The Ghost Shepherd

Spiritualist

Room 10 kept running for a whole week and some students started to take notice of the anomaly. Inside, Sly was fighting with everything he had against a Vanadium Puppet that was doing things no normal fighter could do. He learned how to utilize the Nanotrons as a shield and was able to stop some of the lasers attacking him except that sometimes K.C was supposed to be the one to control the angle and distance and the Nanotrons were not having it.

Sly stayed out of it and hoped they could one day iron out their differences, even though the Nanotrons only mess with the measurements a little. In a fight where his life was at stake it could have horrible consequences.

Sly’s improvement was off the charts, the room level reached all the way to level 5 by the seventh day and the Puppet was finally using his lance instead of his regular arm to attack, increasing the level of danger to a whole other level.

Clink … clink… clink

The sound reverberated through the room as Sly defended with his weapon waiting for the opportunity to counter-attack. In all the training sessions there had never been a chance to use his Energy Scythe because he was constantly on his back foot which provided him with great inside to the shortcomings of his weapon. It was extremely important to be mobile and to keep an appropriate distance so that he could get a better swing, once the enemy moved in to about 4 ft from him, he lost 50% of his weapon’s potential.

The Puppet came in with a fast right hand thrust and with minimal movement Sly dodge to his left and using the middle of the Scythe’s handled, he guided the thrust away from his body, he then moved the business end across the doll’s body and them pulled it as if it was a hook trying to decapitate it.

The puppet’s head separated from his body to avoid damage from the blade but it was just enough for Sly to kick the Puppet with everything he had on the side of his body gaining a little bit of space to use his ability.

It was the best opportunity he had in seven days, the core lit up for a second and a scythe made of blue energy left while spinning diagonally towards the Puppeteer that was caught a little off guard but in her eyes the attack was weak.

The Scythe reached her shields and instead of clashing against them, it went through and continued towards the Puppeteer’s collarbone.

Time slowed down for both of them, the Puppeteer was an experienced fighter and managed to move enough for the blade to cut into her shoulder instead but to her surprise nothing occurred.

The blade actually went inside the Puppeteer’s body as it had done many times before.

Sigh…

It was the same outcome that Sly had seen hundreds of times before, and the worst thing of all was, that the puppet was coming back with a kick of his own that hit him square in the jaw causing him to pass out.

Challenged Terminated said the intercom…

In the meantime, the Puppeteer didn’t move or say anything, she just stood there almost petrified and the connection to her puppet was severed. The puppet was intact but the Nanotrons didn’t return, it was just like they didn’t have a host for 2 seconds. After two seconds passed, they came online and returned as a dark cloud to the Puppeteer that held her chest as she started to walk towards the door.

“So there was an Argonian capable of attacking something different than the physical body, or the mind, Interesting...Interesting indeed.'' said the Puppeteer under her breath.

The puppeteer opened the door to the facility and left without saying another word. The moment the door closed behind her, she disappeared from the hall. There were very few people with the dynamic vision to actually see what was happening and that could see the puppeteer encased in nanotrons almost like a puppet herself moving at extreme speeds.

Her destination was the Penthouse at the most prestigious tower in the city of Hope. Only the Elite and people with special status could reside in one of the three apartments that were available.

In a spectacular feat of speed she arrived through the outside of the tower and through a window that she had left previously open. The moment she stepped through the window all the lights turned on and a robot in a butler outfit came to greet her.

“Welcome back Miss Piggles. Can I be of assistance?”

“Yes, set up a secure connection to Master Zero. I am going to the lab”

“Certainly”

The prickling pain of a paper cut on her shoulder was still there and despite her amazing speed, her control of the puppet was being affected by whatever Sly did through that last attack. The Puppeteer took off her mask and the color on her dreadlocks changed from red to metallic grey and Nanotrons disappeared from her feet reducing her height.

Miss Piggles entered the lab and went straight for a capsule in the middle of the room. The moment she laid in, different connections attached to her hair and multiple scans started to take place.

The amazing part of the penthouse was that it came with its own laboratory that could be used to perform any type of experiments and even if they were to be nefarious in nature, nobody would know.

The moment her hair was connected, she closed her eyes and a transmission started.

Hunter ID: 00001001

Code Name: The Puppeteer

Assignment: Shadow of Novice Hunter Sly Masters

The information was passed through the hair and through the waves and received by the Mother AI who established a connection to Zero.

“Hello Millie, Did you have fun in your little sparring session? I thought I told you that the assignment is to observe not to intervene in his development”

“It will be a waste to have him die in the first mission for lack of combat experience. I got rewarded for my efforts too, take a look at this. I am hurt but it is not physical nor mental damage, it is something else, a different type of ability that uses a completely different system. Physically, I feel fine, but the control over my ability is being affected”

The video of her fight was sent to the mother AI that displayed it as a hologram for Zero to review and then all her vitals and other systems that were being measured inside the capsule were displayed on a side screen.

Zero looked at the data and kept rewinding the part when the Scythe made out of blue energy that looked almost ethereal went inside her body and the Nanotrons lost the connection.

“There are precedents of this type of ability in some of the members of our allied forces, it is rare to see it and I have been reluctant to acknowledge it because it does not rely on the scientific principles that our civilization was built on. Even the other abilities of the Argonians can be explained, analyzed and replicated because they generate a change in the environment that can be measured. I neglected these types of abilities because they came from planets that were very tribal in nature, some still pray to gods and carry on rituals that I find ridiculous so I just let them be and focus on things that do not require ‘faith’ ”.

“The owners of the skills are known by many names but I like to call them Spiritualists. They believed that an individual is composed of three things, the body, the mind and the spirit. According to their teachings, when something in nature dies, it loses two of its components mainly being the mind and the body but the spirit carries on until it dissipates into the circle of reincarnation. If we carry that train of thought further, Spiritualists should be able to see, control, and even revive the dead since the spirit should retain the essence of the individual. I have asked the leaders of these tribes about them but the majority of their chosen can only see the Spirits but can do very little with them, apparently, the weaker the individual was during their lifetime, the quicker it will dissipate leaving behind what they called Specters. Specters are none intelligent entities that sway from side to side but do nothing else so I deemed the ability useless”

“The data from the video showed that the attack is not on a physical plane and it does not affect the brain waves directly to be considered a mental attack, so I can only assume that it affected your spirit or in other words your soul”

“I am changing your assignment from observation to protection, there must be many more of this type of Argonian and we need to find a way to defend ourselves from their attacks. I want an update of your injury, let me know if the feeling dissipates.”

The connection was terminated and Zero kept watching the scene before saying, “Show me the last Images we have of Planet Icarus”. The images showed the individuals in the planet decaying at a fast pace and this included the Argonians and Alliance forces inside but zero could not see anything else. He failed to see that in the last image taken from a soldier there was a faint outline of a giant mouth in the sky.

Sigh...

“Nevermind, get me the leader of the Irakui tribe”.