Jamie Hurricane watched the sunrise paint the sky over New Rome, not with the hopeful hues of a new day, but with the grim, bruised palette of a city wounded. She sipped her lukewarm coffee, the bitter taste a fitting companion to the scene unfolding on Green Avenue before her. The street was no longer a bustling artery of commerce, but a twisted, charred scar, stretching as far as her eye could see. The heat of the morning sun did little to lift the heavy, acrid scent of static, burnt plastic, and something far more sickeningly organic.
The NRPD and NRFD swarmed the area, their flashing red and blue lights painting frantic strobes across the wreckage. They worked with practiced efficiency, diverting the public behind hastily erected barricades. Paramedics moved with grim purpose, carefully bagging and removing the deceased. Gang members in their distinct colors, as well as innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire – they littered the pavement, some grotesquely contorted, others mercifully obscured by tarps. The buildings and businesses on Green, once among the city's most prestigious, now resembled the skeletal ruins of a war zone, their glass facades shattered, their brickwork blasted inward, their foundations maybe even be compromised. Jamie felt a familiar knot tighten in her stomach, a mixture of professional duty and personal dread. This wasn't just a crime scene; it was a testament to unleashed chaos.
She had received her first orders as a junior agent in the dead of night, the digital ping on her secure phone comm unit pulling her from a fitful sleep. It had been shortly after her mother, Agent Jane Ward, arrived stateside – an arrival that Jamie still hadn't fully processed. The gang war on Green, a simmering conflict between the Ivory Elephants and The Legion Gang, had finally boiled over, reaching a critical point that necessitated the deployment of Slayer Division agents from across the country to quell it. Jamie’s assignment was to report to the crime scene and await her mother’s briefing on her first mission. Her "first mission" felt less like an opportunity and more like a terrifying, unavoidable collision.
The Slayer Division, Jamie knew, held supreme authority over all matters and investigations involving power-enhancing drug users. Their mandate was absolute, their reach far beyond local law enforcement. Jamie had been instructed to coordinate lesser public services as needed if she was the first to arrive. However, upon reaching the scene, she found the perimeter already secured, the local authorities already overwhelmed, and taking direction from an unseen hand. The sheer scale of the devastation here suggested something far beyond a typical gang shootout. This felt like a microcosm apocalypse.
There was no sign of Agent Ward on the battle-scarred street that Jamie could discern. Her brief, clipped conversation with her mother hours earlier had led her to believe she would be somewhere amidst the chaos and wreckage, a no doubt stoic figure overseeing the clean-up. But surprisingly, Jamie appeared to be the only Slayer Division agent present, at least for the moment. The thought that her mother might intentionally let her navigate this horror alone, as a "test," wouldn’t surprise her.
The junior agent walked closer to the epicenter of the carnage with each step, past the yellow police barricades and emergency vehicles, to where dark, dried blood still stained the street, already baking under the rising sun. She managed to navigate past multiple deformed and maimed corpses, her gaze flicking away from the worst of them, which was before the stench became overwhelming. It was a cloying, metallic-sweet odor, thick with decay and something else, something she couldn't quite place. Jamie wondered how many actual dead bodies it took to make an open area, a broad avenue, smell this foul. A wave of nausea threatened to roll over her, but she swallowed it down.
At the heart of the intersection of Green and Brown streets. Beneath the mangled remains of street signs and stoplights, which hung like broken toys from twisted poles, lay a massive, dead creature that seemed more something out of a old Kaiju movie than real life. It was immense, easily twenty feet long, its bulk sprawled across the intersection, a grotesque centerpiece to the devastation. Its thick hide was covered in coarse, matted blue fur, and its head was a nightmarish blend: the broad, powerful skull of a buffalo, complete with vestigial horns, but with the menacing muzzle of a bear, lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth. Bulging, bloodshot red eyes, now glazed over with death, stared blankly at the bruised sky. Jamie had heard of powers manifesting as animal transformations, of individuals twisting into bestial forms, but she had never witnessed one up close, never imagined anything this… . She had always envisioned them retaining some human features, becoming like centaurs and fish-men from the ancient Greek myths taught in school. But she saw no trace of humanity in the thing before her. It a monster, and it had died like one.
What truly arrested her attention, however, were the wounds. The creature was riddled with what looked like buckshot, massive craters torn into its blue hide, but that wasn't all. There were entire sections of its colossal body simply . Not torn off, not blasted away, but cleanly, inexplicably absent. One flank had a gaping hole as if a giant, invisible cookie-cutter had simply removed a section of its flesh, leaving smooth, cauterized edges. A hind leg tapered off into thin air halfway down the thigh, the residual bone and sinew at the point of severance ending abruptly, almost too perfectly. It was as if these pieces had been... disintegrated. Vanished. It was a type of damage she had not seen before, a kind of unmaking that left no residue, no shrapnel, just... nothing. A fitting end for a monster, she thought, a grim shiver tracing down her spine.
As Jamie circled the beast, examining it further, trying to make sense of the impossible wounds, a familiar monotone voice drew her attention. “Agent Hurricane, I found you.”
The voice, upon closer inspection, belonged to none other than Slayer Division Agent Jane Ward—Jamie’s mother. The senior officer was dressed not in a formal uniform, but in practical, intimidating gear: a black tank top, black tactical pants, and a Division jacket adorned with a unique steel gauntlet patch stitched prominently on the left shoulder. Silver stripes ran down the sleeves of her jacket, indicating her high authority within the Division. Jamie noticed that her mother’s natural blonde hair was much shorter than she remembered, cropped severely close to her head, almost military-like. She had forgotten how much they resembled each other despite the twenty-year age difference – the same high cheekbones, the same sharp, intelligent eyes, though her mother's were now shadowed by an unnerving, almost empty resolve.
“We are no longer needed here. Our new orders are to pursue the persons responsible for this atrocity,” Jane said, her gaze sweeping over her daughter. There was no warmth in her appraisal, Jamie felt, only assessment.
“Nice to see you too, Mom,” Jamie replied, the sarcasm a thin shield against the raw tension that always existed between them.
“You’ve grown,” Jane stated, her voice flat as stone, devoid of the emotion a parent usually expressed at such an observation. “I know you can’t be too happy with me for my long absence, but don’t forget I am your C.O. in the field now. While we’re out here, you will remain quiet and obey my directions without fail, or you will be demoted. I won’t give you any special treatment because of our blood relationship. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Jamie answered, unsurprised. The formality was jarring, but it was also Jane. Her mother had always compartmentalized her life, and now Jamie was clearly in the "professional subordinate" compartment. The silence that followed was thick with unspoken words and years of separation.
Jamie’s mother remained mostly silent as she led her to her government-assigned vehicle on the outskirts of the crime scene. It was a blacked-out crime buster cruiser, its reinforced chassis and tinted windows giving it an anonymous, menacing presence, not much different from the patrol vehicles of ordinary officers, just heavier, more specialized. The junior agent boarded the passenger side and looked out the window, attempting to avoid the awkwardness of the car ride to their destination. The passing scenes of clean-up crews, the grieving families held back by police tape, the mangled metal and shattered concrete, all felt less suffocating than the contained quiet within the cruiser. She almost preferred the company of the dead men on Green Avenue.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Before I brief you on our targets, I’m required by law as your superior to educate you on the brief history of the Division and also as to why we field agents are so important to our modern society,” Jane finally said, breaking the oppressive silence. The engine hummed, a low thrumming counterpoint to her mother's emotionless delivery.
“I don’t need a history lesson, Mother,” Jamie scoffed, leaning her head against the cool glass of the window, wishing she could simply disappear. But Agent Ward ignored her and continued, her voice still devoid of any inflection, as if reciting from a manual.
“In the mid-1960s, a man walked out of the wasteland of the Sahara Desert with no memory of who he was or how he had gotten there. He spoke a language unheard of at the time but thankfully possessed a high IQ and quickly learned any language he encountered within hours. Beyond that, he had abilities no human could possess, and upon the testing of his DNA by the United States government, it was discovered he had a seventy-two-strand DNA helix. This man was given the code name Immortal, and for several years, he worked with a scientist who was able to take his blood and create Monstromandine, the human-enhancing drug. There were one hundred and twenty volunteers to undergo testing, and out of all of us, the only ones to survive were those who would form The Guild of Heroes years later,” Jane stated plainly, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, as if reading the story from the asphalt itself.
"I know, Agent Ward," Jamie interrupted, her voice edged with impatience. "The Guild of Heroes was an independent force of super-powered people who stopped bad guys that the normal cops couldn’t. It worked out well for you guys too, until after the original formula was lost and an inferior version of the drug hit the black market. Then the monster riots happened, making the population of people with powers skyrocket from under 20 to over a thousand. The Guild was pushed to the breaking point; you guys couldn’t keep up with all the activity. The straw that finally broke that camel's back was the Gravaton Event. Good old Uncle Sam was waiting in the wings, though. He picked up the slack and, through legislation and some good help, the Slayer Division was formed,” Jamie rattled off, her annoyance clear. She knew this history by heart, had lived with its shadow for as long as she could remember.
The senior agent stared at the road with an empty expression, allowing a few silent moments to pass, as if giving Jamie's outburst due consideration. Finally, she spoke again. “I suppose that’s mostly right.”
"I would only add that after the riots, the gangs began to tamper with the formula to the point where the original has been lost. The drugs on the streets now are pale reflections of the ones that came before. Even the Monstromandine made officially by the government isn’t capable of recreating a stable power, but even so, any kind of power without control can’t be allowed to go unchecked. This is what a field agent does. We check those who watch the world burn in their wake, regardless of past relations. We’re the uncompromising, cold guardians of the country, and sometimes the world." Jane's voice remained flat, but there was an underlying current of unshakeable conviction, a chilling certainty that made Jamie uneasy.
Jamie didn’t like where this conversation was heading. Her mother knew she already knew about the Immortal. Karen Wake, his daughter, had been her best friend, along with Nick, in the past. Why reiterate something she already knew? Why the forced history lesson? Was her mother truly that much of a robot, bound so tightly by protocol that she couldn't even speak to her own daughter without reciting a briefing? She decided to cut to the chase.
“Where are you going with this?” Jamie questioned, turning fully towards her mother, trying to meet her eyes, but Jane's gaze remained fixed forward.
“You know where this is going. I didn’t give birth to an unintelligent girl. We have been tasked with apprehending the stable power Karen Wake and her accomplice, Nick Morgan. We believe they are responsible for the deaths on Green Avenue,” Jane stated coldly, the words cutting through the controlled silence of the car.
It all made sense to Jamie now: the reason for her sudden promotion, the reason her mother had returned to the States to train her—it was because of their history with Nick and Karen. A familiar, hot surge of anger mixed with disbelief flared within her.
“The gangs are responsible for the deaths on Green! Any idiot can see that!” Jamie countered, her voice rising. "They were fighting !"
“The gangs may be responsible for the initiation of the conflict, but someone armed the Legion gang, and the guns they used were based on Rift-Field Tech. That, coupled with the audio surveillance gathered outside of Division headquarters, provides more than enough evidence to bring him in,” Jane commented, her gaze unwavering from the road, as if discussing the weather.
The junior field agent shifted in her seat, the weight of her mother’s words settling like a cold stone in her stomach. Her initial defiance began to waver, replaced by a deep, gnawing conflict. She had seen the impossible wounds on the monster, the clean, disintegrated sections. And she knew Nick had been working on Rift-Field tech, desperately trying to replicate his father's work. Could the shy, brilliant boy she grew up with, the one who always had his nose in a book, truly be capable of such devastation?
“Karen, as you know, went off the grid over a decade ago to avoid suppression procedures. She was located after all this time, assisting Nick in his plan to flee the country. She’s headed to Factory Forty-Five right now, according to intelligence, to meet up with him; we will intercept them and take them into custody. I know what they mean to you, but it’s out of our hands. Nick has sold classified technology to public enemies, and Karen is an outlaw, an Alpha-class stable power. We can show them no mercy; if we do, we could die.” Jane’s words were delivered with the same chilling detachment, a practiced cadence that left no room for argument, only compliance.
The silence that followed was suffocating, thick with the unsaid. Jamie stared out the window, the passing cityscape a blur, her mother’s cold pronouncement echoing in her ears.
The words twisted the knife in her gut. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the sterile interior of the cruiser, the rigid presence of her mother beside her.
She remembered Nick. Not the detached, potentially dangerous inventor her mother described, but the awkward, brilliant boy who perpetually had his face in a computer screen and a nervous smile. He'd been her favorite target for teasing, mostly because his reactions were so wonderfully flustered. She’d trip him to the playground, hide his favorite comic books, or mimic his professorial tone whenever he tried to explain some complex theory to her. It was a childhood crush, poorly disguised by relentless picking, a secret thrill every time his cheeks flushed. He’d just take it, too, never really fighting back, just grumbling or looking away. He was too kind, too gentle, too caught up in his own intricate world. It felt impossible that he could be involved in something so brutal, so destructive.
Then there was Karen. Her best friend. The daughter of the Immortal, a truth they'd only whispered about in hushed tones when their parents, members of the Guild of Heroes, were out "saving the world." Jamie remembered long afternoons in the sprawling, often empty Guild headquarters, playing "cops and robbers" with Karen. Karen, with her quick wit and adventurous spirit, always insisted on being the "cop" to Jamie's "robber," chasing her through the labyrinthine corridors. Later, they'd sit side-by-side, diligently combing each other's hair, braiding it, discussing school, or the latest comic books, or just giggling at nothing. They were inseparable, two girls growing up under the shadow of incredible parents, trying to carve out a normal childhood. The idea of Karen, of showing her "no mercy," felt like a betrayal of everything they had been. It felt like a betrayal of .
“What happened to you?!” Jamie exclaimed, her voice thick with emotion, the question a desperate plea more than an accusation, pulling her abruptly from the warmth of memory into the biting cold of the present. “You know I remember a time when you had a heart, when you didn’t talk about locking our friends up without due process with such indifference. You had a temper, you got sad, you were human. What the hell happened to my mother?!” she demanded, turning to face Jane fully, her eyes burning with unshed tears. Her mother remained utterly unflinching, her profile a stone-cold mask, betraying no crack in her composure.
“I know I can seem… distant sometimes, and your feelings and responses are justifiable. You do not have to do this, Agent. You can resign right now and go back to taking your damping shots and live a normal life. Do this, though—bring in these two targets—and I will grant you the rank of senior. Same as me. The choice is yours.” Jane’s words hung in the air, a cold, calculated ultimatum. The cruiser continued its steady, relentless journey through the city streets, heading for Factory Forty-Five, heading for a confrontation Jamie wasn't sure she could win, whether she complied or refused. Her childhood, her loyalty, her very identity – it all seemed to hinge on her next few choices. She pushed her conflicted feelings down, deep into her being, and prepared to do what she had to.
