"Welcome back, Sunny," Areste called out immediately Sunny stepped foot on the marble glass like floor of the now almost empty conference room.
"Didn't have much of an option now did I?"
"Sunny," Luna paused for a moment in her speech, a touch of guilt weighing in her tone. "We all understand what you went through and why you're upset."
She took a step closer to him. "But this isn't a sentencing, it's an offer to help. A system user's life is hard, that's why we stay together to help each other."
He nodded lightly, rubbing his arm and pressing his lips together.
"Who is Zero?" Sunny asked.
"Monsieur Zero is the founder of SAGS. The one who took claim of the fog and enacted the law to prevent moderators from entering," Areste stepped in, pushing himself off the dest he was leaning against.
In a split moment, he was across the room, taking a bottle of alcohol from Moonlight's grasp and releasing it to fall to the floor. The fog under the floor shifted, rising and erupting past the floor, grabbing the bottle and fading away almost instantly.
At that very moment, two thoughts crossed Sunny's mind. The first being that that display was very cool, and the second was a wonderance; he wondered if the fog beneath his feet could rise and grab him as well, taking him to who knows where.
The first time he defied and ordered to be allowed leave to go home, Areste could have called upon the fog. But he didn't. Maybe because it was normal to react as he had, or maybe it was simply because Areste knew that Sunny would return eventually.
Sunny's and Areste's eyes met for a moment before Sunny came to a realization.
With the portal being opened directly to the cathedral, he was simply informed that the whereabouts of his family was well known. Areste had mentioned it already back when Sunny had woken from his near death. He had mentioned finding his home and having conversed with the Grand Bishop.
The now display of the bottle getting consumed by the fog, did it have a certain alterior meaning behind it?
Did everything that Areste had been doing have a certain motive behind them?
Sunny immediately remembered back in the room with the moderators of his first tribulation. He had first tried convincing him as a friend before resulting to force.
Was Areste leaning towards the same tactic? Sunny wondered.
Was everything Areste doing threats of sorts?
This now display of power in the fog, mayhaps it meant that Areste had grown tired of the friendly approach.
Instinctively, Sunny turned his gaze down, looking at the fog shifting endlessly under his feet, then he turned his gaze back up at Areste, who stood tall in place, holding his ground, his eyes burning clean into Sunny's gaze while Moonlight clawed at the ground as though trying to retrieve the bottle.
At that very moment he realised just why Moonlight had been quiet around Areste. In that very moment, he was the most fearful person in the room.
"It's okay, it won't take you," Luna said jokingly, giving Sunny a light elbow nudge.
"Ow," Sunny said, rubbing the nudge point.
"He's delicate, don't u see he's in a dress and everything?" Moonlight looked up from clawing the ground, resorting to now sitting on it.
Sunny's eyes rolled.
"Is there anything else I have to find out before I'm suddenly dying again?"
"If you meet a god, do not gaze upon them," Areste said, a certain finality in his tone.
"And don't tell a non system user about anything– pretty basic," Luna added.
The ground next to Sunny's legs began to shift, the fog from below rising. Immediately, he backed away, though logically that wouldn't really help if it was decided that he was to be fed to the fog.
The fog materialized to a short pillar-like table, on it a crystal key and a silver badge.
"Welcome to the System Alliance of Global Security, Sunny," Areste began, walking back to a seat behind a desk that had a great window revealing a great espanse of the fog.
"You shall be working under the subdepartment of the exorcists. You will receive reports of turning humans and your job will be to exterminate them before they turn into full anomalies," Areste stated, his elbows resting on his desk and his fingers intercrossed. His voice was loud, as though amplified, echoing in the room seamlessly.
"If you are to encounter a fully turned anomaly you will report and more advanced users will answer the call to exterminate the anomaly. Normally I would say that it is with the exception of runners, but we all know that they've gotten...stronger," he said the last part, his eyes darkening while glaring at Sunny.
"Do you have any questions?"
Sunny stood quiet for a moment before a question came, he wanted to ask more about Zero but he decided against it. He wanted to leave that room as soon as possible, away from that glass floor over the fog.
"Wait...I think I'm in college."
"You think? Have you ever attended a single class? Are you even old enough for college?"
Sunny couldn't answer. It wasn't even something to put any thought to. He hadn't even spent a full day in that institution let alone even know where the classes were.
"Don't worry about it, you'll graduate," Areste waved his hand dismissively.
Without another word, Sunny took his key and badge, reaching to put it in pockets that he immediately realised the hospital gown lacked.
'Why am I still in this thing?'
The crystal and badge fell the the ground and he quickly reached, grabbing them and trying to pretend nothing just happened.
"Come on you two," Luna said standing next to an already open portal.
"Don't let him...intimidate...you?" Luna said as they crossed through, standing in the wreckage of a once white apartment living room.
The walls were clawed, furniture torn apart and everything thrown about. There was still dust in the air so it hadn't been long since the place was wrecked.
"An anomaly?" Luna said, cautiously stepping forward, running her fingers through the deep claw marks in the walls before saying the last words Sunny would wish to hear from her, "oh shit."