves going still. Suddenly his mind shut down, the colours faded out like paint dripping down a canvas. Guns firing, guards yelling and an audible silence.

Was Asami who she was? Or was Asami a way to end Phoenix?

"Don't ever do that," Gabrielle said, her eyes wide in fear and anger.

"I don't understand," Elliott said.

"Never call out her name. Never." She warned, her eyes threatening. A chill crept up his spine alerting him about the unseen. Her name.. he knew her name.

~

Elliott had insisted on going home even if George wanted otherwise. He just miraculously recovered from such a massive accident yet Elliott wanted nothing but to go back home.

He wanted to get his head straight and think because there were too many things to deal with.

Garry's disappearance, dying people and the town's safety.

Gabrielle had said that now that she knew the Phoenix's name, she could work on finding out who she actually was. Her origin, her powers, her setbacks and even how to stop her.

Everyone was counting on her and the three girls who hadn't contacted them the whole day.

Elliott got up on his bed and got under the covers, eyes wide open. He gave his head a little shake as if convincing himself to sleep.

And slowly, his eyes blinked close and his stressed face relaxed. He was fast asleep, earlier than he had slept quite a few days.

Time passed by, greeted by only the silence and the deep breaths he was letting out while sleeping. Nothing bothered him, not even in his sleep.

Slowly, a soft hum started sounding across the darkroom. The wind was blowing fast and the night was even darker than before.

The humming was slow and irregular. It wasn't a tune that was being hummed. The voice was hushed but the presence of it was strong.

Elliott had just started hearing it, as it became more and more prominent in his head. He was woken up, too afraid to open his eyes because he knew he wasn't alone. He was hearing the voice that had been stuck on his mind since the first time he heard it.

He could feel her around him and he was dying to open his eyes.

Elliott held his breath and deliberately opened his eyes. He saw the empty ceiling above and realised that he did not feel the physical pain and suffocation he always felt whenever he was around her.

Before he tried to look around, he pushed himself off the bed to get to his feet.

But he couldn't. He couldn't move a single muscle neither could he break off the force that was keeping him down. Desperately, he moved his head from one side to another till it suddenly became stiff.

He let out a shocked gasp, his eyes locked.

The window beside his bed was open, faint silver moonlight pouring through it. On the window sill, he found her. Her legs hanging outside the window, her fingers latched onto the sill and her white hair blowing in all directions. Her eyes were gleaming as if still having a little life in them.

She was sitting, staring outside, humming disoriented. Elliott couldn't look away, he was bound.

The humming stopped. Asami's face slowly turned to her side as her eyes caught Elliott's bewildered ones. She had a blank look on her face.

Elliott had an urge to say something, anything. But he was too intimidated.

She turned away and stared back into the night. Elliott felt himself praying that she'd go away but he wanted an explanation for all the things she had been doing. Why was she here?