Somewhere in Insert City, a white van roamed the night streets until it stopped in front of a simple flat in the outskirts of the city. As the flat's garage opened, the van entered slowly in the narrow entrance, careful to not break anything. From the van suddenly exits a large man in a metal suit, resembling some sort of weird sci-fi soldier, and he looks around, checking if there are no witnesses around.
"Are you sure that the security system is hijacked? No one can see me?" Silver asked through the suit's microphone.
"Of course. I've also hacked the house's security and surveillance system. You can do anything you want now." Merlin replied, his voice echoing through his mind like a message from another world.
Silver entered the garage's electric door, entering directly into the flat's stairs.
"Any info about the target?" He whispered, careful to not attract suspicions.
"I thought you knew everything by the time we left the base"
"Just to be sure that I'm taking the right choice."
"This guy, Yokohama Chihiro, has been allegedly summoning spiritual entities to torment and assault people he has grudges with, one attack went from just petty revenge to attempted murder, and here we are, entering his apartment."
"Good. I'll just exchange a few words with him, he will turn himself in, and everything will be fine. In-and-out."
The agent knocked on the suspect's door, one, two, three times. After not hearing any response, he kicked the door with a loud crash, breaking in with his rifle ready to shoot and looking for signs of escape, but after noticing nothing wrong, he put down the weapon.
"Hmm... He must be out. While I wait for him, I'll search his room for clues." He thought. "Nice kitchen for a boy who lives alone."
He checked around again, nothing strange in the living room. With slow, heavy steps, he reached for the bedroom's door, ready to find anything in the stranger's room: After entering, he was immediately greeted by a desk in the corner. Piles and piles of documents were stacked on top of it, a faint odor of incense filled the air, and the room was surprisingly tidy for a young man of his age, looking more like an office than a bedroom.
He moved over to search the desk for evidence, sifting through what looked like budget reports and office spreadsheets.
"Looks like he planned to do more than strike at some old bullies. Look at how many data he worked on, he planned to do something big, something that requires a large amount of bureaucracy..."
"What do you mean? Is he making business with demons?"
"I'll tell after looking at these back at the base. Is it enough or will you wait for Chihiro to come home?"
Before Silver could reply, an harrowing scream of pain filled the air, suffocated by the boom of a gunshot. Looking over, he saw a corpse right in front of the complex's door; and a short outline of some sort of bipedal dog running away through the alleyways.
He rushed to check the corpse, but when he arrived, it was being observed by two other people, one holding a camera while the other checked the wounds on the body: Bite and scratch marks all over, and a bullet hole in the head.
"You there. Stop recording. Now." He pointed at the cameraman, who instantly complied, turning off the camera.
The two civilians were paralyzed by fear, first they see a mysterious corpse, then some random guy dressed like a bootleg Robocop appears from nowhere to stop their recording. Something fishy surely was going on.
"Who are you? Did you do this?" One of the two asks, terrified.
"I work for the government; and I'm looking for whatever caused these wounds." He replied with a stern tone. "Do you have any idea?"
"N-no sir..."
"Then you haven't seen anything or heard anything. Understood?"
"Yes but..."
"You are dismissed. This is officially a crime scene now. Go away or you'll be arrested for interferring with a government operation."
He didn't have to tell them twice. As they ran away, he exhamined the corpse more closely. The bite marks were human sized, but they resembled dog bites, and the headshot apparently didn't leave any bullet. He called in a forensics squad, before loading the corpse on his van and driving away.
A few hours after arriving and taking off the SNEED suit, Mark and Merlin examined the data they had on hand. It appears that before dying Chihiro had made numerous pacts with demons, and the documents he had kept track of his deals and of a resource called "Macca". Whatever it was, he was running out of it.
"Maybe he was in deep debt?" Mark wondered, "Or his actions had attracted the aims of some bigger fish. Any info on the corpse?" he asked to his assistant, Junichi Shimada.
"The bites and the gunshot suggest that it was a Kobold that did this, however, Kobolds aren't this large usually, unless..."
"Unless a tribe leader did it." It wasn't the first time SAINT worked on a murder by a Kobold, but usually it would be the actions of a minor mook. However, this case was different, and he had to work carefully.
"What's the plan then?"
"One of the victim's documents mention a meeting near the Yakuka Bank, so I'll check there first. If I find any activity, I'll follow it to its source and work from there."
"And if you don't find anything?" Shimada was concerned, he was aware that if this case wouldn't be solved quickly, many more would pile up, overwhelming the team.
"Then at least we have a pile of evidence to work from."
He kept analyzing the papers, preparing for tonight's sortie. He was about to dive into this rabbit hole.
The air in Ishiki street was cold, and the mix of the darkness and silence from the late night gave an aura of desolation to the place. Silver arrived there on foot, not wanting to give away his presence instantly, and hid behind a corner to look over the bank's entrance. Apparently nothing wrong was there.
"Are you sure that you're going to find anything?" Merlin was by his side, writing on his laptop. "Maybe we should search somewhere else; surely there may be other trails to follow."
"Shut. You know that working with spirits requires patience and focus. If the Yokohama files suggest that this place is linked with demonic activity, there must be a reason."
They waited behind the corner for more than 20 minutes, thinking of their next move, when a short Kobold came out of the bank holding a small book, probably related to their businesses.
"Hack it." Merlin wrote some strings of code on his laptop, before launching his program.
Suddenly, from nowhere, a lightning struck the Kobold's head, and it fell limply on the ground. As Silver got closer to the creature, he noticed that despite it being immobile, it was still alive.
"Get up." Silver ordered to the Kobold, to make sure that the hack spell worked properly. It snarled and grunted, but it followed the order.
"Shame that Kobolds can't speak, it could've been a perfect occasion to make an interrogation." Merlin remarked, while Silver asked to write down the answers to a series of questions, however, something was wrong.
Suddenly, the Kobold stopped writing, and looked in shock as behind the big armor man its fellow demons appeared, and it warned him.
Silver turned around, and pointed his rifle at the beastly horde. It was a dozen creatures or more, led by a bigger Kobold leader in ornate vests. They looked angry, with hatred in their eyes, but they didn't charge just yet.
"Greetings, Kobolds. I'm working for an investigation in the name of humanity. Please comply and answer a few questions."
"YOU HAVE NO POWER ON US, HUMAN LAW NO WORK ON SPIRITS, SPIRITS FREE!" The leader growled. "ME GRUNKAR, ME LEADER OF GOLDFANG TRIBE, YOU GO AWAY, OR WE OPEN ARMOR MAN LIKE TIN CAN"
"You better stop with the threats. This realm is under mortals' jurisdiction, and by committing crimes here, you must be subjected to our justice."
"NO. KOBOLD NO UNDER HUMAN JUSTICE, BUT HUMANS UNDER KOBOLD JUSTICE. MAN TRICK KOBOLD, OR MAN THREATEN KOBOLD? KOBOLD KILL HUMAN." The kobolds readied their weapons at their leader's words.
"Last warning. Surrender, or face the consequences."
"NEVER! HUMAN MAKE GRUNKAR ANGRY! NOW HUMAN DIE!"
"Hack this beast now!"
An hacking lightning struck Grunkar, but unlike the other kobold, he resisted the mind control effect of the spell, and just got slightly burnt by the electricity. Silver ran for cover while the demons fired at him, and others followed him like feral beasts.
He set his raygun to Assault Mode, and started firing on the chasing kobolds, knocking them down one by one, before throwing a firebomb, lighting them on fire like puddles of oil. In the middle of this cacophony of pained barks and crackling fire Grunkar let out an howl, and his servants fired faster at Silver, pinning him behind cover. The situation didn't look good. They weren't going to run out of ammo, and he wasn't sure that he could reposition before getting shot down. However, after Merlin typed frantically on his laptop, he gave an OK signal.
"The Hypneria signal is ready. At your..." "LAUNCH IT NOW!"
An high pitched sound filled the air, and all the kobolds, Grunkar included, dropped on the ground in pain, writhing like under a seizure, and Silver took advantage of the moment, dashing in and shooting at the creatures with incendiary rays, burning them to ashes. Only Grunkar was left, lying on the ground terrorized by the metal man's powers.
"PLEASE, NO KILL GRUNKAR, HUMAN WIN! KOBOLD NEVER HURT HUMANS ANYMORE."
"Why should I spare a monster like you?"
"GRUNKAR KNOW MANY OTHER DEMONS! GRUNKAR HELP YOU! PLEASE, LET GRUNKAR JOIN METAL MAN!"
"Should I?" Silver asked Merlin. "Why not? He could turn out to be a nice ally, and a source of information. You know how to catch demons, right?"
"Yeah, just set the rifle to "Capture"". He did just like that, and shot a last ray on Grunkar. The Kobold Chieftain was dematerialized, banished back to the wastelands, and the ray returned to the rifle.
"See the number in your suit's HUD? Now you can summon Grunkar at will!"
"Yeah, got it." On his visor lots of data about the captured demon appeared, info, personal history, stats and skills, his data were saved in the suit.
"Come on Merlin. It's not time to play Pokèmon yet, let's go back to the base."
The two returned to the SAINT base, registering the mission as a success, and adding a new asset to their available resources.