Envy's will was a cold fire, and the world bent to it. A faint, regal purple aura, visible only to those with psychic sight, shimmered around Will's form like a heat haze.
Hovering high above Babi, encased in Will's body, she stretched out her senses. The city below, a sprawling testament to human excess, was an eyesore. A complication. With a concentrated thought, she pulled at the very climate. The humid, neon-drenched air grew dry and crisp. The sky faded from a deep indigo to a pale, dusty blue. The temperature plummeted. In minutes, the bustling metropolis was framed by the atmospheric ghost of a harmattan savannah, a strange, arid stillness settling over its streets. Fewer people meant fewer witnesses. It was the first step in preparing a battlefield.
Finding her target was the next task. She cast a psychic net, searching for a specific, familiar signature—a unique blend of ambition and spiritual residue. It was like trying to find a single specific grain of sand on a beach. But then, she felt it: a pulsing, greedy energy, unmistakably his. *Prey*. It was faint, masked by the countless trapped whispers from his shop, but Envy's focus was a laser. She locked on and descended like a falling star, touching down without a sound.
She landed silently in a narrow, dusty alley, the harmattan wind whipping up little spirals of dirt around Will's shoes. The energy led to a nondescript storefront squeezed between a boarded-up cafe and a pawn shop. The sign above the door was faded, but the words "Prey's Curios & Collectibles" were still legible. A small, hand-painted sign below it showed a stitched plush doll with X's for eyes—a deceptively simple advertisement for a deeply sinister trade.
Envy pushed the door open, a bell jingling a cheerful, discordant note.
Inside, the air was thick with the smell of old paper, dried herbs, and something coppery, like old blood. The walls were lined with shelves crammed not with books, but with hundreds of handmade voodoo plush dolls. Each was unique, stitched with intricate patterns, their button eyes seeming to follow her movement. These were no simple toys; a low, psychic hum of trapped anguish emanated from them. This was Prey's business: imprisoning weak or stray psyches in these dolls and selling them to collectors, occultists, and anyone else with the cash and the lack of morals. The faint purple of Envy's aura seemed to deepen in this room, resonating with the silent screams.
Behind a cluttered receptionist's desk, piled high with ledgers and stacks of physical cash, sat Prey. He was a man of sharp angles and calculated calm, his dark skin contrasted by the white cowrie shells woven into his long dreadlocks. He didn't look up, his fingers flying over an antique calculator, the *cha-ching* sound punctuating the heavy silence.
"Ah, Prey, Prey, Prey," Envy said, her voice a silken mockery using Will's vocal cords. "My old friend."
The calculator stopped. Prey's head snapped up. His eyes, sharp and intelligent, widened for a fraction of a second before narrowing into analytical slits. He looked at Will's face, but he wasn't seeing the boy. He was reading the energy, the posture, the alien presence that occupied the flesh.
"This familiar energy…" he murmured, leaning back in his chair. The cowries in his hair clicked together softly, a sound like bones rattling. "It must be Will. Or should I say… Envy." A slow, knowing smile spread across his face. He could see the purple aura plain as day now, a crown of arrogant power around the vessel's head. "Ah, I see it now, coiled behind his eyes like a serpent. You're Envy, aren't you?"
From my prison within the psychic environment—the stone statue that was my form—I could feel Envy's rage spike, a hot wave of purple energy that washed against the confines of Will's mind. Prey's casual recognition, his lack of fear, was a needle to her pride. She was already pissed from her failure against Love, and he'd just pressed down hard on the bruise. I could feel her desire to lash out, to make him bow, warring with her need for his services.
---
Hundreds of miles away, the JDA was mobilizing with surgical precision. Maestress Biondh, a statue of grim resolve in her black uniform, watched from a gleaming command center as modified aircraft, their engines humming with harnessed psyche energy, shot into the sky like silver darts. They were deploying teams to every major city-state, from the industrial sprawl of Gregor to the floating citadel of Heaven's Gate. The net was being cast worldwide to contain the stray psyche outbreak.
She turned to her two most promising, if unorthodox, assets. Folly stood rigid with nervous anticipation, while Ose leaned against a console, looking bored but with eyes that missed nothing.
"Folly. Ose. With me." Her voice brooked no argument. Their personal transport, a smaller, faster version of the troop carriers, was already waiting on the rooftop pad. Biondh wasn't staying to command from a distance; she was leading the hunt herself. And she knew exactly where her prey was heading. Thanks to a certain tip-off from a lethargic, all-powerful source—a tip-off that had arrived with a faint, sickly green psychic signature—they already knew Envy's destination and her objective. Sloth had, in his own lazy way, pointed them right where they needed to go.
---
Back in the curios shop, the air was thick with unspoken threats and the scent of money.
"To what do I owe the… *pleasure*?" Prey asked, steepling his fingers. His gaze was calculating, already assessing her value, weighing the risk and potential profit of this encounter.
"I've come to praise the businessman," Envy said, gesturing with a flick of Will's wrist to the shelves of trapped psyches. A wisp of purple energy trailed the movement. "You've built quite an enterprise from captivity. I need you to release them. Give me your stock. All of it."
Prey raised an eyebrow, genuinely amused. "My stock is my livelihood. Each doll represents a significant investment of time and… procurement effort. Why would I simply *give* them to you?"
"You will be compensated," Envy replied coolly, the purple around her flaring slightly. "I will transfer a significant sum to you for the psyches you lose. A king's ransom. But more than that…" she leaned forward, her eyes glowing with a faint, dangerous violet light, "…in return, I will allow you to attempt to capture the most powerful psyches in existence. My siblings. My *family*."
Prey's carefully maintained composure cracked for a moment. A raw, avaricious light flickered in his eyes, but it was quickly overshadowed by deep-seated suspicion. This was too good. He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"Why can't you do this yourself? I've seen what you are. I've felt your power. I don't remember you ever needing a… decoy. I don't remember you ever being this weak that you'd need a mortal's help to stir up chaos."
Envy's jaw tightened visibly in Will's face. The truth was a vulnerability she would never admit to a mortal. Her plan required widespread chaos, a distraction to pull the JDA's focus, and she was not yet strong enough in this vessel to create it on the scale she needed. Revealing that weakness was unthinkable. The purple aura around her crackled with suppressed irritation.
"My reasons are my own," she hissed, the temperature in the room dropping several degrees. "Do not mistake a strategic partnership for a weakness. This is a business proposition. Do we have a deal, businessman?"
Prey held her gaze, his mind racing, calculating every angle. The promise of such power was intoxicating, but dealing with a Sin was like dancing with a hurricane.
---
At that precise moment, high above the savannah-fied outskirts of Babi, a JDA transport craft, sleek and silent as a predator, descended through the dusty atmosphere. Inside, Biondh checked the tracker on her wrist-mounted display. The signal from Will's body—a beacon of concentrated purple energy—was strong and stationary. They were closing in.
Folly gripped her seat restraints, her knuckles white. Ose cracked his neck, a lazy grin spreading across his face. The hunt for the originator of the scourge was about to begin.