Chapter 11:
"Took you long enough," Shichino said in an annoyed tone as the younger girl neared their table in the cafe.
Nao Tomori frowned at the blond boy she had no choice but to sit next to as there was only one seat open at the table. A couple of the others felt like greeting her in a more friendly way since it had been so long, but the bags under Nao's eyes and her dark expression kept the tone as serious as it was before she entered. The cafe itself was full of people who looked to share none of their concerns, as they were talking loudly with each other and smiling, something Shun Otosaka was watching closely from his side of the table closest to the back wall.
"Sorry to hear about your trip Nao," Medoki said across the table to the younger girl.
"Sometimes those things just don't pan out," Maedomari added from next to Medoki.
"Enough about it," Nao grumbled, finding it impossible to hide her aggravation at the time she wasted in central Africa. A stupid fairy tale. That's all it was. And worse, I got swindled by the ferry guides. Charging me twice as much for the return trip. Most of what Nao was thinking stayed in her head, but she was murmuring under her breath and the others could hear curses coming out of her mouth.
"Nao," Shun said, his voice serious and getting the girl to look up at him with a similar gaze. "We need to discuss our next plan of action."
"Here?" Nao asked skeptically.
"We're speaking Japanese in a small cafe in Cairo," Shichino said while rolling his eyes at Nao. "You really think anyone in here understands what we're saying?"
As much as she disliked his tone, she agreed that it was unlikely anyone else in there could speak Japanese. "Where are Jōjirō, Yusa, and your sister?" Nao asked while looking back to Shunsuke.
"Back at our hotel rooms. We rented two," he added. Nao felt relieved knowing she could go back to one of those which was probably a girl's' room and get some rest which had avoided her for a few nights straight now. Shun continued to the girl who looked too relieved after he said that, "Nao, have you heard what's been going on around here over the past few days?"
Nao shook her head, then she looked around the table and saw dark looks on each of the others' faces. She glanced around the cafe and then towards the television behind the counter, but a soccer match was on and she frowned as it was too difficult to figure out what they meant without asking. "Around Egypt?" She questioned.
"The whole Middle East," Medoki whispered across the table, keeping her voice down even if she was speaking a foreign language that the general population wouldn't know. "Things are getting really weird all at once, but all the people around here are loving it."
"What do you mean?" Nao asked.
"Politically," Maedomari began. "It's like the Middle East is coming together. A dozen countries, leaving out Israel, are coming together-"
"They're acting really chummy all of a sudden," Shichino cut in. "And it has the whole world bugging out. Israel's freaking, but the US is still having a whole bunch of trouble with the government after what our buddy the Reaper did to it. The whole chain of succession, wiped," he snapped his fingers but despite his tone, his expression was angry and as dark as the others. "Some people are saying Israel's freaking out for no reason, but, they're right to be."
"It's bad Nao," Shun said. He said it flat-out and continued in a stern voice, though keeping it down as he noticed an Arab man turned around when Shichino mentioned Israel. Apparently the country's name did not change much across the language barriers. "They're flaunting their nuclear weapons to remind the rest of the Middle East what they're capable of. At the same time, more and more adjacent countries are teaming up with this strange group." Yuu's voice got quieter as he leaned over the table, "We paid off a contact in Tel Aviv, they told us that their special forces, the best trained in the world, are already being mobilized and sent out on secret missions. But here's the thing, Israeli intel claims the M.E. coalition is using 'special persons' to create their own special forces unit."
"'Special persons?' They're talking about ability-wielders?" Nao asked.
"What else?" Shun replied and sat back in his chair. "If there really is a new group of ability-wielders though, it's only a matter of time before Yuu or Dimitri wipe them out. Once that happens, I don't see this coalition holding on."
"I don't know about that," Maedomari countered. "Just because they lose their best means of holding off against their common enemies, doesn't mean they won't keep up the idea."
"The Middle East is a diverse place," Medoki argued right back. "Too many cultures and conflicting..."
Yuu felt a buzzing in his pocket and he pulled out his phone. He was relieved it was not Ayumi, as he was having a hard time answering all her questions as he tried keeping her in the dark about, everything. The number he saw did make him answer fast though, and he asked, "Eli? What is-"
"You said you were going to do something, right? You're coming to help us?" The Israeli man, Eli, spoke fast over the line. A loud crash sounded in the background, then Eli's voice came through more distant as he shouted away from the phone, "Burn everything. Shred at the same time and smash all the hard drives!"
"Eli, what's going on?" Shun asked in a sterner voice, cutting off the conversation between his friends who all looked towards him wondering what was going on. Medoki whispered across the table who Eli was to Nao, while Shun nodded his head with widening eyes. His gaze lifted up and he stared behind the cafe counter at the soccer game still showing. What is going on?
"...We have no idea where they came from. It's definitely the Coalition, they have the flag I told you-" CRASH! "Oh crap, what the hell is that thing?!"
"Get away from the windows!"
"Are those, giant robots?!"
Shun moved the phone away from his head at that scream louder and more confusing than most. He heard some more things shouted in Hebrew, then Eli yelled at him in Japanese, "You said you were going to help right?! Where are you?!"
"I said we could help with the Reaper, and maybe even the Cat," Shun sounded nervous, and he continued, "but this sounds like an international incident between countries-"
"There are giant robots flying around the capital of Israel!" Eli screamed through the phone. Shun still had his phone moved away from his face a little, and that shout was loud enough that even not on speaker, the others around the table looked at each other with confused looks wondering if everyone else heard the same thing.
The television behind the counter switched the program it was showing. No one changed the channel, and several people complained at the sudden switch. Everyone quieted down though in a few seconds, and Shun noticed in his peripheral vision that his phone cut off the call.
Most of the Japanese teens did not understand any of the Arabic being spoken, but Shun had some beginner experience in the language. He spoke in a low voice while the men and women all around the cafe started speaking loudly and in excited but nervous voices. "The screen is showing Tel Aviv," his friends glanced in at the gray-haired young man, then they looked to the screen again with nervous expressions.
"Is it Yuu?" Medoki whispered, trying not to be heard by anyone other than the four with her.
"No," Shun said, though he looked confused by what he thought he was hearing. He listened in to what the other patrons were saying, and the blind man's eyes opened wider while he stared straight at the television screen. "Our group, of Arab countries," Shun began in a soft, nervous voice. "It's what the source gave us rumors about-" On the screen, the camera turned to show a man in a uniform standing on a roof with several large robots behind him, along with military helicopters parked at his sides and others flying above. Some jets flew over his head and the footage itself looked more like a movie than something going on right at that moment.
The man started speaking and people through the cafe gasped, though some started calling out and cheering. Most stayed silent though, and Yuu continued in his low voice, "He's saying, that Israel was paranoid about their group, no, their Coalition. When Israel found out, they apparently, aimed nuclear weapons around the entire Middle East, and fired…" Yuu trailed off as he continued to listen, his heart rate speeding up much faster.
"Are they crazy?" Shichino hissed.
"No," Nao whispered. The blond boy turned to her, and Nao narrowed her eyes at the officer on the screen. "They're lying," she said. What kind of weapons are those? Giant robots? Those things look absurd, but also like, they're strong.
"What's he saying?" Medoki whispered to Shun as he had paused even while the man on screen kept speaking.
Shun shook his head and whispered, "It doesn't sound like he's talking about Israel anymore. He's, talking about some very radical… he's blaming the West's alliance with Israel, the US specifically. I keep hearing 'America,'" he muttered, and from the angry tone of the middle-aged Arab man on screen, the others could tell what was going on. The officer in a full beige uniform and hat had such a commanding voice full of spirit and passion that more and more of the people in the cafe were looking around at each other and smiling or nodding along with what he was saying.
"Who is that guy?" Maedomari asked.
Shun shook his head, and he said, "I don't- guys, oh shit," Shun's cursing made each of his friends who looked to him spin back to the screen. Every person in the cafe shut their mouths, they all stared at the screen in stunned silence. The man standing in front of the camera spun around at the sound of shouts behind him, and then all the robots took off into the air. The man ran towards the helicopter but spun and shouted at the soldier who had run out from behind the camera to go grab it. The soldier ran back, then the man dove off to the side of the screen, right before a robot crashed down on the roof in front of them. A fireball blasted into the air, then all the flames sucked into one point and the explosion cut short.
A figure floated down into the screen holding his hand up, and the top of the robot beneath him ripped open and a figure was ripped out of the mech suit. The terrifying figure floating there had on a full black outfit from his head to feet that was pulled tightly to his body. His mask was different than the last time anyone had seen it though, as black as the rest of his body with red eyes and three red whiskers on either cheek, and its smile was bigger and with all its sharp white teeth showing. The Cat pulled the masked figure from the robot up in front of him and then clenched his hand on the face of someone screaming behind that mask. Loud engines blasted in the background and fighter jets flew overhead so fast that the wind knocked over the camera, and a few soldiers on the roof started sprinting towards the helicopters right as bullets slammed down all over the roof, hitting several of them.
The camera cut off while the Cat held the mask-less man in front of him in the path of the high caliber bullets flying down, letting them rip through the former ability-wielder's body. The screen turned back to a soccer game, and the players were all running around like they had no idea what had just happened. The cafe filled with shouting and panic, and the Japanese kids staring at the soccer match turned back to face each other. Shun lifted his phone after a few seconds, then he put his hand to his forehead and rubbed it with a pained look on his face.
"What is it?" Medoki asked, leaning towards him with a scared look at his expression.
"Jōjirō just texted me. Ayumi, was watching tv," Shun rubbed his head some more before putting his hand down and saying in an accepting voice, "She didn't understand what happened when her show cut off, but she got scared."
"Tell them to just tell her it was a movie or something," Shichino suggested. He thought about the girl who had been living at their secret base so they could protect her from the outside world for a while now. "She'd believe it easier than the truth," he added.
Shun nodded slowly and looked back at his phone, but when he pressed the home button, his screen did not change. Nao saw Shun's confused look, and she also spotted some people out her peripheral vision staring at the tv screens behind the counter. Nao turned herself in her chair again and looked back towards the screens, screens that the images had frozen on, only for those images to start getting scratchier and then turn to static. Booooop. Boooooop. Booooooop.A low beeping sound came out of the screens. It was not the sound of an emergency signal, and it did not make any sense with the static on the screens.
Shun put his phone down on the table in front of him, then the others who could see the screen pulled out their own phones fast only to stare at them hesitantly as static covered them and beeping sounds came out as well. "Oh man," Shichino muttered, dropping his phone on the table and then reaching up and running his hands through his hair on the sides of his head. "This is it!" His voice cracked and Maedomari spun to him to see a look of fear on Shichino's face that was far from his usual demeanor.
"Get a grip," Nao snapped at him. Enough people in the cafe were starting to freak out already, they did not need to help out with it.
All at once, the beeping sounds stopped. Shichino looked down at his phone and then smacked it away from him and it flew across the room, the screen shattering on the floor.
The others stared at the phones in front of them or at the television screens above the counter. The American national anthem started up with the United States' flag on the screen, then the flag switched to Russian and the anthem changed as well. The screen suddenly shifted to show a current video of Buckingham Palace, with God Save the Queen in the background. The phone camera the palace was being taped through shook and then fell as someone screamed out in panic that the video was coming from their own phone. The phone fell and the screen went black, and then subtitles appeared on the bottom of the black screen. They appeared in Japanese on the phones of the young teens whose phones were in that language, but they were in Arabic on the screen, as the first words came out in English, "My fellow citizens…"
The black screen changed to show the Cat high in a blue sky, pointing a phone camera at his mask and speaking into it from so close up that everyone pulled away from their screens. His voice changed from English to Chinese, and after a few words it changed into Arabic, before finishing in Russian, but everyone could understand as it was translated into their language on the subtitles. "With my newfound ability, Hack, I can speak to you all, at the same time, across this great- great- great-" he repeated 'great' in a dozen different languages, then said in Russian again, "Planet." He chuckled, and the blue sky above him darkened as his low laughter echoed around the world.
A woman whimpered at the table next to the Japanese visitors in Egypt, and she slid out of her seat and down onto the floor while covering up her ears. The man behind the counter picked up his remote and tried turning off the tv, but the screen flicked back on after it turned off for a second. "My name," the masked man on the screens began. "Is Ovinnik."
Medoki's face scrunched up in confusion. "I thought-" she began, but quieted down as the figure continued.
"I am not just a cat, but a God." Lightning cracked out of the sky behind him even though there were no clouds. Wind rushed by him and his black hair behind his mask waved around in it. He rose up a hand and touched his mask, and the black mask started changing colors. It got brighter, and trippy. Every color of the rainbow spread over his mask and swirled around in crazy patterns, making colors so bright and defined, making colors that blew some of the people watching's minds as they had never seen colors like them before. "I was not born a God," Dimitri, or Ovinnik, said. "I used the abilities bestowed upon me."
His voice got darker and he started speaking in Arabic, "This is my world. Those who harbor ability-wielders, those who mask their presences from me, will all be executed. There are under a hundred of us left in this world…" Nao and the others at her table opened their eyes wide, then the figure on the screen continued in a dark tone, "The ones who are hiding included. There are less of them now," he said, and a darker chuckle escaped through his mask. The mask turned back to a dark purplish-black though the colors still looked fluid, making his mask have a horrifying black swirling darkness over it. "Do not try hiding these people from me. I do not plan on hurting humans, my flock, for no purpose. But if you defy me. If you actively choose to defy your new God. Then you will regret-"
"RRAAAAAA!" Ovinnik froze and spun his head around, dropping his phone at the sound of that furious scream behind him. "DIE!" The camera showed a figure in a black cloak with a skull mask charge at the "new God," and the punch in Ovinnik's face was the last thing the camera picked up on before it shattered and all the screens on Earth fell to static.
The cafe had fallen silent again, with everyone looking around at each other in confusion at what just happened, along with a lot of terror. After a few seconds though, Shichino laughed. He laughed in a hoarse voice and then said while his friends looked his way, "So, who else is rooting for Yuu?"
A/N Hope you enjoyed. Ovinnik is an ancient Polish cat God, thought maybe a guy from Russia already using a cat mask might think it's a cool name to give himself. The world starts falling apart, as the Middle East Coalition attacks Israel, only for them to be attacked by the Cat- Ovinnik, only for her to be bashed by the Reaper towards the end of his message. The climactic chapters are coming up, hope you enjoy!