Destiny Seekers

CHAPTER 3: XYZ

The first time I was partnered with the likes of Mr. X and Ms. Y, I know for sure that this group is something else. Mr. X is lucky enough to find me even if I don’t want to be found and Ms. Y has her special eyes that can see almost everything… as far as her eye can see. To be honest, I really feel safe together with them. I will never get lost when I’m with them… they are my prized treasures. [Ms. Z’s POV]

I am Ms. Z and I am forever 18 years of age. Before I got to where I am now, I was actually a downgrade of my own blessing. I rarely get noticed, I was a wallflower. I don’t know how to dress… or I’m just shy to show my true skin. The only ones who knew my beauty and talents were my family and my closest friends. I was really shy… but there is something that makes you do the opposite of what you truly are…

A simple phrase, “but everything changed when…” My friend dared me to pretend to be a different person. Assuming a second identity… nobody knows who I was except for my family and again, my closest friends. I learned a lot from masking my own persona.

Nobody knows what I looked like when I remove my awfully big glasses, when I fix my hair without covering much of my face, or when I do not wear long sleeves. I took advantage of my second identity to learn a lot of things… I had a nerd friend who was able to fake IDs and stuff to get me! I learned to drive, learned to shoot, and learned to gamble… hustle. They were fun times…

I was supposed to expose myself during graduation… I was ready to reveal my true self by merging together… my second persona and my nerdy self when a school shooting happened. Of course, I thought I died but… There he was, Alpha Boss… Lord Exal. He told me that he needs a replacement for an emissary of balance because the previous one got tired and retired to take a rest for eternity.

I was dead anyway, so… why not? Jaw drop, my blessing is Background Extra. I get to wear a mask… take up the mantle of the previous Z… and here I am, Ms. Z. I’ve been doing my job well ever since~

“You are lost in thought,” Ms. Y tapped me in the shoulder. “The gateway has opened to the Providence. Are you ready?”

“Relax,” Mr. X smirked under his mask. “We got this, okay?”

“Hey, I’m not nervous or anything… I was just having flashbacks of my childhood.”

“No offense, but you’re still a child,” Mr. X jumped out of the gateway created by Mr. O.

“As much as I want to side with you,” Ms. Y jumped down next, “you are forever 18, as you say~”

“At least, I am not a middle-aged man like Mr. O~” I winked at him and jump down as well.

“Kids these days,” I apparently overheard Mr. O saying that though before he closed the portal.

“It looks dusty here,” Ms. Y took notice of the black dusts or ashes hovering around the atmosphere of this mysterious place. “Has it always been like this, Mr. X?”

“Yeah,” Mr. X looked around. “It looks like this universe is covered with these floating things. In fact, when we fought against Violence, these things were swarming around the demon god like they were attracted to him.”

“Creepy…” I whispered. “While walking along the empty corridors of the place. “It feels like we are walking inside a mansion or a dungeon or something…”

“The others might be experiencing the same thing, I guess.” Ms. Y looked at the abyssal ceiling. “Even if I try my best to look beyond, the pitch-black emptiness of the ceiling is… just empty. What kind of place is this anyway?”

“Welcome to Providence, I guess.” Mr. X sighed. “Ms. Z, I think it’s time for you to use your blessing on us as well so that we can hide our presence from whoever is beyond this corridor.”

I held onto them and activated my Blessing. “It’s done. Ah, if only we could hover around… my feet are getting tired…”

“Halt,” Ms. Y whispered. “I see something… beyond that corridor.”

“Describe it,” Mr. X crossed his fingers.

“Even with my blessing activated, these black dusts are swarming around those… things.” Ms. Y tried to focus as her Deus’ Eye zoomed in, “Vines, I don’t know, I guess snakes or tentacles… I see three figures…”

“If we get closer, do you think they would notice us?” feeling anxious, I asked both of them. “I feel like these things might allow them to detect our presence…”

“You can enter into ghost mode, right?” Mr. X turned his crossed fingers to seemingly activate his Destiny’s Coil. “We’ll do the usual, the two of you will be my support while I attack head-on…”

“There are three of them, and they are gods,” Ms. Y looked anxious as well. “Do you think we can handle them?”

“Luck is on my side,” Mr. X put a thumb up, “and I have you guys with me as well. Nothing is impossible…”

“I’ll contact Ms. E if she has something about these monsters before we go and greet them,” Ms. Y pressed the side part of her mask near her ear to connect back to the base.

Back at the Headquarters, Miss E received the call. “Hello, this is the archives provider, how may I help you?”

“I am sending a live feed,” Ms. Y focused on the three monsters who are very far away, “Can you visualize what my eye is seeing?”

“Affirmative, Ms. Y. Let me check into my historical archives of the records of the ancient history…” Miss E looked into it thoroughly. “I was only able to gather little information about them, would you still like to check?”

“Yes please…”

Fixa the Dusk Tentacle, Destiny Seeker of Single-mindedness, looks like a poorly drawn octopus… although he has more than eight tentacles in addition to his muscular arms and legs… He is, as his name implies, fixated on narrow-minded individuals… for they are his easy prey.

Egot the Mellow Tentacle, Destiny Seeker of Arrogance, is a worm with multiple limbs that are basically tentacles. His small head is basically hiding under a shell shaped like a human head. From the holes of this shell, his tentacles protrude and like Fixa, he has a muscular body attached to his head-shaped shell. He preys on overly proud individuals…

Judi the Shiny Tentacle, Destiny Seeker of the Judgmental, is the most monstrous-looking of the trio. He wraps his body with his… 82 tentacles making him look like an alien mummy hybrid. People who are judgmental are at his mercy…

“That is all I can give you, the rest is up to you guys. Good luck,” Miss E hung up.

“That’s very vague,” Mr. X started to walk towards them. “Maybe if we get closer, Ms. M might be able to register some more data about them.”

“I’ll get my guns out then,” I started to fade away hiding my presence to support Mr. X from the darkness.

“I need to get to a higher place,” Ms. Y checked out the walls of the corridor. “If I get a good vantage point, sniping them would help. I’ll take that staircase… give me a moment.”

“Who am I kidding,” Mr. X breathed in and out thrice. “I’m going to charge at them… in three… two… one…”

“It seems like the invaders arrived earlier than anticipated,” Fixa looked to direction of Mr. X. “Charging at me from that distance, are you out of your mind?”

“Do not underestimate him, Fixa,” Egot finished feeding on one of the humans he’s hunted down. “He might not be alone.”

“Note that these guys destroyed Violence,” Judi walked towards the direction of Mr. X. “Let me test out his capabilities first…”

When the demon made his final step, the floor he was standing on cracked causing his tentacle leg to wobble making him lose his balance. At that moment, Mr. X lunged at the distracted Judi with a flurry of bullets coming from his assault rifles all aimed at the demon god’s head. The demon god fell back, shocked at what had happened to him and so were the other demon gods watching as well.

“What the hell did you do, human?” Judi glared at Mr. X.

“I was just lucky,” Mr. X put away his weapons from a somewhat magical storage. He then took out two swords, “In fact, I am really-really lucky right now...”

*BAM!!!*

Ms. Y went for the snipe and it hit the demon god in the head knocking him down on the floor! Too bad, the demon god is bullet proof…

“It seems like he is not alone,” Egot looked around. “I’m going to weed the other one out.”

Fixa fixated on Mr. X, “I’m gonna help you out on that one, Judi…”

Mr. X stared at both of them, he then whispered to me, “We’re going to use your invisibility to our advantage and time our bullets together. When I shoot, you shoot as well…”

“Got it…”

“Ms. Y, will you be fine by yourself or do you need Ms. Z?” Mr. X then asked Ms. Y who is a pretty far back.

“I’ll be fine,” Ms. Y replied back. “Since regular bullets don’t work on them, I suggest we use Alpha Boss’ weapons for us.”

“Human,” the god known as Fixa spoke with Mr. X. “You sure are dumb enough to enter our domain. A mere human like you is a food to us gods!”

*Gun shots are heard from the corridor*

“It looks like Egot already found your friend,” Judi spread out his tentacles. “Stay right there Fixa, I’ll handle him from here…”

“Handle you say… let’s take a gamble on that. Your tentacles will never hit me,” Mr. X taunted the monster. He then whispered back to me, “Stay near the walls so you can phase through them…”

“YOU ARROGANT LITTLE HUMAN!” Judi directed all of his tentacle towards Mr. X. “YOU WILL NEVER GET AWAY FROM THIS!!!”

“I don’t plan to,” Mr. X raised his right hand at his face and steps forward.

Shocking the beast, just a step forward allowed Mr. X to evade all of the tentacles striking him!

“You shouldn’t have attacked me on all other sides except front,” Mr. X grinned and raised his assault rifle and aimed it at Judi, “You should’ve just attacked head-on.”

*BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!!! BRRRRRRRRRRRRT!!!*

Mr. X fired shots again and I secretly shot my own to add insult to injury. However, Fixa seemed to have caught up with our plan as he was just spectating.

“So you have a third member,” Fixa fixated towards my end. “I saw some bullets flying over that direction.”

“Mr. X, I think the other guy noticed me,” I reported to him.

“Phase through the walls and run,” Mr. X brought out his Alpha Boss weapon, The X guns. “Don’t hesitate to use the weapons!”

“So there are three of you guys,” Judi, still confused as to how he missed Mr. X, withdrew his tentacles back. “Why don’t you do something about it, Fixa?”

“I can’t see or feel the presence of their third member,” Fixa looked at the concentration of the black particles and began to approach me, “but the particles are giving me a hint as to where the third member might be…”

I had no choice but to phase through the wall and run as far as I can! I needed to lose the monster approaching me…

*CRASH!!!*

Shit! He broke through the wall! These black dusts are in the way of my ability! Where should I hide?!

Wait… Why should I hide when I can phase through? I shouldn’t be afraid!

But, why? Every wall I pass through…

He keeps on finding me…

I can’t keep up…

“Hang in there Ms. Z!” Ms. Y snapped me out of it. “Pull yourself together!”

“Ms. Y!”

“Come on, hurry!” Ms. Y grabbed my hand and helped me run fast.

“You’re being chased too?” I asked her while using my powers to pass through walls together.

“You haven’t used your god mode?” she asked me as we run through another corridor.

“My fears got to me first!”

“Yeah me too!” She scratched her head. “I’m afraid of tentacle things in fact…”

Passing through the final wall, I found myself back to where I left Mr. X. He was also there, but instead of showing fear… he seemed to enjoy battling against the demon.

Both of them noticed us and stopped fighting.

“What’s this?” Judi took a step back while healing his wound.

“You look tired, ladies,” Mr. X grinned throwing away a tentacle he managed to cut off.

All of a sudden, the two other demons arrived breaking the wall we just passed through. Unfortunately, we were surrounded…

“And now, you are surrounded!” Fixa began to spread out his tentacles wide.

“I like the sound of that,” Egot spread his tentacles the same.

Judi also spread his eliminating the possibility for the three of us to escape.

“Brace yourselves girls,” Mr. X raised his blades, “we have to cut through these vines…”

As the three of them charged at us at the same time, the aura of the place seemed to have shifted. The three of them seemed to have stopped in their tracks as the dust particles settled in a particular part of the hall we were in.

A strange being shaped like a human entered the room and started attacking the Judi first. He tore open the demon’s head followed by a flurry of slashes from his monstrous left hand. All the while I could only hear his screams of anguish as the other two demonic entities tried to save their comrade… only ended up getting slashed in defeat.

As the dust particles settled, the figure turned out to be a Destiny Seeker as well… in his human form. He had an ominous aura emanating in him quite opposite to Mr. X, in fact. His left hand was demonic and dark blue, his right hand was human… he had parallel marks on his right cheek and he had bags under his eyes. The way he looked at us… it felt like he was dead inside. Those deep blue irises felt like they were dragging me deep into the ocean… drowning me…

Mr. X and Ms. Y looked frozen in fear, but they were prepared to fight the one in front of us right now. I looked around…

I could only see blood and gore…

Ignoring us, he proceeded to walk towards his fellow Destiny Seekers who felt betrayed of his actions.

“I told you to watch out,” he grabbed Fixa in the neck with his left hand, “and yet you just brushed me off.”

“Y-you… what is t-this about?” Fixa coughed out blood, and yet it didn’t seem to stain the betrayer’s clothes.

In fact, his entire body should’ve been messy and bloody by then… after all the rampage… but he was very clean.

“You know what this is all about,” he slammed Fixa back on the ground. “Look at what you made me do. Just because I am part human and part god, it doesn’t mean that I am not accepted in your Destiny Seeking Circle. Even the Supreme Goddess of Life saw potential in me and added me into her circle… just like the Czarina.”

“I cannot accept…” Egot got up and charged at the betrayer. “You are just a replacement!”

Shockingly avoiding the strike, the betrayer grabbed the head-shaped shell of Egot and hit it with his knee cracking the hard shell. Adding insult to injury, he slammed it back on the ground and stomped on it. Fortunately, the shell didn’t break. The three of us dared not speak… we just… stared at the events that unfolded in front of us. I seemed to have felt sympathy for them too…

“Where are my manners?” he then turned his attention towards us. “This may sound weird… I was a human, but I was turned into a Destiny Seeker.”

He took a step forward and instinctively we all took a step backwards.

“I was, unlike them, a human… just like you,” he said. “I came from a world where powers like this only exists in the minds of writers, directors, artists, and the internet.”

He took another step forward and we took another step back…

“You are called Emissaries of Balance, right?” he seemed to know something about us. “My other benefactor, aside from Lord Exyd… you know, the Supreme Being of Fate and their creator and basically the owner of this world, Providence… … my other benefactor, I mean… is Lady Naxo, Supreme Being of Life… she uhm… also have Emissaries ‘former’ in her circle together with me. So uh… it’s alright…”

“Are you our enemy?” Mr. X asked him.

“It depends on how you see me,” the Destiny Seeker jokingly took another step forwards and laughed as we took a step back. “Hah, this is how I like things to be… unlike the time when I was still human… filled with guilt and regret. By the way, they call me the Weirdo…”