KILLJOY

Chapter 23: The Crimson Cinders

Max held a dagger in his hand in a reverse grip as Clint tailed him close behind, his gun loaded and ready to fire at a moment's notice. That's when they felt something creeping down the hallway. Not anything physical— aura, and a lot of it. They felt as an eerie chill filled the hallway they were walking through, with a faint ivory glow against the walls manifesting shortly after. A dagger quickly materialized in Max's other hand as Clint raised his gun over Max's shoulder from behind, slowly following the trail of aura as it became stronger the farther along they went. But only around a minute after the aura appeared, it disappeared once again, merely a brief pulse of power as their concern rose further. Max spoke up about the disturbance first.
"Only reason power would surge for a short time like that would be a TICK, and with how long it lasted, probably a pretty nasty one..."
Clint merely nodded as they finally found someone that broke up the painful monotony of the halls. A single metal door, with a faint trace of aura coming from the room within.

Max quickly formed another needle as he picked the lock open as he did for the other door, opening it as he saw a young man chained up to the wall. Their crimson red hair immediately caught his attention as Clint slowly analyzed the situation. There seemed to be a faint aura coming off of the chain itself, stronger than the faint power within the chained man. Were they merely someone with potential, or was something else amiss?
"Max, cut the chain."
Max nodded in response as he conjured a blade in his hand. He ran his aura through it as it burst into life with a pale blue glow around its edge, as he brought it down on the chain.

Clank.

The chain was only dented, not cut through fully. Seeing that he'd need to spend some more time on this, he summoned a saw into his hands, and flowed his aura through it instead as he got to work severing the chain. After a few minutes of working down the chain, he eventually managed to cut in clean in half, as it quickly cracked apart into shards and dust once it was broken down. As the manacle disappeared around the persons neck, their eyes opened as they looked around, seeing the two men standing in front of him as he opened his mouth.

"Wh-who are you?" he said, sounding a bit panicked.
Max opened his mouth to speak but Clint cut him off before he could talk.
"We're here to get some people out, what they got you here for?"
The man slowly got to his feet, looking a bit groggy as he looked at the two. He was a bit shorter than the two of them, with seemingly no weapons on him as he took a step towards them, hand outstretched.
"I'm a member of the Crimson Cinders, name's Kenda!"
Max looked to Kenda, then Clint, then back to Kenda before responding.
"Well... I'm a member of Killjoy, couple friends got taken by those masked guys... you should probably leav—"
Kenda cut him off as he spoke, "Nah, that masked bastard took my TICK, and I want it back. Mind if I tag along?"
Clint just shrugged as Max sighed.
"Fine, you can come along..."

Kenda stuck around in the back with one of Max's knifes in his hand, lend to him to defend himself incase he got caught in the crossfire. As the three of them continued to make their way through the seemingly endless corridors, they stumbled upon a couple more rooms, devoid of any evidence that anyone was ever within them. Whoever cleaned those places out did a damn good job. Eventually, the monotony broke as they heard footsteps down the hall. As they all pressed their backs to the wall, Max glanced out from behind it as they saw another masked man walking down the hall.

Their mask had a flame-like pattern coming down from the top-right corner of their mask, pointed towards the right eye. They then saw the man suddenly stop in the hall, looking around, eventually in the direction they were hiding. Shit, the daggers had a faint trace of aura— they could track them. The man quickly waved a hand as a tiny spark appeared infront of it, flying towards their hiding spot. Kenda yelled out to them as they saw it approach.
"Get down!"
They barely ducked under it in time as it impacted a wall, detonating on impact. It cracked open the concrete and dented the steel underneath as the man walked calmly through the hall, reaching the intersection as he stared at them.
"So, I suppose we have some troublemakers?"