Auxilaries chapter 1:Part 1
One's living room was silent, aside from the hum of the television. Lying on his worn-out couch, he watched the news scroll by, waiting. An alert, a small one, even a tiny one.
Nothing.
He crunched on a last piece of chip, looking glum. Were the daemons on strike, or what?
Suddenly, the screen turned red. A strident jingle sounded.
"CATASTROPHE LEVEL MAXIMUM ALERT."
A mad cyborg. It was ravaging City J, two metro stops away. Images of buildings in flames, lasers sweeping through everything.
One stretched.
"Finally, a bit of action."
He arrived in his pajamas. The scene was chaotic. Amid the smoking rubble, the cyborg, a screaming mass of metal, was pulverizing what remained of a square. Around it, half a dozen hunters in gleaming armor, all proudly sporting the Rank A badge, were trying to contain the catastrophe. In vain. Their attacks ricocheted off the monster's carapace.
One of them, a guy with a golden crest named Electro Flash, saw One approaching, yawning.
"Hey! You! Get out of here!"
One pointed to his own badge, freshly received. Class C.
"I'm a hunter too."
"A Class C?" sneered another, a woman with blue hair named Éclair Azur. "You have no business here, amateur! Go train on pickpockets!"
On that note, the cyborg swept the air with its cannon arm. An energy beam exploded on the ground, throwing the Rank A heroes like bowling pins. They crashed into the rubble, their beautiful armor scratched.
The blue-haired woman, her face bruised, pulled out her radio, trembling.
"This is Éclair Azur! The enemy is... out of our league! Immediate request for intervention by a hero... Class S! Repeat, urgent need for a Class S!"
Meanwhile, One, slightly annoyed by the dust, decided the show was over. He turned on his heels to go home.
"HEY!" shouted the guy with the crest, getting up painfully. "Where are you going, Class C?!"
One turned around, perplexed.
"Home? There's nothing left to see, right? The big bad is still there, but you called in the big guns, didn't you?"
"Your duty is to stay and contain the threat until reinforcements arrive!" barked the woman.
One looked at them, then at the cyborg starting to tear out a lamppost. He tilted his head.
"Why would I do that?"
A leaden silence fell over the rubble. The Rank A heroes exchanged incredulous looks. Was he a joker? A suicide case? Really a hunter?
Their cries of incomprehension and annoyance seemed to slide off One. He shrugged and walked calmly toward the cyborg. The five-meter-tall machine turned its luminous sensors toward this small form in striped pajamas.
One stopped right in front of the metallic torso. He raised his hand and gently tapped twice on the steel plate.
Knock. Knock.
"Anyone in there?"
He inspected the surface with a curious eye.
"Ah, but this thing is solid."
The cyborg, as if insulted by this familiarity, raised its monstrous fist and brought it down to crush One into paste.
The fist smashed into the concrete, creating a new crater.
One was no longer there.
He reappeared behind the colossus, looking a bit bored.
"But wait, I should remember to buy some pasta."
He gave it a little flick of the finger, almost absent-minded, on the lower metallic back.
CLANG.
A pure, crystalline sound resonated.
Then a crack.
Then a thousand.
The cyborg froze. A blinding light shot out from every interstice of its armor before it exploded into a rain of harmless nuts, bolts, and sparks.
One shook his hand as if he had touched something hot.
"Ouch."
Then, without a glance at the stunned, gaping Rank A heroes in their craters, he headed back toward the metro, whistling.
---
On the way back, in his street, he saw a crowd gathered. A hero in a flashy red costume, "Master Karaté" written in large letters on his back, was chaining spectacular movements against... a daemon in the shape of a giant flip-flop, which was hopping weakly.
Master Karaté was shouting:
"HI-YAH! Dragon Wave! Tiger Strike!" His blows stopped a few centimeters from the daemon, which seemed more intrigued than frightened.
One slipped into the front row, pajamas and all. He watched the spectacle for a moment, perplexed. Then he raised his hand.
"Uh. You're a hunter, right?"
Master Karaté interrupted his kata, irritated.
"Of course I am! Don't you see my epic battle?!"
"Then why don't you just blow it up, this daemon, instead of showing off?" asked One with disarming sincerity.
A murmur ran through the crowd. Everyone had indeed "seen through" that it was fake. The hero turned scarlet, deeply vexed.
"Insolent! You dare doubt my technique?! It's too fast for your amateur eyes!"
Furious, he rushed not at the daemon, but at One.
"Take this! Attack of the Celestial Crane!"
One simply dodged by tilting his head. The blow whistled past.
"Why are you attacking me?"
"HYAAAH!" The hero, totally lost, chained strikes at One, who avoided them all with minimal movements, looking more and more confused. The flip-flop daemon, forgotten, watched the scene while hopping.
In a blind rage, Master Karaté attempted a spinning kick aimed at One... who simply vanished. The blow, launched at full power, connected with the flip-flop daemon by accident.
POOF!
The daemon exploded in a puff of black, stinky smoke.
The two men found themselves face to face, covered in soot. Master Karaté, dazed, and One, clean.
"Ah. Well, there you go, it's done," noted One.
Then, exasperated, Master Karaté attempted one last desperate charge at One. The latter, just wanting it to stop, took a step to the side and gave him a slight push. Master Karaté tripped and fell headfirst onto the sidewalk, incidentally knocking out the flip-flop daemon that was trying to reform. Both were KO.
That evening, the news talked about the brave Master Karaté who had vanquished a "massive and stinky daemon" after a fierce battle. One's name was, of course, never mentioned.
---
Back home, One wanted to make pasta. He burned the pasta, then the pot. He contemplated the disaster, sighed, and ordered a pizza.
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. His heart light, he ran to open it, expecting the delivery person.
It was Kotobe.
"ONE! Hi! I'm finishing my hunter patrol, it was quiet, and I was thinking... have you eaten?"
One, a bit disappointed but happy to see his friend, invited him in.
"I ordered a pizza. Want some?"
"Awesome!"
The two friends, hungry, waited while talking about daemons (little for One) and the association's formalities (a lot for Kotobe), reminiscing that they had just been promoted to Class B when the doorbell rang again.
"FINALLY!" exclaimed One, bounding toward the door. He opened it wide.
On the landing stood a severe man in a black suit and gray tie, a briefcase in hand. Nothing like a pizza delivery person.
One stared at him, his smile disappearing.
"Is that the pizza?"
The man, disconcerted, blinked.
"Uh... no. I come on behalf of the World Heroic Association. I..."
"Ah, disappointed."
SLAM. One shut the door in his face.
Behind him, Kotobe, who had glimpsed the visitor, had turned pale.
"One! That was... that was someone from the Association! The black suits! We don't shut the door on them!"
The bell rang again, more insistently. One, grumpy, reopened it.
The man in the suit, a nervous tic in his eye, held out a flat, elegant parcel and an envelope with a blue background, sealed with a golden wax stamp.
"For you, sir... One. From Captain Man."
Then he turned on his heels and left without another word.
Intrigued, One opened the package on his coffee table, under Kotobe's stunned gaze.
Inside, folded with military precision, was a hero costume. Simple, clean, with a discreet hood. No cape (for now). And in the envelope, a letter on thick paper.
"One.
Report to Central HQ tomorrow, 10 a.m.
Don't be late.
And wear this.
— C.M."
One touched the fabric of the costume. It was soft.
"Hmm."
Kotobe, eyes wide, looked at the Association logo on the envelope, then at the costume, then at his friend in pajamas.
"One... what did you DO?"
One shrugged his shoulders again, his gaze already returning to the door, watching for the real pizza delivery person.
"Nothing special. I think they like my pajamas."