Lost Soul Down

TWENTY-FIVE

First stop: Tokyo, Japan.

Kylan said his grandparents were born here— I remember. Does that have something to do with why a piece of the artifact is here? Maybe. Maybe not.

Our private plane landed near a large warehouse in the middle of nowhere. All I see getting off the plane is yellow grass and trees.

The inside of the warehouse is huge and empty, our footsteps echo through it. There are five storage containers along one wall. and a door off to the other.

Lombardi walks in after us, and he of course took his own private jet here. His daughter, Katherine, took that flight too.

Not Damien. I don't know what happened to him.

The agents open up the storage containers to makeshift little bedrooms. Great, we're going to be locked up even while we're in an entirely different country.

I think Lombardi tries to make us as miserable as possible.

"You each will have your own place to sleep, but you will be free to move about as you wish." Lombardi tells us. "No locks, because if you run away, you know the consequences."

Dead parents is the consequences— so yeah, I doubt anyone's risking it.

"We will start our mission first thing in the morning." With that, Lombardi and a few agents leave us to our rooms.

I turn in a circle, taking in my surroundings. The five of us specials are standing together, while a few agents stand near by. Other agents stand along the walls and all exits of the warehouse.

It'd be hard to escape even if one of us decided to risk it.

I feel Kylan's hand on my back and turn to face him, and see the uneasiness in his eyes.

"We're just gonna have to do what he says, Ky," I tell him. "We don't have a choice."

"But if we do this for him— nothing will ever be able to stop him." Kylan swallows. "He'll hurt people and do bad things. And he'll be able to get away with it."

"I know but... if we don't do it, we'll never be able to live carefree lives." I grab his hand. "That's all I want."

"So you want to help a psychotic maniac become the most powerful being in existence?"

"No, I don't want to do any of this!" I raise my voice on accident and look around. The other specials have found their rooms, luckily. "But I have to— we have to."

Kylan sighs. "You think that if we help him, he'll let us go? Because he didn't promise us anything."

"Maybe. I hope so." I say quietly. "It's our only choice."

Kylan bites the inside of cheek and nods. "When this is over, we'll run away together, okay? We'll go somewhere where no one knows who we are and we can just... be."

I smile. "Sounds like a plan."

— —

It's morning, which means it's time for our first mission: locate and retrieve the first piece of the special artifact.

Lombardi of course has done all sorts of extensive research and found the basics of where the five pieces are— but they are hidden so well that he couldn't get specifics.

All he did was lead us to a government facility at the edge of Tokyo, where there are multiple layers of buildings— above and underground.

Plus there are military guards everywhere— and they have guns. Lombardi told us that our suits were bullet proof, but we could still get shot in the head.