Fate/Distorted Worm

*Mercury POV*

*Date: June 22nd, 2000*

*Location: London, England*

Once I was all ready to go, I opened the door and was greeted with the typical nauseating air of the city. The kind you knew was foul, but still breathable, but you were so used to breathing it that you never noticed. I was experiencing half of that, with the other half being my senses from my old body crossing over and making me notice the odor. 

Once I opened the door, I was greeted with, well, not the suburbs, but rather, I was in walking distance of one. Meaning that while I was technically located in London, I was on the outskirts, far away enough to build the physical location of my workshop but still be nearby so that I wasn't totally separated from civilization. 

Sighing, I decided to try something out. I had mental interference amongst the chosen fields of research, allowing one to manipulate the mind. This would, of course, have limits on it, as I'm guessing simple spells wouldn't work on those who had tremendous willpower. Meaning, of course, strogner spells would need to be used, but even then, a limit exists on everything, but right now my main priority was to explore a bit as well as one secondary goal. 

I wanted to see if any Dead Apostles were in the city; surely the capes would be a deterrent to some of the weaker ones. That wasn't taking into account the stronger beast, those with Idea Blood. A unique ability specific to Dead Apostle Ancestors, or those of equal strength, I believe, that alongside their reality marble made them exceedingly dangerous. 

So if I could get my hands on one of them, more specifically, perhaps an older one that could tell me what Crimson Moon was up to. Sure, I didn't want to fight him now, but understanding your enemy's actions was paramount to defeating them. Crimson Moon wasn't like Type-ORT or Zion; he wasn't just a being who destroyed due to a purpose or something like that, no, he planned things and toyed with humanity, the Dead Apostles being a side project, one he made for fun, if I remember correctly. 

Either that or for some other reason entirely, as I wasn't the most up-to-date on the Nasuverse lore. Then again, this wasn't the same Crimson Moon as the one from those world-lines, after all, could have the same abilties but a different personality. Either that or someone reincarnated as them somehow subverting the original personality, taking over the body. 

Well, that was neither here nor there because, for right now, it was time to properly explore the city in this new body. That and test out some abilities if I had the time, after all no matter ho wnice a city was, it always had that certain darkness, the stuff that tourist don't see when they vist a city, which is just...well a city like anywhere else albeit one with a bit more history to it. 

Anyway, I started on my nice walk towards the city, thinking to myself why I didn't have a car, or well, literally any vehicle. Didn't matter though, the walk was nice even if I was both used to the city air via this body, and wasn't via my conscious mind settling in. I think it took about 30 minutes to an hour at the very least to finally reach the city, well, the bad part of it anyway. 

I mean, compared to the ones back in America, the place was still better, only with one noticeable difference. The lack of well people, I mean, in every city, even in the worst part of it, there were still a ton of people populating it, which was a stark contrast to what I was seeing right now. I mean, sure, it was the afternoon and the sun was setting, but still no one was out and about. 

That meant something was...wrong, and well, I could understand why as I looked around the whole place felt off. I could also smell a faint metallic odor in the air, which was not a good sign as that could mean either A. a Dead Apostle was nearby or B. a parahuman psychopath terrorizing the streets, or more horrifyingly, both. Which would be interesting to see, as the parasite from the entities combined with the overall vampiric nature of the Crimson Moon, would it be a welcomed change, as it could analyze the data of a new lifeform that was and wasn't native to Earth. 

Although that does beg a certain question, what would Zion do if it encountered Type-ORT or Type-Moon? Would it view them as threats to its plan or simply leave them be, believing humanity would progress greatly through the conflict? Nope, Mercury focuses on trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Going deeper into the city, I started to smell the metallic odor more heavily than before, until I saw it.

It was the body of a woman in her mid-to-late twenties, maybe early thirties if she just took care of herself, but unluckily. Just from a basic look, I can tell that whatever did this was messy, as there was a massive pool of blood, but not as big as a person who bled out or was still bleeding would produce. Meaning that if it were a Dead Apostle, then they were probably a more recent...initiate, would that be the word?Either that or possibly a ghoul of some kind. 

In the end, it was messy and left a clear trail for me to follow, but this didn't explain the lack of people or the lack of capes trying to apprehend the person. So I began following it, yes, it was stupid, but right now I had little information to work on, and perhaps seeing how dangerous the city was beyond the capes would help in the long run. Eventually, I was in a full-blown alley, and now noticing multiple sets of footprints, meaning that perhaps a cape was following our murderer. 

Which would explain the turned-over trash cans, bits of blood splattered all over the place, but no bodies. Meaning that whoever our killer was, even if he was a Dead Apostle, was extremmly weak, or our dear capes were stronger than they appeared. That's when I started to see the blood drops were going up, meaning that the chase geared over from an alleyway chase scene to a rooftop one. 

[Gateway of Janus] + [Accelerate]

Combining a basic transportation spell alongside a spell to accelerate my own timeline a little bit, whilst the outside world's time flowed the same, I was a bit faster. Landing on the rooftop, I saw what happened to the capes as I stared at their mangled corpses, their costumes torn and drenched in blood, in the middle of the roof as a lone figure, tall and lean, was cackling over them. 

He was wearing a black trench coat with a skull mask that was semi-destroyed, revealing his red eyes and fangs. The only problem was I couldn't get a good look at them, even if I was staring right at them. What was this power called, 'stranger', I think, meaning he had some control over how people perceived him. I guess with even the things I gave to myself, I couldn't quite get around a stranger's ability; it probably had more to do with one's eyes rather than the brain itself. 

Meaning that even if my mind was protected, my eyes were not so much making it hard to perceive their existence. Now that was interesting, because did it mean other strangers could work on me in a similiar manner, or did it depend on the type of overall ability they had like this vampiric monstrosity before me. 

"I suppose its time to clean up this city a bit, after all I have to live here." I said as I got a few elemental spells ready to fire off.