[Franklin, North Carolina, September 2022]
"Alright, let's see what you got!" Cyrus shouted with a confident smirk at the cryptid he was currently facing down. The cryptid, which was an eight-foot-tall sasquatch with shaggy black fur, roared at the 'tree magic' user before sprinting directly at him.
The moment the creature was within five yards of Cyrus, the young man activated his flying enchantment and jumped high into the air just in time to avoid getting a hit in the face by its massive claws. This action appeared to have thrown off the sasquatch for a moment, which was exactly what Cyrus needed in order to try out his next move.
With an impressive amount of aerial agility, Cyrus then closed the distance between him and the creature before placing his hand directly on top of the sasquatch's head. The moment his palm made contact with the cryptid's fur, the young man forced a portion of his mana into the creature's body and activated his newly learned enchantment.
"Mana Disruptor!"
Almost immediately, the sasquatch's body began to convulse uncontrollably, so much so that the creature completely lost its footing and dropped down to its knees. To an outside observer, it was very apparent that the cryptid was now in an excruciating level of pain.
With the advantage now firmly in his favor, Cyrus used this window of opportunity to place his hand on the trunk of a nearby tree before using his magic to completely reform it, forcing it to turn into a massive coil of wood that quickly enveloped the sasquatch in its entirety.
Just like that, the sasquatch was captured.
Although normal trees were far less strong than his own personal creations, Cyrus knew that the monster had no chance of breaking free from its new constraints. So, without any need to delay the inevitable, Cyrus pointed his finger at the cryptid before shooting a beam of dark green mana directly at the thing's head. The attack was powerful enough to slice right through the sasquatch's neck, and the 'tree magic' user watched as its head unceremoniously fell to the ground with a loud thud before it began disintegrating into dust.
"And done!" Cyrus said confidently with a proud look on his face. "That was easier than I thought it would be!"
"I'll say." Ayako echoed from about a dozen yards away from her partner. "I didn't even have to do anything."
At the moment, the two agents were in the middle of a forested area on the outer part of the city. One that was practically filled with trees, small waterfalls, and a few low-lying cliffs. They had been here for the last thirty minutes or so in pursuit of a cryptid that popped up on the station's radar. And now, their job was finally done.
"You've gotten better." The 'water magic' user then said to her young partner.
"Thanks."
"Now that you can fly and enchant, you're much more capable of handling cryptids on your own."
In all honesty, Ayako was more than a bit impressed by how quickly Cyrus had progressed when it came to his abilities. It felt like just yesterday that the young man was struggling to create trees that suited his needs. Now, he could freely use the surrounding landscape to his advantage to kill cryptids with remarkable efficiency. This kind of progress was abnormal for first-generation sorcerers, after all, the guy had only had his powers for a little under nine months.
Ayako then watched as Cyrus used his magic to reform the tree he had used back to its original state, making it look like he never even used the thing to subdue a cryptid in the first place. The woman would never get over how crazy his mana control was; being able to manipulate foreign matter like that so freely was no small feat. From what she knew, even experienced 'plant magic' users needed to put a good amount of effort into manipulating plants that they themselves didn't create from scratch.
"Remind me to never fight you in a forest." The woman then said with a grin. "Giving you homefield advantage like that might as well be a death sentence."
"And remind me to never fight you when we're near water." The 'tree magic' user shot back. "I still remember that one time you drowned that howler using the water in a nearby creek."
"Still, though, your progress has been kind of crazy. If you keep going at this pace, you might end up getting pulled into the APS. I'm sure that Deputy Chief Mubele would love to have you on his team."
Cyrus quickly waved off the idea. "As if! Dealing with cryptids is one thing, but I'm not too sure how I'd fare against other sorcerers. That fight we all had at the fundraiser made me realize that my magic is pretty useless in situations like that."
"Hey, you never know."
"Besides, look at it this way, if I get pulled into the APS, we'll have to stop being partners. And I'm having way too much fun working with you."
"Aww, that's so sweet!" Ayako said jokingly while placing her hand on her cheek. "I didn't know that you valued our teamwork so much."
"Of course, I do! I doubt anyone else would let me goof off during missions as much as you do. Thanks to you, I get to be as lazy as I want to be!"
Ayako dropped the flowery expression on her face before throwing a small ball of water in Cyrus's face, something that the young agent quickly brushed off.
Now that their job was done, the two agents began making their way back to the station. It would be a few hours before they were back home, so the sooner they hit the road, the better. With any luck, they would be able to avoid the midday traffic and get back to the station with enough time to finish up all of their paperwork and chill out for the rest of the day. And needless to say, both Cyrus and Ayako were certainly looking forward to that.
-(o)-
[Asheville, North Carolina]
'This should be interesting.' Maria thought to herself as she and Sebastian walked up the steps of the apartment complex that they're target was living in. 'I hope this doesn't turn into a disaster.'
At the moment, the two agents were in the middle of what Robin referred to as a "wellness visit", something that the young woman had never taken part in before today.
In short, these were the kind of missions that the members of their team handled when one of their kind decided to do something stupid that put the secrecy of sorcerer society in jeopardy.
Although they were an infrequent occurrence, they were necessary to make sure that the public never found out about them. It was the responsibility of the DPA to do all that they could to keep civilian sorcerers from blowing the whistle about their existence. And just like every other sorcerer agency in the world, they needed to make sure that they kept their people in line.
"Honestly, I still don't understand how shit like this even happens." Sebastian sighed as the duo moved up the next flight of stairs. "This guy's a second-gen sorcerer; he should know better than to post videos of himself using his powers on social media. Like, who the fuck even does that?"
The person that the two agents were about to confront was a student at the local university. A freshman, based on the profile they were given prior to being sent out. For some unknown reason, the guy decided to post a video of himself using his 'lightning magic' to restart his car battery on Instagram. Something that he was definitely not supposed to do.
It was common knowledge among the general sorcerer population that the government had an entire task force dedicated to obfuscating any evidence of sorcerers, cryptids, and magic that made its way onto the internet. Whenever a video or post that captured a sorcerer actively using their powers made its way onto the web, it would immediately get struck down, and the nearest DPA station would get notified of the incident. That same station would then have to pay a visit to the offending sorcerer and sort them out as quickly as possible.
Funnily enough, despite what most people would assume, it was actually pretty easy to muddy the waters online when it came to situations like this. Thanks to the fact that things like CGI, AI, and Photoshop existed, it was easy to dismiss any evidence of magic as nothing more than special effects or the result of some funky camera work. And the fact that cryptids couldn't be seen on camera without specially crafted lenses made that all the more easier.
It was also why whenever something did find its way onto the surface web, there would be a ton of comments on it that casually wrote it off as special effects. Most of them were simple bot comments that were used to make it seem like the existence of magic was just a simple prank. Nothing more, nothing less.
Maria was certain that a massive operation like this required a ton of money and manpower to uphold. However, she certainly couldn't argue with its usefulness. In her opinion, it was better to keep the existence of magic and cryptids a secret from the public. If regular humans were to ever find out about them, it would be nothing but one giant headache. And the raven-haired teen had seen more than enough movies and TV shows to know how non-sorcerers would react to the knowledge that people with superpowers walked among them.
'It's basically the entire plot of X-Men.' The young woman thought to herself as she and her partner turned onto the hallway en route to their target's home. 'And something tells me that it'd be an even worse disaster in real life.'
In no time, Maria and Sebastian were at the door of their target's apartment. Thanks to their mana-sensing ability, they could both tell that the guy was inside. And if they knew he was there, he knew that they were here too. Hopefully, the guy was reasonable. Maria wasn't really in the mood to get into a fight in the middle of a residential building. The paperwork alone would be a nightmare to deal with.
"Alright, let's get this over with." Sebastian then said with a tired expression. The elder 'beast magic' user had barely gotten any rest in the last couple of weeks, thanks to him being put on the team to hunt down the rest of those Iznana guys from the heist. The fact that he was visibly tired and a bit grouchy showed his partner just how much he had been working lately.
The bearded man then knocked on the door with three forceful taps on the wooden surface. And not even five seconds later, the door opened to reveal the man they were here to talk to.
The guy, Alvin Pittman, was a rather plain-looking dude. He was of average height, a bit on the heavier side, with olive skin, short brown hair, and blue eyes.
"Hello?" Alvin then said to two agents while peeking his head through the crack in the door. "Can I help you?"
Sebastian wasted no time in pulling the badge out of his pocket and showing his ID to the young college student. Every DPA agent had a badge that listed them as a member of the Department of Homeland Security that they carried on their person at all times. It was an incredibly useful tool to have when you needed to get access to somewhere as quickly as possible.
"Mr. Pittman, I'm Agent Conley of the Department of Paranormal Activity. This is my partner, Agent Ortgea. We're here to talk to you about that video you posted on your Instagram page yesterday morning. I trust that you already know what we want to discuss."
The college student's face suddenly grew pale after Sebastian's words finally sank in. Maria genuinely had to fight back the urge to laugh at how the guy looked right now. But she was able to maintain her trademark stoic expression.
"Hey, man, look...it was a mistake! I didn't mean to-"
Sebastian was quick to cut the man off. "Look, bro, we're just here to talk. That's it. I'm sure that you had a good reason for posting that video, but it doesn't matter. Your father's a DPA employee; you should know better. And we still have to cover our bases here. So...are you going to let us in? Or, are we going to have to do this the hard way?"
The young college student appeared to weigh his options before coming to his senses and allowing the two agents to enter his apartment. Maria was glad that they were going to be able to handle this without any drama. The last thing she wanted was to have to put this down for being an idiot.
And so, the two APS agents spent the next hour or so giving the boy a very thorough lecture on the importance of their kind keeping themselves hidden from the world. They also made sure to completely wipe the guy's phone and computer of any evidence that he might've still had, which basically meant that they deleted every single photo and video that he had on either device. Personally, Maria would've been devastated if something like that were to happen to her. She couldn't imagine having all of her anime and video games taken away from her at the drop of a hat. But, at the very least, she was smart enough not to go around exposing herself on the internet like some stupid high schooler who wanted a few likes for clout.
'Better him than me.' The young woman told herself as she and her partner began making the long journey back home to Charlotte. 'Hopefully, this made him learn his lesson.'
-(o)-
[Later That Day]
When the large digital clock in the records room struck five o'clock, Cyrus wasted no time making his way towards the elevator alongside Freddy and Ayako. Now that the day was officially over, it was time for the young 'tree magic' user to head home, make himself some food, and relax until it was time to go to bed.
"Hey, you guys wanna go see that new Elder Scrolls movie that's coming out on Friday?" Freddy suddenly asked the other two as they made their way down the hall.
"This Friday?" Cyrus asked.
"Yeah."
"Sorry, I can't." Ayako told the 'dark magic' user. "Me, Sebastian, and Skylar are going to that Topgolf place right after work."
"Damn."
"I'm game." Cyrus then said. "It's been forever since I've actually gone to see a movie."
"Sweet!"
"What time's the movie?"
Freddy pulled out his phone to double-check the time. After a couple of seconds, the 'dark magic' user put the device back in his pocket at looked at Cryus. "Eight o'clock."
"Sounds good to me."
"Awesome."
"Wait, isn't this the same movie that got delayed because of that weird virus outbreak that happened in China a couple of years ago? Wasn't it supposed to come out last year, or something?"
"That's the one." Freddy told Ayako. "I've been looking forward to this forever. I wanted to go to the midnight release, but I don't think it'd be a good idea on account of work and all that."
Cyrus nodded his head in agreement. "Can't argue with you there."
A few minutes later, the trio said their goodbyes before each heading toward their respective homes. Unfortunately for both Cyrus and Freddy, neither of them could've predicted how faithful a decision that this would be. If they had known what the events of this impromptu movie night would eventually bring them, neither one of them would've even bothered to step out of the house that night.