(A/N):
Drop a meme here that you find funny. Or reflects your mood.
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Rivermoor City...
Guard Headquarters...
Ben accompanied the captain through the iron gates of the city guard headquarters.
Inside, the mood was somber and heavy with exhaustion.
Tables had been pushed together to form a temporary investigation room, every surface covered with documents, sketches, reports, and maps of the city.
Candles and mana-lamps burned day and night.
This was where everything they had gathered about the murders was brought.
Ben moved slowly from table to table, studying the material in silence.
Written reports detailed the condition of each victim, the estimated time of death, and the repeated pattern that tied every case together.
Crude diagrams attempted to reconstruct how the killings were carried out—angles of attack, points of entry, the speed with which it must have happened.
Too fast for most people to react.
Too precise to be random.
"He doesn't linger,"
Ben said quietly, after reading through several accounts.
"And he doesn't improvise."
The captain nodded while pouring himself a wine looking tired.
-Nod
"That's what worries us most."
For the next three days, Ben remained with them.
He accompanied the captain on inspections, spoke with guards, retraced patrol routes, and walked through neighborhoods where past incidents had occurred.
He listened more than he spoke, watching how the city moved, how fear hid itself beneath routine.
Nothing obvious surfaced.
The killer left no trail.
On the fourth morning, everything changed.
At the headquarters of the Rivermoor Gazette, a sealed envelope arrived without warning.
No sender. No return mark.
The editor-in-chief opened it personally.
What he read made his blood run cold.
"...."
The letter mocked the city guards openly—ridiculing their efforts, dismissing their investigations as blind fumbling.
It spoke of "justice," of cleansing, of inevitability.
At the bottom, written with deliberate care, was a single name.
Ripper.
And beneath it—
A promise.
I will continue my work.
The editor hesitated.
"...."
Then, against better judgment, he ordered the contents printed.
By midday, the city was buzzing.
The moment the guard captain read the article, his expression darkened.
"...."
"…He wants attention,"
He said grimly without wasting another second, he grabbed his coat and headed out, Ben following close behind.
Newspaper Headquarters...
The Gazette building stood tall and busy, reporters rushing in and out as presses roared inside.
The captain pushed through the front doors, fury tightly leashed beneath discipline.
He demanded to see the editor at once.
When the editor appeared, pale and defensive, the captain didn't waste words as he spoke coldly.
"You published a criminal's confession, Do you have any idea what you've done?"
The editor swallowed taking a step back by the sudden out burst.
-Gulp
"The people have a right to know."
"You've given him exactly what he wanted,"
The captain snapped massaging his temples.
"Attention. Validation."
Ben stood slightly behind them, eyes sharp as he studied the room, the staff, the stacks of letters and documents.
'He broke his silence,'
Ben thought while taking the letter from the editor chief hands.
'Which means something has changed.'
A man who had waited years between killings didn't write letters on impulse.
Which meant—Ripper was confident.
And confidence always came before a mistake.
Ben looked at the printed article again, committing every word to memory.
"…Good,"
He murmured under his breath.
By evening, the city had changed.
Lanterns were lit earlier than usual.
Shopkeepers closed their shutters in haste.
Streets that were normally alive with laughter and trade grew quieter as night settled in.
Fear had spread faster than any rumor.
Ben stood near a rooftop edge, watching the streets below as the last light faded from the sky as he thought silently.
'Aerial patrol isn't working,He knows how to hide from above.'
Decision settled in his chest.
He raised his wrist.
The Omnitrix responded instantly.
-FLASH
Green light flared—then warped, twisting unnaturally as Ben's body thinned, elongated, and unraveled.
Flesh became mist. Bone became shadow.
Where Ben had stood—Ghostfreak emerged.
His form hovered just above the ground, a tattered white silhouette stitched together by darkness.
One eye glowed from beneath the single exposed slit, the other hidden behind the living skin wrapped around his face.
The air around him felt colder.
He drifted forward, silent as a thought.
Tonight, he wouldn't hunt from above.
Tonight, he would haunt.
Elsewhere...
At the Rivermoor Gazette, the guard captain's voice echoed through the office as he continued tearing into the editor-in-chief.
"You've turned this city into a panic chamber, People are locking themselves inside like prey."
Outside, reactions were spreading faster than the paper itself.
Some called the letter blasphemy.
Some claimed the killer was insane.
Others whispered that maybe—just maybe—he was right.
But fear drowned out every argument.
Married women stopped leaving their homes at night.
Men walked faster, eyes scanning shadows.
Guards doubled patrols, hands tight on their weapons.
Rivermoor no longer slept.
Ghostfreak drifted through the streets unseen, his form fading in and out of visibility as he moved.
He passed through walls, hovered over rooftops, slipped between narrow alleys where even lantern light struggled to reach.
He watched. Listened. Searched for intent.
But the city gave him nothing.
No suspicious movements.
No lurking figures. No spike of malice strong enough to stand out.
Only fear. And silence.
He was about to move on when something caught his attention.
Anomaly
Near a pile of refuse at the edge of an alley, several cats were gathered—hissing, clawing, fighting viciously over something on the ground.
Ghostfreak slowed.
Animals fought over scraps all the time.
But this felt… wrong.
He drifted closer.
The cats scattered slightly, then returned, growling and biting at one another.
Ghostfreak lowered himself to the ground.
"...."
His single visible eye widened.
It wasn't food.
It was a partial palm—three fingers still attached, the flesh already decaying, darkened by time and exposure.
The smell of death lingered faintly in the air. A discard. Not random.
Ghostfreak didn't hesitate.
Dark tendrils shot out from his form, wrapping around the cats and gently but firmly restraining them.
They struggled briefly, then went still as he released them a moment later, sending them fleeing into the shadows.
He turned his attention back to the remains.
Nearby, half-buried in trash, lay a torn cloth sack.
Ghostfreak carefully placed the severed palm inside it, sealing it tight as he thought grimly.
'A trophy, Or leftovers.'
Either way, it was evidence.
Without lingering, Ghostfreak rose from the alley floor and vanished into the wall, reappearing moments later atop a nearby rooftop.
He moved swiftly now, purpose clear, gliding across the city toward a familiar destination.
The guard headquarters.
If the killer was careless enough to discard part of a body—Then this night had just become far more productive.
Ghostfreak drifted down behind the headquarters, slipping into the shadows one last time.
A soft green radiance pulsed—
—and Ben stood there once more, human, adjusting his coat as the light faded.
In his hand, he carried the covered bundle he had retrieved from the alley.
He stepped inside the headquarters without hesitation as he called the guard captain.
"Captain,"
The guard captain had just returned, his expression still tight from his confrontation at the newspaper office. He turned sharply at the sound of Ben's voice.
"Yes—?"
Then he noticed the bundle in Ben's hand.
Ben met his gaze.
"I found something."
The captain's eyes widened.
"...."
Excitement cut through his exhaustion instantly.
'As expected of a Royal Knight sent by the crown,'
He thought, straightening at once.
He didn't realize how close to the truth that assumption actually was.
"Please,"
The captain said, giving Ben a quick salute.
"This way."
Investigation Room...
They entered the main investigation room together, the door closing behind them.
The captain immediately gestured to his team.
"Everyone, we've got a lead."
Ben set the covered item carefully on the central table as he explined.
"I found it in an alley, Several cats were fighting over it."
The room went quiet.
The captain's expression hardened.
"Cats?"
Ben nodded while pointing at the cover.
-Nod
"It had already been discarded."
At the captain's signal, investigators stepped forward, carefully opening the cover just enough to confirm what it was before sealing it again.
A partial palm.
Silence followed.
"...."
"...."
"...."
One of the investigators swallowed.
"This didn't matches the pattern."
The captain exhaled slowly, then turned back to Ben.
"This is the first physical evidence we've recovered outside a crime scene."
He looked energized now—focused as he ordered.
"We'll analyze it immediately, Time of removal. Decay rate. Anything that tells us when and where it was separated."
The team moved at once.
The captain then faced Ben again, gratitude clear in his eyes.
"You've given us more tonight than we've had in months."
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(Author's POV)
(A/N)Thanks for reading the chapter!
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