The Start (Title Still Under Construction)

Deus Pulveris

J woke up late the next morning. He checked the alarm clock at the side of his bed. The time read 11:40., Which meant it was really 2:10 since the clock was two and a half hours slow.

"Damn it's late..." The fact that he was able to sleep in as late as he did meant that Agnes either hadn't heard about the incident last night or she was working on it. The latter worried J the most. "Suppose I should get the important stuff together just in case I have to leave." He said with a sigh as he got up off his bed stretching. As J stumbled into the kitchen he looked at the mess of envelopes and dishes scattered across the table. Most of the mess was unopened envelopes. Most of which were tax forms, etc. stuff like that. He didn't really need to worry about that kind of stuff since he had people to work on that stuff. In fact most of the people in the SHMC did. Somewhere in the house his phone went off. It took J several minutes to find his phone. It was under his bed somehow. He made his way out into the living room and plopped down on his couch as he opened his phone to see what it was he missed. He missed a new SHMC Newsletter.

"I swear I unsubscribed to those damned things..." J muttered to himself. He opened up the email and pressed the unsubscribe button towards the top of the email. It seemed that he did that every day, yet he would still receive the emails. After going through and clearing his notifications he opened up his messages to see he had a few new ones from Erin, telling him to meet her at her school. J was rather glad he didn't have to suffer through school. He attended the high school in town for a few weeks before ending up getting kicked out for various reasons. Now that he was of age he just dropped school entirely. J buttoned up his shirt leaving 3 buttons unbuttoned at the top. Despite the fact he disliked being in dressy clothes he didn't quite have the energy to change into anything else. He slipped on his dress shoes. Might as well match at least, if i'm not changing... J made his way outside from his mostly vacant apartment building. He made it a few feet outside before realizing that it may not be a good idea to waltz right on out the front gate. The rental office was up by the entrance. Which meant Agnes would be there. Which would also mean that he'd run the risk of getting caught by her, and because of the events of last night she wouldn't be too happy with him.

"Luckily for me I still have that little hidden path I made a while ago." J said to himself quietly as he rounded the building making his way to the wooden fence looking around before reaching out to the two planks that he loosened up. Before he could part the fence, he heard some rustling behind him.

"Well, well, well, look at you being all slick and shit." J dropped his head down and closed his eyes sighing softly, before looking behind him. To see Agnes with her arms crossed and a freshly lit cigar in between her lips.

"Nah just heard some noises back here and figured i'd investigate. Seems the fence is broken here..." He said nodding his chin towards the horizontal pieces of wood near the top and the bottom of the fence that was broken and splintered. His response was met with a hoarse chuckle. Agnes let out a puff of smoke.

"How come you can't ever just tell the truth when you get caught?" By this point J was turned around and was rubbing his neck.

"I dunno. It's a problem I know..." He said shaking his head slowly.

"Want one? I have a few spares." She said extending her arm with another cigar in her hand.

"Let me guess, Dragon's Breath?"

"Ah damn, you know me too well, Seems i'm an open book."

"Pfft an open book written in Celestial, maybe."

"Come on you can speak that, You do converse with Ignis."

"Eh...Yeah but that's different..." Agnes raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not gonna ask. Anyway you want it or not?" She said raising the hand that was holding the cigar for a short second. "It's one of the last ones in existence." The company that had made that specific cigar had long since shut down, however their cigars still floated around because the company had made a ridiculous amount. The reason behind the company's disappearance, actually had to do the exact branch of cigar Agnes was holding. A year or two after the release of these cigars roughly 5 people died. It was later found that each of these people happened to have large amounts of Deus Pulveris, an extremely potent drug that very few people can take without gaining some sort of side effect, that could range anywhere from addiction to coma, in their bloodstreams. Because of the dangers of the drug it was long since outlawed, even in it's diluted form. At first it didn't make sense each of these people were doing very well in life. Two were wealthy businessmen, one was an actor, a doctor, and a high ranking government official. It took some time but eventually, after a month of investigating it was found that the one thing all of these people had in common was the fact that they all smoked a cigar called Dragon's Breath. Which was laced with hefty amounts of Deus Pulveris. That was roughly 40 years ago and anyone who knows the formula behind making the drug has either "mysteriously" passed, or has been jailed for life. Because of that the substance slowly died out. It can still be found today although it isn't nearly half as widely sought after as it was, because any leftover that managed to survive this long has become about as effective as an everyday regularly found street drug, though it's still potent compared to everyday drugs, due to it degrading and becoming weaker over the years.

"Yeah one of the last few hundred thousand...Yeah i'll take it." He said taking the cigar and stuck it between his lips.

"Need a light?"

"Nah. I always got my own." He said holding a finger up and sparking a small flame.

"OH yeah...that's right." She said nodding a little taking a long drag.

"Besides I don't feel like getting high right now anyway. On top of that if I did i'd have to listen to Ignis and i'm not sure I wanna do that." Agnes nodded again as she let out the puff of smoke she had been holding in.

"Now onto the main subject. I heard about last night." Agnes said. J sighed and took a small breath.

"I can explain it just kinda-" Agnes rose a hand.

"You're lucky. If you didn't do it the way you did we'd be having a much different talk. Right now the story is that the gun jammed, he got unlucky and it exploded in his hand. It's more believable because it turns out he had an illegal prototype that's known for exploding spontaeneously." J didn't respond but on the inside he felt insanely good about his luck. "Seriously though, not another slip up. I cashed in on your favor for you last night and made that cover story. I don't owe you anything anymore. So you know what that means."

"Not another slip up or i'm out on my ass. Yeah I know. You've only made that clear about half a million times already."

"Seems someone is a quick learner."

"I pride myself on it." J said with a small laugh. "Anyway I love catching up like this and all but I actually gotta meet someone somewhere."

"Ahh I see. Just don't want to keep talking to an old lady such as myself."

"Yeah starts to make me think about mortality and what i'm doing with my life and shit."

"Yeah yeah fuck you too, asshole." Agnes said rolling her eyes.

J parted the two loose planks and started to step through before stopping.

"Hey, Agnes, uh quick question before I leave." Agnes raised an eyebrow.

"Depending on the question I have an answer for you."

"How did you know I was back here?"

"I figured you'd probably try to dodge me for a while. Also I knew about this little act of vandalism of yours the second you did it." J by this point already knew better than to ask how she knew that soon. With that J slipped through the fence pulling the cigar out of his mouth and placing it behind his left ear.