At the scrapyard, the people, mecha, drones, and droids who had been knocked out were waking up.
The air had shifted.
Radiation had been absorbed from a full maht of Section D, leaving the space unnaturally clean.
The oxygen, pure and dense, felt heavy in the lungs. Many struggled to breathe normally.
A few stumbled, their heads spinning. Others fainted again from the sudden rush of clean air after the tainted, smoky scrapyard atmosphere.
People were confused, waking up, and most of them attacked upon waking, still thinking they were in the middle of a mutated animal attack, though only Baron Land and others were still asleep.
What had happened here?
Where was all the junk that had surrounded them?
Why was there no junk for one maht?
What had just happened—did they pass out from the events or from the radiation storm that had formed?
No one really knew, nor did they dwell too much on it, as most were happy to have survived the crisis with only a few scrapes and bruises.
The others awakened as well and joined the crowd forming around the scrapyard—official drones and droids included.
Every single person was confused and thought it must have been some type of prank. They had only been fighting for their lives during the mutated animal stampede.
They must've been knocked out either from inhaling too much radiation earlier or tripping and hitting their heads, as the floor had been shaking and rumbling intensely.
Those who had originally witnessed the bazaar scene lost all recollection of it and even argued with the higher-ups about how the common people would ever be told what they saw.
The higher-ups, angry and annoyed, eventually gave up altogether, leaving this trivial matter to professionals.
The incident of the day was documented and reported. Word was sent from a few higher-ups who had received notice.
They reported a group with an unidentified rogue mech attacking, taking out assist tech and systems.
Cameras had been searched, showing the group from various angles, but never one with a clear view of their faces or a tinker scan code on the rogue mech to identify its creator.
They also reported finding a couple dozen groups passed out with no memory beyond the mutated animal attacks. Anything else was gone.
The officials of the scrapyard had not realized that the incident had spread across the entire Scrapper Moon to nearby larger cities.
Did the higher-ups think the population was soft, like persimmons, easily pushed around by every wind shift?
No—they refused to accept that!
The rising tension between the scrapper community, the bosses, and gangs showed less enthusiasm and courtesy.
This was essentially a warning: a fight could break out at any time.
Though the smallest moon, Scrapper Moon, was more connected and united than most when it came to the interests of those who held influence in the depths of Neo-Seoul or other cities on the moon.
Social shifts, personality changes, and normal courtesies had all stopped.
Officials entering or leaving work were being cornered or jumped.
Surveillance drones patrolled overhead.
The incident was reported to the Gifted Commissioner's Discipline Guild.
It became a top priority.
The caution level for the mission shot up by two ranks due to the depth of Scrapper Moon's network, as locals tried to collect their own intelligence.
The incident had stirred a lot of commotion.
They were gifter police, tasked with hunting gifters with dangerous, uncontrollable new types of mutated gifts.
Laws had changed recently.
New mutated types of gifters could not always be categorized or located using standard methods.
Their gifts followed new laws of nature that did not align with the norms of typical gifters.
Reports emphasized not using lethal force. Individuals were to be detained, questioned, and studied to determine whether their gift was a danger to society or themselves.
Their properties were to be documented in the gifts archive.
Complications had increased due to the ongoing silent war between the military, the large families, side factions, and other groups, all competing for control over these new mutation-type gifters.
Many people had gone missing, and unknown, battered bodies had appeared—either floating in deep space or abandoned in highly radiated areas.
The Gifter Police Commissioner Guild was swamped, working nonstop to apprehend individuals experimenting on young kids with new mutation-type gifts, often resulting in fatalities.
This generation was now being referred to as the Radi-XR generation: new varieties of gift mutations that still used Comostia energy.
Some gifters, however, may require different forms of energies, further complicating matters though they have yet to encounter one.
Although the same rules didn't apply to these new mutated types, officers were instructed to avoid lethal force, as these variables were unpredictable and dangerous.
The TGCDG, a group from the Domination Region, wanted to encounter or cross paths with such individuals.
However, crimes were not tolerated, especially the use of gifts at the expense of others.
In Domination society, fighting and killing were normal, as life and death hung by everyone's threats—not just from radiation or the Comostia world, but from potentially hostile aliens.
The TGCDG had received a report from Scrapper Moon about strange activity and possibly a dangerous new variable gift.
The biggest part of the report concerned Section D of the scrapyard: missing junk, scrap, and radiation removal—an impossibility.
High-ups considered this critical.
It could possibly solve long-term ongoing issues with the radiation.
A description and photo of Iseul figure were provided, though it remained unclear who it could be.
They decided to send two high-ranking officers—C and D-class special gifters—with tracking gifts unique to each individual, along with a B-rank Lieutenant gift investigator, to locate the person using residual Comostia energy.
The two officers were Jaxon Kingsley and Yi Chen, while the B-rank Lieutenant was Santiago Gonzalez.
Officer Jaxon Kingsley had a C-rank gift allowing him to see a person's actions, memories, and basic information—name, age, and intent via leftover aura.
Officer Yi Chen had a D-rank sensory empathy gift that allowed him to hear and feel thoughts from blood, hair, clothing, or residual gift energy.
And Officer Lieutenant Santiago Gonzalez could pinpoint and teleport to a person's location after seeing their face and mentally locate their astral projection.
All three received the mission report and were told to report to the captain's office for debriefing.