A field of fallen giants slumbered in its centuries of decay, their mighty forms crumbling a little more with each passing year, belaying their age of glory when they stood as majestic towers that reached to the sky and housed the energies of a thriving society as symbols of human achievement. Now there was only darkness and silence, only disturbed by the occasional spirit passing by on its journey to destroy all things living, finding none. That very silence was disturbed by a footstep. Down where there was only endless debris of an older time, a figure appeared where once there was no one.


    Dressed in a simple white shirt, comfortable shorts and straw sandals, a person looking too casual and out of place for the apocalyptic backdrop strode comfortably through the rubble. Slow and measured steps brought him farther than each stride should and with more comfort and ease than the environment would normally allow. In only a few breaths, the figure had disappeared quietly from view.


    Jun gave a big stretch and yawned powerfully as he strolled. He wasn’t going anywhere in particular, he just wanted to take a relaxing walk. Looking left and right at the collapsed mega-structures under the familiar darkness, he wondered if it was odd that he found it nostalgic. So much time in constant brightness almost made him forget what it was like to live under the Veil.


    Jun hadn’t realized till he received the handcrafted message from Lily and Davie through the Nexus that a week had passed since he absconded not only from the city but from the world. A week under the Old Dwarf’s mentorship had brought Jun up to speed on most things that were relevant to himself and knew where to look if he wanted to know more.


    It had been an eye opening experience. It couldn’t even compare to ‘a frog in the well,’ but more like ‘an eyeless cave fish gaining eyes and brought to the center of the universe.’


    Jun was not the same person he was the week prior.


    Last week, Jun Hopper was a newly awakened S-Ranker that was on the run from being hunted by scary people.


    This week, Jun Hopper was the newest rising star of the Nexus Elder’s Council where Demigods gathered and was now potentially the scariest person on the planet; in principle, if not in practice.


    So when a neatly engraved message on a piece of slate had come through the Local Market, wondering about his condition, Jun finally made the connection. He knew what this change in status meant for his family.


    He didn’t need to be afraid for them anymore. The enemies that haunted his dreams and the edges of his perceptions were no longer as daunting. Jun had real options now that didn’t only include running away, so he made a bold decision to return in a low key manner and discuss with his family about his new plans.


    He was daydreaming of the future, traveling faster than he came, when he came to a sudden halt.


    He had heard something.


    A very small cry of pain.


    Expanding his senses, Jun rushed quickly towards the right and hopped over a fallen skyscraper. A few leaps and dashes and Jun was hundreds of meters away, where he found something completely unexpected.


    With his enhanced vision, it wasn’t difficult for him to see within the darkness. Down between two collapsed slabs of concrete, a small bundle of rags lay curled up and quivering. Jun’s heart shook when the small mass of blankets shifted to reveal a pair of little weary eyes, reddened with silent tears.


    It didn’t make sense to Jun. They were still many miles away from Trident Gate City, and who knows how many weeks of travel to the next closest Gate City? How had this child come to be here and still be alive?


    Jun came out into the open slowly and calmly with his open hands raised in a sign of peace. The last thing he wanted to do was to scare the child into hurting itself in panic and there was no way he was going to just leave a child here all alone. In as calming a voice as he could muster, he carefully called out and made his presence known.


    “Hey there. Are you alright? Do you need help?” he asked as he channeled his Aunt Mary’s nurturing energy.


    The little eyes in the bundle of rags widened in fright. It began squirming franticly before a small fist shot out and waved threateningly with what looked like a crumpled piece of paper. Jun had to squint to make out what was obviously a child’s drawing. It was black and red scribbles with eyes and fangs that were meant to be frightening.


    “Rawr! I’m scary, go away! Rawr!” A small, shivering voice came from the trembling bundle. It shook the drawing as violently as it could muster with all the courage it had left.


    Jun smiled softly while his heart was breaking. So much of the dirt on the tattered rag was dried blood. How badly must the child be injured? He continued his slow approach while the little waving fist lost more and more energy. A growl of hunger rang out so loud it drowned out the babe’s little ‘rawr’s.


    “You must be starved. I have a candy here that tastes really good and will make your tummy feel better.” A small crack in space dropped a small gleaming red ball that smelled sweet and floral and very enticing, right into Jun’s outstretched palm that was now close enough for the little child to reach.


    He didn’t know how to feel about enticing a child with candy, but Jun was really worried about the child’s condition. The red ball was a recovery tonic that had been gifted by one of the Elders. The note read that it was effective for all mortal injuries for those under the 4th rank. He would have liked to have tested it out before giving one out, but it was the only medicine he had.


    The little eyes were still distrustful, but the moment the wafting sent of the tonic hit its little muffled nose, hunger took over. The skinny little hand slowly withdrew its little dirty shield, and reemerged to grab towards what its starved little body hungered for, only to run out of strength and weakly collapsed half way out.


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    Jun rushed forward to support the little thing from falling over. It weighed almost nothing and was cold as ice. He positioned the little one more comfortably in his embrace. Moving the rag away, Jun saw a heartbreakingly skinny child with sweat soaked blonde shoulder length hair, as small as a normal four-year-old, dressed in some type of medical gown with a metal wristband that read: F#132308. She was only skin and bones, clearly malnourished and on the brink of starvation, covered in distressing cuts and bruises; fingers and bare feet cut to the bone from walking across the polluted wastelands.


    The little eyes under the matted tangle of dirty hair tried to be fierce and not timid, glared into his, but there was no more energy for protest. Jun carefully opened the exhausted child’s heavily chapped and bleeding lips and placed the tonic in her little mouth. Her eyes widened in wonder, and so did Jun’s.


    He had no idea that the effects would be so immediate. The moment the pill had entered the child’s mouth, it had dissolved into a current of energy. All the numerous cuts and bruises that marred the little one’s entire body faded away as if rinsed of all afflictions. Her malnourished state didn’t change, but her color had improved tremendously as she finally emanated the warmth of the living.


    She let out a long little sigh of comfort that shouldn’t come from someone so young. Her gaze had finally softened as her eyelids fluttered drowsily. He offered her a small sip of cool water, for which she smiled a little smile in thanks before she finally fell asleep snuggly in his arms, finally at peace. He gently stroked her hair and rocked her with one hand as he hummed her a song that was important to him.


    He slowly repositioned himself while careful not to disturb the little princess’s slumber until he was finally sitting more comfortably with his back to the concrete. Jun flicked a finger and a small pile of debris by his side burst into a warm purifying flame, the surrounding air no longer contaminated with poison and mana. It was important to keep the child warm through her much needed rest. And he needed answers.


    “Thank you for waiting until the child rested. You can come out now. I have some questions about this child’s condition.”


    Only a silence responded when he was being nice.


    Jun gave a tired sigh. He didn’t look up from the sleeping cutie when he motioned out into the darkness with his free hand.


    Sporadic shouts of panic and fear were quickly silenced. He didn’t want the child to wake. She was exhausted and needed to rest. She didn’t need to see what happened to these trash. Monsters in human skin that lost any sense of humanity. Hunters that hunted humans. Humans like this little child. Humans like his mother.


    Fucking trash.


    Jun angrily poked at his fire with a stick. It brightened, invigorated with new heat. Better.


    Looking up, he saw twenty quivering sets of eyes lined up in a neat row, bodies buried to the nose, staring at him in terror. Creepy.


    To silence and immobilize the rats, he had the ground swallow them till their nose so that they could at least breath but not shout.


    Having them moved and lined up like this was a bit disturbing though. Well, it had felt like the simplest solution. Like he said, he had questions. Like who would do something like this to children and what that disturbingly long number signified. He didn’t like the way his heart was pounding as he thought of that. Someone was going to have to take responsibility for the unplanned bout of anxiety.


    The following few hours proved to be a brief but terrifying nightmare to the fabled Shadow Unit, the elite Hunter team specialized in accomplishing the tasks best kept in the shadows. Even the strongest Hunters shuddered at the mere rumors of their existence. By many names, they were feared with many strange deaths or disappearances often linked to those names and, whether true or false, it all added to their legend. So how had they come to this?


    They watched in silent terror as one member was questioned after another. They could not speak, scream, or hear without the demon’s permission. They could only see forwards towards the monster in human skin as it cradled their target in his arms as he manipulated the earth with his fingers. They couldn’t see nor hear the fates of their comrades. But they could feel it. They could feel the earth embracing and confining them tremble with the silent screams of their brothers.


    Who was it that was suffering? What were they being questioned? Why wasn’t he giving him a chance to speak? What answer had angered the monster so much? Was it going to ask him too? Oh, by Betty’s diddles, he’s still screaming. Should he just answer truthfully? He should, right? The others couldn’t hear him confess, right? He could scream into the dirt for effect, right? Is that why he’s STILL screaming?!


    Although Jun had been living peacefully in civilized society for the past ten years, it didn’t mean he’d lost his fangs. No amount of time could fully dull the savage instincts that were necessary to survive in the wilderness, where men were scarier than monsters. He just chose to not bare his fangs around those he loved lest he frightened them. Perhaps having hidden too deeply had played him ill. He wasn’t hiding them now, though.


    Things took much longer since he was trying to keep things as quiet as possible. It took a lot of time and a lot of trial and error, but by the twelfth dude’s polite and involuntary questioning, Jun had acquired as much as he thought he was going to get. After checking the last rat, just in case, a final tap and the ground finished its dinner and no more traces of trash remained.


    He looked down at the precious little thing in his arms as he rocked her side to side. He gently moved the tangles from her eyes and wiped the dirt from her peacefully sleeping face. A thought flashed of the small life that hadn’t gotten a chance, before he suppressed it. The things he’d learned had chilled him to his bones.


    The number F#132308 on her wristband was her name and identity. None of the goons knew if it also meant there were that many others, but could all confirm that older ‘subjects’ had smaller designations. That was right. There were once many others. Now only a few.


    For what specific reason or purpose they didn’t know. ‘Testing’, was all they were ever told, they said. They only knew so much as hunting dogs of a secret organization so secretive, they themselves didn’t know their own identity. It wasn’t until the eleventh that he believed they were that stupid. It was the twelfth that convinced him that they didn’t know where the children came from, either. He asked the rest, just in case, but all their answers correlated.


    A recent unexplained explosion within their ‘secret facility’ had disabled their security for a brief moment. In that brief window, the little girl had miraculously escaped. They had no knowledge if other teams had been dispatched for any other escapees. They were only targeting the one girl. The little thing that was only skin and bones that escaped the clutches of twenty elite peak second cleansed dogs for two days.


    Apparently, he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.


    Well, now that he’d gotten all that was to be gotten, it was time to get out of there and to some place more sanitary. Jun carefully got to his feet with precious cargo tucked in his arms. She looked so peaceful. He wanted to get her a health check. Her apparent injuries were gone, but her condition was still questionable.


    Wondering if he should be wondering about his strange luck of encounters as fortunate or not, he stepped through a crack and was gone.


    The first human activity the old City Center had seen in centuries had come to an end with new permanent residents under its surface. It was silent.


    How long would it be till its next human encounter?