Chapter 13: Xavier
Summary: Alpha Team receives a commission from HQ; Investigate the source of the metafluctuations that are causing Wanderers to pop up all around the city. It's Lucia's first official commission for the Association, but who is her supposed Partner?
DISCLAIMER: This chapter contains Lucia's Hunter ID number. This was randomly generated, so if it matches anyone's actual Hunter ID, it is purely coincidental. The same will be true if the other sisters' Hunter IDs are written in the future.
a/n: I had actually intended this one to cover more of the in-game story, but it ended up running longer than I thought it would, so I had to divide it up a bit further. Hope you guys enjoy!
Cross-posted on AO3 and Quotev
Word Count: 3.7k
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It was a Meta Storm all across Linkon. Reports flooded in from headquarters-- Wanderers are popping up all over the city. Kaliyah and Lucia had dispatched the one on the train easily enough and two more in Azure Square before they received new orders from Captain Jenna.
“Alpha team is converging on No-Hunt Zone Number 7. You should each be receiving coordinates to rendezvous with your assigned mission partner.”
Lucia studied her watch as it lit up with a new commission.
[Order No. 85]
A sudden fluctuation occurred in some districts of Linkon City. Please proceed to investigate and solve the crisis.
Objective: Clear the Source of Fluctuation
“Ordinarily, we wouldn’t be assigning rookies to a crisis on your second day-- but the situation is not looking good in 7. The Alpha team needs to work in pairs, and as it is, we need all available hands on deck,” Captain Jenna explains briefly.
Lucia can only hope Zayne had the good sense to confiscate Aurora’s watch once she was admitted. If she were hearing this, she’d be chomping at the bit to get out here and help, the blonde was certain. Thankfully, Akso is locked down to maintain patient safety until the alert lifts.
“Rendezvous with your senior hunters and make sure you follow their lead. No heroes-- Our objective is to investigate and send back information. Prioritize your safety and don’t get into any unnecessary fights.” Then Captain Jenna sounds off, probably to make it to her own rendezvous.
“No-Hunt Zone 7,” Lucia repeated. “Wasn't that one of the first places affected by the Chronorift Catastrophe?”
“It was,” Kaliyah confirms. “We set up a survey station there to monitor the Deepspace Tunnel, but it was destroyed during the catastrophe, and the protofield blanketing the area has been unstable since.”
No-Hunt Zones were places of dangerous and unpredictable fluctuations, dense enough that they transformed the area into its own protofield, rather than creating a dimensional pocket. They were closed off to the public because Wanderers frequently manifested in those locations. Even Hunters were barred from entry without explicit permission.
“What exactly are we going to be looking for?” Lucia asks, following her sister out of Azure Square.
“Not sure,” Kaliyah responds. “But something must be there. The fluctuations are converging on that location-- a powerful Wanderer, maybe… which zone were you assigned to?”
“Uh…” Lucia scans the commission again, looking for the information. “Zone 4,” the blonde replies.
“Damn,” the dark-haired beauty sighs. “I'm Zone 1-- which means we'll have to split up for this one. You know how to use the watch's navigation?”
“Yes.”
“Good-- when you get to your Zone, don't go inside. Wait for--”
“My partner,” Lucia finished before her sister could. “I know-- the Hunters' Code dictates that we don’t fight alone unless necessary.”
Kaliyah lets out a huff of air.
“Okay, smart-ass,” She grumbles fondly. Moments later, they hear a rumbling from the street- two 270HM motorcycles drove themselves up to the curb for the Hunters to mount. Kaliyah moves first, throwing a leg over the seat and connecting her navigation to the vehicle's system. Lucia does the same, taking a moment longer to sync her watch to the vehicle interface before she reaches for the helmet mounted to the front of the bike.
“Make sure to check in when you arrive,” Kaliyah tells Lucia once the blonde is settled comfortably.
“Understood,” Lucia nodded her head. “I’ll talk to you soon, then. Stay safe out there, Kali.”
“You too,” Kaliyah returned the sentiment. Two engines rumbled and roared to life, and then the Hunters shot forward into the city streets. They drove side by side for a time before Kaliyah peeled off onto another street, leaving Lucia to finish her journey on her own.
The blonde had just gotten off the highway and was traveling the road that ran along the forest surrounding the city limits when her comms crackled to life in her helmet.
“This is Captain Jenna and Lieutenant Aveline reporting in. We just reached Zone 2 of the No-Hunt Zone. Sound off when you all have reached your locations and rendezvoused with your partners.”
Lucia sped up, tearing down the road to reach her rendezvous when Kaliyah's voice reached her ears.
“This is Hunter's Kaliyah and Belloma. Partner Rendezvous complete-- we're entering Zone 1.”
Lucia pulled her bike onto a side road, taking a wooded path that led her to an opening in a chain-link fence. She saw the large warning signs labeling it as a No-Hunt Zone, with yellow tape making a feeble attempt to keep the battered gate closed. Despite the risks, people still liked to sneak into these areas, trying to play hero or prove something.
“Hunter’s Hoel and Giselle-- we've entered Zone 3. We'll report back when needed.”
The hunter's watch gave a chime, and Lucia looked down at the device.
> According to the risk level of this mission, special privileges will be activated for you.
While the information buffered, Kaliyah removed her helmet and killed the engine on her bike. When she next looked down, the watch had several new notifications that flashed across the holographic screen.
Name: Lucia Fabel
Hunter ID: 82000901458
Sector: UNICORNS - Alpha Team
> Entry permit to No-Hunt Zone 7 - [Applying] - [Granted]
> Vital signs detection level - [Enhancing] - [Enhanced]
> Emergency signal band 0.347 - [Boosting] - [Boosted]
> Companion signal - [Connecting] - [...]
Lucia watched as her wristband strove to connect to her partner's signal for several beats. Then, finally--
- [Failed]
She frowned, watching as the watch tried to connect twice more over the next few minutes, each time ending in a failure message. She looked around the area, trying to find any trace of them she could-- but there was nothing. No tracks, no Hunter-issued vehicle. Just the eerie whisper of the trees beyond the fenceline and the distant growling of Wanderers.
Her partner wasn’t here.
“Zone 4, have you arrived yet?” Aveline's voice sounds through the comm. Lucia waited a moment, hoping maybe her companion had just gotten held up somewhere. A beat passed, then another.
“Zone 4, do you copy?” Captain Jenna prompted, and Lucia felt her stomach sink before replying.
“This is Hunter Lucia-- I’ve reached the entrance of Zone 4, but…” She looked around the area one more time, waiting for her partner to appear from the trees or the road behind her. Once more, she was met with only the sound of the wind. “My partner isn’t here yet,” She relays into the comm.
A heavy silence falls over the channel, and Lucia waits patiently for her next instructions.
“Your partner isn’t exactly known for being punctual,” Jenna sighs. “Hold your position until he arrives, then go in together. Remember what I said-- prioritize your safety first, and don’t take unnecessary risks.”
Lucia frowned, her shoulders slumping as she leaned back to sit sideways on her bike.
“Understood-- I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“Good. We’re entering Zone 2 now, which means you won’t be able to reach us until we come back out.”
Lucia sighed softly.
“Copy that-- hopefully my partner will arrive before too long, and we can scout our own area.”
The blonde received no response from the comms, and so she crossed her arms and settled in to wait.
…
Two hours had passed. Two hours of deafening silence and impatient waiting. Two hours for Lucia to sit and think of the way the day had transpired. She had wondered absently, frustratedly, just who her partner could be and why they might be taking so long. Given what she knew of Alpha Team and its members so far, she concluded that her partner was more than likely Xavier, the Hunter who rarely ever showed up to work and was supposed to be covering for Aurora. Given how late he was to their rendezvous, it wasn’t much of a stretch to realize.
She had also finally remembered where she had heard that name-- Xavier. She had thought, in the hospital, that the name sounded familiar. She had initially written off the feeling. After all, her sisters mentioned him in passing to complain about his attendance and other typical office drama. But given enough time to think, she remembered that was also the name of the man she had met in the warehouse two days ago. She hadn’t immediately drawn the connection because of the way her sisters had described him-- it didn’t quite seem to fit the man she met. The Xavier they spoke of had been in the Association for years, but the man she met was young. Is it possible there was another Xavier in the Association? But Aurora had assured her he was strong, even if she deemed him unreliable, and the Hunter at the warehouse had certainly been strong.
If he were her partner for today's mission, then where was he? Even getting caught up in another fight in the city, he should have been here by now. Had he been hurt again? Or maybe her sister was right, and he really was a flake. Or maybe it was a different hunter entirely, and something terrible had happened.
Lucia shook her head. How much longer was she expected to wait for a man who might never show?
Impatiently, the blonde tapped her fingers against her arm when she heard feedback over the comms channel.
“This is Hunter Belloma reporting in-- can anyone read me?”
Lucia releases a sigh.
“This is Hunter Lucia-- I copy,” she answers. “How’d it go in there?”
“Zone 1 is clear-- no abnormalities that we could find. The place is crawling with Wanderers, though.”
“Are you already done with your search?” Kaliyah asks, jumping into the conversation.
“My partner still hasn’t shown up,” Lucia admitted with a sigh. “Please tell me this guy isn't who I think he is?”
There’s a pause over the channel before Kaliyah answers.
“Ava’s with Jenna,” Kaliyah starts aloud, her voice sounding weary. “And I heard Hoel state he was with Giselle… with Rory in the hospital, there’s only one other hunter it could be.”
Lucia tilted her head back, letting out a heavy sigh into the night air.
“Fantastic,” She grumbles. “So I get the guy that goes AWOL regularly.”
Lucia turns her head, looking over to the entrance of the Zone again. The shadows were thick, and the moon was shrouded in cloud cover. If Kaliyah was already back from her search, it shouldn’t be too long before Ava, Giselle, and their partners return as well. As it stood, there was one chance in three that the source of the fluctuations was in Zone 4-- not very high, but a higher chance than it was before Kaliyah and Belloma cleared Zone 1.
Jenna had said not to take unnecessary risks, but Lucia had been monitoring the signal's strength. Even now, it was worsening. This situation was becoming more dire the longer it took them to find the problem.
“What threat level would you say the Wanderers in the zone are?” Lucia decides to ask, standing up from her spot where she had been leaning against her bike.
“Luce-- no,” Kaliyah growls admonishingly.
“We can’t afford to sit and wait much longer,” Lucia reasons. “The fluctuations are only growing stronger. Someone has to clear the zone.”
“It’s too risky,” Kaliyah insists. “At least wait for backup.”
“There is no backup-- you said it yourself. It's just us,” Lucia reminds her. “I’ll use my Evol and stick to the shadows. I won’t have to fight anything if they don’t know I’m there.”
“Lucia--”
“I’ll be fast. If I’m not back in an hour, you can come in after me.”
“Lucy, don’t!”
But the blonde wasn’t listening as she pulled a face mask out of her pocket, looping the straps around her ears and ducking under the yellow tape with sword in hand.
“Lucia Victoria Fabel, listen to me!” Kaliyah continued to demand through the comms. “This situation is different from the warehouse-- you need to hold your position until--” Static drowned out the last of her sister's words, metaflux interfering with the signal as she stepped further into the No-Hunt Zone. When even the feedback cut out from Lucia’s ear, she knew then she was alone.
True to her word, Lucia stuck to the shadows, using her evol to make them thick enough to hide in as she made her way through the forest. Wanderers’ occasional crossed her path, their stone-like bodies twitching and convulsing while they lumbered along. She kept her sword ready at her side, but did not engage the monsters, letting them pass her by before continuing her journey. As she went, she used some luminescent tape to mark her trail in case someone needed to come after her.
She searched the woods in increments, occasionally using her watch to try to find the densest metaflux and follow it deeper into the woods. Or at least, she thought she was heading deeper-- until she came across one of her own luminescent marks on a tree. Lucia let out a frustrated sigh-- everything around her looked the same, no matter where she turned. No doubt the protofield was distorting things as well, making it nearly impossible to navigate the terrain.
She tried going in another direction, keeping her eyes on her surroundings, looking for any landmarks that would help her find her way. Then she came across her own mark again.
“Shoot…” She grumbled, realizing she was going in circles. This wasn’t good-- how was she supposed to find her way in this mess? Should she turn back? Or would that end in the same result as attempting to push forward?
Before she can come to a decision, she hears a loud growling coming from the trees ahead of her. A surge of metaflux makes her already churning stomach swoop once more, and she’s already pulling a shroud of shadow over herself.
Wanderers-- there was no doubt about it. A surge of metaflux that strong might indicate a clue about what was going on, and it sounded like whatever it was was somewhere ahead. Determined to observe, Lucia pushed forward, her shadows cloaking her in the darkness and allowing her to move unnoticed as she approached the source of the surge.
She feels it before she sees it, ducking into the shadow of a large boulder before a clearing. Cautiously, sword brandished at her side, she leans out to see what is there.
A massive, shadowy form blocks out the bright moonlight, hovering at the top of a ridge only a few paces away. The Wanderer gave off a strong energy, making the woman tremble slightly as she watched it, certain that if she even tried to confront it, she would certainly die. But if she could distract it somehow and sneak by…
The Wanderer seemed to be focused on something over the ridge. Lucia leaned a fraction further out from behind the boulder, and there stood a figure standing on a steel beam, facing the monster directly.
Someone else was here? What the hell did they think they were doing? That Wanderer was going to slaughter them!
Lucia was ready to leap forward from the shadows-- she needed to protect whoever that was, before they got themselves killed. But then the figure calmly raised a hand towards the Wanderer, and the woman froze, her mouth agape in a mix of shock and awe. Not only were they reaching out to it, but… the Wanderer didn’t seem to be attacking them. In fact, from this distance, it almost looked like the person was… comforting it. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Why would--
Light cut through the night in an explosion of power, forcing Kaliyah to shield her eyes and retreat behind the boulder again. After a moment, the light receded, and the world felt still once more.
She peered around the boulder once again. The figure was still there, standing tall on the steel beam, and looking up at the place the Wanderer was. But the large monstrosity was now gone-- vanished as if it had never been there to begin with. All that remained was a faint, red glow-- a protocore that descended into the stranger's hand. Lucia watched them observe the stone for a moment, and then--
He crushed the protocore in his hand in a familiar motion, and Lucia’s eyes widened in recognition. It was him-- Xavier, the hunter from the warehouse and her partner who never showed up to the rendezvous.
A red glow flashed around his neck, there for a moment, then flickering out of existence again. So it wasn’t her imagination that day then. But if he was here, then why didn’t he meet her at the entrance? Or was this really the same Xavier that she was supposed to meet? Could she really be certain that he was who he claimed to be? He had asked her to keep his presence at the warehouse a secret-- if he was her teammate, then why would he--
His head snapped up, and she knew he was looking in her direction. She instinctively ducked back behind her boulder, heart beating a fast rhythm in her chest. Too late to hide-- he appeared before her too fast for her to see and held the tip of his sword to her throat. His eyes were dark in the moonlight, holding her gaze in a bone-chilling glare. Lucia instinctively threw her hands into the air, her own sword dissolving in her hand.
“Who--” He started to demand, but Lucia was beating him to the punch.
“I-it’s me!” She exclaimed. “We’ve met before, I swear!” She said desperately. Before she could react, the man twisted his wrist-- but instead of cutting her throat, she felt her face mask fall away from her face. A flicker of recognition passed over his eyes, a beat of hesitation. “Back at the research base,” Lucia continued, watching carefully as he slowly lowered his sword to his side. With her heart hammering away inside her chest, she took a few nervous steps away from him. “After we escaped, you asked me to--”
Something wrapped around Lucia’s ankle-- a snare made of light. She barely registered the trap before her feet were pulled from under her and she was hoisted into the air, dangling upside down and looking at the unreadable expression of the man standing below. In the motion, she had ended up dropping her sword, and she could see the white grip lying in the grass and wildflowers above her head-- or was it below?
Her head was spinning, her blood rushing to her head, and she tried toprocees the change in orientation, finding herself stupidly finishing her sentence through breathless gasps.
“You asked me to keep our meeting a secret.” At that particular moment, however, she was thinking she shouldn’t have done so.
Xavier blinked up at her for a moment, his expression blank and oddly calm, given the fact that she was currently strung up like a rabbit. After several moments, when he didn’t move to help her, she let out a nervous sigh.
“I’m telling the--”
“I remember,” He interrupts her calmly. “What are you doing here?”
The woman groans audibly.
“I don’t know if you heard, but there’s a pretty serious situation going on in the city right now. Metafluctuations that seem to be originating from this No-Hunt Zone, and Alpha Team was dispatched to look into it.”
Xavier creases his brow.
“All of you?” he asks. Lucia’s head was starting to feel a little full at this point, and she was losing her patience with being interrogated while strung up.
“Yes-- now can you let me down? I’d much rather have this conversation on the ground, if you don’t mind.” There was a lot of pressure bearing down on her sinuses, and she was feeling hot in the face due to the blood in her body pooling with the inverted gravity.
Xavier's eyes fluttered, as if he was realizing she was still caught in the snare. Before she knows it, the pressure around her ankle releases, and she’s falling back to the ground with a yelp-- or almost to the ground. At the last moment, she feels a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders and legs. She looks up, and his face is only inches from hers, studying her with a sort of curiosity that she doesn’t know how to place.
Up close, though, it was easy to tell how pretty he was, even in the dark. That had been something she had almost forgotten. His eyes were a light, shimmering blue that reflected the moonlight, and his features were so soft, so young.
According to her sisters, he was supposed to be a seasoned hunter who had been with the Association for more than six years. Yet, looking at him now, he couldn't have been more than two years older than her, if not younger.
“Are you alright?” His voice breaks through her thoughts, bringing her back into the moment.
“Yeah,” She says automatically. “Yeah, just-- let me down, please.”
Xavier is at least gentle as he sets her back on her feet. She takes a step away, about to utter a word of thanks, when a sharp pain shoots up her leg as soon as she puts weight on it. She grimaces, her breath catching in her lungs.
“You’re hurt,” Xavier observes. Lucia leans her weight onto her other leg-- the one that hadn't been caught in his snare-trap and thankfully seemed unaffected.
“I’m fine,” She insists, even as she lets him guide her to sit on a nearby rock. She waves him off, carefully sliding off her boot to look at the damage. She’s carefully inspecting her injured ankle when something small and white is extended in his hand.
“Here,” He says, pushing the roll of bandage into her hand. She takes it carefully, and he takes a step back. “Where’s the rest of your team?” He asks, an edge of concern in his tone. She sighs.
“We were paired off and sent to investigate Search Zones. I was assigned to this one with my partner.”
“Partner,” He repeats slowly. “And where are they? Why are you here alone?”
Lucia looks up at him, eyeing him up and down.
“I don’t know,” She says. “After all, you’re the only person who can tell me why you never showed up to the rendezvous.”
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a/n: Likes, comments, and Reblogs are always greatly appreciated (please show this work some love, it give me life). I'll see you all next week!
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