Lunar Awakening-Chapter 58: Melissa Neuman

The car drove down the street, Mr Neuman’s bodyguard driving with a calmness that almost made Leo want to relax. The windows were tinted black and shut to maintain secrecy. Roxy was forbidden from smoking inside the car, which left her greatly distraught.

"So, care to tell me about Melissa and how close she was with the target?" Leo asked. He did not know how the information would help him, but he could not help looking over any vital information he might come to need.

The guard spoke without looking back, his tone daunting. "I am not at a liability to share personal information with you. Your only job is to follow orders."

Roxy interrupted them, speaking in a more serious tone. "Listen up, gorilla, why don’t you give him what he needs, he’s gonna Sherlock bloody Holmes this shit." She looked over at him and gave him a slight nod.

Leo looked away from her, unsure of how to feel. He never had someone watching out for him. It felt oddly irritating.

The bodyguard gave a low grunt before saying, "If it helps you, then that’s good enough for me. I have been with the boss long enough to know that Hinata was the nicest little girl."

"I bet she was," Roxy interrupted with a hint of sarcasm.

Leo stared daggers at her.

She shrugged it off. "Sorry, I will keep my commentary to myself next time."

The bodyguard continued despite the recent interruption. Surprisingly, he took it better than Leo did. "She was always close to Melissa, and their bond deepened even more when her mother died. I think she never wanted Melissa to ever feel the same loss as she did. In the times she was locked away, I would come every night to comfort her in whatever way I could—"

Leo could tell that the man was trembling silently. He could not tell how hard it must have been for him to recall the past. He obviously could not relate to him, but he could relate to how Hinata must have felt.

"—She could not sleep for days, then she started to mumble and cry nonstop. In the last few days before she escaped, I remember her calling out to her mother. At the time, I thought it was a moment of pain. If I had known, I would have put her down then and there—"

He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"—When she was still human?" Roxy spoke, her tone full of empathy and a calmness that almost seemed angelic.

The bodyguard said nothing more. He simply faced the road and drove on. After several long seconds, he asked, "Did that do you any good?"

Leo’s mind was however elsewhere.

His mind worked like an intricate web of countless weaves of well thought out theories. He was at unease-- that he could not deny. And every time this happened, he always preferred to think through everything down to the littlest details.

The silence in the car continued for several seconds before he finally spoke. "The ability we receive from the sphere is merely an extension of who we already were or were meant to be." It was almost a bare whisper. Roxy however caught on. She looked over at him and asked, "I take it that’s something important?"

He could only say, "Someone once told me that."

He said nothing more, letting his mind drift back to the young man he had killed the day Xavax had taken control of his body. The young man was something of a seer who had been going on about discovering something about the sphere.

Many people had believed that not answering the call of the sphere would lead to one being cursed to turn into a lifeless monster, but what if it was not entirely true.

After all, when Leo had met Hinata, she was not lifeless. Of course, she was strange-- but she was somewhat still human. Could monsters be humans with violent tendencies inside them? Or were monsters the true nature given to them by the sphere?

’So many questions!’ He screamed in his head.

It was already afternoon, and they were still on a long road heading out to the middle of nowhere. Leo could tell they would not be arriving anytime soon. This gave him a lot more time to think and prepare.

After several minutes, he looked to his side to find Roxy dozing off. He could see her fighting against the sleep spell. Honestly, he wanted to see her asleep; that would surely guarantee him a more silent trip. He honestly could not blame her for her attitude however—

Superhumans faced all manners of dangers and hell in Hellscape, which requires a lot of therapy. This caused many of them to develop alternating characters or newer behaviours as a coping mechanism. Some hid their fears in humour, others simply became more lightheaded. Leo, on the other hand, became more shut off and overthought everything.

He was sure that Roxy joked as a coping mechanism, but it also felt like something more. He tried not to dwell on the topic much; his main focus had to be on the problem at hand.

"She’s coming this night, isn’t she?" His voice cut through the air, cold and void.

The bodyguard hesitated for a bit before saying, "We will lure her out and end this all at once."

That was even more reason for him to secure his survival.

’If I die here, it’s all over.’ He steeled his resolve and summoned the sphere. There was a strange sense of self that wasn’t there before in him; it was a very subtle shift. Something he had never had before, but had come to develop it after somewhere after he had been bitten.

Leo found it hard to explain. Was it the need to live or the will not to die? Perhaps this change did not come from the bite; perhaps it had always been there, and he had only just begun to see it. Whatever it was, it left a low echo in his chest telling him one thing.

’Fight.’

The information from the sphere displayed a few seconds later.

Name: Leonardo.

Title: Awakened.

Pack: —.

Lunar Core: Awakened.

Soul Fragments: 37/500.

—

Stats—

Strength: 8

Agility: 10

Endurance: 8

Vitality: 10

Aura: 1

Lunar Points: 6

—

Legacy: The Cursed Dire Wolf.

Legacy Rank: Primordial.

Legacy Rank: Omega.

Legacy Abilities: [Moon born].

Inheritance Ability: [Wolf Bond], [Moon God’s Battle Art].

Artifacts: [Red Needle], [Moonfall’s Bride].

Companion: —

His eyes glanced at every word and read them with a level of calmness and depth he had not possessed in a long time. He could see the evening sun rolling by at the corner of his eye and could tell that nightfall would soon be coming. If his assumption was right, that night everything would end-- and he would either die or Hinata would.

Still, he could not help but smile a little, seeing all he had accomplished in the past few weeks. If he was to think how long it had been since he had been bitten by George Lüdovic Kriston, it was a bit over half a month. He wondered whether he should feel pleased by how fast he had come so far.

Regardless of all that, he was a bit somewhat impressed by himself. He had gone from being "the peerless loser" who found himself troubled by the need to survive every single humiliating day in Hellscape-- now he was having to deal with the problems of another human being.

Just as he was feeling good, his cautious side took over. ’What are you grinning for, you bastard? The brother of comfort is death, don’t be a fool and see this through to the end.’

With that bit of encouragement, he was back to his usual self. It was true that he had achieved a lot in such a short amount of time, but he had to remember that he was still much weaker than his peers-- and still far behind Cassandra.

’None of that matters if you can’t live through today, you fool.’ He told himself once more.

His eyes fell to his stats and then his lunar points and wondered what to do with it. Despite the fact that there would be ten awakened, him included, and a number of other guards who would most likely be armed-- he did not want to feel safe around them. Safety was death anyway.

He only had six lunar points to allocate, and he wondered what to do with it. The most obvious thoughts fell to his strength and agility, which would prove more profitable in a battle. Then there was the matter of endurance and vitality. While these also sounded quite liable, he pondered if he would actually need all this against one monster.

He looked over at Roxy, who was half asleep already, and wondered how useful she would be in a real battle. She never showed any hint that she was a good fighter. The only assurance he had was the fact that she had defeated a handful of awakened fighters to be selected, but would that give him enough confidence to put his trust in her?