"You bastard, if you were infected by the Nightmare Spell, you should have come over to us! Thats, uh... that's how they do it in the Center, right, Avian?"
Now that the bench was finally put down, Lando was able to speak much more comfortably without the threat of Sunny crushing his head. Hearing the unsureness in his voice, Sunny snorted.
Avian and Lando were not real cops. The Outskirts hasn't had any real law enforcement for decades. Rather, the two of them, who were only a couple of years older than Sunny, had been playing pretend as teenagers. They found this old, beat up police station, and since nobody was charging rent for it, they took it for themselves.
Self-proclaimed heroes of justice, as it were.
In any case, they took their imaginary jobs relatively seriously, to the point that the less troubling locals began to genuinely accept the two of them as the Outskirts' bonafide protectors... well, considering about fifty percent of the people in the Outskirts were very troubled individuals associated with gangs, even if only loosely, the only folks who actually held any respect for them was the elderly and very small children. In the end, the two cops weren't much of a threat towards actual gangsters. It was only the two of them, after all.
Oh, and Iggy, the damned beast. Sunny sent a glare towards the hideous pug, who innocently stared back with its tongue hanging out of its mouth.
Sunny hated dogs. They were up — or rather, down there with bees. Speaking of bees, Avian still had a pale complexion after Sunny awkwardly tried to explain where honey came from. Weaver's Mask had made it difficult, but all he had to do was exaggerate so that his reversed Flaw registered his words as a lie.
It took a moment for Avian to register Lando's words:
"Huh? Oh, yeah, something like that... geez, what Rank are those bee things?"
Sunny paused:
"Unholy."
"...I'm not surprised."
Lando crossed his arms, narrowing his gaze at Sunny in suspiction:
"Wait a minute, how do we know that you're not a copycat pretending to be Sunny? That runt was..."
He lowered his hand down to his knees.
"About this tall, or short, actually. And you're... uh, how tall are you? You look like you're wearing one of those perception-blocking masks. Anyways, that kid would have gotten slimed by a stray dog, and people way more impressive than him died in their First Nightmares! I want cold, hard evidence!"
Then, he sniffed.
"Hm... smells like trash. False alarm, it's Sunny. Why won't you take off that mask?"
Avian squinted.
"Yeah, it's pretty creepy."
...Sunny first met these two imbeciles when he was digging in their trash, looking for something edible a couple of years before his Nightmare. Having heard the rustling, they ended up opening the lid to find a eight year old Outskirts Rat trying to squeeze out leftovers from a tube of synthpaste. Instead of kicking him to the curb, they instead passed him a full tube.
So, what did Sunny do with their generosity?
He abused it, of course!
He encountered them plenty of times afterwards — which totally did not mean that he was repeating that incident in order to get more synthpaste. Eventually, Sunny met a detective from the Center, who was curious about the inauthentic police station... and the rest is history.
In any case, these were his day ones, and now that he was a Master, he thought that he should help them out a little while he was dealing with the rest of his business.
"I am the tallest man I know, so about seven feet. Don't panic, but I definitely do not have two Saints trying to hunt me down."
Although Seele had healed the worst of his injuries, his soul and mind were still somewhat damaged, putting him at a great disadvantage. That wasn't even considering the fact that he was still just a Master.
In any case, he didn't pay attention to their disbelieving looks, instead summoning a Memory. Lando shrieked when a large walking closet appeared next to Sunny. The Covetous Coffer, which took the form of a closet opened its doors, revealing rows of teeth. From its boundless depths, plenty of long-lasting snacks that Sunny had stockpiled for emergencies spilled out. There were chips, canned meals consisting of fruits, vegetables, and meats, as well as much more.
The two officers squinted as the Covetous Coffer disappeared in white sparks, while Sunny simply placed his hands on his hips, satisfied:
"I fully expect the two of you to get on your knees and lick my boots— uh, actually? Don't do that."
In awe and endless curiosity, Avian crouched down and picked up a few cans, struggling to read their names with his lacking education:
"What's a sal... salmon?"
"A Nightmare Creature that swims in the sky."
"And chicken?"
"A parasitic fungus that takes over your mind, before forcing you to commit suicide."
He slowly nodded scratching his stubble.
"I see..."
Then, he sent Sunny a look:
"Are you trying to kill us?!"
Sunny snapped his fingers:
"Spot on. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date. Don't die, or I'll kill you myself. Especially you, mutt."
With that, Sunny disappeared.
***
Sunny stared into the night sky, smoke billowing from under Weaver's Mask with each breath he took. He was sitting on a bench within an empty park, holding onto a cup of coffee — real coffee that is!
Sunny had spent a very small portion of his vast wealth on this cup of coffee. Naturally, Sunny was not the average individual, quite above average, in fact. Being one of the strongest Ascended in the Universe wasn't a very average thing.
He carefully tilted the bottom of Weaver's Mask away from his face, not removing it completely unless he wanted the enchantments to deactivate, before pressing his lips to the cup. As he drank it, a familiar complaint rang through his mind:
'This crap is so bitter!'
He thought that his tastebuds might have been refined a little after almost half a decade, but no. That coffee dispenser was all synthesized junk, incomparable to the coffee he once had the pleasure to enjoy back in Belobog. He considered throwing it away, but realized that he would only be wasting it. Leaving it on the bench, he hoped some desperate Outskirts Rat would finish what he started.
His sudden disappearance from Lando and Avian's place wasn't completely sudden. He just wanted to move quickly in case he was still being trailed by those Saints, though, he doubted it. Still, it was better to be cautious about these kinds of things. Dealing with two Saints chasing him down was much more dangerous than he made it look. The average Master would have been caught by now.
'...I've decided.'
If Sunny ever decided to start a Legacy Clan or some other kind of organization — unlikely, due to his prejudice against Legacies and the like — he'd take in the people of the Outskirts as his servants. Those that end up being infected by the Spell will receive their promotions, of course.
In any case, that was all just a possibility. He still wasn't very keen on the idea, but he wasn't completely set against it. He was here for something far more important, important enough to make escaping the pursuit of a few Saints seem like a minor inconvenience.
An old tree stood before Sunny, withered by the harshness of the Outskirts. It was bland and lacked any kind of liveliness... but it was a very special tree.
Because it was his parents' grave.
...As well as his own.