Local Entity Hunter Headquarters (LEHH), Damage Control
Over the past thirty minutes, the LEHH stationed atop the highest building in Damage Control had received a large sum of calls from worried citizens and confused entity hunters, who had received too many requests for dispatch. The other half of the employees glanced stressfully at the large, digital map attached to the wall, noticing the red dots indicating entity reports stretched across the entire city.
The overstimulating chatter between the employees was silenced by a sudden boom that came straight in the direction of the door, sending a cloud of dust raging through the building and out the balcony door. "Who the hell decided to call me during my beauty sleep?" a deep voice drained out the sound of the blowing wind, sending a feeling of relief within the majority of the employees. The man who had just entered the office was Ray, the #1 entity hunter in the entire city of Damage Control and, despite being powerless, the top 32 hunter in all of Nahata. "Mr. Ray!" an employee shouted, rushing over to him and shoving a paper copy of the digital map straight into his hands. "There has been a sudden spike in entity reports throughout the city, and all of the other entity hunters have been dispatched to other scenes!"
Ray glanced at the city through the distant windows, noticing scattered fires stretching across the entire city. "Seems like my observation was right!" he called out, rushing towards the balcony and leaping straight off the building.
Unlike most entity hunters in Nahata, Ray was known to have a speciality for overthinking situations regarding his country - this guilty pleasure led some of the most disturbing and mysterious crimes across the country to be resolved. Despite also being powerless, he was in a group called the Seven Great Snipers, a team of entity hunters who occasionally gathered together to go on missions but mostly hunted entities in separate parts of the country. He battled the gusts of wind created from his rapid descent, turning his head up towards one of the many criminals who had inherited Pyron's power. "Seems like you finally made a move, Mutation Liberation."
Volume 13, Chapter 36 - Soul
Down in one of the streets, a woman and child surrounded by fire watched in fear as a criminal holding Pyron's power slowly approached both of them, his excitement growing due to satisfaction. "Either you give your child away to the Mutation Liberation Army, or I kill both of you RIGHT HERE AND NOW!" the demonic voice echoed across the streets. "Please don't kill us, I beg of you!" she pleaded, embracing her child in a tight hug. Completely disregarding the woman's desperate request, the criminal's sharp fingernails flew straight towards them like knives behind each of his fingers.
"Partial Soul Extraction," another voice called out, grabbing the criminal right by the head and holding him up towards the cloudy skies. The forcefield blocking him from any external attacks had broken completely, leaving the criminal helpless as the red glow of power coating his body slowly ascended into the air. "Seems like someone's joined the private execution!" the criminal yelled, attempting to hit the mysterious man who had dodged at the last second. "As long as I'm here, you won't be hurting anyone."
Xavier revealed his face, pulling down the hoodie that marked him anonymous. "Seems like he gained the power from injection," he observed, noticing the extreme power once blocked off due to the mutation coursing through the entirety of his body. "The power was so great, it opened the power flow throughout his body which had been sealed shut by the mutation!"
Attempting to grab Xavier and put an end to the battle, the criminal snuck up straight behind him with a large smile. "You can't defeat me - I won't let you, ever!" he shouted yet again, gasping once he noticed that Xavier had refused to lay in the palm of his hands - instead, he had grabbed the woman and child in an attempt to escape. "I'll get you two to safety!" he promised, noticing their inability to talk due to stress. "Once I do, then I can go all o-"
Xavier turned around in order to dodge the vicious jab aimed straight at him, countering the attack by slamming the criminal with his leg. "You're quick on your feet, aren't you!?" he retaliated, quickly reaching towards the woman and child with his free hand. White embers of fire illuminated straight from Xavier's leg, charging up as he built momentum from his repeated attacks. "Burst of the Soul!"
The white flame created a trail that propelled Xavier through the streets, giving a distance between him and his opponent. Gently setting the woman and child down on the roof of a building, he brushed the raindrops off his hair, directing his eyes straight towards his enemy. "Gather the phantomized souls lurking around these streets and combine them with the thriving souls within your current location," his father's voice echoed inside his head from a distant thought. For about ten seconds, a feeling of nostalgia coated Xavier, causing a wave of positive and negative memories that had been locked away due to age to pour back inside his mind. The criminal noticed Xavier's now-closed eyes, taking it as a sign of vulnerability. "Zoning out in the middle of battle? Don't even get me STARTED!" he screamed, pushing off a nearby building and aiming his fist straight for Xavier's throat.
Every inch the criminal traveled towards Xavier in this specific state was accompanied by an intensifying heartbeat, completely exiling the sound of rainfall within the battlefield. Less than ten inches remained between Xavier and his ruthless opponent, who was preparing for a slap that would wipe out not only him, but also the woman and child he had saved just minutes before. "FACE MY WRATH!" he cried.
That was the exact moment where a white glow of power scattered across the entire city, repelling the criminal as if he and Xavier symbolized two similar ends to a magnet. Xavier's hair, now completely defying the laws of gravity and floating upward towards the sky, slowly converted from a color of pure darkness to a perfect shade of white. Two seconds passed, and a spear the same color of his hair slowly descended straight into his hands, completing his mysterious transformation. "In order to even have a chance to positively alter the path of the world, I have to grow my power and evolve my abilities!"
The criminal, the palms of his hands now covered in blood, glanced back up at Xavier. "What the hell are you!?" he shouted, the blindness created due to his pride finally fading. "What am I?" Xavier restated his opponent's question. "This is the true form… of the Phantom Protector!"