Lightning and thunder rumbled violently in the river of clouds under the hill, as sea of vapour and blackest skies danced frenziedly at the storm's maddened whims. Rainfall and hailstone rained fiercely on the lone cliff that protruded over the black thunderous sea, its stone skin crumbling under the relentless pressures of time and the elements' savage abuse, with firebolts, faith and a single bright torch being a sailor's only guiding lights. There were however no sailors in this dark dawn today, none mad enough to come out in this storm.

None except them who saw this as a good day.

As it was a good day.

Dei Fabula- Chapter 8- The fool who outran thunder.- Part 2

It was a good day to hunt silver carps for the speedster and his new client, as one dressed himself in appropriate hunting gear and thick layers of leather armor and the other brewing himself a cup of coffee under the protective veil of an ironclad tent and a raincoat far too expensive for menial work, both raising more questions than they answered.

Dan however was never one to ask his clients too many questions, never something beyond the basics; whether they wanted their prey alive and whether they were going to pay upfront. It was a solid business policy, really, but not for lack of curiosity or disinterest in his clients. Usually, it was because he didn't have to ask. No matter their species or Floor of origin, people, Regulars or otherwise, were unsurprisingly talkative when they thought that the person they were conversing with either didn't understand a word they were saying or didn't possess the mental capacity to do so, like, say, when one was seemingly under the influence of alcohol or simply wasn't as nimble with his head as he was with his feet.

Mr. Ajax, the newest of this series of clients, had gone a mile further last night -after of course he managed to get himself a bottle of wine that was decent enough to not visibly gag after each sip- to disguise some of his rumblings with the guise of a richer education and the usage of vocabulary that was a few syllables too long to be usable in everyday conversation.

He too, however, after a few "accidental" stutters and unfortunate lisps on Dan's part, had his tongue loose enough to let the speedster know all he needed about his client's secret identity... or at least narrow down the list of potential candidates.

While his new client had gone several steps further and had prepared many sites under his supposed company's name -all found after a quick internet search and with the aid of a cup of the strongest coffee Dan could tolerate- even having stock certificates and trivial information published under his name, along with tax records and bonds in the market, just the fact that nobody had seemingly heard about this "Allard Inc." made his client's claims of heritage lose credit pretty fast. (Well, at least Dan had not heard about them.)

Another was that despite the penetrating stench of alcohol and dirt in the old tavern, Ajax seemed to have a rather perpetual scent of ammonia on him that was then sloppily hidden with cologne. Cologne which, judging from its bitterness and the toxic burn in Dan's nostrils, was outside the paying range of most of the Chante's attendants, a fact he found out when he, after a few more glasses of cherrywater and a story that unsurprisingly lacked all definition of funny, invaded Ajax's personal space to laugh his heart out.

He also learned that despite his stature, Ajax was particularly strong for his size and that any physical contract beyond a handshake or a pat on the back would be met with extreme prejudice, testament to this information being the sizeable bruise on Dan's right wrist and the inflated bill for breaking some of the glasses.

But what did that tell Dan beyond the obvious, which was that his client, "Ajax Allard", was merely disguised?

For one, it told him that whoever was behind that disguise and alias had enough connections and influence in his name in order to fake information as important as stocks, and was desperate enough to make his alias infallible to go on such lengths in the first place. Ergo, Ajax, in order to possess such connections and such political power in the first place, had to come from a Family.

A Great Family.

One that could be easily recognized by its general characteristics, enough so that it would demand Ajax to dye his hair and wear eye-contacts, another fact that was easily verifiable by the perpetual redness and signs of irritation in and around his retinas.

His body build, as firm and impressive as it was, was still too frail for him to be a member of the Ha Family and the scheme too elusive for him to belong even in any of its many branches. Irritation did not cause him to generate neither heat nor cold, eliminating the Ari or Yeon Families as possible candidates, with the necessary influence required in order to fake this information the way he did putting the latter way more out of the question... It was, at the end of the day, common knowledge that men in that Family tended to get the shorter end of the stick when it came to the games of political influence and power.

His human stature alone was testament of not belonging to the Bloodmadder Family.

His tolerance of strong smells or loud sounds excluded the Arie Family, although that could be the result of extensive training on Ajax's part or sheer force of will in the face of that special defect.

His early arrival in the hunting area got the narcoleptic Eurasia Family out of the picture.

Thus, through simple process of elimination and a few, broad strokes of guesswork, the three final candidates of Ajax' possible origin were the Tu Perie Family, the Bidau Family and the Koon Family.

Only one of these Families had a reputation of deception and egocentricity.

You are allowed only one guess.

After all, a Tu Perie would at least have the financial conscience to tell that holding 1% of pretty much anything in the world of wealth and economics was a bit outside the price range of any Regular, especially when one was talking stocks.

Or at least, nodded Dan to himself, that's what I'm told.

"I will have to insist, Mr. Allard," said the speedster politely as he fastened another one of the belts of his reeling equipment on his waist" that you stay in the tent. This job is nearly not spectacular enough for you to catch a cold over."

"Why yes, of course." said Ajax, just barely looking over a 21st Floor newspaper to leer at Dan. "But you described it so extensively and vigorously last night, Mr. Edin, you got even me a little excited over it. Surely, I am not going to be in the way of your work if I watch from up here, now will I? Unless, of course, what you are truly worried about here is the rest of your paycheck."

"It's a little hard to cash in a wet cheque, Mr. Allard. Or when your client is dead, for that matter."

"Well then, all the more reason for you to do your job as excellently as you promised to, now isn't it?" And with that, Ajax returned back to his newspaper, effectively putting this conversation to rest.

Typical Koon tommyrot, spat Dan under his breath, zipping up his steel eel overcoat a little too harshly, trying to zone the deceitful talent scout out of his mind for a few moments of peace and contemplation. There were more serious problems at hand, after all, the greatest of which being the endless hailstorm that rumbled outside, trying to tear through the tent's iron roof.

To say that he was worried would be an understatement.

Ultimately, once one gets past the sound barrier and starts counting their running speed by the number of seconds it takes for their own sonic boom to catch up to them, a pair of goggles and a leather overcoat of slightly tougher materials could just barely offer cover from a light drizzle and a gentle summer breeze, not alone rocks of ice the size of a child's fist. The invisible Shinsoo aura that was emitted from his body and surrounded him, essentially turning him into a mansized bullet that drilled through most of the Shinsoo's resistance and the occasional bug, would have to suffice for now.

Besides, catching one of those elusive silver devils alive required enough precision and care to not need to run head first into a bullethell of ice at three times the speed of sound, so he was relatively safe on that front.

Unfortunately, when he would inevitably need to run away from his latest client that would oh so dramatically reveal that he was in fact scouting the speedster for his climbing team and that he would not take "no" for an answer -Did anyone ever, really?- and try to force him into the team, he would like to at least have his troubled, full of nightmares sleep on the dirty old couch without too many bruises.

Or have his left collarbone stick out of his right shoulder a second time.

Alas, knowing his luck with clients the past few weeks, he would probably have to actually break a leg in order to get away this time, an idea that the thought alone made him grit his teeth rather loudly.

Everyone had just gone bonkers with the appearance of the new Slayer Candidate on the lower Floors, with a leaked video footage of relatively impressive feats and outrageous rumours only steering them further and further into disarray, some painting him a rising demi-god the likes of which the Tower had never seen, while others as vengeance and plight incarnate. Most was just word of mouth swelled and bloated beyond proportion, while some of the more crazy rumours were obvious works of fiction and quite a few of them were just outright lies.

But even Dan knew that to willingly face a Ranker and even singlehandedly beat him in his own game was either justified overconfidence or the proof of a disturbed mind in control of a too capable body.

Both possibilities were very terrifying to contemplate.

The more cowardly Regulars who dared to do so had almost lost their minds looking for a team that could take them as far away from the new prince of crime as possible, while the smarter ones -well, actually the ones thinking themselves so and believed that they had an "excellent" opportunity in their hands- got to get strong help for a few less points... before, of course, all being inevitably killed by their own hastiness in the endless manslaughter of the Inner Tower, while the calmer or more obsessed of these sociopaths just continued their scheduled climb through the slaughterhouse of the Tower as they originally intended to.

A slaughterhouse Dan did not want to be a part of anymore...

So if -or considering his luck, when- the Slayer Candidate reached out to him and politely requested his willing partition in his little dandy group of anarchists, terrorists and deviants, Dan had decided that he would take a last swig from his favourite cheap beer, decline as politely as he could muster and then accept his inevitable torture and death at the hands of the crazed fanatic that would grow to be another one of the Tower's eldritch nightmares.

No one would grieve.

Dan certainly wouldn't.

She wouldn't...

Putting his old goggles over his eyes, the last sign of an identity long abandoned in favour of the obscurity of a hunter, the rusted encryption "To Featherfoot with love" reflecting dimly the storm's lightning, Dan left the tent and marched into the rain and hailstorm, grunting achingly under the weather's merciless onslaught.

And as the devil showed his white fangs over his shoulder in mockery of a smile, awaiting fidgety and ecstatic to witness the fastest Regular alive in action, the speedster unreeled his fishing line and counted the thunderclaps in the amalgamation of clouds, as sea, river and sky fused and dimmed themselves in preparation for the rain of ice, lightning and death the silver carps were so afraid of.

A white mass approached them from over the horizon, followed by a hundred smaller ones.

It was coming.

He breathed, he counted and he waited, for the short, perfect moment he would steal and stretch into infinity and further beyond by the speed of his step or the beat of his heel.

For each step threw him a hundred yards and each leap a thousand further.

He took a satisfying sip of his freshly brewed cup of coffee before discarding today's paper and leading himself out of the iron cell, when he took a greedy whiff of the unpoluted mixture of earthly aroma of new rain and freshly-struck lightning.

Despite the heavy rain slowly washing the cheap dye off his hair and the hail storm spraying mud all over his cloak and brand new shoes, Aguero couldn't help but almost skip with excitement over the small island's edge, where the aged rock split the river into the largest of its many deltas and the place his leather-clad speedster was already heading at.

Over his shoulder was a single Observer, a scanning device the shape of an eye, usually small enough to fit in one's palm and often equipped with many, wondrous extra features. Some there to enhance its scanning and computational capabilities to the point of absurdity, while others were there to be just cheap party tricks that made scouts on the lower Floors think of themselves as prodigies of espionage and hit-and-run tactics. Most of its additional functions were merely unnecessary gimmicks that any self-respecting Regular with a fifth of a brain and a modicum of sense would not bother burdening this fragile piece of divine hydrelectronics with. One such of these gimmicks was the ability to scan, calculate the purity of and lock on individual pieces of Suspendium, an application that is often discarded even by the most zealous of Observer hardware fanatics. Truly, a waste of imperial resources and research and development on Workshop's part for the arsenal of your everyday, run-of-the-mill Regular.

A waste of imperial resources indeed... in the eyes of fools and amateurs.

With but a glimpse and a gesture, the optic orb positioned itself just over the edge of the cliff and locked on the descending speedster, its grey colours camouflaging it from its appointed object's sharp gaze.

Aguero chose not to activate its invisibility function.

Partly because he wished to preserve as much of the Observer's computetional power as possible, but mostly because he didn't need to.

He didn't have to anymore, as both he and the speedster knew what this little charade was actually all about. He trusted into the speedster's intuition at least that much.

It was to witness his speed.

To marvel early at one of the Tower's many wonders, one of its many unique geniuses that brushed against it and stand in awe and wonder even for a moment's notice. And Aguero knew genius when he saw it.

Albeit not being one himself, whether it was in the form of a brat that was afraid of earrings or a Princess whose gorgeous voice always held the silent hum of an unspoken whine, whether it was a narcoleptic Wave Controller or a naive, innocent boy that was spared early of this world's twisted cruelties, Aguero knew genius.

He knew its eccentricities.

He knew its needs, its desires, its flaws.

He knew its value so well! Too well!

He knew what a gem it was, oh he knew, he knew so well.

He knew that such a rare, wonderful gem should never be left to gather dust in dirty, collapsing taverns and have its shine and glitter dim itself by endless layers of filth and lack of polish.

And if none other could appreciate such rare, sparkling beauty better than he, then it was up to himself to steal them, up to himself to closely guard them, up to himself to lock them away and hoard them all to himself and himself alone for the riches they were, because only HE could appreciate them in their entirety, only HE knew how to protect them, only HE could utilize them with utmost efficiency to elevate them and himself higher and higher.

Only he could, only he, he and he alone!

Only he could protect such gems...

In his jewelry box, away from prying eyes or the clumsy hands of fools and cretins.

The one where he should have put the stars before they were torn from the concrete sky...

It was a big box, colossal, one Edin could see from miles and miles away.

But despite seeing all too well the box this path was leading him towards, Edin Dan still chose to play along in Aguero's little game of pretend for reasons Aguero would never care to find out.

Maybe contractual obligation, maybe business policy, maybe plain old pride with a mix of showmanship thrown in for flavour.

Or who knows, maybe it was misplaced hope on the speedster's that this was an honest business transaction that didn't derail itself already into a scouting scam.

All reasons but small flaws to be smoothed and polished in due time.

Either way, the game was played entirely on Aguero's board, with Aguero's pieces and on Aguero's terms.

That was all that mattered at the moment.

"Good luck." he wished the speedster as Ajax Allard, as he watched him descend to the bottom of the crumbling cliff.

Always as Ajax Allard.

Never as Aguero.

Koon Aguero Agnis never believed in luck.

And thus as the speedster was left to count the thunderclaps in the ever dimming seas and blackest skies in preparation of the white mass' rabid approach, Aguero smiled brightly as he indulged himself in his own hubris and, with the modicum of talent bestowed upon him from his blessed bloodline, disturbed nature's placid order and brought down the lightning.

The clouds turmoiled.

Seas and skies split.

And through the heavenly fissure emerged the silver beast's white fangs.

Oh, what magnificent white fangs it had...

Each made the hooks and needles Regulars waved around look comical and fragile before their terrifying magnitude.

Even the experienced speedster froze himself in place momentarily before he jumped out of the titanic carp's destructive wake, as the massive Shinheuh with the pale wide eyes thrashed itself violently in a feat of panic and rage. Behind it, comparatively insignificant white masses scattered themselves and disappeared in the black seas, leaving their titanic brethren alone in its chaotic wake.

That's not a good sign, thought Koon in slow realization.

The silver carp whipped its gargantuan head back and forth, side by side, again and again, smashing itself against the island's rocks as hide harder than tungsten protected it from the harm such abuse would usually bring to oneself. It made Aguero wonder silently what could bring such a hulking titan in such obvious and agonizing pain, but he couldn't quite understand what that thing could be...

So he watched, in a mixture of wonder and sadism, as such creature was brought to its knees by its own, invisible plight.

But nature did not allow for such indulgences in one's own nerve and audacity a second time.

Never a second time, no...

Everyone gets only one.

Lightning struck again, this time on nature's own, magnificent rapport, and the creature arched its back in agony as true thunder rumbled, dwarfing all below it in its grandiose stature; the single grey Observer on the edge of the cliff, the rocks, stones and barren land, the iron hut with the single light burning inside, the island, Aguero, all mere particles before the silver carp's glorious presence.

But all things that rise must fall again eventually, the creature's torso and jaws being no exception to that rule.

And for a single moment, Aguero tried to protect himself in the presence of the beast, drawing a weapon that should never be drawn, as the weight of a thousand tons was about to fall upon him.

Apparently, in his single moment of humanity, even Aguero had forgotten the newest piece on his chessboard;

The man with a running speed record of 7.32 Mach.

The scout with the feather feet.

The peach thunderbolt.

The fastest Regular alive.

Edin Bartholomew Dan, the speedster.

His speedster.

On the east, sparkless thunder roared and the creature was forced to jolt its head away from the human bullet's meteoric impact.

One of its fins, more of a blade of a helicopter really, offered footing for the speedster as he fazed again out of existence, his only trail a second thunderclap, this one so powerful and thunderous that it made the last one seem like a sickly whisper.

The creature flailed in pain again, but this time it didn't draw itself away from the source of the devilish blast.

It couldn't.

An iron wire -a fishing line- prevented it from doing so.

Edin Dan's fishing line.

And thus came the moment Aguero so wished to witness.

With each of the speedster's steps came a leap and each leap came thunder and with each thunder there was yet another line that robbed the titanic carp of its freedom and another thrash of pain that was denied in its agony.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Another thunder and then another, and another!

And with each clap, a new fishing line wrapped itself around the beast's teeth, body or fins, with each clap, another steel spike the size of a spear buried itself inside the beast's few vulnerable spots or in the few stable pieces of rock scattered across the grumbling earth.

Only proof of Edin Dan's existence, the afterimage of a golden spark, zipping around the silver behemoth at a pace few Regulars could comprehend and wrapping it with the line, his few moments of rest mere phantasms in someone's sight.

And thus, step by step, leap by leap, thunder by thunder, the silver carp was restrained against the island and over the riverbanks, with long, steel spikes buried in flesh and stone.

It tried to flex its titanic muscles, but the spikes refused to give way.

It tried to thrash its massive body, but the island refused to give way.

It tried to whip its sparkly tail, but the riverbanks refused to give way.

It tried to unhinge its jaws full of swordlike teeth, but the fishing lines refused to give way.

It roared a last time a silent plead, begging hopelessly for mercy.

But Edin Dan refused to give way.

To the victor go the spoils.

End of Chapter 8-2.